Triptych

[Peter Iverson]

Triptych for Bb Trumpet and Piano.  Transposing score, no key signature.  Lost in no-man's-land, sorrounded by Haydn, Alban and Miles.  Guidance gratefully accepted.

 

Triptych.mp3

Triptych.pdf

[David]

 this may be less ambitious than the fascinatingly varied Nonet (which incidentally has for me a more logical and interesting instrumentation than the Spohr standard as woodwind, brass and strings are equally represented) but a lot of weird and wonderful things happen to the rather fugue-like theme stated at the outset. Just a bit of a shame that for both works you don't have better virtual instruments to fully do the pieces justice -- the trumpet sound like different instruments as it moves awkwardly between articulations (and possibly dynamic layers), though otherwise it's not bad.

[Peter Iverson]

Hi David:  Thanks so much for listening and taking the time to comment.  In my world, I take "weird  and wonderful" as high praise.  The samples are VSL - the originals not the new synchron versions.  I agree with your observations about VSL's timbral inconisistencies as a function of both articulations and dynamic levels.  I've used them for so long that I've trainerd myself to listen around them (mostly).  Do you have any recommendations for a virtual instrument that does a better job in that regard? 

[David]

I was a bit surprised initially when you said it was VSL as I use the Synchron instruments quite widely in a chamber context (I find VSL general too clinical for full orchestra works). I just tried the Special Edition trumpet and indeed the crossfade is pretty crude with both legato and sostenuto patches. Don't know if you have the full version (which I'd expect to be more subtle and perhaps easier to refine)?  Are you using notation software or a DAW? I wouldn't want to make too much of this, though, and selecting a library is very much down to personal preference. VSL is among the leading vendors and no-one could definitively say that anyone else is better overall. For full orchestral, I'm  a great fan of Cinematic Studio and also like the BBC SO as they're both more warmly romantic than VSL tends to be, but just for a single instrument or two, the choices are legion.

 

[Peter Iverson]

I use the full version which I got many years ago when VSL was the widely acknowledged champ.  I liked the large variety of articuations but more than than that, I was sold by the fact that you could change articulations with cc's instead of the score-mangling keyswitches that I had to use with EWQL.  I use a DAW and export the score to Sibelius which is an enormous hassle but the DAW allows for more granular control over the MIDI render.  Perhaps it's time for me to take a closer look at some of the current contenders.

[David]

I started with "serious" libraries around 2005 when VSL was indeed the clear leader with only EWQL providing any sort of competition. Nowadays, Orchestral Tools have a huge range, as do Spitfire to name just perhaps the biggest. For chamber music and a lot of articulations, it might be worth looking at XSample as they are definitely more orientated towards serious and contemporary music rather than the typical commercial/film environment which is the biggest market.

I'm not sure if you write for full orchestra but if so, it might be worth considering investing in NotePerformer and one of their playback engines. This makes it quite straightforward to get decent mock-ups with relatively little effort straight from a notation environment like Sibelius or Dorico (which I use). However for ultimate control over individual instruments, you may be best where you are.