Changing the range of voices

[Kevin J Walke]

I think it's possible to change the range of voices using WB/SC as a standalone, but I can't figure out how to do so using it as a plug-in for Sonar5.

My problem is the range of the tenors only goes down to F and the bases don't go high enough (can't remember their limit - might be A below midC. [If I could remember the octave number (C4 etc) I'd quote these - sorry.]

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Kevin

[ellios]

I, too, posted a thread in the general discussion forum about this last week... Anyone, please?

[luima]

The original ranges are "B0 to A2" for the basses and "E2 to D4" (page 75 of the manual).
This default can be changed in the "Default Voice Advanced Midi In" button.
The ranges can be only narrowed. "Making the range wider has no effect". (page 75 of the manual)

[Kevin J Walke]

Thanks for your response on this. It raises another question however:

Taking the basses as an example, it is not at all unusual for a First Bass to sing anything from (say) 10 tones below middle C (A-ish) to 3-4 tones above middle C. Certainly middle C/D is not considered high for basses. So, and here comes the question, how does one accommodate this in SC? Is it possible to switch voices part-way through (which seems overly complicated)?

Any thoughts welcomed.

Thanks.

Kevin

[luima]

Yes it seems rather complicated, but I you own kontakt, you can load the Man and Women choir Multis for a complete STAB choir. WB automatically chooses the choir and the patch for every note so you have not to be aware if a note will be played by tenors or by basses.
If you don´t own kontakt it will be more complicated but still posible if you asign the notes manually to the corresponding track.

[ellios]

The sad thing is that you loose the native «color» of the voice in having such a setup... (I mean a middle C sung by tenors does not sound like a middle C sung by basses!)

i would lilke to see an extension of the ranges in ALL VOICES for the next update... (Sopranos sing way lower than A... at least a sixth lower...)

i guess we'll have to wait for now...

[luima]

Time ago I posted the same question on the board.
The answer was that covering all the full range a section can sing, would increase the size of the choir patches that amount that woudln´t fit in the memory. And swaping choirs really does not make a big difference in sound.
Anyhow I also hope in the future there will be an upgrade.
Regards
Luis

[Kevin J Walke]

Many thanks Luis et al. Food for thought for all of us whether it's from a user persepctive (I will try loading the 'Full Choir' and see how we go with that - I'm learning all the time!) and perhaps technology will allow an extension of the ranges to more realitic 'values'.

Thanks again for your input.

K

[Kevin J Walke]

Okay, so I tried 'Full Choir', but it's only oo's and ah's and doesn't use WB. So, now I have a single first bass note (octave below middle C - I really must learn what that's called - C4?) and probably 50% of the second bass notes that don't fall within the 'range' of SC Basses.

From the replies above I don't think I'm missing anything or doing anything wrong (which, I admit, is unusual for me!) so how does one go about including those 'out of range' notes?

A very long-winded way would be to split the part into two whereby all those notes from A5 and below are 'Bass' and all those above are 'Tenor' but this seems an extremely scrappy way of doing it to me.

Perhaps I am missing something? Any thoughts/comments as usual gratefully received.

Thanks.

Kevin

[luima]

Kevin,
Make sure that in WB your select the "men choirs " or "women choirs. This gives the clue to WB of wich of the consonants to apply.

[Kevin J Walke]

The vocal range limitations for each voice continue to frustrate me. The ranges are so much more limited than reality (e.g. Basses can definitely sing above A2 and Sopranos can sing below A3). Why such restricted ranges? The sample player provided with SC (Kompakt) doesn't seem to cut it and it seems that the only way you can use SC to full effect is to make the additional purchase of Kontakt2 (£340/$600).

I've tried splitting the ranges between tracks but this is an extremely cack-handed way of working - especially when trying to use SC with WordBuilder (when you also have to split the words/part-words between tracks).

SC is a very good product but it would be an excellent product if the ranges were extended by just a few notes. Is such a change imminent or do we have to shell out yet more money for a new sample player?

Frustrated of SW England!

Kevin

[ellios]

I too have to voice a little disappointment and disbelieve with that range issue. It seems to me that Nick and Doug are going to provide the «missing» notes in a future update but really, this first release of choirs should have included a decent and normal range of the voices... :(

[lgrohn]

I too have to voice a little disappointment and disbelieve with that range issue. It seems to me that Nick and Doug are going to provide the «missing» notes in a future update but really, this first release of choirs should have included a decent and normal range of the voices... :(AS also e.g. for solo violin in other packages...

[larochep]

It seems to me that Nick and Doug are going to provide the «missing» notes in a future update

It would be really a great addition. Most of the choir tunes I work on cannot be played by EWQLSC due to the range limitation.

Pierre

[ellios]

True, Pierre. I am programming a relatively simple Vittoria Xmas motet, «o magnum mysterium» that i want to submit to EW and I have to transpose the piece a major 3rd higher! Where, in essence and according to the renaissance period, the piece should be sounding somewhere near A=415 (of course this has fluctuated city from city and from time to time), so almost a minor second lower than written...

[jphilpit]

Here's my take on the range restrictions in SC. (I wrote the manual, but had no say in the design of the product, so this is speculation based on what I have gleaned both from experience using Platinum Edition plus Symphonic Choirs and from reading this forum.)

Both Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs are designed to cover the sounds of certain types of music, including most notably film scores and video game sound tracks. The extent to which the packages can emulate other musical genres is icing on the cake. Any package that would attempt to cover every type of music would take longer to produce, require more computer resources by the end users, and would therefore be more expensive to buy and use (maybe prohibitively so).

Given the need to make choices to keep the size and cost of the package within reason, East West / Quantum Leap has done a darn good job of covering most bases (no pun intended), but there will always be a few things that users will want and not have. One such restriction is the lack of extreme ranges for the choirs. Remember that when you're writing an original piece for, say, a movie sound track, you can make choices based on the limitations of the instrument you're working with (the SC Basses patches, for example) and not the limitations of the instrument that generated the samples (the actual men who sang the sounds).

Let's consider the effect of adding one more note to the range of a choral section. You need to record, program, save, and deliver all the following for just one note!
-- every vowel sound for that note in every articulation (staccato, legato, etc.)
-- every voiced consonant sound for that one note
-- and you have to do it at several different levels of dynamics (ppp, pp, mp, mf, etc.)
-- and you have to do not only the notes but the release trails
-- and you have to do this for three microphone positions
-- and you have to plan all the layering (look at the actual polyphony for one note)

While it's true that some of that is only delivered in Platinum and/or Gold, it still all has to be done.

OK, so say you do that for five more notes in each of the five parts (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Boys). That's 25 times all that was listed above. If you want 8 more notes each, that's 40 times as much work

I'm guessing that if you start adding in more notes the number of "instruments" that are in each SC "multi" would soon jump from 5 to 6 (because there are only so many MIDI notes defined). That would add even more work that costs money.

So, yes, we'd all like more notes on every instrument. If only I could get an F2 on that violin part I could arrange that clarinet concerto for violin. But I'm not holding my breath. In order to get the update mentioned earlier in this thread, Doug and Nick would have to rehire the exact same choir in the exact same hall with the exact same equipment and ask them to sing just those extreme notes. Maybe, but unlikely.

I bet there were times Shakespeare wished he could've added just one more line to that sonnet he was writing, but he fiddled and fiddled and made it work, and the result of living within the 14-line constraint is pretty darn fine.

As a writer, I was told many years ago that what artists do is make choices. When we encounter an obstacle, we consider the myriad ways of working around the problem, and we choose the best one, the one that reflects our personal vision of the piece. It's the act of choosing that make the end product "art." If there were no obstacles, anyone could do it, which would diminish the role of the artist in the finished work.

That's my two cents,
John

[Kevin J Walke]

John,

Firstly, well done on the manual - well written and with great clarity. Thanks.

I understand and agree with nearly all that you say in your reply.

Could I suggest though that the required notes are actually already in place with the tenors multi so would it not be possible for these existing sounds to be used from Bflat upwards for the basses (with no further recording required)? This suggestion may not sit comfortably with any purists (I agree that tenors sound different to basses) but it does make a workable alternative available for those who may choose to use it. I understand that technically there may be difficulties with this (I'm not technical) so obviously feel free to put me straight here.

The ranges that are being talked about here are not normally considered 'extreme' (I'm talking SC and not SO having no experience of the latter) - I would be very surprised if there were many choral works that did not (for example) take the basses above A2. And I feel that it is only the basses upper range (A4) that is too low and the Sopranos low range (A3) which is too high. The tenors and Altos seem fine (to me).

I would reitterate my own and others' previous comments that the SC package is excellent, truly amazing and a huge step forward for vocal work but the slightly limited voice ranges seem to me to be an unfortunate constraining factor.

So, to reiterate the original question in this thread, I would welcome confirmation that the only way to use a greater range (whether this is considered more 'realistic' or otherwise) for the voices is to make use of the 'Men's Choir' or the 'Women's Choir' and this requires Kontakt (version 1 or 2) rather than the Kompakt software supplied with SC. This being the case, I need to amend my Christmas list, but before I do so can you also confirm that WordBuilder works in the same way with these two multis as it does with the main SATB multis.

Many thanks

Kevin

[larochep]

Hi John and Kevin,

I agree that SC is an amazing product, with a lot of possible use. But it would have been even better if the Soprano range was like the tenor range (one octave above) and if the bass range could go some more notes higher (at least to middle C).

Of course, you can take care of the limitations and arrange your composition accordingly. The problem comes when you want to do a mock-up of an existing work: you cannot ask Mozart to re-arrange a tune according to SC. And I don't feel talented enough to re-arrange Mozart's music.

Pierre

[jphilpit]

This is a good discussion. I think it's helpful (at least for me) to hear the ways poeple use these products.

1. When I used the term "extreme" I only meant that the notes are near the top and bottom of the range, not that they are unusual.

2. On the suggestion that some tenor samples be added to the bass patches: I think people would complain about the timbre shift when they unexpectedly crossed an invisible line. It's better to keep the samples distinct. Only those who need to forego the purity of the sample base to achieve a greater range will then compromise the sound. Anyway, that's what the Men's Choir and the Women's Choir are for. They don't assist with the notes at the outside at the range, but they handle the Bass/Tenor and Alto/Soprano overlaps quite nicely. True, they require Kontakt to work efficiently, but that only goes to show just how large the sample bass is to accommodate all those vowels and consonants for each note.

If you want to make the leap from bass samples to tenor samples in a single line, you can always do what we all do in the orchestral realm when we need to shift from staccato to pizzicato to legato to martelé for violin samples (and they're not in the same keyswitch): we open one or more new track(s) in the sequencer and put some of the notes in the new track(s).

3. I stand by my comment that EWQLSO and EWQLSC cannot be designed to handle every type of project and still remain inexpensive enough for us all to afford them. While arranging Mozart and Orff and Rogers & Hammerstein is a legitimate and often imaginative use of these products, it's not the design point. In the past, when classical composers have arranged a Mozart violin concerto for a flute, they have had to accommodate the difference in ranges as well as the difference in possible articulations. And I hope users will find thoughtful and successful ways to work around the limitations of the electronic instrument they have chosen to use.

That's my personal opinion, anyway. I always enjoy hearing what others think, as well.
John

[ellios]

I agree with you guys, this is a helpful discussion. While it is true that an adaptation of a violin concerto for flute often finds ways to be creative, I have to disagree that symphonic choirs was not meant to also mock up existing works. (And by the way, i won't ever need that low F2 since it is not part of the normal range of the instrument...)

Another point: what I was expecting, being a film composer and also orchestra and choir director, in terms of range was simply the normal (altough normal is somehow subjective, particularily when we talk about voices) ambitus of voices say, Basses from E2 to maybe C4 or D4 (and not necessarily down to the very fat and impressive, i agree, russian B1- helful in film music, I'll use it no problem but still), tenors from C3 to A4 or B4 (not necessarily to D5! - it is very uncommon to me, having been a tenor all my adult life), Altos are perfectly fine! and Sopranos, well, I would have taken from middle C4 to maybe C6 or D6 as a bonus! (one has to know voices and realize that it is also a bit uncommon to use high E6 in a real world situation, thus if you want to use it in the virtual world, extend the range in the mapping editor of the sampler and don't expect to hear the real thing...)

That being said, I think that it's more a question of recording/sampling choices than having to hire the choir again and i doubt, but correct me if I'm wrong, that more notes/articulations/vowels/etc... have not already been recorded to be added in a future update... It would be very sad if it were not true...

My two cents

[Kevin J Walke]

Hello all,

I think we're in 'noisy' agreement here. Which is good and I thank everyone for their thoughts/comments. I'm still not sure SC works quite so well split between two tracks with the additional WB function requirement but I can see that this technique would work with SO et al. But, I hear what is said.

So my final question, does WordBuilder work in the same way with Kontakt2 as it does with the Kompakt supplied with SC? I need to get my Christmas requests in early.

Any thoughts welcomed.

Thanks.

Kevin

[jphilpit]

When we get into the areas of
-- design point of the library,
-- whether a significantly greater range of samples was recorded than was released,
only the producers (Doug and Nick) can discuss that based on knowledge and not speculation.

And I don't own Kontakt, so I'll defer on that question to someone who can speak from more than a theoretical understanding.

Happy composing, everyone.

John