Ra Trem Sounds

[Scott31]

Greetings all!

Sorry I have not written more lately - I have been working day and night trying to eliminate those last two hours of sleep!

A question for anyone who may know... one of the projects that I am composing requires some trem sounds. Now, I have never gotten on well with stringed instruments and Ra has some great ones like the trem mandolin sounds.

Is there any any to manipulate the speed at which the strings are picked? Using the same patch at a tempo of 95 would certainly sound different against a tempo of 117 if the strings were played at the same speed.

Any thoughts, as always, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!!

[Peterkjones]

Hi! The short answer is, yes, there is a difference. Before that, however, you mention "picking" the string. This is known as pizzicato not trem (or tremolando). There are pizz patches for you to listen to, if that is what you mean. The sound is very distinctive and can range from the ghostly to the very violent (especially with slap where the string makes contact with the fingerboard on being released). It's difficult to do very fast pizz work because of the limited speed at which fingers can pluck the string - you won't easily get a mandolin-type sound this way, if that"s what you want. With regard to trem. Here the bow can be shaken very fast across the string without regard to tempo. A fast trem, again, can range from ghostly whispers (very good for menace and mystery) to very loud to reinforce a top note where a single bow may get lost in the general noise. Then there are notated tremolandos, where the speed of oscillation of the bow chimes with the time signature - there are special ways to notate this in a score. For example, the woodwinds might be playing a broad melody in half notes, while the violins are playing the same thing, but dividing the half-notes into repeated sixteenths of thirty-seconds. This gives great rhythmic impulse to what might otherwise be too legato a feel for what is wanted. Then there is the slow tremolando, played without notation but often synchronised by the leader. Played with full force over a full held orchestral chord, it gives a superb "singing" effect to a top note even though you don't hear the alternation of the bow. There are other uses and variations, but I hope this is enough to be going on with. Study Mahler - he's the expert in multiple uses of tremolando. Best.

[cosmodos]

Peter, you're insane. He's talking about RA, not SO. And he's talking about tremolo-picking on a plectrum string instrument (mandolin being his example).

Concerning you're questions, I have no idea; I don't own RA. I just felt like the above issues needed to be clarified.

[Scott31]

Peter, whether you are insane or not, that is good info and I appreciate the response. :) I am sure it will come in handy on another project.

Cosmodos, you are correct - I am speaking of the trem instruments. Please purchase Ra immediately and see if you can come up with an answer. It has great percussion too! Ok, you don't HAVE to buy it however, it is an excellent library.

In this case, I am writing a few pieces that need a spanish style trem and have not found the way to get Ra to work with me.

Thanks, guys!

[Peterkjones]

Oops! Wheee! Whooo! A-ha-ha-ha-ha I think I'm going Japanese. Sorry about that. I only skimmed your post before rushing into print and missed the important word Ra. Still, let's hope SO trems come in handy some time! Look, I'd better go now, I think they've come to get me, whooo! wheeee! a-ha-ha-ha-ha ...........

[Scott31]

Well, thanks. I will just have to wait and see what power Play has for Gypsy, I guess.

I hope they are taking good care of you, Peter and that you are getting the rest you need. I am sure those jackets with the one sleeve are comfortable and if you are into fashion, you can probably make white work with anything...

[Counterpoint]

Hi Scott,

There isn't really an "easy" way to speed up the tremolo picked strings (or any tremolo articulation for that matter) in RA. The problem is that they are recorded "as-is". What you could do is record each tremolo note out, load them into a sample editor, and use an effect or plugin that will speed up the WAV and preserve the pitch. You'd then have to load them all into a sampler and create a new instrument with them.

If you wanted it to be exactly 2x faster, this would be a bit easier... just lower the tempo to 1/2, export the instrument (soloed), import the output file to a sample editor and speed it up (preserving the pitch) by 2x.

The problem with this approach, is that it won't really sound natural at all... speeding up the sound in this way means that all of the subtle nuances that make up the sound get adjusted. For example, the pick makes a fairly constant noise even if you play faster, so this sound would get faster as well which will sound "wrong".

Anyways, that might give you some ideas...

- Matt

[Scott31]

Thanks Matt,

I appreciate the feedback. I had suspected as much but I wanted to be sure and you are right, they would not sound at all natural and unless that was what I was going for, it would be silly to compromise.

Fortunately, they work well on my new piece as they are. Funny thing about that particular articulation is that they don't have to follow tempo and can still sound great in the right application.

Cheers,

[Counterpoint]

Hi Scott,

Funny thing about that particular articulation is that they don't have to follow tempo and can still sound great in the right application.

Yeh, it's kind of a "feature" of that playing style. Less concerned about subdividing to the tempo and more about just picking as fast as possible.

I was hired to play in a Poltava band at one time. They had a mandolin section and some of the tunes were mostly tremolo picking. Pretty neat to hear an entire section playing like that because there is no synchronization at all... just when they change notes. Very neat sound! :)

Cheers,

- Matt

[Scott31]

THAT must have been incredible!

Funny that some sounds seem to bypass musical sense. Hmm.. I wonder what else is out there that we could do that with...