Carmina Burana: O Fortuna

[boulifb]

Hello everybody,

Here is O Fortuna from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

It's my first test with EWQLSC. So, it might be far from perfection. So any advice are welcome.

Here's the file:
O Fortuna.mp3

Enjoy.

Fred.

[halftone]

Hi Boulifb,

The intro was quite surprising and very nice. However the rest seems strangely out of sync.

It seems as if the choir does not fit in time properly with the supporting instruments.

Regards John

[Debinani]

BRILLIANT! I've been waiting for someone to work up the nerve to try this with SC and you did it very well.

I agree with the out-of-sync comment, and if I were to guess it's because the soft consonant sounds are firing on the beat and the vowels are coming in late. You should be able to correct this by nudging your audio over a few ms to make the vowels land on the beat.

[chest]

Well, that was a very big surprise.

I thought the loud sections (the start and the end) worked really very well, and, as I waited for it to start playing, I certainly wasn't expecting the beginning to be a fraction as good as that. I expect you, yourself, must have been bowled over when you first heard how well those loud parts came across.

Re the mentioned lagging of the choir in the middle section. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to lag by a constant amount, so after sliding the whole of the choir in the middle section a little earlier, you'd probably have to cut a number of small pieces out and move them separately into position.

There are a couple of things that I think would be good to improve in the middle section (I mean the quieter part between the loud start and end) - I don't know how practicable they are with SC. First, and mainly, that section seems too "tame" and laid back: if it was possible to get the voices to sound more energetic or agitated, I think that section would sit better between the loud start and end. Secondly - going by recordings, without having seen the score - I believe the syllables ought to be more "choppy", separated by short silences, and not have the legato feel where that appears. Actually, I wonder whether - if it's possible to make that happen in SC - doing that, on its own, might go some way to giving it a more energetic feel.

I noticed that the ending felt considerably faster than the middle section, following an abrupt speed change - is that how it's usually performed?

I hope you'll feel like having a go at tweaking it - IMHO it's so good already, that a bit of improvement to the middle section could make it really outstanding.

[Simon Schwab]

this track is quite touching, good work

You know, improvement is always possible. But I'm just curious how long you've been working on this. Only to get the text right, is taking a while I guess.

I also agree with the timing. Also to me the choir has a strange sound with the reverb of the sizzling consonants. Maybe you can try to EQ or use a DeEsser on the choir.

But just do that stuff further, I'm eager to hear something else from you.

[boulifb]

Hi all,

Thanks for the fast replies.

I had EWQLSC only last week. I don't know well yet WordBuilder and its possibilities.

The introduction (O Fortuna, velut luna...) is played at 120bpm. Then it rises at 240bpms (semper crescis, aut de crescis...) and then it rises at 288bpms when it sings loud (Sors sa lutis...) and the final (... omnes plan gite) part rises at 320bpms as it is writen on the score.

Maybe I can shorten the notes when the choir sings softly. I already shorten them but maybe not enough.

I've been surprised when I heard that the choir is almost understandable. There is almost no "audio illusion" effect.

I'll try to check what I can do in the soft part.

As I said, it's my first test with symphonic choirs. I don't know that much about choirs. I'm discovering this discipline.

It's 1 week of work with "big days" and short nights. The writing of the text was quiet fast. It took about 1 day. Each parts of the choir has its own text. The final mix uses 49 tracks (49 audio files). Each files represent a part of the piece. Each part can use several tracks. For example, the second violins are using 12 midi tracks and so on. This piece uses about 153 midi tracks.

I had the balls to recreate this piece. I intend to create other pieces from Carmina Burana. But give me a break. I'm out!

Fred.

[paulwr]

put a smile on my face! Great way to learn, just tackle something really big and difficult. Plow right through, I love it, your doing great! Keep at it!

-Paul

[interpolate]

I would say the reverb of the choir seems to be detached from the ambience of the orchestra somehow, I'm not sure how else to put into words, perhaps it's that the vocals seem to be more staccato in the live performance. Did you put this together from an original score?

Besides it's better than anything I can do. Keep going with the SC.

[boulifb]

Wow, so many replies!

Thanks

Maybe there is to much reverb on the choir?

Yes, I have the complete Carmina Burana score from Eulenburg. It's a book that has 170 pages.

[Jeff Hayat]

Not bad at all. I agree with the out of sync-ness in parts. I too have experienced that when writing choir parts - I find that I have to move MIDI notes (data) to compensate quite often. The biggest problem with the choir in your peice is the "S", which, to be honest, is the hardest thing to deal with in SC, IMHO. What I find works well sometimes is do the "S" seperately. Say you have "Dorsum" - you might want to try to have the choir sing "Dorum", and on a seperate MIDI track feeding another instance (I know, more RAM) trigger the "s" seperately. Then play with it a bit and try to move it around a bit to try and make it gel with the rest of the word. Doesn't alway work, but I find it's worth a shot sometimes.

Cheers.