GPO4 experiment

**jsaras** · 02-26-2010, 05:12 PM

http://www.audiorecordingandservices...ures_Earth.mp3

On a lark I decided to use Jay Bacal's MIDI file of John Williams' "Adventures On Earth" that he created for Vienna Symphonic Library to help me create my GPO4 orchestral template. I did not go through any effort to alter his MIDI controller messages, nor did I try to use GPO's legato functions. I just wanted to see if I could create an acceptable orchestral blend using a very simple sample set.

I used four instances of GPO, one for each instrument family (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion). This allowed me to tweak the reverb settings (just using GPO's built-in reverb) to place the instruments in their correct location in the virtual hall. The ony non-GPO effects were Sonitus EQs (one per GPO instance) and some compression on the master bus. For a $150 sample library I think it's pretty incredible...or am I just kidding myself?

J

**Charles77** · 02-26-2010, 05:51 PM

Well done ! Sounds amazing to me, that's really great job !

How can we envy big and expensive samples librairies anymore when we hear such work !

By the way, one question, how do you get that fat and deep bass sound ? EQ ?

Charles

**jsaras** · 02-26-2010, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by Charles77

how do you get that fat and deep bass sound ? EQ ?

Nope. That's the raw bass sample. My compressor, the UAD Neve 33609, may have slightly thickened things up.

I only used EQ to slightly roll off the treble on the woodwinds group (about -1.5dB, 10k shelf), on the brass group (about -3dB) and the percussion group (-5dB). In other words, the further back in the hall, the darker I made it.

I used the Concert Hall 1 setting on each of the reverbs, slightly modifying it for each instance. On the strings, I started with the straight preset, but I increased the predelay time slightly and shortened the decay time slightly.

On the woodwinds I think I used the straight Concert Hall 1 preset. For the brass, I slightly increased the length of the tail and slightly shortened the predelay time. Percussion, slightly longer tail than the brass, predelay time set to zero. In other words, things get "wetter", softer and darker as you go further back into the hall.

I used the default "stereo stage" settings for every instrument as this is the "early reflections" portion of the reverb. If you listen to it closely, it sounds like a very small room reverb with a slight time difference between the right and left channels..which is one of the aural clues as to where the instrument is in the hall. The instruments in the back of the hall have more early reflections sound than direct sound.

In any event, it's cool that all the basic tools you need are right within the Aria player.

**jsaras** · 05-13-2010, 11:44 PM

I've just updated this song to include about half of the composition. VSL killer ? ;-)

**FLWrd** · 05-14-2010, 07:48 AM

Sounds pretty good!

For a $150 sample library I think it's pretty incredible...or am I just kidding myself?

No, you're not. It's not a VSL killer, it's not so difficult to find spots where more editing is needed for a natural sound. Basically, every note that is held for more than 0.5s, requires some kind of mod wheel articulation in order to avoid the static sound that accompanies sample loops. Other libraries have more dynamics built in.

However, to me this is an advantage of GPO. Although it needs more work, it makes it much easier to control the sound. You want a slow attack? Can do. You want sfz? Can do. All with the same patch. I've played a bit more with another library now (East-West), and some of the patches that sound good when you hit a key, suddenly mess up the mix when placed in context, and require very careful editing to edit out any unwanted dynamics...

But, at $150, GPO is a steal. So many samples, all of at least decent quality, very flexible (where else do you find 9 different flute players?). Anyway, your basic sound is very good. I'm going to apply your EQ to see how it works out (the only thing I did so far was cut a bit at 1300Hz and 2950Hz on the strings to reduce some of the harshness).

Thanks for posting, and good luck with following works!

**Michael135** · 05-14-2010, 11:06 AM

Hmm... considering that Viena cost like 12K for the full thing, and GPO is in the $150ish price range, not bad at all.

Now, it would be REALLY cool IMO if someone would do the same thing, but with EWQLSO. It would be really interesting to then listen to all 3 and really be able to see the strengths and weakness of them.

**FLWrd** · 05-14-2010, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Michael135

Hmm... considering that Viena cost like 12K for the full thing, and GPO is in the $150ish price range, not bad at all.

Now, it would be REALLY cool IMO if someone would do the same thing, but with EWQLSO. It would be really interesting to then listen to all 3 and really be able to see the strengths and weakness of them.

It's not that easy. I also have EWQLSO (but not the midi-file), but the strengths and weaknesses of such complex libraries only reveal themselves in careful programming. E.g., GPO doesn't have marcato samples for brass, EWQLSO does. GPO can emulate it to a certain extent using high velocity and short notes, while that programming style sounds rather flat in EWQLSO. It's a miracle that a midi file for VSL produces such good output in GPO in the first place...