For the church musicians here, a descant to Sine nomine

[passagio]

scored in Finale 10, rendered in Garritan GPO 4 (voices are a Korg Choir soundfont mapped to channel 17). Mixed in Cubase LE4.

http://david.maurand.com/descants/index.php/sine-nomine

[GrahamKeitch]

scored in Finale 10, rendered in Garritan GPO 4 (voices are a Korg Choir soundfont mapped to channel 17). Mixed in Cubase LE4.

http://david.maurand.com/descants/index.php/sine-nomine

Hi David,

Excellent hymn tune and great descant. Enjoyed this!

From a sampling perspective, I would opt for a warmer sounding organ to support the choir. I know it's a specialist (and demanding) field - but for my ears, you need something like Hauptwerk and a good English organ rather than the shrill baroque sounds which dominate the sample / cinematic world. Hauptwerk comes with a lovely and recently re sampled free version of the St Anne Moseley organ which would do greater justice to this if you're looking for realistic playback of an English hymn tune. But that said, I greatly enjoyed your work from a compositional perspective - which is what really counts and is probably uppermost in your intentions with this.

Regards,

Graham

PS Enjoyed listening to other tracks on your site too. Maybe a few taken too fast though. Descants often sound more effective with a slight relaxing of pace - but that's a matter of taste I guess rather than a rule of thumb. G

[passagio]

Thanks, Graham. I've tried playing around with various organ settings, but I would rather a real organist do it on a real organ in the context of a real liturgy. (Some of my followers only look at the score - they can hear the music in their head!) At present, I've been devoting my tweaking hours to writing and rewriting.

To that end, I did a few tweaks (if you consider an entirely different bass and harmonization a 'tweak') to the Lledrod arrangement, and re-sampled with different EQ. At one point it had an even stronger pedal, but I fear most people have a subwoofer hooked up to inadequate speakers, so i backed off the pedal slightly.

No doubt I will return to the organ voicing, as I appreciate your concern. Keep the suggestions coming.