Found this useful, thought I'd share:
Pt. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... ktpoOztRvQ
Pt. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77mXAWr1QN8
Some of his other music related* videos might be of some use as well.
https://www.youtube.com/user/MikeVerta/videos
*Well, if you skip the political I guess. Sorry 'bout that. (sigh)
"Get the most realistic sounds from your samples"
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Mark Bliss
- Posts: 7313
- Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:59 pm
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Re: "Get the most realistic sounds from your samples"
I stopped about 3 min into the first video. Guess it's time for my annual vsti timbre rant. Usually I save it fo r the VI forums, but this year Acoustica gets to have it 
Speaking as a retired horn player with over 50 years of professional orchestral experience and as an instructor who taught horn at the university level:
The concept of attaching timbre directly to volume is totally incorrect. Any professional player worth his or her salt can produce a beautiful, round yet powerful fortissimo or an thin edgy pianissimo. Impressionistic composer actually spelled out the timbre they wanted with terms like 'cuivre', 'lontano', etc. At the very least timbre is another expressive tool for the good player to control, not something to be consigned to an algorithm.
Now as Mr. Verta demonstrated with his horn patch such algorithmic application of timbre (edge in this case) is very convenient, but in my humble opinion not at all realistic on a professional level. In fact could probably initiate the dismissal of a player from an orchestra.
As this mode of thinking becomes entrenched in the sample industry it is carried back to players who are forced to reproduce sample effects from libraries made by engineers rather than musicians, which in turn is brought back to the orchestra and the people who teach those in the orchestra. In short the last 70 or 80 years of evolved pedagogy is being thrown out the window to the detriment of everone in the musical arts.
There are easy ways around this problem, like, for instance, providing an 'edge' layer independent of the normal tracks which could be faded in and out in an independent a maybe even musical way. Given the present situation there are more complicated ways to more properly utilize the existing timbre changes of velocity layers by also manipulating CC# 7 or CC# 11 to soften the volume jump as a for instance. Mr Verta rails against this very likely because it consumes more time than he is willing to spend...........or maybe because his approach is more of that of an engineer than a musician. Anyway...
END OF RANT
Speaking as a retired horn player with over 50 years of professional orchestral experience and as an instructor who taught horn at the university level:
The concept of attaching timbre directly to volume is totally incorrect. Any professional player worth his or her salt can produce a beautiful, round yet powerful fortissimo or an thin edgy pianissimo. Impressionistic composer actually spelled out the timbre they wanted with terms like 'cuivre', 'lontano', etc. At the very least timbre is another expressive tool for the good player to control, not something to be consigned to an algorithm.
Now as Mr. Verta demonstrated with his horn patch such algorithmic application of timbre (edge in this case) is very convenient, but in my humble opinion not at all realistic on a professional level. In fact could probably initiate the dismissal of a player from an orchestra.
As this mode of thinking becomes entrenched in the sample industry it is carried back to players who are forced to reproduce sample effects from libraries made by engineers rather than musicians, which in turn is brought back to the orchestra and the people who teach those in the orchestra. In short the last 70 or 80 years of evolved pedagogy is being thrown out the window to the detriment of everone in the musical arts.
There are easy ways around this problem, like, for instance, providing an 'edge' layer independent of the normal tracks which could be faded in and out in an independent a maybe even musical way. Given the present situation there are more complicated ways to more properly utilize the existing timbre changes of velocity layers by also manipulating CC# 7 or CC# 11 to soften the volume jump as a for instance. Mr Verta rails against this very likely because it consumes more time than he is willing to spend...........or maybe because his approach is more of that of an engineer than a musician. Anyway...
END OF RANT
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Mark Bliss
- Posts: 7313
- Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:59 pm
- Location: Out there
Re: "Get the most realistic sounds from your samples"
Tell us how you really feel!
It seems to me, very much an admitted novice- that all options are either hyper complex and expensive, or require some kind of "crutched work-around" in order to trick the thing into sounding more realistic or be more useful.
It's a shame really. And it's often far more labor intensive than the results warrant. I just can't obsess on it but so much.
Re: "Get the most realistic sounds from your samples"
Very difficult if not impossible to emulate the real thing! 
Re: "Get the most realistic sounds from your samples"
I go for impossible too. Everything that comes out of a speaker/headphones is SYNTHISIZED however good it is, even a high quality recording whether analogue or digital.