VAZ2010 + Ganassi tuning

Greetings MMMers...

Well, it's been a while since I've posted any "music" to this list, so
here goes... Recently, prompted by Jacky's post about the tuning capability
of the VAZ synth line, I bought VAZ 2001 (by the way the product has now
been morphed into VAZ 2010 for some reason).

So I was diddling around with VAZ 2010 this evening and made a couple of
voices & modified a few that came with it. It does come with a pretty nice
pipe organ sound... I whipped out a little 5-part organ blurb (in half an
hour, so caveat emptor, eh; and hold the comments on counterpoint). It's in
the Ganassi tuning.

Here it is -- 30 seconds, 500k:
http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/Music/GanassiTest1.mp3

This was produced only with VAZ2010 and nothing else. I scored/sequenced
it with Finale and sent the output to VAZ via Midi Yoke, and captured it to
a WAV file. Converted to MP3 with CoolEdit...

The tuning is explained here, by Monz:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/ganassi/ganassi.htm

Anyone know how to get better control of velocity/volume on these analog
type synth emulators???

Cheers,
Rick

Rick,

First off, boffo thanks for posting some music - especially I like that you detailed the *way* it all came about, with all the tools, so that others can see the possibilities, ask questions, etc. (I'm writing all this before I have a chance to listen...).

{you wrote...}
>Anyone know how to get better control of velocity/volume on these analog >type synth emulators???

First thing that comes to mind is since you 'wrote' the piece in Finale, maybe you should then save it as a midi file and then use a sequencer that allows you to draw the velocity and volume curves in by hand. I'll try and find the link that I posted once for Joe Pehrson: it was an article by composer James Newton Howard in Kbd mag that had a fairly lengthy treatment on how to massage the midi data to make the instruments more expressive.

Off to download...

Cheers,
Jon

Rick,

OK, I found the article. Howard deals with a lot of sample-based stuff, but the general techniques he is talking about work very well with analog/digital synth stuff as well, to breath life into the notes:

Keyboard Magazine, Dec. 2000
Cover story: Secrets of MIDI Orchestration - Composing Tips and Gear Tricks
from James Newton Howard and others.

At the Keyboard mag site, you'll find an online version of the Howard article:
http://www.keyboardmag.com/features/jnhoward/index.shtml

Cheers,
Jon

Hi Jon --

You wrote:

> ... since you 'wrote' the piece in
> Finale, maybe you should then save it as a midi file and then
> use a sequencer that allows you to draw the velocity and volume
> curves in by hand.

Finale does all that. It has good support for continous MIDI data and
velocity, volume, controllers, start/stop time, etc. I used some of that in
this piece.

I had said:

> Anyone know how to get better control of velocity/volume on these
> analog type synth emulators???

The problem I was referring to in this piece is that, being new to this
analog-synth, I don't know how to get the VAZ to have velocity sensitivity
in the patch. On the TX802 (FM), which I've used extensively, you just set
the amplitude mod sensitivity high, and then you get decent volume control
via MIDI velocity (and you can get timbral control also). It doesn't seem
to work that way in VAZ. There's no "velocity sensitivity" control knob.
Maybe someone who's worked with this synth knows the answer...

Meanwhile, thanks for the pointer to the article in Keyboard mag. It's
interesting.

Rick

Rick,

{you wrote...}
>Finale does all that. It has good support for continous MIDI data and >velocity, volume, controllers, start/stop time, etc. I used some of that >in this piece.

Whoops. I

a. should have known that
b. wish I understood the English language better!

>I had said:
>
> > Anyone know how to get better control of velocity/volume on these
> > analog type synth emulators???
>
>The problem I was referring to in this piece is that, being new to this >analog-synth, I don't know how to get the VAZ to have velocity sensitivity >in the patch.

OK, now I'm on the same page with you...

>It doesn't seem to work that way in VAZ. There's no "velocity sensitivity" >control knob. Maybe someone who's worked with this synth knows the answer...

I hope so, too!

>Meanwhile, thanks for the pointer to the article in Keyboard mag.

He knows how to make the boxes sound less like boxes. And thanks for your little 'piece-let'. Sounds like vintage McGowan, esp. since I somehow expected *only* the pipe organ timbres, and then you pop in those 'other' voices. I'm going to go read about the Ganassi thing on Joe's site, but to tell the truth, you didn't really have to apologize for the counterpoint: esp. for the short work-up time, it was pretty convincing!

Cheers,
Jon

Jacky asked...

> > Here it is -- 30 seconds, 500k:
> > http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/Music/GanassiTest1.mp3
>
> I like it. I think it's a good little demo of VAZ and the tuning too.
> Did you use Scala to make yer tuning?

Oh yeah! I did use Scala to make the tuning. Scala has built-in support
for putting out the VAZ tuning format files.

Rick