I love the sounds and mix of Jay Bacal the most.

I believe his ears taste is the best among the other's VSL demos (who are doing very well too)

But he probably needs the best studio machines.

May I have the information regarding Jay's studio equipments, to build mine. 

 

Yishai Knoll

Composer 

Hi Yishai,

 

Thanks for the kind words.   But I think it is probably best not to "rank" different demo makers as we each strive to achieve our own personal musical goals.   This is one of the great things about VSL-- each musician can have his or her own unique "sound."

 

I use one pentium dual core PC with 4 GB of memory, a Soundblaster Audigy sound card, Sonar 7 Producer Edition sequencer, Altiverb 6 (sometimes Wizooverb) for reverb, Waves S1 for narrowing and panning, and course VSL VI for all the instruments.   That's it.   Nothing too fancy.

 

Best,

Jay

I agree his demos are second to none, though it is hard to say which are the best with Guy and the others doing such virtuosic work.

 

BTW I am wondering Jay if you are going to continue using Waves for panning now that it is possible in VE. 

Hi William-- Waves S1 has more features than the panner in VE.  I'm also more accustomed to the sonic results of S1.  However, the VE panner is very convenient and the price is right (free!).   You can always download a Waves demo and make your own comparisons.

 

Best,

Jay

Jay- are you entering notes in via Sonar's notation editor or in realtime. Reason I ask is that as a former Sonar user, I could not stand its notation editor. Completely restrictive. It's the worst notation of any major DAW. Many of Cakewalk's users were pretty annoyed that it hadn't been given the same facelift as the rest of the program when Sonar 7 came onto the scene this past Fall.

I enter notes using an Axiom 25 keyboard on my desk-- but rarely in real time.  With complex passages I often use step record.

 

--Jay

Fiery Angel,

Just my 2 cents. I've gotten used to entering notes mostly from the keyboard (as in midi controller) in the piano roll view, or the track view in Sonar, and keeping my written score on paper. There's a certain restriction/abstraction with entering notes into a sequencer because it really seems more set up as a 'punch card' graphical interface. I know Sonar has the rudimentary notation, but you're right, it's nothing too fancy.

 

Have you tried Sibelius or Finale for entering your notes and then transporting the midi file over in Sonar to finesse?

 

Mahlon

hi,

 

i love your interpretations, too. the beethoven string quartet is extraordinary.

 

do you do this with just ONE computer? and all your big orchestra stuff, too? how do you do this?

 

thanks for your help,

 

martin 

Jay,

How do you deal with the difference in attacks and start times
for the different notes and different instruments?

Since you are inputing notes in non-realtime how do you apply
a "human" feel to the music?

When you are done with a score does your notation in sonar
look like the actual score on paper in as far as quantization is concerned?
or do you have overlapped notes and delayed starts...?

Thanks,
DM

Martin-- I only use 1 computer for all my demos.   I have 4 GB's of memory and use the 3GB switch in Windows XP.  When I run out of ram I use the learn and optitmize features to dramatically reduce the memory used by that instrument.

 

Best,

Jay

DM-- I do us overlapped notes and delayed starts so I don't think the actual score would look right as it is.   But I currently don't have a need for a cleaned up score since real players are not involved in my process.

 

I create a human feel by randomizing start times slightly.   I also move notes around by mouse to create the desired nuance.   Finally I spend a lot of time tweaking the tempo map to create rubato, ritards, etc.

 

Best,

Jay

thank you, jay, for your info.

 

just one last question. how du you input your key switches? do you do this by step recording, too? i sometimes find this step time consuming,

 

thx, martin 

Thanks for your reply Jay!

Are you using any of the CAL files for Sonar: random velocity, legato, time?

Thanks,
DM

 

Martin-- I enter the keyswitches by mouse in the piano roll view.   This takes some time.   But if I wanted to record them in real time on the keyboard I would have to rehearse the maneuvers.  Also entering them by mouse enables me to test out a variety of keyswitches to better choose the desired articulations.

 

--Jay

DM-- I use the Cakewalk midi FX in Sonar to randomize start times and sometimes velocity.  I haven't messed around with CAL yet.

 

--Jay