Hi Craig,
I use the full set of Garritan sounds (Jazz and Orchestra) and find
them a little more than marginally better than the soft synth sounds.
Some are quite good; the recording of my bass (#2 in the full set),
baritone sax, some of the brass, and the piano and guitar are both
pretty good. That said, there are such limitations to this whole deal
of synthesized sound, and especially notation driven playback, that I
never expect anything but a remote resemblance to reality - even the
reality of a not very good band. Attacks, balances and dynamics
changing "on the fly" are an integral part of any musical language and
ensemble. Multiply that by an order of magnitude for a jazz
ensemble. Any attempt to get notation driven playback to sound like
that is going to fall frustratingly short.
Garritan sound playback as manipulated by experienced and musical midi
experts can sound much better. Examples in the arranging book I wrote
for Gary (When is he going to get around to releasing it?) were done
by an Italian musician with considerable skill and taste in this
area. But my own Finale playback never sounds that good, and none of
it, even the highly tweaked stuff, ever fools me.
That said, it is a question of personal training and habit - how much
"reality" each individual needs to stimulate his or her memory of real
sounds and real players. I have become used to translating what I
hear from Finale and JABB into a sketch of what I will hear from the
band, and the colors help differentiate things better than just a
piano sound (the way I used to work, before Garritan). But, I
reiterate, balances are hopelessly unreliable, phrase shapes are
almost non-existent, and, in spite of Robert Piechaud's incredible
work, nothing sounds like real music.
I do take issue with the impression that these sound like the regular
sounds with more reverb. In the full set, using the Kontakt player,
you can adjust the reverb (I have mine set to medium or large room -
not to any "hall"), or turn it off completely, and this helps to
remove the blurred distinction between soft synth and Garritan. Just
don't expect a revolutionary jump in playback quality.
Chuck
On Aug 1, 2008, at 12:42 PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
I just installed F2009, moving from 2007. 2007 never had the jazz
instruments, so I never used the Garritan sounds. One of the
primary reasons I upgraded was to get the more realistic playback on
big band charts.
I have created a simple score from the Finale setup wizard, letting
it set all the defaults for the Garritan jazz instruments. I must
say my first impression is that this doesn't sound particularly
realistic. To my ears, it sounds pretty much like the regular synth
sounds, only with a lot more reverb.
I am wondering:
1) Does anybody else share that opinion, or perhaps have a
completely different opinion?
2) Are there some tweaks that people have found necessary in order
to make the Garritan jazz instruments play back more realistically?
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
