MIDI Controller vs Writing With 2 Hands??? 

One of the most revealing videos demonstrating your workflow and how you layer various articulations to add emotion and, equally important, to mask the gaps in non-legato articulations, i.e., adding reverb, overlaying a legato patch, and (shhhh!) adding delay. Plus the fact that different composers use different workflows and methods of getting down their ideas. Thanks so much.

Beautiful! Master Class! I’m also happy to see my technique to trigger legato is not so unusual after all! 😊😊😊

I find these “how to” videos incredibly valuable. Big thanks 🙏

I enjoy watching these process-oriented videos - thank you!

Adjusting the 'Release' setting on the Kontakt GUI also helps to blur any gaps between notes. If you have used the sustain pedal, 'convert sustain to note lengths' is also worth experimenting with.

Thanks Christian!! This is the video I've always wanted to see, how to add that movement. Lightbulb moment with regards to applying these ideas to synths! Bravo!!

Really enjoyed watching you build such a gorgeous sounding snippet, I learned a lot thank you!

Thanks for these videos. They have helped me so much. Love your work

I love the tip about down-pitching harmonics patches. I tried this using Intimate Strings and oh wow, what a beautiful sound!

Thanks as always for sharing your tips and tricks it’s really interesting and informative 🙏🏻

Thanks Cristian !

I tend to draw in the automation, but I think it’s so cool to see you do it this way

Process and workflow + tips, thank you!

This is a wonderful eye opening video! Thank you so Much :)

So amazingly beautiful and inspiring.

Interesting video. I bought a Nuances controller by Pierre earlier this year when I saw you introduce it in another video. I'm new to composing and find the use of it extremely natural. It's nice to feel your fingers on the sliders breathing and swaying with the notes. I tend to lead the movements with the modulation slider and expression naturally follows behind it. Whether that's right or not I have no idea but it sounds ok!

Many thanks for this good tips for getting rid of the sucking effect on the strings

I love your presentation style - enthusiastic without being at all OTT.

Many roads can lead to the same destination great video Christian.

Great information - thanks!

Love these videos

Thanks Christian, so valuable. I love these ones from you so much. You explain on a level I can really conect with. Just as an aside, on your top down view you have some weird lines glitching in on the quarter of the screen. Barely noticeable though but thought you'd want to know! Thanks again Christian.

Great timing!!!

Great work my man. And thank you for expressing yourself. I utterly agree. Take care.

wow, this is gold. thanks

Like you I often do things in 2 times, playing the keys then playing the CC1, CC11 and CC21 if needed (vibrato). But, as we usualy have 2 feet, I also use an expression pedal on my left foot (the right one being on the CC64 sustain pedal), with a minimum set around 30 in order to have the full range of my foot controling a limited range of the CC11 (or whatever CC you put on this pedal). Then I put the CC1 and others if needed. And whatever I do I'm never totaly satisfied with what I did with CCs and I redraw/edit them in my DAW 95% of the time. 😄

Excellent as always, Christian!

Fan bloody tastic….. so cool 😎

I also find that recording the automation after the notes lets me focus better on each element: pitch and expression.

Thank you!

'Just a little schnufter' Hands down best phrase I've ever heard.

Well you made that look easy

Christian could you show how you set up your streamdeck to switch between exp, mod, in the piano roll window. Great video as always!

Nice tricks. When I write with two hands, I do what you do and record the automation on top. When I write with one hand I record automation at the same time. One thing I never think of is to mess around with the transpose knob so I should try to remember that one.

Super useful thanks, still drawing the envelopes myself. I like the piece, too, slightly Badalamentian.

You've restored my faith in Neo strings.

Thanks again Christian. Another good reason to follow you is that you always get the best comments. I learn a lot from your videos.

Really interesting, I often watch Christian videos for his take/insight - BUT what I loved about this video was the music he created which touched a real nerve/resonance antenna. Would love more about the music creative ideas and the realisation of those ideas through the use of libraries and plug-ins. Inspired - thanks.

Thanks for the video Christian! Your chords remind me of - A Map of the World, Pat Metheny's Soliloquy

christian,you make my day buddy.How to deal with d*=k head is the best.I look forward to seeing your video's,keep up the good work peace.

I feel less stupid with your content. Thank you for that

It's funny that you brought up pedals, because I was thinking the same thing. Guess I'm in with some good company. Is that a film camera? I was also going to say that I like to do a separate automation pass like you do (although I'm not a good of a player as you are) but when I do that I actually like to use both hands, so I can more easily control Dynamics and Expression separately. Obviously just another way of doing it. Probably comes from my years of mixing live theatre, where many of us would always use two hands, one on each fader to properly ride lav mics during a duet.

Sumptuous chord sequence.

Hey Christian, great content as always, but why the mic change for your VO's? That AKG (Or whatever it is) is noticeably duller than the mic's you used in the past, especially the RE-20 you had. It's not bad per se, but not as nice on your voice from my ear. Cheers from Arizona!

These are very tasteful moves in order to improve a theme. It is just me or would these techniques make Dave's stock sounds make great? With this question I just want to point out that it is not about having these (great) Libraries alone, this is the result of experience. Christian: Thank you very much! Now I've to boot up Logic 🙂

I'm curious if you've ever tried a breath controller? Some of the better ones have a bite sensor as well as a gyroscope allowing up to 4 controllers with both hands and feet free

Wonderful video, thank you! I notice you always use the Spitfire libraries from within Kontakt. Is this something you recommend? I've recently purchased Abbey Road One, Epic Choir, and Mercury, so I'm currently trying to figure out how best to organise these things for an efficient workflow. I'd love to hear more from you about the logistics of all this. Cheers!

Hi,Christian..as always super informative video, a bit curious though...what's with the bookish element with BRUTALISM on the front there on your desk?

Christian have you ever tried an advanced mpe controller like the haken continuum for adding exspression to your string sounds? If so, what are your thoughts on it. Thanks as always for the video

I respect Christian's workflow, but this would drive me crazy as a pianist! I use an expression pedal for dynamics (which is usually the only thing I need to vary in a MIDI performance) and either TouchOSC sliders or manual editing for volume, vibrato, etc.

I love that there's a notepad that says "brutalism."

I use an expression pedal to free up both hands!

NI and Logic need to get on the CLAP plugin format train from the crews at Bitwig & u-he, which supports per-note modulation ;)

I noticed on your screen you had some interesting instruments in the Kontakt Player list - so I looked them up and these are commercial pianobook releases. On the site, I noticed you can buy the "Pianobook collection" for a little over $100. However, there are absolutely no details what you get with that. If you click on it, it takes you to the Spitfire main page. I can't find any forum posts etc, so I guess the question is exactly what is covered if you buy this collection, and if more content will be added to the collection (for free download if you paid previously) or not? Thanks!

I use a Volume pedal for MIDI. I need someone to make a dual bluetooth MIDI pedal (volume pedal) so I can use both feet to adjust dynamics and expression while playing with both hands. :) Right now, I typically have both assigned to the one volume pedal.

My big take away from this is pitching down harmonics, it's a phenomenal sound

I found this while specifically searching for MIDI fader CCs. Have been looking at the Nuances vs others and wonder whether having a smaller “travel” on the shorter faders is a pro or cons? If you (or anyone who has one) could input on this it would be appreciated). Great video!

Another option for removing the "sucking sound" in the strings is to shorten the first note, effectively creating a short rest, which then allows the second note to attack cleanly and authentically. The break in sound also provides more musicality to the performance and can avoid sounding overly computerized.

Know what made the world of difference for me? 2 Pedals (CC1 and CC11), and foot controllers for various buttons. (My favorite is the sub enable / disable switch when mixing)

I think I have trauma related to sustain pedal data issues. I started to get tense as soon as I could see your toe in the shot on the pedal. It makes it so much easier to play in parts like this, but it can be a nightmare to edit especially with the issues that can arise from cut and pasting regions with sustain data. Do you ever go back in and edit the lengths and erase the CC ?

thank you for the naughty tips Christian

Thank you. What's the "fancy version"?

thanks for the video. perfect. i am trying to find a fader controller. any other suggestions besides the one you got?

Nizo 2056!!!!!! Ive got one of them!

Do you actually use that Braun Nizo 2056 Super-8 film camera?! She's a real beauty!

.....any other tip on how to “fix” the “sucking effect” from The Spitfire String Libraries?. Many Thanks in advance.

Any pro tools users can use an ipad or android tablet and just use the free app provided by avid depends what your more comfortable with really.

Having just acquired my first proper Spitfire Labs instrument, I've thought what would be awfully nice is if I could assign aftertouch to vibrato. How or even if this is possible, I don't know. But it would make a lot of sense to do so.

This is a classic CH video Kinda missed it🙂

Hey Christian; have you ever try to use a midi pedal instead of the controller ? Yamaha FC-7 is a good one... and sorry but at 2:32 there is something to fix with the harmony ? It sounds strange to my ears specially because the rest is really beautiful Regards Pierre

By all means keep showing that. I still don't have a cc controller and been trying to trick my non compatible Automap to do it but no luck. It does work as controller instrument though. Do pop chart producers layer Spitfire strings with Wired Strings? Or do they use all tools they have for mock up only?

More than logic. Uniting art and engineering… Elvis’s ex?

Great video. So you are not using the Monogramcc?

When you layer different libraries like this, do you end up with more voices than there would normally be in an orchestra? Does it really matter? I've heard some people complaining that BBCSO doesn't have divisi for example and they end up with too many players. I would love to hear your thoughts on this Christian as I'm really new to this and never knew that this could be a problem for some people. I have BBCSO Core and it made me wonder how many parts i could record with violins one for example without it sounding like too many players. Thanks

When I read writing with your 2 hands I thought you meant physical pen on paper, which I would actually love to see you do in a video: write a piece of music on paper and then create a mock up to see how it sounds

Is it possible to route CC1 to a foot expression pedal??? Has anyone tried that before? thanks...🙂 About the wiggle, I use the old defunct Sonar by Cakewalk, and it has the ability to uncheck the Zero Controllers When Play Stops function. Would unchecking this prevent having to do the wiggle when using the Spitfire and Kontakt players? That way the levels would remain where I want them before recording, if possible.

I’m so confused. Why are we all using expression petals? I haven’t been able to find a single use case for one, and it seems like the obvious choice. It’s literally called an expression pedal and, most keyboards, except two inputs you could have two pedals, so that you have full individual control of dynamic an expression at the same time with two whole feet.

Dumb question: are you using sustain pedal when playing strings lines?

Brutalism, what are you building?

On the sucking effect: Why do most spitfire libraries tend to default to 50% release tails? Isn’t that what cause this? Turning it up to 100% is usually the first thing I do with any Spitfire sustain patch to make notes blend together more naturally while playing two handed.

Why note use an mpe controller the same way? Instead of one mod lane for the entire track you could have one per finger

Why two PC keyboards?

Is this book about brutalism just acting as extra support for that mousepad? :D

So you have a deficiency in the feet department, to the tune of two?

MPE it is

The good thing about being a guitarist who can barely play a keyboard is that I can only do one hand at a time anyways. :D #ShitMusicianPrivilage

beethoven composed without ears ofc you can fkf

This is horrible in my opinion. Doesn't really address the question with any clarity (mainly just says "you can do what you want") and takes the opportunity to teach the bad habit of duplicating stuff with lots of absurd layers, creating a sound that is nonsensical, heavy and hurtful to any counterpoint present in the composition. The children are certainly left with the impression that, if you are not superposing string libraries, you must be missing out on something fundamental... The subject seemed to be composition and sketching, but as always, before long he is talking about reverb yet again... I feel for all composers that think a Spitfire ad is the same thing as musical education.