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Compositions on Staffpad.

alfredsolax said:
Hi everybody! I'm very excited to share this piece I've written entirely on StaffPad. Once again, its power to write away from a "computer/keyboard" setup, brought me somewhere unexpected!
Here you can find the score and parts too: https://www.federicosolazzo.com/tides

This is another little story exploring the Yin and yang, the balance and interaction between water and air, shade and light, major and minor. Recorded in the same iconic studio and room where Ennio Morricone made 'Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' and Nino Rota 'The Godfather', this piece is the teaser of a bigger 15-20 min (3-4 movements) piece I plan to write soon.

String rec setup: 7,6,5,4,3. Very curious to know what you guys think about it!

PS: The room sounds truly fantastic (we've just added a bit of Bricasti Mechanics Hall) and those players are GREAT!

If you are interested in joining the next shared session (remotely or on location in Rome), check this post here!

Click to expand...

Beautiful music! It would be cool to listen to the StappPad audio in comparison.
 
With a new Staffpad release on the horizon, I thought I might share something that I wrote recently. For me, this is as close as I'll get to having a large orchestra perform my work, so I really appreciate this incredible tool. (I'm not a professional, just a hobbyist) Have a wonderful day everyone!
 
The last composition to my Suite for Violin and Harp, “Fantasy”. It will be played as the 3rd piece out of 4 short pieces.

I fell privilege that the suite will be performed by Duo Sorores at a summer concert, the 13th of juli 7 pm in the Central Public Library at Hühnerposten in Hamburg (Bücherhallen).

In this Staffpad film, I have prioritised playback functionallity over correct notation.
The audio is processed in Logic.

 


My new piece for SATB choir set to lyrics by Emily Brontë.. composed in Staffpad, audio straight from the program with the stock oboe and bassoon playing the parts. No scrolling score this time, felt that it would've been such a hassle so I opted for a slightly different approach. Sheet music engraving in Finale 26, although yeah.. this was also extremely tedious getting everything right.
 

Sharing a piece I created for an iOS game project. It's the first commercial work I've created in Staffpad.

I used almost entirely Berlin series instruments, with a couple of tracks CineBrass and one CinePerc. I exported stems to make some final volume tweaks + master in Cubase.

I learned a lot about Staffpad in the process of working on this. At this point I think I'm still faster producing in Cubase, but I can foresee getting to the point where Staffpad is more efficient, at least for getting a basic arrangement in place and exporting to tweak from there.

Some ideas I'm thinking about / issues I'm running into:
  • Most if not all of the tracks with significant legato/slurred passages create major clicks and pops for me (on iPad, for what it's worth). I did some de-clicking in Izotope RX to address this, and reported it as a bug. But if anyone knows any workarounds, I'd love to know.
  • I find the default reverb settings to be high for more staccato/percussive parts, so I dialed that back to ~20% on those parts. I'm assuming that Staffpad reverb is added onto the baked-in reverb of the samples, but I haven't actually done careful testing of this yet.
  • In many of the tracks, I was running into some pretty clunky dynamic level shifts, often between mp and mf. I'm finding it better to just stick to one of those levels, usually. The sounds are good enough that I can make it work, but the line between barely audible and way over the top can be pretty fiddly to figure out, particularly for brass and percussion parts.
  • So far, I haven't fully explored the percussion options, and that still feels easier to handle in a DAW. I might go back and add some more complex percussion to this piece, whether in Cubase or SP. But I'd love to hear/see any percussion-heavy pieces created in Staffpad.
 
Clunky dynamic level shifts --absolutely, although I think this sometimes has to do with the individual samples used.
I've also noticed occasional odd playback anomalies when using things like grace notes; they are missing, played incorrectly or in the wrong place rhythmically.
I also have a feeling that if I make many corrections to a single measure, sometimes the data isn't entirely fixed or optimized, in which case I'm sometimes better off rewriting the entire measure from scratch.
 
jaredarnold said:

Sharing a piece I created for an iOS game project. It's the first commercial work I've created in Staffpad.

I used almost entirely Berlin series instruments, with a couple of tracks CineBrass and one CinePerc. I exported stems to make some final volume tweaks + master in Cubase.

I learned a lot about Staffpad in the process of working on this. At this point I think I'm still faster producing in Cubase, but I can foresee getting to the point where Staffpad is more efficient, at least for getting a basic arrangement in place and exporting to tweak from there.

Some ideas I'm thinking about / issues I'm running into:
  • Most if not all of the tracks with significant legato/slurred passages create major clicks and pops for me (on iPad, for what it's worth). I did some de-clicking in Izotope RX to address this, and reported it as a bug. But if anyone knows any workarounds, I'd love to know.
  • I find the default reverb settings to be high for more staccato/percussive parts, so I dialed that back to ~20% on those parts. I'm assuming that Staffpad reverb is added onto the baked-in reverb of the samples, but I haven't actually done careful testing of this yet.
  • In many of the tracks, I was running into some pretty clunky dynamic level shifts, often between mp and mf. I'm finding it better to just stick to one of those levels, usually. The sounds are good enough that I can make it work, but the line between barely audible and way over the top can be pretty fiddly to figure out, particularly for brass and percussion parts.
  • So far, I haven't fully explored the percussion options, and that still feels easier to handle in a DAW. I might go back and add some more complex percussion to this piece, whether in Cubase or SP. But I'd love to hear/see any percussion-heavy pieces created in Staffpad.
Click to expand...

Nice piece and recognizable the problems regarding sound in Staffpad. The sound is great, the timing often not precize espessially in fast music
 
jaredarnold said:

Sharing a piece I created for an iOS game project. It's the first commercial work I've created in Staffpad.

I used almost entirely Berlin series instruments, with a couple of tracks CineBrass and one CinePerc. I exported stems to make some final volume tweaks + master in Cubase.

I learned a lot about Staffpad in the process of working on this. At this point I think I'm still faster producing in Cubase, but I can foresee getting to the point where Staffpad is more efficient, at least for getting a basic arrangement in place and exporting to tweak from there.

Some ideas I'm thinking about / issues I'm running into:
  • Most if not all of the tracks with significant legato/slurred passages create major clicks and pops for me (on iPad, for what it's worth). I did some de-clicking in Izotope RX to address this, and reported it as a bug. But if anyone knows any workarounds, I'd love to know.
  • I find the default reverb settings to be high for more staccato/percussive parts, so I dialed that back to ~20% on those parts. I'm assuming that Staffpad reverb is added onto the baked-in reverb of the samples, but I haven't actually done careful testing of this yet.
  • In many of the tracks, I was running into some pretty clunky dynamic level shifts, often between mp and mf. I'm finding it better to just stick to one of those levels, usually. The sounds are good enough that I can make it work, but the line between barely audible and way over the top can be pretty fiddly to figure out, particularly for brass and percussion parts.
  • So far, I haven't fully explored the percussion options, and that still feels easier to handle in a DAW. I might go back and add some more complex percussion to this piece, whether in Cubase or SP. But I'd love to hear/see any percussion-heavy pieces created in Staffpad.
Click to expand...

Nice track!

Yeah, the volume differences between mp / mf and the short vs long notes drive me nuts. It's my biggest complaint. Izotope is the way to go for sure for click removal. Sometimes I remove some of the baked-in reverbs as well, although this has mixed results.

For a percussion-heavy example, you can check out the Jabberwocky score walkthrough @ 4:46 above or here. Cineperc has nice effects, although I prefer the standard orchestra percussion from Berlin and Spitfire. It's great having the options!
 
jaredarnold said:
Most if not all of the tracks with significant legato/slurred passages create major clicks and pops for me (on iPad, for what it's worth). I did some de-clicking in Izotope RX to address this, and reported it as a bug. But if anyone knows any workarounds, I'd love to know.
Click to expand...
Do you have an example of a line with clicks? There's probably nothing that can be done but it might be worth seeing exactly what you mean.
 
brandowalk said:
For a percussion-heavy example, you can check out the Jabberwocky score walkthrough @ 4:46 above or here. Cineperc has nice effects, although I prefer the standard orchestra percussion from Berlin and Spitfire. It's great having the options!
Click to expand...
Nice, thanks for sharing. I like how the big bass drums hits and crashes sound, does not feel canned to my ear.

sundrowned said:
Do you have an example of a line with clicks? There's probably nothing that can be done but it might be worth seeing exactly what you mean.
Click to expand...
Yes, I've attached 15 seconds of the first violin section playing a melody with a few pretty obvious glitches/clicks. After looking into it a little further, I think that some of the issues I'm experiencing are coming from sudden jumps in the dynamic automation. E.g., if I have a whole note in bar 1 at mp, then start a faster legato passage in bar 2 at mf, that can cause an issue at the transition point. I had assumed that that kind of thing would be smoothed out automatically, but maybe not. In any case, Staffpad support responded quickly and are looking into it.
 

Attachments

  • Staffpad Violin Melody Glitches.mp3
    550.4 KB
jaredarnold said:
After looking into it a little further, I think that some of the issues I'm experiencing are coming from sudden jumps in the dynamic automation. E.g., if I have a whole note in bar 1 at mp, then start a faster legato passage in bar 2 at mf, that can cause an issue at the transition point. I had assumed that that kind of thing would be smoothed out automatically, but maybe not. In any case, Staffpad support responded quickly and are looking into it.
Click to expand...
One of the things to be aware of is Staffpad plays back legato by default, even without a slur marking. This can cause issues with dynamic changes. One of the workarounds is to put a small rest between notes of different dynamic markings to force it not to play the notes connected. It does mess up the notation but can produce better playback.

I did a few variations of the first phrase below. It's probably not how you've notated this at all, I was just trying to make an approximate guess. The second variation is probably closest.
I also put two variations at the end without a rest. The first one the rhythm goes out a bit, the second one isn't too bad but there's a slightly odd attack on the repeated G. Also on some playbacks it did click, which is also a known thing. Worth noting that the slurs aren't affecting playback. It would playback the same without them.

View attachment Staffpad 2023-06-16 21-36-27-1.mp4

Often you have to mess around with the notation a bit like this to get better results. If you want show me your notated version and I'll see how it plays back for me.

(on Windows there are ways of modifying how notation is interpreted by Staffpad but that's a whole other saga documented in a few threads on here)
 
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