EastWest Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition Virtual Instrument Plug-In (Download) User Manual
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HOLLYWOOD ORCHESTRA OPUS EDITION
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CHAPTER 4: PLAY
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Prepping MIDI CCs
After loading an instrument, it is recommended that you send MIDI CC messages to Opus
before the first notes are played, especially CC 1 (Mod Wheel) and CC 11 (Expression).
With MIDI CCs mapped to your MIDI controller, that means tweaking the knobs, sliders,
and/or wheels. If writing MIDI CCs directly into a sequencer, a short sloped envelope can
be drawn for each MIDI CC before the start of the first notes.
The focus of the next section will be on using the most common MIDI CCs, including
CC 1 (Mod Wheel), CC 7 (Volume), and CC 11 (Expression), as well as MIDI Note Ve-
locity, since it is also used to control loudness and/or dynamics (even though it is not
technically a MIDI CC).
Volume, Velocity, and Expression
There are at least three ways to make sampled instruments sound louder, or at least
make the real instrument seem to have been played louder.
Volume is just the loudness of a sound. Changing volume is basically the same as turning
the volume knob on your audio system. For instance, violas played softly can be cranked
up; a loud cello section can be turned way down.
Volume can be adjusted mid-note; that is, the listener can experience a crescendo or
diminuendo for a held note, and as with a live orchestra, the various instruments are
changing their loudness independently.
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MOD WHEEL (CC 1)
implementation depends on the library and instrument type.
Instruments that feature independent control of both dynamics and vibrato (Holly-
wood Orchestra Strings and Woodwinds Opus Edition), CC 11 (Expression) controls
overall loudness and dynamics, while CC 1 (Mod Wheel) controls vibrato amount.
In other cases, such as the LITE instruments in Hollywood Orchestra Strings Opus
Edition, CC 11 (Expression) controls overall loudness, while CC 1 (Mod Wheel) han-
dles both dynamics and vibrato simultaneously. In yet other cases, instruments with
‘MOD’ in their name use the controller to switch between articulations.
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VOLUME (CC 7)
is best used to set the overall upper limit on the volume of each track
in the mix, relative to each of the other tracks, as opposed to shaping an individual
musical line of an instrument as achieved with Expression (CC 11).
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EXPRESSION (CC 11)
is typically used to control overall loudness, or both overall loud-
ness and dynamics simultaneously, an approach that can achieve a realistic, expres-
sive sound. Expression (CC 11) can provide the kind of dynamic shaping of notes to
create swells in the middle of a note, or over the course of a phrase, creating cre-
scendos and fluid dynamics. CC 11 affects overall loudness across all instruments,
but you will generally find CC 11 used to cross-fade dynamics on long, sustained
instruments that can benefit from mid-note changes.
FOR MORE:
3.2.5 How to Produce Realistic Performances