Timpani

[rrayner]

My efforts at scoring for timpani, so far, have yielded very poor results. I want to do the equivalent of a drum roll on timpani, but it come out very rat-a-tat sounding, even when I play it on my midi.

Are there some tips to writing electronic music timpani parts?

Ralph

[Sherry C]

Howdy Ralph,

I'm sure others will have tips as well. One thing that I've found that helps in the realistic sound is to actually skip a hit here and there for the really fast rolls. This can be accomplished either by (1) manually entering the notes first (eg. using a mouse) and then deleting some here and there, or (2) more convincingly, by recording the roll "live" using two fingers on two keys of your MIDI keyboard. You can record to two different staves (as if you were recording a two-hand piano piece), adjust the pitches of the notes in the one staff to match the other staff (to get the pitch correct for the timpani) and then merge the two staves into a single staff. If you don't think you can record it at tempo, then you can change the tempo while recording to something really slow so you are comfortable with the roll, and then speed up the performance when you're done recording.

Have fun
Sherry

[rrayner]

Thanks, Sherry. I'll dig into your suggestions on Thursday. Got to travel today and tomorrow. It occurred to me after the fact that I should have included some samples of what I've tried. The Timpani Test.not is a) whole note w/tremelo; and b) 64th note quintuplets. The TIMPANI.mid was created on my midi using a) 16th notes; and b) 16th note triplets. I note that my midi created a Ctrl32 of 112, whereas my .not files are Ctrl 0 for GS Wavetable. This sounds a little better on my PC's sound card and marginally better on my Clavinova (midi).

Ralph

[dj]

Hi, Ralph, Sherry:

I've always found that success with synthesized tympani depends very largely on the playback source.

Many synths (especially PC soundcard synths) have very limited polyphony and cut off the decay of a note when a new one is triggered, even in polyphonic mode. Therefore, a tympani roll will have no residual "roll" when a second (or later) note is triggered. Sufficient polyphony, good samples and a bit of reverb go a long way.

It also helps to use two playback tracks, with each track on a different midi channel, alternating the notes so that notes don't cut each other off.

When Wendy Carlos (Switched On Bach) did the score for A Clockwork Orange, the astonishing quality of her tympani sounds for the William Tell Overture track won great praise. Years later, she admitted that she had simply rolled some real tympani into the studio and recorded them live. Is it cheating to use "real" instruments on an electronic track?

David