This video is captures a performance of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 (Prelude) on Embertone Blakus Cello (a virtual instrument for Kontakt Player 5).
Here’s a collection of additional audio demos of Blakus Cello:
Details on Blakus Cello are available at the Embertone site.
Check it out and let us know what you think of the state of solo virtual cello!
Getting closer, but it still sounds canned. The articulation is kind of stiff and uniform
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Double bassist here, agree with above. The note transitions are just a little distinct for me, but holy hell is that better than the double bass patch on my old Roland GM module 🙂
I think this would sound 10x more realistic as part of a virtual string quartet where the note separation was not so obvious.
Errrrr, cello patch. Had double bass on the mind.
Pardon my ignorance but could any of the classically trained musicians here explain why is the performance so uneven. To what degree is it allowed to deviate from the tempo? After all it is not a gypsy dance or a blues.
I’m asking because it was a long time ago but I remember my piano teacher berate me for playing Bethoven sonata unevenly when I tried to imitate this style of playing.
Well actually all of the Cello suites by J.S. Bach are dances. Rubato is a key element in interpretation of these pieces. So playing it straight and metronomic won’t cut it as a good performance. One thing to keep in mind with Bach interpretation is that Bach left little or no articulation and tempo markings, so a lot of performance ideas of his music came way after his death and are just opinions of how it should be done. Bach may not be a gypsy dance or the blues, but his dance suites still have much in common with those forms – the Sarabande was a dance that came from Mexico. Some of the first New World cross cultural influence on European music.
Most music teachers want you to get the notes and rhythm right before you take liberties with interpreting the tempo and articulation. 😉
Thank you for the elaborate answer. This somewhat clear ups things for me.
I think this is massively missing the sympathetic resonance you get when playing a multi-stringed instrument, so a lot of Bach’s clever implicit chords are lost as a result.
As the source recording is a done by a microphone that captures all the strings, even though only one is touched, there’s not that much difference from an actual performance I’d say.
Sarabande’s are not from México they’re from Spain
This sounds very, very realistic. Also listen to the SoundCloud track, sounds very fluent and expressive as well. Quite a high quality – cost effective solution I’d say for the many composers among us that have to work against tight deadlines, it’s so much work to call in a session player, record, mix… Embertone claims on their website to have used ‘true legato’, a technique in which every seperate note transition to another is actually recorded, instead of seperate samples being triggered after each other. That’s why the note transitions sound so natural – I disagree with spacemod and idb. I think they did a great job here.
The Bach Youtube video isn’t the best demo of the Blackus Cello.
IMHO, there’s way better demos in the SoundCloud playlist… with better realistic attacks and transitions!