KVR Audio

TyIox · Post by **TyIox** » Mon Aug 05, 2019 1:53 pm

Hello!

Im a musician and still new to the whole virtual music world. In my last year of school, I'm planning on writing a backing track with virtual instruments together with marimba. Since I'm new to all of this, it's gonna be real difficult to get everything in order. Now I want to use this as a subject of my master thesis, but finding a good research is quite difficult with almost no experience.
So does anyone know of a good starting point for this exploratory research?

Thanks!

Link to a piece in the same context: https://youtu.be/qyznXLRWzhg

Forgotten · Post by **Forgotten** » Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:18 pm

Could your thesis cover the history of virtual instruments? Probably shouldn't limit it to VST though, as there are other formats too. You could go back to the early 90s when Steinberg and Apple produced the first instruments and look at the development since then. Maybe even go back to the roots of MIDI and look at how that influenced the development of virtual instruments.

TyIox · Post by **TyIox** » Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:57 pm

It definitely will cover history. As I said I'm new to this stuff so any directions to some good sources are welcome. I really like the idea of going back midi so I will take a look at that.
Which would you say are the most important outside of VST?

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Mon Aug 05, 2019 11:26 pm

TyIox wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:57 pm Which would you say are the most important outside of VST?

AudioUnits (AU) on macOs is probably the second most used plugin format. But I wouldn't consider the plugin formats themselves that interesting or relevant. The sounds and the user interfaces are not really based on those. Apart from some minor differences, you can develop pretty much the same plugin for VST2, VST3, AU, AAX (for ProTools) etc...Or you could potentially use the same code to do a stand alone application or even a hardware based product.

Forgotten · Post by **Forgotten** » Tue Aug 06, 2019 12:55 am

MIDI really paved the way for the development of audio plugins, so that might be the real start of their history.

I'm pretty sure you could research the history of MIDI, DAWs and plugin formats on the web and find a lot of useful resources.

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Tue Aug 06, 2019 6:41 am

Regarding to your example, I‘d rather look at the history of electronic music on an academic level. Look for what the 4X at Ircam was capable of and how one would do that today with VSTs. Also look into percussion controllers. The electronic sounds in the video do not add too much to that virtuoso performance. One could do much more interesting stuff regarding electronics...
Live electronics are way more interesting than a backing track btw...

TyIox · Post by **TyIox** » Tue Aug 06, 2019 12:06 pm

Tj Shredder wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 6:41 am Regarding to your example, I‘d rather look at the history of electronic music on an academic level. Look for what the 4X at Ircam was capable of and how one would do that today with VSTs. Also look into percussion controllers. The electronic sounds in the video do not add too much to that virtuoso performance. One could do much more interesting stuff regarding electronics...
Live electronics are way more interesting than a backing track btw...

Thanks for the info! But if I go live electronics, I will need external players as this is not viable for a percussion performance for the exam. I also think the two are so different from each other in composing, because I would love to use 'real' instruments to be played in the backing track (Actually a lot different than the video I linked). I will take a look at what you suggested though, the more I know, the better.

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:02 pm

Are you going to play the Marimba yourself?
To do live electronics does not need to incorporate additional external players btw. Like in the video the guy played some extra percussion, you could trigger effects or short snippets with a controller...

TyIox · Post by **TyIox** » Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:14 pm

Tj Shredder wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:02 pm Are you going to play the Marimba yourself?
To do live electronics does not need to incorporate additional external players btw. Like in the video the guy played some extra percussion, you could trigger effects or short snippets with a controller...

I'm indeed playing the piece myself (also playing that one from the video). That's actually a good idea, maybe some battle between the sounds playing by the track and the sounds I play on a controller.

SparkySpark · Post by **SparkySpark** » Thu Aug 22, 2019 9:56 pm

I work as a university lecturer and have supervised some master theses (in IT, not music, but I've written a BA thesis and an MA thesis in musicology). I'd be happy to help but what is the thesis going to be about? I am not sure what the history of virtual instruments has to do with anything... or your marimba playing for that matter. Not saying you are doing anything wrong but I don't get what you want to do really.

...or what you need help with from the community.

It would also help to know if you are doing a thesis in musicology or if it's some kind of exam performance project for your music education.

I watched the video and as always I am thoroughly impressed by how you marimba guys manage to hit the right keys/blocks with the mallets!

hannesmenzel · Post by **hannesmenzel** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:08 am

Hi, are you still on this? What graduate level is this for and even more interesting, in which discipline?

I would agree that a thesis on vst would be difficult, taking into account that this is a standard of dynamic software libraries, that holds some information like number of inputs and so on. Maybe you could specify your interest, maybe youre interested in digital signal processing, maybe in sound synthesis or on the cultural implications of digital music production?

Starting point for thesis about VST