Express yourself AND your music with MIDI CC11

In this episode, Alex will pull the trick to challenge you: Are you able to distinguish a live instrument from programmed samples? And how can YOU program your MIDI phrases so lively and originally that they sound realistic? Alex is going to provide you insights into what MIDI CC11 actually is and does, and how it can help you add more expression and musicality to your MOCKUP. And at the end of day… that exploring CC11 can be a lot of fun!

Virtual Orchestration is a collaboration between Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA) and Orchestral Tools (Berlin, Germany).

A big warm thank you to Clara Baesecke and her cello 🎻 for supporting us on this episode.

Assets used in the video:
SFX :

Air Whoosh

Video creation credits:

Script / video concept 📜 : Alex Lamy, Eduard Flemmer
Script Consultation 🔍: Sascha Knorr, Hendrik Schwarzer
Camera 🎥 and Editing ✂️ : Fabián Barba Hallal
Motion graphics 🎨 : Michael Logar
Production Assistant 🎬 : Aleksi Oksanen

[farnaztabatabaee]

One of the best videos about CCs!Thank you!

[ChiefZika]

Educational stuff, thank you! I've been pondering the exact question of why one should even bother with CC11, thinking it was just a glorified volume knob.
AND IT IS! But the neat thing I've learned is that adding dynamics to your dynamics makes things more... DYNAMIC. I'll see myself out.

[lionelhobden]

Thanks for including a real cellist in there too!

[yaroslav_kniazev]

Hello guys.

Thank you for another informative lesson ! 🤝

Regards, Yaroslav.

[timoram]

Thanks a lot for this episode, it was a very informative video, amazingly produced (all these super clear and legible animations must have taken an insane time to create them) and also tremendously fun to watch and re-watch! It's a really enlightening and merry journey with this series, I like a lot its concise, clear and entertaining style and I've been making a lot of progress thanks to these videos, kudos to everyone for producing them :-)

[Roland_Geyer]

Thank you very much for passing on valuable knowledge, which I can apply in my compositions 👍👍

[rodterrell]

Thanks for the information and for the treat at the end, The cellist is tremendous, and shows that there is nothing like the human feel. But what you showed us about the Midi CC, s really helps.

[jona]

Was just about to say, her playing just sounds very midi for some reason haha. Glad to know i am not yet completely deaf despite all the decibels.

[jjstannard]

Apologies if this has been answered further down - which sample library are you using here? Great video!

[BrettWMcCoy]

The one giveaway at the end versus the beginning... you can hear Clara's fingers tapping the fingerboard and you can hear her breathing :-) That was missing from the opening section that used samples.

I love using CC11, it really helps to shape the phrasing independent of the note dynamics.

[EVDMcomposer]

Thank you for this detailed episode! I'm still learning to find that balance between my expr. and dynamics, but this video should make it easier to get there.

Also, will you make a video regarding the different EQ's on samples? For example what to listen to when equalizing strings to eliminate unwanted frequencies that build up in your final mix ect.

[enderjed]

If I remember correctly, the SWAM virtual instruments heavily rely on MIDI CC11.

[MisterDelay]

Thanks for the video!

Is CC11 really just volume? Doesn’t it sometimes as well control vibrato?

[The_Rock_That_Floats]

Great stuff here, well done!

I feel like a video covering time signatures would fit the series quite well. Just a suggestion ;)

[dentReviews]

great video. great production quality. although i'd change camera angles less. it gets distracting...

[martijnvanbeek]

Thanks for this creative lessen!
I have a question as to programming the MC-8 in Garageband. Can’t seem to assign the CC 1 and CC11 to adjacent faders in GB. Anyone who can answer this question?

[sroulyfrank]

What is the name of this midi controller? Thanks!

[dpixvid]

So... what midi controller was that? The throw looked decent like 40mm?

[stevenmccormackmusic]

Your sustained notes all look like they overlap in the piano roll slightly. Can you please explain the reasoning and how much should we overlap them by?

[ClaudeWernerMusic]

This video has a lot of problems. In many, many libraries CC11 controls expression and CC1 controls things like vibrato, In other it's used for patches. Libraries like VSL allow you to customize what they do, with CC2 for expression for example. Since this is an educational video, a side note should've been mentioned.