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Tim Thompson's XV Orchestra
The bonus selection "Grand Overture" (and Tim's entire second music album "Forestdale - Tone Poems Inspired by Nature") is performed by the powerful XV Orchestra. The "XV" in the name stands for "Xtremely Virtual" a term which describes the orchestra perfectly because, in fact, there are NO musicians (other than Tim), no instruments, no concert hall, etc. It is a musical production system where everything takes place in virtual reality and is recorded as acoustical sound for delivery in any number of formats, including audio CD and MP3 files.
The core of the system-- that which produces the raw musical tones-- is the flagship ROLAND XV-5080 Sound Module Synthesizer, an electronic marvel so powerful it is controlled by a separate computer and musical keyboard. Its appearance is deceptive-- it looks like a box with lights-- a piece of stereo equipment-- but "under the hood" is the heart of a musical giant. This signature synthesizer has thousands of tones sampled from real instruments-- as well as unique electronic voices and even programmable ones!
In and of itself, the Roland XV-5080 cannot produce a note of music, although it contains thousands of musical tones. To get these tones out of the instrument, one has to connect a separate musical keyboard and/or other control device. Which leads to the next part of the system that makes up the XV Orchestra-- the musical keyboard and computer controllers.
The XV Orchestra is "played" by both a musical keyboard and a computer. The musical keyboard is where Tim performs some musical selections or lines (just as any keyboard player would do) on the XV-5080. This provides an "instant" performance which would be fine in a concert, but is not yet virtual because it isn't being "captured". To get this "capture", a new part of the XV Orchestra comes into play, the computer and its musical software.
The XV Orchestra uses a Macintosh G4 computer running MOTU's (Mark of the Unicorn) Digital Performer music studio software. This powerful program is able to capture a live performance on the XV-5080 not only as an audio performance, but also in real musical time (via a MIDI interface) thus preserving a musical keyboard performance as a series of digital control signals. So Tim's performance can be played by the computer, instead of Tim himself. It's similar to the way a "player piano" works by capturing a piano performance on a paper roll.
Obviously, in an orchestral performance, Tim could not possibly play all the instruments at the same time-- no one could. But that's where DP3 comes in thanks to MIDI. MIDI allows Tim to lay down "tracks", a series of discrete simultaneous musical events. These tracks, when played back (like the tracks on a tape recorder) then control the XV-5080, making it play many simultaneous musical lines. There are many musical tracks Tim can "lay down" (Up to 32 simultaneous tracks at a time). So, one track may play a piano part, another track plays a flute part, another a violin part, and so on. When the tracks are played back together, you hear all the instruments playing together -- something called a "polyphonic performance". And, of course, the sound occurs in full stereo.
Digital Performer also allows Tim to control his musical score directly from the computer keyboard. In fact, Tim doesn't even have to play the notes on his musical keyboard, he can write them directly into the musical score (just as any composer would do) in Digital Performer and it will play them back exactly as he notated them-- as if he actually performed them.
All this gets the musical "nuts and bolts down" for a composition, and by building the musical arrangement, track by track, Tim creates those wonderful polyphonic layers that are so much a part of his rich musical style. The Roland XV-5080 plays them back in what is now a performance that no single musical keyboard player could possibly achieve. In essence, there are many "virtual" musicians playing the music. This is the XV Orchestra. And like any orchestra, it relies on a conductor.
Tim can switch hats from player and composer to conductor. He can go into the digital musical score and adjust it. He can switch out instruments -- maybe make an oboe line be played by a flute, he can adjust the actual volume of every single note, accenting some, softening others, adjust the timing of every note, making some "hold" or sustain, while making others sound short and sharply and so on. Thanks to this "Virtual Orchestral" approach, as a conductor, Tim has control over every nuance of the music, and Digital Performer "remembers" these instructions and passes them on to the Roland XV-5080 for performance. This allows tremendous musical precision. The XV Orchestra is now being conducted, instead of just playing.
The final part of the XV Orchestra is the audio capture, post processing and playback. This is similar to what happens in a music studio with live musicians. In a studio session, one may find that some instruments are too loud, or soft, they may need a light reverb added to bring out their line and so on. The audio engineer-- the person who makes the final "mix" for the recording--manages all this while building a final "mix down".
Tim can do the same thing with the XV Orchestra after Digital Performer makes an audio recording of the performance of the Roland XV-5080. It can do this on many audio tracks (for example, one track per instrument) and play them back in a stereo mix down. The result is a record of the XV-5080 performance. Tim can put on his "audio engineer's" hat and do MORE work with the composition. He can adjust the placement of ANY musical instrument within the stereo space (right-left placement), add sonic effects (filters, equalization, trim, reverb, etc.). Finally, when Tim is satisfied with the results, he can send the entire mix of audio tracks to a standard 2-channel stereo audio file. This completes the XV Orchestra, giving it it's final sound or Timbre.
The XV Orchestra is more than a single instrument or performance, it is a system of instruments, control devices and software working together under the composer's watchful eye to create a truly Virtual experience-- that "Xtremely Virtual" musical reality and sound.
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