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Realistic Cello for Live Theater Production


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Hi everyone,

 

I've been asked to play the entire cello part in a pit orchestra for a Broadway production this coming year, as the company is having difficulty finding a skilled cellist that can make the two-hour plus drive to all the rehearsals. The cello has a lot of solo parts and exposed sections and is a main instrument. The musical director likes the Motif XF cello sound above the others I have, so that will likely be the base tone. However, there are a ton of different articulations throughout the music, including glisses, bends, spicatto, pizzicato, arco, trills, vibrato, quickly-repeated bow phrases, and assorted sound effects that I can't describe. All played originally by one cello. The job is conditional on replicating as many of those as possible, as if I can't they'll still try and find someone else but it's going to get really expensive quickly for them (nightly rehearsals for a week with the nearest other town with good musicians being two hours away and with winter roads, five-six performances over four days).

 

If you had the following gear available for live usage in combination or alone, how would you go about replicating the cello as realistically as possible with articulations in a live theater performance situation? Anyone gotten a good result?

 

Yamaha Motif XF8

Korg Krome 61

Roland JV-1000

Yamaha YS200 FM synth

Yamaha PSR-295 keyboard/YPG-235 (essentially the same board in different sizes)

Yamaha PSS-470 FM keyboard

 

I don't have a way to do a laptop running a vst like EastWest Symphonic or Hollywood Solo Cello (looks awesome though!) etc for this at all. No suitable laptop or interface and I'm not really planning on shelling out >$150 for a plugin for a one-time gig.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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The musical director likes the Motif XF cello sound above the others I have.

 

I guess you have your answer then. ;)

 

For the base tone, yes. For programming and playing techniques to play articulations, not so much. I"m hoping some of the people here have suggestions as to ways to achieve these. I may need to use a second keyboard for certain articulations, which is why I listed everything I can take out live. Maybe someone has used one of those boards and gotten a good result for certain articulations. Sorry if I somehow wasn"t clear about that. Thanks.

 

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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He's just said that VSTs are out of the question.

 

Max, the JV might be of use in this situation. You should get the orchestral expansion card for it (SR-JV80-02 or maybe SR-JV80-16). I play a JV-90 keyboard every week in church and it has the 02 orchestral expansion. It has quite a number of string patches - solo cello, small cello section, larger cello section - and with different articulations too.

 

Here's a few resources:

https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/ORCH_P.pdf

https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/ORCH_W.pdf

http://www.synthmania.com/sr-jv80-02.htm

 

Heck, I could maybe even sell that card to you :) Although I'd have to check how much it is used in the perfs I created for church - and I have no idea how I'd ship it from Hungary. Check Ebay too.

Life is subtractive.
Genres: Jazz, funk, pop, Christian worship, BebHop
Wishlist: 80s-ish (synth)pop, symph pop, prog rock, fusion, musical theatre
Gear: NS2 + JUNO-G. KingKORG. SP6 at church.

 

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