The JWFan Guide to Orchestral Sampling

[Uni 306]

All right, people . . . I'm tired of standing on the outside of the circle. I've been composing the old-fashioned way for a while now, but secretly I've also been curious about the mysterious art of composition by sampling along the way. I don't know anything about it. I don't even know how to start knowing what I don't know about it. What I do know is that I'd like to know more.

So here's the chance for you experts (and even those of you who'd like to feel like you're experts, because I won't know any better, will I?) to show off your knowledge to the rest of us.

Let's start with the tools. What kind of software is out there? Is there any free to download for simpleton starters? What're the higher-end packages like? How do you go about getting instruments and sounds? How much memory does this kind of thing take up? What can someone who's semi-serious about the pursuit expect to spend in the long and short run?

How about the process? What's involved in creating a piece from scratch? Do you use MIDI or straight point-and-click methods? Do some of these programs allow you to input by notation or chord names?

Where else might we go to learn more? Are there tutorials online for this kind of thing? Dummies books? Rosetta Stone CDs?

Feel free to answer any of these questions, or any one of the hundred more I couldn't think of. The floor is open. The seminar has begun.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

I'd like to know too.

... nothing else worthwhile to contribute.

[karelm 2,903]

I could have sworn this topic has come up before but perhaps that was on a different message board. First I would say what is your intent? Is it to be a pro or a hobbyist? That's a big factor. One can't be a golf pro if you show up with JCPenny clubs. If your intent is to have fun, by all means that is sufficient and encouraged. If you are a pro composer, you probably won't have a 1980's era computer or sample library. If you are a hobbyist that might suffice. You don't need to have a million dollar system but there is a basic level of skill and tool set that is needed as a pro. For me, i use a lot of cinesamples, East West, LA scoring strings, Berlin, kontakt, etc. These products come up all the time with most working composers. I know a lot of people get good results with default Logic libraries and add a few extras as the job demands.

As for my process, I am pretty old school. I have a Yamaha s90es keyboard which is weighted and full length piano keyboard. I tend to sketch with piano and paper. I am not a great pianist but have sufficient skills to get my ideas out which is the key. Some use a guitar or voice instead. If you require a synth to do that, just as well. Some can sing better than me and don't need a keyboard at all so to each their own. The sketches are flushed out on paper first then I use Sibelius to arrange, notate and orchestrate it. From my point of view, the orchestration is clear before I get to the notation of it in my head. I don't mean to say I am a mystical genius but rather than it is intuitive if you have the knowledge and training. Structure is vitally important to me and that is easier for me to do on paper. I like to see the big picture so I might print it all out and fix as I go along. If the music is for a film or video game, I will first create spotting notes, then a tempo map. If it is a concert piece, I will first create a large scale plan or structural diagram. If you are interested I can take a picture and send but it basically means that before I have written a note, I know what the point of the note is and how it fits into the large scale plan. Sometimes I work backwards. For example, I might score the climax of the movie first or the end of the concert piece and then backtrack to the start. This is a personal approach and others might go chronologically. I just feel I need to know where the piece is going by knowing how it ends up.

Sometimes I work on an elaborate project for another composer. Attention to detail is a vital part of the job. For example, right now I am transcribing an hour long cantata for large orchestra and chorus for a late composer. There are a million notes so focus and attention to specific detail is a valuable skill. You might ask why am I then on jwfan.com wasting so much time? It is actually schedule "off time" to rest the eyes so to speak. Sort of like session musicians play for 50 minutes each hour then get 10 minute break. Don't let the break turn into an hour!! Pacing is VERY important part of the job. There are some projects that are EXTREMELY intense schedule wise. The sense of urgency is hard to describe but suffice it to say I am unable to afford bathroom time in these desperate moments. Probably more than you wanted to know. The jobs might be super desirable but you don't feel it until the job has ended and you realize "darn...it's over, that was fun".

Since I have to orchestrate for other composers, I use both Finale and Sibelius. I have to be fluent in their tool. When you're not working you need to be learning. You have to be sufficiently skilled that you know what to do immediately without wasting the precious time when on the job. This doesn't mean that I am a master of all thinks with these tools but rather that when I am not on a gig, I have to brush up on obscure skills for theses tools. I was trained in Finale but have become rusty at it and prefer Sibelius for my own projects. The reason isn't because it is better than the other but rather since it is faster for me. Both are highly functional tools of the trade.

If I need to demo the score, I then export the notated score to sequencer which has nice sample libraries. I have a default template with about 120 samples. This is adjusted for the project but it is the default I use. Reverb and EQ are pre-set for me as a default. I then add musicality to the midi such as quantizing, mod wheel, etc. If the score will never be performed by an orchestra, then I might skip the notation part except where I produce a "dictionary" of the themes used in the project and have it readily available for me.

Sometimes if you are demoing the project to a non-musical person, I might hire a soloist to liven the demo and play on top of the mockup. Some people have sufficient skill to produce outstanding mockups but my time is best spent elsewhere. I hope this helped because I too had these questions.

[Datameister 2,037]

Others could answer this better than I can, but I do have some input. If your intent is to produce an audio file that can stand on its own as a listenable piece of music, you'll typically need a DAW (digital audio workstation), some sample libraries, and some VSTs for things like equalization, reverb, compression, and so forth. Many DAWs come with some basic samples and VSTs.

There are lots of DAW software package - Cubase, Logic, and Pro Tools are good examples - but the one I'd recommend for any beginner is REAPER. It comes as a fully-functional trial version, and then you can pay an insanely low price to keep using (and upgrading) it if you like it. I started with REAPER and never felt the need to try anything more expensive. Most DAWs, including REAPER, are fundamentally very similar.

One of the similarities they share is the ability to create music via multiple methods. You can typically import MIDI files from, say, music notation software like Finale or Sibelius...you can enter things note by note on a "piano roll" screen...or you can hook up a MIDI instrument and record yourself playing the individual parts. That last one is my personal preference, though I always go in and tweak the performance afterward, since it's all stored in the DAW as MIDI data.

As far as sample libraries go, the sky is the limit in terms of quality and quantity...and cost. This is where things start getting pricey. REAPER is a great piece of very affordable software, but you can't do much without high-quality sample libraries. These can easily run up into the thousands for a single library, unfortunately. ProjectSAM, EWQL, and Audiobro are some examples of companies that produce very decent-sounding libraries. But ultimately, it still requires a keen ear and a lot of patience to get things right.

There's a whole universe of VSTs out there, too, but one I'd definitely recommend - and again, this is pricey, I'm afraid - is Altiverb. It's a great reverb VST for realistically simulating the ambiances of lots of different recording environments.

Hopefully that's enough to get the ball rolling!

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Well these folks have covered some of the basics so I will incoherently rant.

I have a very prickly relationship with this whole art form (and I do believe that creating virtual performances can be an art). Why? Because I am not a computer person at all. It's taken me years to get past the learning curve that goes with all of this. But I had to. You can't just be a composer anymore. You have to be a producer. Even if you don't have professional aspirations - even more so actually, since you almost definitely won't hear what you write any other way. And over the years I've tried my hand at pretty much every library out there, and slowly but surely grown to hate each one. They're shackles really. It's like trying to create a beautiful painting using Polaroids of small pieces of someone else's painting. It's maddening. Maddening! But... it's gotten better. I will say that it's a good idea to not be dazzled by the demos of many higher end libraries. Often you can achieve the same effect with "lesser" software but with more effort. In another thread I discussed the setup that I've settled on, and I'm pleased with it, finally. But the real key has ended up not being the price tag on the library, but how I treat the sounds....

I've said it before: a good mockup doesn't depend on the sounds being used, but how musically they're being used. The right method with old general MIDI sounds from a Yamaha keyboard will sound better than the wrong method with the latest big name library. If you enter notes by step, it's going to sound mechanical and like shit. If you then tweak things to add realism, it's going to sound somewhat less mechanical and you're going to have a huge headache after staring at your computer screen for hours on end. If you have the piano skills and patience, then you should absolutely play the parts in real time. Hook up your MIDI keyboard and expression controllers, load up your DAW, and play. Play, play, play. Play with yourself. This alone transforms a mockup performance, raises it to an exceptional level, whether you're using Garritan's cheapo stuff or you've dropped tens of thousands of dollars on VSL's stuff (both of which I would avoid, by the way). So performance, that's key. The human element must be there.

Also something I notice in a lot of younger composers' stuff that really kills the quality is lack of attention to spatialization. An orchestra exists in three dimensions, with all sorts of acoustical interactions going on. You've gotta simulate this, and well. Avoid using tons of effects and plugins (EQ, compressors, etc.), at least in a surgical way (coloring the overall sound with EQ or harmonic saturation is cool). The things they're used for when dealing with non-orchestral music are things that, when dealing with orchestral music, should happen in the composition phase. Don't EQ something because it sounds weak. Orchestrate it better. Don't compress that flute or boost its fader all the way up because its dainty solo isn't coming through against the full brass. Stop writing like a dope. Write well, write well, damn it! Ahem... point is, with orchestral music, 90% of the "mixing" should happen when you write and orchestrate the damn thing.

Approach it all like you would the real thing. Get the instruments themselves sounding good. Learn how to play them in nuanced ways. Then put everything in a "space." Perform the piece. Bounce to audio. Master the audio with whatever your preferred method is to get your own "sound." And there you have it.

Yes this whole subject drives me mad. But I've gotten good at it. If you write music for fun and want to hear it, it's an invaluable tool. If you write music for more than fun and want other people to hear it without having to drop huge fees on performers before you have enough clout around town to justify doing so, it's an invaluable tool. If you're working on something with zero music budget, it's an invaluable tool.

I'd also just like to take this opportunity to say... fuck Kontakt.

To some of your other questions though. There are a handful of free resources for this sort of thing, many of them very usable. The higher end stuff is... high end. Overall I've not found that price determines whether or not the key test will be passed: can I listen, and hear the music, rather than paying attention to the sounds making the music? You go about getting instruments and sounds by seeking out libraries, or making your own if you're very adventurous. There's not much that isn't available already though. A lot of these things can be very CPU-hungry so you will need a sturdy machine. Assuming you don't own any components other than a computer so far, I think you might be looking at about $200-$300 for hardware, maybe less, and maybe in the ballpark of $500 for software, probably more. This is trying to be conservative about it.

[Jay 37,287]

Some of these might help

Orchestral Sample libraries

Official JWFan mock ups and fan-made recordings thread!

New Revolutionary Realistic(?) Violins Sample Library

simple sample libraries.

The Official Mock-up/Production/Engineering Tips Thread

[KK 3,307]

There isn't anything I can add to what's been posted above. But I guess I could say a few things about how I do it at the moment.

I used to do it like you did. I sketch a piece on pencil and paper, then I fully orchestrate it on Finale. I had an affordable VST library hooked up to Finale, and let Finale do the work. It's a painful process though, aside from plugging each note by hand, one-by-one, controlling dynamics and trying to make the piece sound organic is difficult with just a notation program because there is very little flexibility in terms of sound.

Eventually, I came to my senses and decided to change up my mockup method. It's just impossible to get a respectable mockup without learning how to use a DAW. There's a big learning curve to it though, and I'm still learning but at least I don't I suck as much as I used to with it.

The writing process hasn't changed really. Still sit by the piano, sketch with pencil and paper, I orchestrate on the computer if I can. If it's for a short film with a tight deadline, I just make as many notes on my sketches and move on to the recording process. The only change is in the production stage. And it's like your recording sessions, where you treat your DAW as an orchestra.

I use Reaper because a friend recommended it to me, it's cheap and very accessible to beginners. Once you've mastered Reaper, you could move on to Cubase, which is more advanced but gives you more control. I've become too comfortable with Reaper (despite its occasional misgivings) to do that though. And then you have your sample libraries. I use a lot of stuff from cinesamples, which requires Kontakt to use, and that's the platform through which you play the instrument in the DAW. You then record all your different parts and move on to the mixing stage.

Once you have all those tools, honestly just play around with it. I don't think any one person can truly teach you how to use it because we all have our own ways of going about it. As long as you manage to get the sound you're going for, then it's all cool! For certain effects, I just rely on short youtube videos (plenty of Reaper tutorials), and I keep playing around with how much I can manipulate samples. And reverb is a good ally to have, though one should be careful not to overdo it.

And as TGP said, the costs do add up. You need a good computer with good RAM to run all this, and sample libraries, or at least the good ones, don't come cheap. And then again, it's a matter of what you're using it for right?

I don't think any of this helped, because the people above are far more experienced with mockups and sampling than I am. But just thought I'd pitch in anyway.

[Jilal 569]

To KK and Data: a question regarding the perilous marriage of REAPER and Kontakt. Is it OK if I were to load individual instances of Kontakt, each containing all or most of the articulations for each instrument (I use a maximum of two instances of Kontakt per instrument, e.g. Violin I - the divisi LASS library takes up quite some MIDI tracks), creating MIDI tracks routed to them and thus "bouncing" a project to audio when finished, or is it advised to create audio tracks routed to the Kontakt instances as well? I suppose the former is a lot more flexible when it comes to mixing, but I've heard the latter method being used as well.

[Jilal 569]

Also, does anyone here have any experience with VirtualSoundstage 2? I'm setting up my template with everything but the brass section sent through a combination of the aforementioned and Altiverb (CineBrass tends to sound very lousy when treated in the same way) as I think it vastly improves the overall sense of space, but I might just be sinning against some elementary rule of MIDI production.

As for my setup (at the moment):

Winds: Orchestral Tools - Berlin Woodwinds & a bit of Cinesamples - CineWinds (E-flat and bass clarinet and contrabassoon)

Brass: Cinesamples - CineBrass

Percussion: ProjectSAM - True Strike (1 & 2) & Spitfire - Percussion

Piano: Spitfire - Orchestral Grand Piano

Harp: ProjectSAM - Concert Harp & Cinesamples - CineHarp for ad lib. glissandi (great feature!) or as an additional harp

Synths: Zebra & Omnisphere 2 (synth glockenspiel, electric piano, etc.)

Strings: AudioBro LA Scoring Strings 2 (divisi setup) & a bit of Spitfire - Mural (for the col legno battuto, flautando and sul ponticello samples)

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

It's good. Some may curse it out in favor of SPAT or something else, but it's a powerful tool. It has some neat mic options too.

[Jilal 569]

Do you recommend using the standard EBS mic setup? I've dropped it in favor of the Decca tree as that's what's most used in Hollywood, anyway.

Also, how would I avoid phasing issues when using the same solo timpani samples to recreate the sound of two sets of timpani?

[karelm 2,903]

Also, does anyone here have any experience with VirtualSoundstage 2? I'm setting up my template with everything but the brass section sent through a combination of the aforementioned and Altiverb (CineBrass tends to sound very lousy when treated in the same way) as I think it vastly improves the overall sense of space, but I might just be sinning against some elementary rule of MIDI production.

As for my setup (at the moment):

Winds: Orchestral Tools - Berlin Woodwinds & a bit of Cinesamples - CineWinds (E-flat and bass clarinet and contrabassoon)

Brass: Cinesamples - CineBrass

Percussion: ProjectSAM - True Strike (1 & 2) & Spitfire - Percussion

Piano: Spitfire - Orchestral Grand Piano

Harp: ProjectSAM - Concert Harp & Cinesamples - CineHarp for ad lib. glissandi (great feature!) or as an additional harp

Synths: Zebra & Omnisphere 2 (synth glockenspiel, electric piano, etc.)

Strings: AudioBro LA Scoring Strings 2 (divisi setup) & a bit of Spitfire - Mural (for the col legno battuto, flautando and sul ponticello samples)

VirtualSoundStage2 helped me fix some issues of mixing so it's a nice tool for adding more 3D space and mixing samples into one stage. Don't overdo it. It colors the recordings so a little goes a long way. One example of how I used it was in an ultra low budget where I live recorded a player or two and mixed with samples then put them all on the stage gave pretty good results. For example, the high frequencies get absorbed quickly so a trumpet recorded up close would sound quite different far away (unlike just adding a lot of reverb to a close mic'ed trumpet which sounds like a close trumpet in a big room and is a phony sound. I think if I recall, there was a trial version for testing it out but it helped me a few times.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

The tree or Blumlein pair are the best depending on how much real "width" you want.

As for avoiding phasing, I'm not aware of any way to do that if you're using the same sample twice. If I could do that it would solve all of my section-building issues! You may be forced to write for one set or get another VI.

[KK 3,307]

Whoops, totally forgot about this thread.

To KK and Data: a question regarding the perilous marriage of REAPER and Kontakt. Is it OK if I were to load individual instances of Kontakt, each containing all or most of the articulations for each instrument (I use a maximum of two instances of Kontakt per instrument, e.g. Violin I - the divisi LASS library takes up quite some MIDI tracks), creating MIDI tracks routed to them and thus "bouncing" a project to audio when finished, or is it advised to create audio tracks routed to the Kontakt instances as well? I suppose the former is a lot more flexible when it comes to mixing, but I've heard the latter method being used as well.

The former is what I do. It can sometimes be a pain in the ass, but as you say, offers a lot more flexibility when it comes to mixing. I like to have all my instruments on the palette when I'm working with the MIDI tracks. I can make the appropriate adjustments at the production level, and can also balance things like reverb and stuff in coordination with the other sections/instruments.

Even then, because I have to play around a good deal with it to get the level of control I want. I will have to upgrade to Cubase eventually, just need to get through that learning curve.

Also, does anyone here have any experience with VirtualSoundstage 2? I'm setting up my template with everything but the brass section sent through a combination of the aforementioned and Altiverb (CineBrass tends to sound very lousy when treated in the same way) as I think it vastly improves the overall sense of space, but I might just be sinning against some elementary rule of MIDI production.

Never used it, but probably something I should start doing. As someone who'e unfamiliar with it, are tools like VSS and SPAT cumbersome to use?

CineHarp for ad lib. glissandi (great feature!) or as an additional harp

Lovely sound too.

[Loert 2,510]

VirtualSoundStage2 seems like exactly the thing I need. I keep thinking my orchestral tracks sound too close and messy in general, and I have little to no idea what to do about that other than reduce overall volumes and add reverb! It still sounds messy though. And it's not bad orchestration by itself, because I did a mockup of some of the Star Wars theme a few years ago, completely unmastered apart from some addition of reverb, and it sounded horrible. Production gives me a headache!

As for my setup, I use Cubase 8.0 with:

Strings: Berlin Strings

Winds: Berlin Woodwinds

Brass: Horns - BML HORN SECTION VOL. 1,

Rest: Hollywood Brass

Perc: True Strike 1 + The Timpani

Synth: Zebra2 + Reaktor

Choir: Requiem Light

I also bought a "Composer's Collection" bundle from EWQL a few years ago when it was on sale, which included 7 libraries. Among these are: Voices of Passion, Ra, Symphonic Orchestra, Symphonic Choir, Goliath, Pianos, Stormdrum 2. I used to use these mostly but it's been now mostly replaced with the stuff above. However usually if I can't find what I want in the stuff above then I make do with whatever is available in the CC.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

If you enter notes by step, it's going to sound mechanical and like shit. If you then tweak things to add realism, it's going to sound somewhat less mechanical and you're going to have a huge headache after staring at your computer screen for hours on end. If you have the piano skills and patience, then you should absolutely play the parts in real time. Hook up your MIDI keyboard and expression controllers, load up your DAW, and play. Play, play, play. Play with yourself.

But what if you write stuff that you can't play well (even at slow tempi), as I sometimes do? I don't mean Ferneyhough-level complexity but just unusual rhythmic values.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Yeah that happens to me too. In that case you can put the notes in manually but I'll still record an "expression" track over it with the modwheel to make it "breathe" and also tinker with velocities so it isn't mechanical.

[KK 3,307]

Even with the tougher stuff, I play to the best of my ability, and then tweak/adjust on the midi piano roll. For the fast tempi stuff beyond my skill, I play it at a slowed down tempo, the I speed it up on the midi roll. For the really messed up stuff, I then resort to "one-click at a time".

I always try my best to play as much of it as I can. As Grey says, it's one of the best ways to create a more organic sound.

[Jilal 569]

On 23-2-2013 at 6:36 PM, tedfud said:

I use VSL ensemble pro 5 running on a pc. The sounds come from VSL ( strings and woodwinds, some brass ) cinebrass , Cinewinds, cineharp, Symphobia, Cinematic Strings,LASS, QLSO Platinum. Tonehammer perc and a few other bits make up the template. I Have about 200 tracks in cubase assigned to the various instruments. That is bussed straight to pro tools on a separate computer. Both computers are controlled by a 3M touch screen that runs custom software . This allows me to pick whatever articulations I want, Control cubase,Edit Midi and run pro tools. I am very lucky to have all this.

t

 

Sorry for reviving a 3-year-old post of yours, Ted, but that sounds like a brilliant setup (especially from a hardware point of view).

Just curious, do you use Cinewinds often? It's not really my go-to woodwinds library because it only offers recordings of solo woodwinds, meaning you can't get the actual sound of a unisono flute section, for example. It seems easier to work with than the often cumbersome Berlin Woodwinds, though, especially since all of the articulations can be found within a single patch.

[tedfud 38]

hi

 

no not really. Just for runs. Most of the solo winds are from Berlin. My new template has triple winds so I'm using all of Berlin via capsule. I have a touch screen to change any articulations and also to control Cubase, Pro tools and Sibelius.

 

T

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

I wish I had a head for this kind of thing. 

[KK 3,307]

I rely on Cinewinds pretty often as its the best library I've got for winds at the moment and its fairly easy to use. But as you say Alexander, it doesn't really offer a great unison sound when I need it. Haven't tried Berlin winds though! Maybe I should check that out.

[Mr. Who 919]

I am a Spitfire user so I always use the BML woodwinds. I think they sound the most realistic and as I use BML strings and brass, everything sounds great together. The mic positions are really useful as well because even though Spitfire libraries are rather wet, if you use the close mics you can get a drier sound, so they're very versatile.

 

There's a few articulations I would like to have that are missing, but they'll be in Volume 2 which should be out this year.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

On 10/22/2015 at 11:24 AM, Alexander said:

Also, how would I avoid phasing issues when using the same solo timpani samples to recreate the sound of two sets of timpani?

 

Reading through this thread - I know I answered this already, but I neglected to point out that there is something of a workaround when it comes to phasing.  If I really like one horn sample that I have, but would like a four-player section in unison, what I might do is record the part onto each track simultaneously, or copy/paste, but then ever so slightly mess with the timings of each track so that they're not all attacking exactly at the same time and thus there's no exact duplication of sound at any single instant.  The result is pretty acceptable when combined with the usual meticulous placement with something like VSS or whatever you use.  I'm not entirely sure how well this would work with percussive sounds like timpani though where even slight misalignments of transients might sound awful.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Does anyone know if it's possible to get earlier versions of the Kontakt Player (not the full version) anywhere?  I would like to run it on a machine with OS X 10.7.5 but supposedly the latest version needs at least 10.9 or something.

[Jilal 569]

Have you considered upgrading your OS?

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

I have otherwise, but on this particular machine I have a few things that I don't think will continue to function well if I upgrade everything.  This is the one part of all this stuff that I really don't like!

[Jilal 569]

17 hours ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I have otherwise, but on this particular machine I have a few things that I don't think will continue to function well if I upgrade everything.  This is the one part of all this stuff that I really don't like!

 

Yes, that can be rather annoying. I hesitated about a year (ahem) to upgrade to Windows 10 for that very reason.

 

The best thing to do is check whether said software is compatible with later versions (are you still using Gigastudio for your string section?). I'd recommend upgrading to the most recent version of Kontakt - you never know what updates you're missing. Otherwise - check out the darker parts of the interwebs.

 

A series of helpful tutorials by LucasArts composer Wilbert Roget, II for all the REAPER users here (KK., Datameister):

 

 

On 30-3-2016 at 7:34 AM, TheGreyPilgrim said:

Reading through this thread - I know I answered this already, but I neglected to point out that there is something of a workaround when it comes to phasing.  If I really like one horn sample that I have, but would like a four-player section in unison, what I might do is record the part onto each track simultaneously, or copy/paste, but then ever so slightly mess with the timings of each track so that they're not all attacking exactly at the same time and thus there's no exact duplication of sound at any single instant.  The result is pretty acceptable when combined with the usual meticulous placement with something like VSS or whatever you use.  I'm not entirely sure how well this would work with percussive sounds like timpani though where even slight misalignments of transients might sound awful.

 

Interesting. Of course, I knew the technique as a way to produce a fake stereo sound out of a mono sound source, but never tried this to fix my issue. Thanks!

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

This looks cool.

 

Spitfire takes its Evo range of products into a new realm with a series of evolving strings "motions" that we're certain will revolutionise the way in which you write and realise your string compositions. Orchestrated by Ben Foskett this product exudes class, and a cool organic sound that will bring fresh Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Adams and Arvo Part style sophistication to any number of applications.

 

Though sadly by "revolutionise" they really mean "limit."

 

 

http://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/pp021-evo-grid-3/

[Jilal 569]

Sigh. Cool, really? Another boring quick tool for those people who love to pretend they're composers. If it does contain exactly the type of performance you're looking for and can't be achieved with a regular library, then I'm perfectly fine with it, but I don't think that's what most will use it for. If you really do wish to become a composer, to indulge yourself in the art and craft of composition, you really shouldn't rely on this type of tool.

Spitfire offers some very neat products, however. Their percussion library, for example, is truly excellent.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

7 hours ago, Jilal said:

Cool, really?

 

Tried to find something positive to say. It's a nice idea in theory (the grid system), but the randomisation and large brush strokes kills any real invention. MacHarmonium.

[gkgyver 1,645]

It's inconceivable to you that people like making Music without aspiring to be accepted as, ahem, a composer, by elusive elitist circles, or those who think of themselves as such?

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

3 hours ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

 

Tried to find something positive to say. It's a nice idea in theory (the grid system), but the randomisation and large brush strokes kills any real invention. MacHarmonium.

 

Lol, MacHarmonium.

 

Yeah, this idea of using prerecorded loops isn't my bag.  Of course you can get fantastic sounding results from that, because, well, they're just recordings of actual musical phrases.  But to base actual compositions on using that, I dunno.  Imagine the flack that, ahem, Zimmer, for example, would get for using something like that. 

 

I'd rather have an extremely deeply sampled string library, where you can totally control divisis and section sizes and have 16 independent first violins if you want, with tons of round robins (even more than Spitfire usually has) to do this sort of style, since it's kind of common for me.

[Jilal 569]

5 hours ago, gkgyver said:

It's inconceivable to you that people like making Music without aspiring to be accepted as, ahem, a composer, by elusive elitist circles, or those who think of themselves as such?

 

It's not really about elitism here, to me. It's about being honest to yourself. If you can't compose, then why not learn to compose instead of using tools that make it seem like you can compose?

[Jilal 569]

* Downloads library and begins noodling shamelessly  *

[Loert 2,510]

LIbraries like this one appear to me to be basically really expensive toys. It's the adult equivalent of a 3-year-old kid plonking about on the piano, being inspired and interested by what comes out but not actually understanding the underlying musical "setup", so to speak (this is literally what the guy in the video says: "You start playing and see what comes out" at 1:32). Of course, the difference is that with a physical piano, plonking about mindlessly will produce meaningless results, but with an intelligently designed sample library, all you need to do is hold down a few keys and what "comes out" actually sounds decent...on the surface.

 

Now, if you're not interested in music theory, but still want to produce something which sounds nice without requiring a lot of skill and long studying (only your ears and a shit-ton of money), then that's fine I suppose. And at the end of the day, what "comes out" does sound very well-recorded and realistic. But it's only the buyer's loss that they would dish out money on essentially what is a musical toy, rather than put the time into learning about all this stuff and experience the satisfaction of being able to create music from the ground up (like Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Adams and Arvo Part did), with complete control and influence over all the musical elements involved.

 

But no, it's not just about satisfaction and self-gratification, but also about being an artist. Libraries like this have the horrible effect on many people of making them think that what they are creating is the music they want, when actually they have little to no understanding of what they are doing. At least John Cage understood that what he was doing was random. But this library is like a blockade to the inner musical voice, it lets the computer do 95% of the work. It claims that it will "realise" your string compositions, which is of course bull because all it really does it "realise" itself! Some people will use it in a more proper way, e.g. as a way of making their mockups more realistic, but many will also use it create music that they didn't actually create and then think that that's what composition is all about. Which is a damn shame.

 

But there's a deeper issue here. Suppose you're a director or producer, looking for a composer to score a decent sounding string soundtrack for your short film or Vimeo documentary. Who would you go for; the composer who will spend days sketching, thinking, and writing out all his ideas on paper from the ground up, then spend another few days mocking up that composition, which will not only sound unrealistic but might not even be what the direcor is looking for, and then might require that composition to be performed by studio musicians, which will cost money and time? Or, the composer who can, within seconds, conjure up pretty string textures on his computer so that the director can immediately go "Yep, that will be do"? Of course it will depend on the context...but I bet that most would go for the second option. And this skews the playing field, because it puts the composers, who work more over the music they are making, at a disadvantaged position to those who may not be as experienced musically but who have the better-sounding tools to produce faster, cheaper results which sound decent and satisfactory to the director but ultimately are very unlikely to be as profound. Products like this have the potential to create these sorts of unfair divides amongst budding media composers.

 

So, while I do believe that libraries like this ultimately can produce good music (after all, what is music other than the combination, morphing and sculpting of sound?), they are very likely to be abused by people and "trap" them into relying on these automated programs to make music they have little understanding of. And, it also unfairly causes composers who don't have tools like this, to be at a disadvantage in the media industry (unless you're already a well established composer with an excellent track record, who has been writing without the aid of computers for decades...)

[Jilal 569]

I assume this has to be general knowledge among most of you, but here's a little "trick" I've just discovered.

 

Using LoopBe30, you can set up internal MIDI channels in your computer, which means you can send MIDI data from notation software, e.g. Finale, to a DAW like Cubase or Reaper (I'm using the latter). If you set up a sketch document in Finale, route the staves to those internal MIDI channels and set up all MIDI tracks in your DAW to accept information from all MIDI sources (in Reaper, this is the Input: Midi: All: All Channels option), you can play back notation in Finale and have it performed by the instruments you've set to record in your DAW. This, of course, means you can also record notation in your DAW which you're playing back in your notation software in real time.

 

For people like me who're trying to blend the processes of notation and DAW-based composition, this is a great solution.

[Jilal 569]

Do NOT upgrade to Kontakt v5.6. Loads of issues, and the "purge all" functionality is completely gone. Once you save a project in any DAW using the newest version, it becomes incompatible with any former versions of Kontakt.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

I usually don't care for the way Spitfire approaches their libraries - not enough close, detailed control for me - but this is irresistible.

http://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/ranges/albion/albion-v-tundra/

[KK 3,307]

Some fantastic sounds in there. Liking the finer articulation control, ,but still wish it didn't have such a broad patch template. 

[bollemanneke 3,337]

I realise this question deals with technology that's now considered less advanced, but I'm hoping to get some feedback anyway.

 

I have a MIDI file with a whopping 42 tracks spread over 16 channels. Now, for some reason, my MIDI equipment (converters and CoolSoft Virtual MidiSynth) just can't handle it and the instruments are completely scrambled: trombone plays trombone and flute, and I'm pretty sure the timpani is playing timpani and clarinet etc.

 

Could anyone recommend me some free software that will convert these tracks into one track so that I still have the different instruments?

[Jilal 569]

I'm trying to assemble a dry sounding orchestral template (à la Sony's Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage), so I'm shying away from any Spitfire libraries. What do you think?

 

 

The strings are LASS. I'm quite happy to return to them - with a bit of proper positioning and reverb, they still sound great and, most importantly, balanced and transparent. I'm slightly concerned about the harp - does it sound about right? I had to dramatically reduce the lower midrange to reduce the hollowness of the original sound, which was very annoying and sounded artificial to me.

[Loert 2,510]

Is that Battle of Yavin orchestration?  

 

I think it sounds really good @Jilal. But I would bring down the horns a tad (or mainly the mid-low range). Also, I feel like the harp is still too loud in the mid range. My left ear feels a bit uncomfortable during the harp roll. So I would continue playing around with that a bit.

[Jilal 569]

12 minutes ago, loert said:

Is that Battle of Yavin orchestration?  

 

I think it sounds really good @Jilal. But I would bring down the horns a tad (or mainly the mid-low range). Also, I feel like the harp is still too loud in the mid range. My left ear feels a bit uncomfortable during the harp roll. So I would continue playing around with that a bit.

 

(No, just something I quickly wrote to test the legatos in this Williams-esque context)

 

I already pulled it down by about 10 dB!

 

I should have written the part for four horns, F3-A3-C4-F4. That would have made it less dense and a bit more mellow with the upper F.

 

I'm actually trying out Berlin Strings too, to be less old school. Might be a better choice nowadays - it's more realistic (and sounds somewhat newer) in a couple of ways, but of course, the orchestra is fairly small. Isn't that a bit of a problem when writing legato lines for the violins over divisi chords for the lower strings, @loert?

[Loert 2,510]

The orchestra is too small, you mean the number of string instruments in each patch is small? If you feel a patch is too weak you can use the old trick of duplicating the track and shifting the notes around a bit, while altering the volume (considering that you want a dry template, otherwise I'd recommend some reverb tricks). 

 

[Jilal 569]

1 minute ago, loert said:

The orchestra is too small, you mean the number of string instruments in each patch is small? If you feel a patch is too weak you can use the old trick of duplicating the track and shifting the notes around a bit, while altering the volume (considering that you want a dry template, otherwise I'd recommend some reverb tricks). 

 

Hmm, with 16 GB of RAM that's not really an option. 

 

The (string) orchestra (can refer to any group of musicians) is fairly small, yes.

[karelm 2,903]

12 hours ago, Jilal said:

I'm trying to assemble a dry sounding orchestral template (à la Sony's Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage), so I'm shying away from any Spitfire libraries. What do you think?

 

 

The strings are LASS. I'm quite happy to return to them - with a bit of proper positioning and reverb, they still sound great and, most importantly, balanced and transparent. I'm slightly concerned about the harp - does it sound about right? I had to dramatically reduce the lower midrange to reduce the hollowness of the original sound, which was very annoying and sounded artificial to me.

 

It sounds good and balanced.  I liked the dry sound and EQ.  I like the harp level and hard left panning. 

[Jilal 569]

Does this trombone sound realistic to your fine-tuned trombonist ears, @karelm?

 

[karelm 2,903]

On 11/5/2016 at 5:15 AM, Jilal said:

Does this trombone sound realistic to your fine-tuned trombonist ears, @karelm?

 

It sounds good but probably too controlled to be realistic.  The diminuendo feels very linear where in reality it would probably come down faster in dynamics and linger longer at low dynamics if that makes sense.  This isn't something intentional, it is just the mechanics of playing loud.  Remember when strings play loud, they go through bow faster.  When brass and winds play loud they go through air faster.  A big full throated fff like the main theme of Mars: The Bringer of War, pretty much requires breathing between each note at the very least to top off.  We want to get a solid brick of tone there so can't run out of air at the end of a long phrase.  In your piece, the phrase would take a lung full of air to start and at high dynamics, you're using lots of air and as you drop dynamics less air.  So a player would probably drop the dynamic to a mf sooner and then go from there to a pianissimo.  Also the marcatos at the start of the phrase sound a bit too consistent to each other.  I would slightly shape them different from each other, maybe make one a staccato, slightly shorter, or something that makes it feel like each note is played rather than copied and pasted if you know what I mean.

 

Brass players put a lot of work and practice into their breathing and warm ups.  A pro player might warm up for a whole hour BEFORE grabbing the instrument.  So practice something like starting with a completely empty lung and open throat (so not a yoga style noisy exhale/inhale but a fully open silent breath) start breathing in very slowly and consistently counting 1, 2, 3, 4.  By 4 your lung would be full.  But the breathing coaches and low brass people will tell you to keep going another 1, 2, 3, 4 and now you feel like you are about to pop.  Then slowly exhale the entirety of your lung in 1, 2, 3, 4.  You repeat this a few times.  Then they tell you to inhale that entire lung quantity again (what was once 8 counts or 4 counts twice) but now exhale it in 1 count.  Most people start getting dizzy doing this.  But you see those big Mahler or Shostakovitch fortissimos are like using a whole lung full of air very quickly.  You get good about quick lung full of airs in but there is quite a bit of air flow management that goes in to playing nice loud passages without running out of air too soon.

[Jilal 569]

Again, thanks for your incredibly insightful feedback, @karelm. 

 

By the way ...

 

 

A Kontakt trick that could drastically reduce the RAM footprint of your orchestral template:

 

Some libraries come shipped with a variety of different microphone positions. Orchestral Tools' Berlin Strings, for example, offers a close mic, a concert master mic, an AB mic set, a Decca tree and a surround mic set. I only use the Decca tree, so I basically selected all the sample groups that contained the samples for the microphone positions I don't use and removed all of their zones (samples). You have to be very careful when doing this (and please, do not save the patch you are altering at any rate, instead save the multi - this won't affect the factory patches), but when done right you can save a phenomenal amount of RAM. Even when a multi-microphone patch is purged, the individual microphone positions still take up a hefty amount of RAM of their own.

 

Sometimes simply removing the groups instead of emptying them will work, but newer libraries tend to be scripted in ways that require the groups to be in a certain order/position, so I recommend using the above method.

 

This way, I've effectively reduced the RAM footprint of my computer when running my orchestral template (using Berlin Woodwinds, Berlin Strings, etc.) to 42%, coming from 58% to 60% (I have only 16 GB of RAM). Quite hefty a change, if you ask me!

 

If you think this could help you, but have trouble applying the technique, feel free to PM me.