Moseph

You may have something there. If you only use your computer for web browsing and word processing, as a lot of people do, you don't really need a numpad.

Is this really the first orchestration you've ever put together? You're off to a very good start. I'm not sure if the "off" aspect that I hear is the same one you're talking about, but everything sounds very distant and muffled to me. I think this is more of a mixing/production issue than an orchestration issue. You might lighten up the reverb a bit and/or use a different reverb unit. Regarding orchestration: The oboe (or is it an English horn?) at 0:50 sounds too strident to me. You may want to either lower the velocity of the samples or change the instrument. A clarinet would probably work well in that range. The low strings could stand to be louder in places, especially the sections beginning at 1:02 and 2:00. I think french horns doubling the background strings from 1:14-1:25 would sound really nice. Everything just kind of stops at the end. I think the solution would be as simple as adding a full orchestra stab where everything cuts out (2:23). I don't know if you plan to submit this to OCR or not, but if you do, the judges will probably want it to be longer.

Yes, I have had the misfortune of using the Mighty Mouse. Scroll wheel's too small, the lack of separation between the two buttons is inconvenient, and the side buttons mean you have to readjust your grip on the mouse just to lift it up and move it without clicking. It is seriously the worst mouse ever.

(beats * 60)/bpm = seconds So if you count the number of beats in the clip you're stretching, multiply that by 60, then divide by the tempo you want, the result is the length in seconds that you should stretch the sample to.

I once fixed a friend's camera by smacking it repeatedly onto the palm of my hand. Sounds stupid, but it worked. (Presumably something inside was out of alignment.)

Bumped with new info in first post. EDIT: Or go look at PP's thread if you want to be that way.

For what it's worth, when I write voices against each other, I still try to avoid parallel octaves, fifths, and fourths, not because the "rules" tell me to -- I'm certainly not following traditional part-writing rules in many other respects -- but because I've come to the point where I genuinely consider them to sound weak in a contrapuntal context (unless I want that specific sound). I can usually pick out the sound of them when I listen to what I'm writing, and there are usually alternate solutions for the voice movement that sound better to me, even in my rule-free context. And therein lies the thing to consider: the idea of avoiding these parallels came about because people thought they didn't sound good, not because someone arbitrarily decreed that you couldn't use them. If they don't bother you in whatever context you happen to be in, then don't avoid them. Do keep in mind, though, that others may hear them more easily than you do, any it may bother them, especially if the parallels occur in a context of traditional, classical-sounding harmony, so always be prepared to justify your musical decisions if someone questions them. EDIT: Also might be good to point out that contrary motion still rocks, not because the rules say to use it, but because it usually sounds good. It's another great way to differentiate voices, which is really what the spirit of counterpoint is about regardless of whether you're following strict rules or not.

Super Shopkeeper 64 You stand at your counter and sell junk to adventurers. No, it's actually really fun.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875351 Microsoft's knowledgebase articles on Data Execution Prevention, which I'd never heard of before. It's apparently a Windows feature; it looks from the articles like you can turn it off/add exceptions. Dunno why YouTube would trigger it, though. Probably has something to do with the video program it uses, which is Flash, I think. Have you tried updating Flash?

Very nice. Good job on avoiding mechanical-sounding piano passages. I agree about the muddy piano chords, unless you absolutely want that muddiness. You may be able to change it by moving some of the material up an octave or by removing some of the inner voices. There's an odd sort of metallic scratching that starts at about 0:54; it seems to be associated with the running piano line in the background. Is this an intentional percussion effect, or is it an artifact from the samples?

Has Pro Tools significantly improved its MIDI functionality recently (as in within the past 4 years)? When I used it in school, at least, there wasn't even a multi-track layered MIDI view -- you had to look at each track individually. We always went to Digital Performer if we needed to do MIDI.

New! Improved! With lousy Finale playback! From this source. Ideally, it will be 2-3x this length and all dolled up with VSL samples. I haven't event touched the second part of the melody yet. We'll see how far I get with it by the deadline. WIP

How are you connecting the keyboard to the computer? Direct USB, or are you going through a MIDI interface?

On another (amusing) sidenote, apparently some actress took out a restraining order against Tim Langdell a few years ago. (From this forum)

Dave must've really been slurring when he said "OverClocked."

Anybody want to record themselves saying "overclocked remix" and compare it to the wave? Or do I have to do it?

In general, for things like strings and brass it's a good idea to use MIDI CC11 (the expression channel) to shape the volume level on sustained notes wherever it's applicable. It won't necessarily make bad samples completely palatable, but it may at least help reduce mechanical aspects of the sequencing that tend compound the effect of bad samples.

The thing is, for the kind of people who complain about the price, it's now just cheap enough to be too expensive, if that makes any sense. Before, a guy with no money wouldn't even consider a $30k recording session since it would be so far out of his league, whereas now he's in a position where a couple paychecks will get him something comparable. He still maybe can't afford it, but now it's just out of his reach rather than being the stuff of lottery fantasies. But it's like that with everything. People always want what they can almost afford, and they like to complain about it. When orchestral libraries come down in price, they'll latch onto something else that's "too expensive."

If they included the dongle, then it would be a $1050 library, and people who already had a compatible dongle would complain that they didn't want to pay for another one. But, yeah, I hate hardware protection, too. It's one of the reasons I use Sonar instead of Cubase.

Bleh ... I was mistaken; apparently it doesn't actually play full-fledged Kontakt libraries (well, it does in the 30 minute demo mode, but that's no good). It only works with things intended for Kontakt Player. The comparison chart is here. KVR thread about it is here.

Kontakt was the thing I was most interested in from that $400 Komplete 5 deal last month. I'm so glad I didn't buy it. Does this allow you to use all existing Kontakt sample libraries but just disables advanced editing, or do things have to be specifically intended for the stripped-down player? The NI site appears to be screwed up right now. Too many downloaders, perhaps. It's just showing me a bunch of unformatted links. EDIT: Existing libraries are fully supported. Here's a story about it for those who can't access the NI site.

I'm in grad school for music composition with an undergraduate degree that included a fair amount of studio work, and I still don't know what the hell I'm doing much of the time. I'm beginning to realize that the most objective way to figure out how "good" something sounds is to leave it alone for two or three years and then come back to it. I tend to find when I revisit old material that the things that seemed to be insurmountable problems at the time hardly matter to me now, that the real deficiencies lie in things that hadn't even occurred to me at the time, and that some of the strengths are also things whose significance I wasn't aware of at the time. Off the top of my head, I can think of three relatively high-profile composers who eventually destroyed most or all of their early work: Augusta Read Thomas, Alan Hovhaness, and Paul Dukas. It leads me to believe that the experience of profound disconnect with one's own work is not at all uncommon, even among the most talented.

Maybe random stuff cached from websites?

I like this. It's a very solid arrangement, except for the acknowledged lack of an ending. You use your strings way better than most people who post orchestra WIPs here. There seems to be something odd going on with the reverb and/or panning on the flute at the start. It sounds almost as if there are two flutes playing, one on the far right and a quieter one with a slower attack just left of the center. I don't know what's causing this, since I can't see the project file, but it sounds odd. I also agree with neblixsaber that the flute at the start is getting drowned by the strings' entrance. If you don't want to bring the strings' level down, you could double the flute line in another instrument to make it louder. I find the sudden harmonic shift at 1:35 jarring (it goes from F# major to E minor/G major, if I'm not mistaken). The brass melody ending on D at 1:34 sounds like it wants to go to D# rather than E. If sudden transition is what you're going for (and the simultaneous change of instruments at that point suggests that maybe it is), it's fine (and, obviously, it's also fine if it's pulled from the source, which I'm not familiar with); just be aware that it's something of a cold-water-in-the-face moment. The piano line starting at 1:57 sounds a little mechanical. I think one bit of polish you could add to this that would really make it shine would to play around with the levels of sustained notes, particularly in the strings. Depending on exactly what sequencer/plug-in configuration you're using, you should probably be able to do this by drawing curves on MIDI control channel 11 (expression) for the instrument you're working with. This will let you easily taper the loudness of sustained notes with crescendos/decrescendos and give you a more natural sound.

I see what you did there. Also, congrats, Zircon and pixie!