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Omni-Psyence

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Posts posted by Omni-Psyence

  1. I have not read this book in particular, but I would suggest working through some pre-existing scores piece by piece until you have a practical, working knowledge of how those scores are built. Orchestration is such an incredibly rich topic to be contained in a single tome. As far as the MIDI part is concerned, I'll mimic what Kanthos is saying. If you want more "realism" then you need to nail the timbre and articulations.

    Also, everything won't just be playing a simple sustain patch the whole way through. It's pretty crucial to learn how every single instrument in the orchestra is played by itself and with others, both from its own family and not. A simple but efficient rule of thumb to go by is the more instruments you use, their parts should be less disparate from one another. Too much contrasting timbres and notes will create a huge mush. The way those pros can use an entire orchestra with ease is because they know how to balance these delicate forces.

  2. Rexx, I can only assume you didn't read much of anything I typed already. I'm not looking for an easy way out, I'm looking for different methods of learning the techniques because I can't piece things together like that from the sound alone. If I could do that, I would've figured it out by now.

    Also, I'm not looking to learn strictly for orchestral purposes, I'm just looking for ways to get samples to sound convincing enough in many other genres too.

    You assume wrong, I've read your entire post. To me, it seems as if you are looking for at least an "easier" way out (ie, to learn convincing, heartfelt orchestration -- and yes, not just with traditional orchestral instruments) than what is currently available. If I misunderstood, I'm sorry.

    Everything I posted applies for any kind of musical instrument you can imagine. The concepts are not limited to one or two things. If you gave some serious study a chance and put in the work to create deliberate compositions which will expand your skills, you can only walk away with improvement.

  3. The most important factor in my own artistic growth has simply been a combination of critical thinking about music each and every time I listen to anything. When you hear a musical phrase develop, piece it together by its own basic elementary parts and realize how each sound and change will contribute to the whole at any given moment. You can really aid this process by learning principles of orchestration. For symphonic instruments, this amounts to studying each and every instrument in the orchestral section and knowing exactly what they can do on their own as well as with each other. If you write a handful of solo pieces for every orchestral instrument, you will come away with a much better understanding of how and when to articulate your phrases. After that you should try to learn how to carry melody within the families, ie, strings, brass, woodwings, percussion. Same for establishing harmony.

    Sorry to say there's no easy way out, you do need to study and practice the techniques on your own. I recommend Peter Alexander's Professional Orchestration series for some reading material.

  4. Thank you for the positive response folks, it's been a blast making the episode. I was thinking about releasing the soundtrack but I'm not sure it would be terribly interesting, since each scene is so short. One idea I had was to create extended mixes of each track, but I need to start working on other things soon and I'm not sure if I'll have the time to do it quickly. If enough people want it I think I'd do it though!

    I'm eagerly anticipating working on season 2. I'll try my hand at writing this time, and I'll also be handling all audio mixing as well. Each episode is going to return to the 1:30-2:00 length shorts, but we'll also have a really epic season finale just like this one. Expect a lot more characters too!

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