mickomoo

I'm kind of curious. Why do you all like music? And to make such a broad question smaller, what kind of sound and/or patterns do you like to hear in your music? And finally, do you compose the type of music you with the qualities like to hear? For me I love low and midrange tones harmonizing, so I like good counterpoints written in the octave ranges I like most. Really vague I know, but Im having trouble deconstructing and describing the more complex aspects of what I like in a sound.

Im new to midi orchestration and music in general so I can never contribute much to these topics, but I know what I like to hear and this was awesome!

Will future library eventually be included?

There are some sequencers in the app store that have vsts. I dont know how effective any of them are, but I know some of them have Destop to tablet/cloud sharing so you can work on stuff between devices.

I found a panning and predelay chart that substantially improved my work with EWQL in gold. Idk though if I have a good ear for what sounds best though. Also what tutorials have you found? Im kind of stuck in terms of my production as well.

EWQL has been plug and play for me, and I'm not the most musically minded nor conputer savvy person... I was just learning what a DAW was as I began using it. As far as tech support, honestly I imagine that's a problem you'd have with a lot of companies. This is a very niche market selling high end products often to studios who are willing to put a lot of money down. Now mind you, there's different degrees of unhepfulness and I'm sure EW is on the higher end of that spectrum. I've had SO gold for literally a year to the day and these are my only two regrets. Default wetness prevents mixing the instruments well with anything other than other EW products. However someone in the originals board told me they cut the tail releases on their instruments and got a "shorted" less wet sound. So there's some (perhaps crude) workaround. Conversely buy platinum I believe the "close mic" samples are the best solution to the issue. The other problem is the ilok. If it gets damaged it will prevent you from playing and you have to deal with PACE to work it out. It only set me back 4 days but if you have deadlines or something it might be a thing to care about. edit: Bonus problem... you need ram, a good amount. I upgraded to 8 on my laptop and can run about 16-20 instruments ok-ish. If I start adding effects then it laggs (but still fuctions) If you or anyone you know is a student look into EWs educational discounts. The cost of all items are literally halved. Also they have about 6-7 sells per year. I got Gold and Chiors for $500 last August and I now intend to use the educational discount to buy more stuff from them. Has anyone used the close mics in platinum? Does that get around the wetness...? Kontakt is the sampler that has the acoustic samples. The thing per se about NI isn't the default samples that NI packaged with komplete (they're not bad but...) Other 3rd party developers have vsts that you otherwise wouldn't have access too without kontakt, even EWQLSO started out making their product for the kontakt engine. And there are some good 3rd party orchestral stuff you can find for kontakt. This is the thing I realize though. Apparently a lot of developers for orchestral stuff on kontakt sell by section and I'm realizing why. The quality seems to be "better" when you buy packages that focus on one particular instrument or section. Unfortunately doing things that way can eaially be a 1100+ set back. I'm also realizing maybe it wasn't necessary to get a higher end orchestral library. At least not until I perfectly mastered understanding every midi CC lol. I don't regret anything though. If you have Sibelius you can actually purchase EWQL samples for the playback function. That way you get a better tone without having to invest in a DAW and all the other equipment needed to run vsts

Thanks for the quick replies. I have SIR and reverberate LE, debating if I should get the full version of either or just stick to the freeware versions, buy spaces and try some combination of everything I already have.

I was wondering what options everyone used for reverb. I write acoustic music with vsts, predominately orchestral so I was looking into ewql spaces to start with. But my fear is that it's not versatile/reliable beyond the "big hollywood" sound, I'm also (slowly) expanding to other acoustic genres (big band/jazz) and might even be using live instruments sometime in the future. Give my direction what kinds of reverbs should I look into?

I'm looking for arpeggators and/or means to emulate strumming with midi data. Does anyone have any recommendations or either? Ideally I'm looking for freeware but if it's not too expensive I'll look into paying. I mostly use vst samples, are there any samplers that might offer this functionality too?

Thanks again for the feedback everyone I finished the story that prompted me to post this in the first place.

I love the main expression. the first like 40 seconds for me are damn near awesome 0:15-16: odd drumming error idk if it's the velocities or timing Some of the transitions are oddly blank, idk how to explain it, like around 0:50 (but I love how it picks up at 1:08. Also hated the "empty" transition to the low string at 1:56. I think it's that I'm not feeling eased into it. Also I don't know what to say about the cluttering the others mention (I have absolutely the same problem in my work) but if you must have several distinct voices in the same section, how I've gotten around that is panning within the instance of my vst then paning the actual tracks to give the overall play a wide spacious feeling. It's something that doesn't always work but when it does it's great. I feel the transition at 2:10 deviates from the motif and groove you had going and when you bring it back at 2:52 it just doesn't feel natural, it felt like everything between then felt like filler. I don't know if I'm projecting my own compositional woes onto you, but this is why my "best music" is either unfinished or shorter than 2 minutes. The longer it is, the more likely I am to add stuff that potentially deviates from my main rhythm or melody. Especially if the song's core is a key rhythm or phrase (as seems to be the case with yours) Anyway I feel you pain. I never studied music so our process might be similar. That said, don't be too hard on yourself. I've been composing midi for about 3 years and the greatest fun was just dicking around composing things resembling music. But very surely (and slowly) you will improve if you take the time to listen more to others, do a bit of theory here and there, etc. Imo the song as it is now is fairly coherent and "passable" I've made and heard worse stuff so don't be hard on yourself, just know you can only go up from here (which isn't a bad place) P.S. Can this fit scenes from Shadow of Legends?

Massive. Or just look at some other Native Instrument stuff

Thanks for the responses everyone, that was pretty quick. I kinda figured that was the case, I'm preparing to do a freelance writing career and I already know that I have to be prepared to get a day job or starve. So I figured it might be similar for music. @XPRTNovice: You're awesome, you're basically doing everything I want, minus the voice acting... although you never know. Idk if I should PM you, but I was wondering how do you have a life/work/ hobby balance? How demanding is your job and life in relation to writing music and fiction?

This is more for my personal interests, I'm writing a story about a young freelance composer to pratice my writing skills and was curious what the daily routine might be like. Though I'd like to be a composer maybe when I retire...

For some of my recent work (which weren't revisions of my older work) I had trouble finishing my melodies too. These 3 songs are incomplete: https://soundcloud.com/mickomoo/sets/incomplete-compositions I'm probably going to rework these later, but I'm in the process of revising all my older work. Though I do take breaks from time to time to allow myself to practice with new ideas. I find my problems change depending on the circumstance like I wrote a song this weekend and the bass instruments have a nice progression but there's really no melody here: https://soundcloud.com/mickomoo/cold-creepy-corridors Anyway post some of your music and I'll do my best to help!

Yeah I want the convience of key switching, but the depth created by layering... there are just some instances in which my music sounds flat despite using articlations. I think part of it is a lack of the reverb I want, but it seems to be also something else... I cannot put my finger on it

Do you layer keyswitches master patches with one another or with individual patches?

I made a breakthrough in terms of composition a year ago, but I've felt stagnant ever sense. I needed again, a brief series of whatever tips available. Also I had a question to start this off. For those of you who use libraries, do you avoid the "master" samples that allow you to switch articulations on the fly (via keyswitch or whatever) and instead hand pick the articulations and tones from the actual sample sets themselves? That is for example, instead of having a master keyswitch patch for a violin you would literally pick out legato, sticcato, ect. patches and treat them as different instruments? I'm getting all sorts of different tips from people and their processes

I'm an amateur composer who likes writing themes for his writings. I just followed you. Good luck in your pursuits!

With the percussion at the beginning I was trying to emulate the intro of the source. There's a light bell like synth that's repeatedly off time, but I totally get that the woodblocks don't make it translate well lol (and I forgot to equalize the volumes of everything).

Ah, I'll definitely try that. I'd rather mix them with my own verb than be kind of boxed into the massive hall it's drenched in by default. Good work man.

This is EWQL? How'd you get them this dry? I thought I'd have to purchase the mic positions to do something like this...

I needed advice with improving my compositions, I feel stuck. But rather than just me posting some tracks and getting feedback I wanted this to be broader topic for individuals who primarily compose with midi so feel free to post a piece or two for discussion purposes. Ideally person should critique the post above them if it contains music, but if you just want to post critiques that is cool too. I'll start. This is the last good thing I made, Im not really proud of it though. I normally write my own music, but this a cover because I'm trying to use familiar music to teach myself better orchestration techniques/writing: https://soundcloud.com/mickomoo/time-to-pretend-mgmt

This is really nice I really like composition and the kind of intimate feel of the instruments (I've been listening to far too many wet booming "Hollywood" mixes or attempts at that rather) what library is this?