FM Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 (edited) a remixer's guide to the orchestra Lesson 1 q) how can I make orchestral remixes? a) this is a tricky question, but I will try to point you in the right direction: 1) listen to a lot of orchestral music in a lot of styles. •Film music ( ) •Older orchestral music ( ) •Late Romantic/Post-Romantic/Early Modern music ( ) •Modern and contemporary music ( ) 2) play in an orchestra (or other large ensemble like a wind band, brass band, jazz band)… 3) study scores, especially Ravel and Stravinsky you can get a ton of scores for free now so you have NO EXCUSE. This is literally the complete score for the rite of spring, a sublime example of orchestration, and YOU can download it FOR FREE right NOW: http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring_(Stravinsky,_Igor) If you can’t read music, that’s ok, you can learn. if you're serious about orchestration I'm afraid you will have to, since a lot of the best work is still done on sheet music q) no shutup I don’t care about all that, I mean how do I actually do it? like in a technical sense. a) first you will need some orchestra sounds. get out your credit card and buy this: http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/261/2066/2087/1773.htm 595 euros, but it’s a steal if you’re in this for the long run, trust me. you can also do things for free, of course, in which case you will be spending time. lots and lots of time, but it can be worth it in the long run, since you won’t have expensive ass software hyping up your dumb ass shit. you will know when the emperor (concerto) is wearing no clothes. general freeware advice should be it’s own section, and I’m afraid I don’t know much about free orchestra samples (it’s been a while), but I will try to collect a few links. Demo software can be fantastic if you have the means to use it. or if you prefer you can do things cheaper. The stuff that comes with Kontakt is great, that will set you back $400 so I guess it’s not cheap at all, but consider it an investment of sorts - it’s one of the most versatile and powerful pieces of music software out there and will do good work for every genre of music I can think of. if you’re lookin at spending more like $100, you might check out “the most awarded orchestral collection ever” here: http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra The “silver complete” version. this was the first orchestral library I bought, and it was okay. homework (obviously optional) Share your favorite piece of orchestral music — must NOT be from a video game I’m sure other people will also have good advice, please feel free to share. this is pretty brief, but ask questions and we can make it larger together! Edited March 23, 2013 by FM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FM Posted March 23, 2013 Author Share Posted March 23, 2013 here is me doing the homework::: this is a fav right now: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WiFiSunset Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 (edited) 1) Have been doing so since childhood. 2) I’ve played in one (Advanced Orchestra) from Middle School through High School. I played the cello. We played No Leaf Clover during my last year in HS, and the solo was super fun. 3) I’ve written scores in Notation Software, and I can read Alto, Bass, and the Treble Clef. Studying score from other composers is something that I need to do more of. This is an example of my work in Notation Software which is written in C flat or a flat minor. This piece took a month to finish, but I spent 2 weeks total working on it. Hypernova – Core Collapse: http://soundcloud.com/cosmic-sounds-1/hypernova-core-collapse (what do you think of it?) 4) Uhh….my budget is the low low price of free. 5) My main issue is that Notation Software doesn’t give as good of a sound as a DAW can make. So, I’m learning the DAW (Reaper) up and down so that I can eventually combine the two, and be able to solely work in a DAW as well. This is why I was wondering if there was anything else that I need to know about Orchestra with my DAW. So this thread is going to be a Huge help, so thanks. Edit: Homework/Sharing (listening to orchestra as well as other genre is something that I love to do, and I love music from all cultures as well as almost all genre.) I’ve had these on my playlist for a while: Superman Returns (Little Secrets and The Power of the Sun): Strings of Time (Strings of Time) by Alex Roe (RoeTaKa): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecqeh4qo4cU Edited March 23, 2013 by Cosmic Sounds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crypto_magnum Posted March 24, 2013 Share Posted March 24, 2013 Great advice. I played percussion in the local youth orchestra, growing up, and it really did wonders for my musical education. It also made me very good at counting measures for tens of minutes while I waited for my one bass drum note to come up, but that is beside the point. I highly recommend that you buy miniature score books for the songs that your orchestra is playing, and follow along while you're waiting to play. As for a favorite orchestral piece... well, my favorite piece when I was younger was Ravel's "Pictures at an Exhibition." To any ambitious pianists out there: I recommend learning the original Mussorgsky version on piano first, then compare to Ravel's orchestration and be ready to have your mind blown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byproduct Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 (edited) if you’re lookin at spending more like $100, you might check out “the most awarded orchestral collection ever” here: http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra The “silver complete” version. this was the first orchestral library I bought, and it was okay. I've been using the Gold version (sells for $250), which seems like a good choice if you're going for something in between the 100 and 500 suggested in the first post. I don't have much experience with other software so I can't really compare, but at least for me the Gold version seems to have all I need to make the orchestra sound "real" - that is, dozens of different playing styles and velocities sampled for each instrument, stage positions simulated etc. Edited March 26, 2013 by Byproduct Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPRTNovice Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 I bought EWQL's composers collection for like $500 on ebay and so far I think it's awesome. I got gold orchestra/choir. I've played in bands and orchestras for the last 20 years, though lately I've been having trouble finding one I enjoy. I'm not a string player though, so when it comes to programming strings I don't often know what I am doing. Favorite pieces: Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto no 2. Fucking win. Also love the Planets by Holst (particularly Jupiter), the Firebird Suite, Rhapsody in Blue ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byproduct Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 I'm not a string player though, so when it comes to programming strings I don't often know what I am doing. Me neither, but asking an expert player can help a lot. They can listen to the track and tell where to add vibrato, which note should begin faster etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickomoo Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 (edited) Is it seriously important having a library with dry samples so that you can mix it with other libraries? I have the EWQL gold and there's no more mic position add ons so unless I upgrade to platinum this is my library. But it seems that having dry samples adds some flexibility that I might currently be lacking? Is it that big of a deal, or have those of you with gold found it to be good enough on its own? Edited March 26, 2013 by mickomoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPRTNovice Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 I find that the more flexibility I have, the worse I make my mixes because I don' t know what I'm doing. The group strings do have a lot of verb, but the solo strings are dry enough that you might be able to play with them a bit. I know a lot of people that say they don't like EWQL because the verb is baked in. So far, I've had no issues with it because I'm not going to be using orch samples for anything that doesn't require reverb, you know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moseph Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 (edited) Yeah, generally the sound is a little more flexible if the samples are dry, but that can also make it difficult to get the samples to sound good at all. You need to be very confident about your reverb-selection skills. I've also heard arguments that artificial reverb still isn't good enough to equal baked-in reverb from a good hall, so there are differing views, certainly. I prefer dry samples, but a big part of that is because I use VSL as the base for my orchestra and VSL is extremely dry; I find that dry samples are easier for me to mix in with VSL to my liking than wet samples. If you're working with only EWQLSO Gold and not trying to combine other libraries with it, I can't see the wet-sampling being an issue unless you're just generally unsatisfied with the sound of it. And even if you are combining, there's no guarantee that it will be problematic. Plenty of people still prefer using wet samples even when combining libraries. Edited March 26, 2013 by Moseph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickomoo Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 Has anyone tried adding reverb to the already wet hall samples of gold lol? I was thinking of getting spaces since I have a student discount. It's my last year of school so I'm trying to nab as much stuff as I can at reduced price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argle Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 Has anyone tried adding reverb to the already wet hall samples of gold lol? I was thinking of getting spaces since I have a student discount. It's my last year of school so I'm trying to nab as much stuff as I can at reduced price. Sure, I've done that. If you're blending them with dry sounds you'll probably want to put more reverb on the dry sounds than the ones from EWQL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 (edited) You can use noteflight.com to write sheet music, and you can export it as MIDI, all for free OMGOMGOMG. Edited March 27, 2013 by timaeus222 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WiFiSunset Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 I use Musescore which is similar to Finale, and is also free. You can export .wavs, midis, and etc. It can be used for Orchestra, piano, and several other instruments. It's a great program considering that it's free. http://musescore.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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