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How do I make orchestral remixes sound like this?


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You either invest a ton of money into having people come together to play the music how you want it, or you buy/download a digital audio workstation with separate recorded instruments or VSTs. I'm not sure what you're asking specifically for, though. If you're talking about the action packed parts of each song, then the best instruments to go with are brass such as trumpets, French trumpets, trombones, and tubas with timpani playing behind it. I especially like the brass that hit lower notes because that gives me goosebumps. Taking up music classes would benefit you, I think, if you plan on making stuff like this. I like orchestral music, but I don't know if I could make one.

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If you're looking for an approach to understanding/creating this sort of music, there are two big things you'll have to engage with:

1) Orchestration. In order to write orchestra music effectively, you need to understand how all the instruments in the orchestra function. There are various books available on the topic (and the Rimsky-Korsakov book is public domain). If you don't know how to read standard music notation, it would be a good idea to start learning it -- most of the worthwhile instructional material on orchestration makes frequent reference to musical scores. If you already know how to read music, then start studying scores. IMSLP has a ton of stuff available, and you can find recordings of most things either on YouTube or with a Spotify/Napster/etc. subscription.

2) Virtual instruments. You might think that money is the key aspect here, and it is indeed an important aspect, but you also need to understand how to use whatever it is that you buy. Part of this is orchestration knowledge, and part of it is general knowledge about digital music production and sample libraries. In order to create sampled orchestra music, it is important to be familiar with what an actual orchestra sounds like so you have a mental reference point for your work. Listen to orchestras, both recorded and (if possible) live. Think critically about the sounds of the orchestra and have some idea of what any given passage ought to sound like before you attempt to program it with samples. Don't rely on the samples for knowledge of an orchestra's sound; rather, attempt to use the samples to create what you know an orchestra should sound like.

You may note that I've left music theory completely out of this list. This is because it's entirely possible to compose orchestral music with no more knowledge of music theory than it takes to write a pop song. If you want to write like Brahms or Williams, yeah, you'll need to know some music theory, but the examples you've linked really aren't all that complicated from a theoretical perspective.

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  • 7 years later...

One main thing to note with sings like this, especially the first one, is the use of quiet synths, vocals, strings or the like to create a feeling of depth, grandeur, and magic. Also notice how during the main powerful parts, multiple different instruments are playing basically the same melody but different parts of it at different octaves. This also gives depth and grandeur. 
 

I actually saw a good video on how to effectively compose this Hollywood style orchestral type of music and I gleaned some useful things from it. It’s called how to compose cinematic music by composing academy in YouTube.
 

lastly, in both of these examples high quality instruments, whether virtual or real, were used. That adds a lot to depth but it doesn’t mean everything.

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