Condemnation towards computer generated music (Sample libraries and such)

[Denny Schneidemesser]

Now this is something that happens to me quite often. Have you ever been in the situation where someone asked “What are you using to create your music?”. Probably since most people aren't familiar with the technology nowadays, at least where I live. I cannot recall how many scornful looks I've received for stating that I take my Horns and Violins from an orchestra library. Most people don't even want to take a look at it because it seems totally ridicolous to them. I don't know if it's pure ignorance or the technology that most people aren't aware of. I guess it's a mix of both since people are trying to avoid it.

I highly respect the real orchestra and I would always prefer it if I had the choice, but samples became really important because they give people with lower budgets the chance to listen to their compositions. Yeah I know, that's nothing new to everyone who reads this. However, I wish more people would acknowledge that.

So how's it where you live? Well I can imagine that sample libraries are much better known and understood in states like LA, the situation in my country (Germany by the way) is stated above.

Any similar situations so far?

[Stephen Barry]

Amen to that. Morricone is a beast!!

[Garett Buell]

Hey everyone,

Have not been on here in a while but plan to keep up more often...

I am a big proponent of creating by means of digital...Ableton, Pro Tools etc...simply due to its ease and self containment...I would rather be into expressing the idea and doing it efficiently for the idea's sake. Software, sampling, samplers etc allow this.

I have been looking at it from a composition standpoint and if that composition is to be used, then more than likely, considering the situation; that composition would be re-recorded or expanded upon before final use. Of course, if the situation did not lend itself to a re-recording budget, then I would use and enhance what I had the means to.

But all in all, I try to keep my eye on the ball and to me, the ball is the composition...so I use what I have and make the best of it.

[Alex Pfeffer]

Yeah I know this situation, but basically there is a little remedy :)

If someone asks me what I use, I don't say samples but recorded real instruments :)
I mean if we talk to Pro's we know about libs and stuff. We basically know what we are talking about, but when it comes to listeners or customers I don't use the terms samples. There are so many people out there who connect samples with MIDI, FM and other artificial waveforms ... and of course, a few years everything was synthesis.

Basically there is no lie, when you say you use a real orchestra, but due to financial and space issues the instruments are already recorded, collected in a lib and I use it on my computer :)

[Chris Alpiar]

yea except you are limited to a nominal number of instruments, attacks, inflections, articulations.. I have the VSL Full Pro edition along with tons of other great libraries and at the end of the day it is very limiting

[Alex Pfeffer]

Yeah, but noone needs to know :)
I mean we all know that sample libs are limited and will never reach the real thing.
But if you sound convincing and tweak a bit in the end and know your gear ... you can make it happen to fool people.

Without sounding like a bragger ... but I already did with my work for "HCA - the ugly prince duckling" :))

[Ray Kemp]

Yes I know what you can do Alex
I've listened and enjoyed your skill with the technology.
Although I don't produce professional cues, I have had friends coming to my home specifically to see how I produced tracks they listened to. They ended up leaving none the wiser. Witchcraft :-)

Ray

[Adrian Peek]

Ray/All:

(this is a day late and a dollar short but) I'm in the middle of a DEEP orchestration class in LA, taught by a top film session bassist with a PhD. One thing he stresses is, if you're looking for "real" sounds (especially orchestral) one must compose with much consideration for each actual instruments' limits and strengths. That's if you (like me) think about what would happen if the Director suddenly "found" enough budget to hire an orchestra to play your MIDI score. (I've heard that viola sections are extremely hard on poorly-written charts and their composers.)

Of course, every score needs different things. A composer has to break many "rules" but if one wants to do great-sounding (i.e. very close to real) MIDI orchestra, think like those players do. By just envisioning how a live violin section would bow a MIDI passage has helped me greatly.

[Robyn Traill]

A few comments on thoughts already posted.

A lot of big scores these days are hybrid. Budget considerations mostly. The deal is that those composers know what a real string section can actually do so they can THINK like a string section. They know what it would sound like if every violin swept the bow back and forth across all strings while holding a diminished shape playing harmonics glissing downward at different rates to an end point somewhere within a major second.

This idea would never come to me unless I hadn't seen/heard it in an Ed Shermur score for Panic Room.

I started working with string sections with the Guild of Canadian Film Composers. And now my knowledge is only enough to know how greatly I personally limit my composition FOR the samples (VSO, MIROSLAV etc) I've got and NOT for what a string section can do, as I don't have those sounds.

[Ray Kemp]

Robyn,

Thanks for your input here,
Even with the limited number of articulations and sound stages available to me through EWQLSO etc I still don't use half of them, preferring to spend my time looking for the "hook". Most of the cues I've listened to recently are technically great. They have been well recorded etc etc but! an hour later I've forgotten the tune if they ever had one. I realize an under score doesn't need a "hook" but surely when presenting a demo or composition for general listening, it should stand on it's own. Yes! it should sound good NOT real but good. Articulations and technicalities can be added to a great idea.

[Alex Pfeffer]

One thing we shouldn't forget that there are also jobs out there, a real orchestra couldn't do.
I had tracks done which had to be so exact in timing that it was a pain to cut and edit the tempo to make it fit to loops and other rhythm stuff.
Also I know of a guy who did a job for a company and they said the orchestra sounds too alive, too fresh, but they want kind of a sterile thing going on. So he did it with samples and they loved it rightaway :)

[Ray Kemp]

Hi Alex,

Performing is where I make money out of music. composing is my hobby and passion so I have an important question for you.

Do you set aside some time to compose for yourself rather than for a particular client.

[Chris Alpiar]

I totally agree with you Robyn, and it seems sad that so many people already have guzzled the cool-aid and now believe that sample libraries in any way can possibly emulate the real thing better than the real thing... To me all my VSL and all the other goodies I have are just toys and give me some basic platform to compose from. Unfortunately its the same 900 gigs or so of samples that a bunch of other composers have so we share not only the same orchestra, but the same semi-retarded orchestra that can only play a few notes a few different ways. Beautiful, but limited