Garriton Personal Orchestra questions

[Jamie Klenetsky]

I'm thinking about getting GPO. All my VST plugins are free, and I have nothing that really sounds REAL.

So I have a couple of questions - can this be used with Sibelius? Finale 09? AND Ableton Live? (That last one is really important!)

And can it be used with Vista, does anyone know? (I have the Business edition.)

And finally, is it good :)

[Adrian Allan]

Then I think I won't be getting it for what I need. But it sounds good if you want to do film music - but that's of no real interest to me (although I like John Williams and the other greats, most modern film scores leave me cold).

[Chris Alpiar]

all of the layers that they make for you the individual sounds ARE available also, its not only the big orchestrated sounds - so if they make a multi patch with say celli, viola, french horn and flute as its own 'patch' you can also get individual instruments - only the viola section - and it still sounds pretty good, but yes for film/tv/media. This tool is absolutely a film/tv tool and not a classical composer tool, but really if you are making classical compositions all you need is finale and GPO to work on your score until you have it played by live instruments. Anything attempt to make sample based concert music would be tacky and tasteless I would think. Samples by default are really for media composing.

[Danilo Chompor]

If you make classical mock-up with GPO and Finale, it maybe sound tacky and tasteless, I don't know. But is not right to say that classical composers cannot try to make as good mock up as they can. It is very very hard to recruit live players for some peoples, so why should not they be allowed to try realise their work with good software. I have heard good mock ups of 'Sacre du Printemps', 'The Planets' and even Mozart. Is not tacky and tasteless. Not right.

[Chris Alpiar]

well IMO 'concert' music means you are giving a 'concert' but I guess to each his own. I disagree with you, lets leave it at that

[James Semple]

Danilo, I can see you have never actually used Symphobia at all.

Firstly Symphobia is a small string section closer to a chamber string size. It even includes muted string samples as well. It can do intimate and quiet better than nearly every other library out there (and I know 'cause I own nearly all of them).

Yes it can do cinematic and it can do big trailer music but it's way more versatile than that.

Yes, you cannot take music from Sibelius/Finale and put it straight into Symphobia but then you can't do that with any sample library and make it sound good ... sorry folks but that's the truth. You need to put it into a DAW and work hard on it to make it sound realistic.

Yes, you obviously can't take the presets effects from Symphobia and write them for orchestra immediately ... although why would you bother doing this anyway? Nearly every "orchestral" score you hear today includes samples.

This is a common situation:

The director hears the demo, loves it. He then hears the orchestra and is disappointed by the sound so some of the original samples from the demo end up going back into the final track.

If you can orchestrate then you can orchestrate anyway. I know in my head (or on written score) which lines would be assigned to which parts. Given that so much work is written entirely in samples then it's hardly a big deal. We already have to do this for divisi parts because samples don't handle this naturally.

Still if you're not convinced by the rhetoric, listen to this which I created using Symphobia strings. It's simple writing but the strings do sound intimate and realistic ...

Quiet Hamlet by Day

[Lisa Smolen]

Chris, I agree with the 'concert' music term - live music by live musicians on a stage or theater.

Just to clarify terms:
'Classical' is hardly ever used, within musicians' circles, except to describe actual classical music (Beethoven, Mozart, etc.) or to describe a style of educating musicians (i.e. I have a classical music education, not an education in classical music).

'Orchestral' being anything scored for an orchestra to play - a description of the ensemble used rather than a genre.

Software is often used as a compliment to the orchestra in big media scores (film, video games, etc.) but that also have a huge budget have plenty of live musicians at their fingertips. That's why we musicians have jobs. It's just a matter of the composers getting to a place in their career where they can have access to us and the creativity to use software judiciously. I play shows here in Vegas, I know how software in live performances work.

From my experience working with composers & arrangers, I've observed that them getting noticed can be as a simple as the difference between having your software tracks 1) SOUND like you made them with software or 2) sound like you have live musicians. People satisfying #2 are the ones who get work.

I'll admit, on a "business savvy" level, I only work with composers who present me with realistic tracks.

[Danilo Chompor]

James that was beautiful music, and yes intimate. I haven't used Symphobia; is true, but I watched the video and vound it horrific.

[James Semple]

Thank you Danilo, I'm glad you like it.

I have to agree with you that the adverts and demos for Symphobia tried to emphasise the "big cinematic" sound but it is far more than that. I really love the strings, they are some of the best string samples I've ever used. Anyway, I know that I drifted from the original point here

To go back to the Jamie's original question, I think that Garritan can sound good. It can sound surprisingly good if you have a decent reverb and know how to use it. Chris Alpiar's initial response summed up exactly how I feel.

[Jamie Klenetsky]

Thanks to everyone for their responses - not trying to end the conversation but haven't posted in forever. It sounds like GPO is exactly what I'm looking for, though there's much better out there. One day I might be ready for the high-end stuff, as it were, but GPO sounds good to me right now.