Hi everyone! I want to share this small composition I made in a 40's - 50's style. The orchestra is Noteperformer 3, written in Sibelius, it has a custom fabfilter reverb to make the thing sound kinda old I guess... Despite I have more than 1 decade composing I'm relatively new at orchestration, so any suggestion is welcome.
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A most pleasant piece and very in the vein of film music of that era, when composers wrote for orchestras rather than sample libraries! so you've simulated the sound very well.
I felt that the orchestration sounded too thick in parts, solos (in the woodwind I noticed) not getting enough emphasis on entry. However, this could be a balance issue, dynamics maybe. As you didn't submit a score I can't comment in detail. The basics are very good though. Did you write a short score first or go straight into an orchestral score, if I may ask?
Great.
Thank you so much Dane for your comment and observation. Maybe it's heavy because the exact unison doubling in the accompaniment(?), I don't have the score right now, but I'm sure I used exact balanced unison doublings in that mid-low range in the accompaniment, maybe that's the problem, as I know that kind of doublings can be heavy if balanced, I went straight into the orchestral score, starting with the strings.
And thanks for your reponse. I'll only make this remark as you mention being relatively new to orchestration. (Many who've been at it in one way or another for many years still find themselves new to it. Me for a start.) Doublings of any kind are about either reinforcing the sound or creating a new timbre. In a full orchestral tutti, particularly at f or ff, doubling is standard and can be at unison, 1 or 2 octaves up or down, in the register than makes them most effective. In quieter bits it's more about the timbre but too much doubling specially in the bass can muddy the sound. However, it could be that you want a muddy effect. (Honegger does this well in the opening bars of his Pacific 231.)
Not sure how true this turned out to be but there was a general belief when I started composing of the tendency to over-thicken when writing straight into full score. I still write the basics on paper then transfer them to the DAW and yes, they're often too thick so a further stage is going through the thing pruning away!
However, you may already be aware of such things. If so, please disregard this comment.
Cheers.
Thanks again for your time, It's always good for me to review these techniques. Paper is the paper man, it never gets old. Definitely there's a tendency to want instant results with playback in the final score nowadays, I should use paper more...
Very beautiful music.
Thanks,
Saul
Thanks for listening, I appreciate your comment.