Interesting question.
Firstly, are you learning orchestration now (through VSL) or have you studied orchestration conventionally (i.e. at music college)?
Will there be differences between a 'real' orchestra and VSL? Of course there will. When you write parts on a computer for example and hear them back, you may have written a part say, for violin that in the real world is unplayable. Or brass parts that in the real world could mean the horn players run out of breath 5 seconds before you want them to. Basis stuff like that.
At this point in time of the available technology, provided you've written a playable orchestral piece, the real orchestra is going to sound better for all sorts of reasons. Of course it is.
Orchestration learning at college and school level has changed over the years because of technology. A good and bad thing actually. Good, because it gets people interested through the use of being able to experiment with computers and sample libs: bad, because it makes us lazy and attracts computer geeks that clog the place up with techno-speak.
We're a long way off sounding like a real orchestra, although as I've mentioned before, technology moves forwards and 5 years down the road who knows what will be achievable on a computer. Some great stuff already on this forum in the Demo section.
As a side bar, when you go to a live orchestral concert, it never sounds like a recording of that same orchestra on a CD. When an orchestra goes into a recording studio, it may record a passage over and over again, and then different parts are spliced together to try and get that perfect passage. Thats one of the reasons why purists like older recordings or live ones, for example. The studios didn't have the technology they have today and its more a case of 'what you see, is what you get'. Even the live ones are rejigged. I'm not necessarily a purist btw.
Don't get me wrong, computers and VSL and their use of, is fantastic compared to say, years ago. William, on another thread on this part of the forum makes the good point about real orchestras and their subsequent monetary cost. At the moment, in my view, computers and sample libraries will always be a compromise between what sounds 'real' as you put it versus cost. Btw, what is real? Ask the audience that have just come out of a cinema if they thought the filmscore was a real orchestra or VSL on a computer. They wouldn't know and they wouldn't care. If it works, it works.
If, in your case, you are using VSL as your orchestral template for both sound and orchestration and subsequently taking it into a real orchestra situation, you will find its worth its weight in gold.
I guarantee you will get more responses to your question.
Firstly, are you learning orchestration now (through VSL) or have you studied orchestration conventionally (i.e. at music college)?
Will there be differences between a 'real' orchestra and VSL? Of course there will. When you write parts on a computer for example and hear them back, you may have written a part say, for violin that in the real world is unplayable. Or brass parts that in the real world could mean the horn players run out of breath 5 seconds before you want them to. Basis stuff like that.
At this point in time of the available technology, provided you've written a playable orchestral piece, the real orchestra is going to sound better for all sorts of reasons. Of course it is.
Orchestration learning at college and school level has changed over the years because of technology. A good and bad thing actually. Good, because it gets people interested through the use of being able to experiment with computers and sample libs: bad, because it makes us lazy and attracts computer geeks that clog the place up with techno-speak.
We're a long way off sounding like a real orchestra, although as I've mentioned before, technology moves forwards and 5 years down the road who knows what will be achievable on a computer. Some great stuff already on this forum in the Demo section.
As a side bar, when you go to a live orchestral concert, it never sounds like a recording of that same orchestra on a CD. When an orchestra goes into a recording studio, it may record a passage over and over again, and then different parts are spliced together to try and get that perfect passage. Thats one of the reasons why purists like older recordings or live ones, for example. The studios didn't have the technology they have today and its more a case of 'what you see, is what you get'. Even the live ones are rejigged. I'm not necessarily a purist btw.
Don't get me wrong, computers and VSL and their use of, is fantastic compared to say, years ago. William, on another thread on this part of the forum makes the good point about real orchestras and their subsequent monetary cost. At the moment, in my view, computers and sample libraries will always be a compromise between what sounds 'real' as you put it versus cost. Btw, what is real? Ask the audience that have just come out of a cinema if they thought the filmscore was a real orchestra or VSL on a computer. They wouldn't know and they wouldn't care. If it works, it works.
If, in your case, you are using VSL as your orchestral template for both sound and orchestration and subsequently taking it into a real orchestra situation, you will find its worth its weight in gold.
I guarantee you will get more responses to your question.