Commissioning a realization of a score from someone with VSL

[Nat]

Hi there,

I'm new to this site and haven't got any of the VSL software. I'm looking to possibly commission someone to produce a realization for me of an original score that I have, and I'm curious as to how much someone with the necessary experience and software might charge to do it. The reason I'm not doing the realization myself is that I only need to do this once, for this particular piece, and the expense and time involved in buying and learning to use VSL, GS and a sequencer like Logic isn't really justified in my case.

___

The piece is Hermann-esque in style and is scored for full orchestra:

Violin section (mostly straight forward articulations, but some con-sordino, harmonics and portamento effects in all of the strings except bass and cello)
Viola section
Cello section
Bass section

Flute (3)
Piccolo
Oboe (2)
Cor Anglais in F
Clarinet in Bb (2)
Bass Clarinet
Bassoon (3)
Contra-Bassoon
Horn in F (4)
Trumpet in Bb (3)
Cornet
Tenor Trombone (3)
Bass Trombone
Tuba

Percussion: Timpani; Snare drum; China crash; Large sizzle cymbal; Large crash cymbals; Triangle; Tam-Tam; Crotales; Xylophone.

Harp (with some harmonics)
Piano
Celesta
___

Obviously I realize how much someone would charge depends very much on the length of the piece and how involved the orchestration is. It plays somewhere around 9 minutes, although it's slow, and at times the orchestration is fairly complex. I can provide a Sibelius 3 file for you to look at, or a MIDI file from Sibelius (although because of the way Sibelius generates the file a lot of instruments and effects don't play back correctly, e.g. snare rolls) to check out. I've got a few scores printed on A3 so whoever does this for me could havea copy of that, too.

I honestly have no idea what to expect to pay or if this is the correct forum to post my request in. The realization would be for non-commercial purposes (it's for an entrance into a composing competition, actually), if that makes any difference to the price. The score was originally recorded by a local youth orchestra, and while their performance was pretty good considering their age and experience, a lot of things were played incorrectly or the tempos were seriously out, so I need something that better demonstrates the intentions of the composer.

Anyway, hopefully there's someone here who might be interested or at least able to offer some advice!

Cheers,

Nat

[PaulR]

Herrmann-esque sounds interesting.

9 minutes is quite long.

Do you have a recording in MP3 format we could listen to?

[JBacal]

How much time would you be able to give this person to do it?

Do you have a maximum budget?

What level of realism are you hoping to achieve?

Best,
Jay

[Nat]

You know, posting an mp3 didn't occour to me! Here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nat.steele/nightpiece.mp3 (c. 8mb; sorry if it's slow to dl)

Bare in mind that this is a youth orchestra and an amateur recording. Like I said, for their age and experneice it's a great performance, but there are many partrs of the piece which run under tempo, and because of the way the mics were positioned (I guess - I didn't do the recording!) the strings are much quieter than intended. Obviously there are a lot of mistakes too, and often one section of the orchestra is half a bar behind the rest (and it's not always the strings!).

In terms of realism, whatever is possible given time and budget, I suppose. The deadline for submission of the first of two competitions is this Friday, so I'm guessing that it won't be possible to do anything by then. The second deadline is way off in December.

To be honest I haven't even got the faintest idea what sort of cost we'd be looking at - hopefully nothing near the cost of the libraries themselves! Could someone give me a ball-park figure (UKP)? I don't know whether we'd be talking in the tens, hundreds or thousands, so I need to find out if it's even a reasonable proposition, price wise, before going much further.

I forgot to mention that there are mutes used in the brass (straight mutes), by the way, but I guess you can hear that in the recording. Also, there are quite a few flautando effects in the strings.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,

Nat

[PaulR]

I have to say I quite like that. Yes, it is sort of Herrman - you should know that Herrmann is kind of like God around here. [[;)]]

It's sort of The Pertified Forest meets Taxi Driver in some ways with a little bit of Holst egg tempera thrown in. Pretty good stuff and the performance is good in places, especially some of the string lines.

I don't think that would be too difficult to do, although there are some realism issues that would take some time - Friday's out btw. [:D]

Cost wise - it depends a lot on what you think it's worth to yourself. For roughly 9 minutes it also depends on the person that's doing it.

Whereabouts approximately are you in the UK?

Probably around £500 - it depends on how fussy you are and how fussy the person doing it is.

[JBacal]

Very lovely piece! On my desktop speakers the youth orchestra performance sounds quite good to me.

I think it will be challenging to get a sampled mockup (even with VSL) to sound as "real" and expressive. Though with a ton of work and attention to detail it's probably not impossible.

Please be sure to post the results when you finally get it done!

Best,
Jay

[Nat]

I'm glad you like the piece. It's actually a composition by my dad (a jazz sax player) so I'll let him know what you thought.

With regard to realism issues, don't worry. Like I said, it needs to convey the composers intentions, not sound like a recording of a real orchestra. The recording we already have will be submitted but it's just not that accurate. Actually my dad heard the Garritan orchestral library (the one that costs about $150) and was pretty pleased with the sound of that so like I said, realism isn't a big problem. What it does need is to be accurate in terms of the way it's played - i.e. the right instruments sounding in the right octave at the right time at the right tempo!

We're in the South East, in Reading.

I guess this probably ins't a realistic proposition given what you think it might cost - I had in mind maybe £150 or £200 at the most but... probably an unrealistic expectation!

Cheers anyway,

--Nat

[jc5]

Nat, I've left you a private message.

[Christian Marcussen]

If I were you I would stick with what you have. Sounds great, and if the main point is to get the composers intention out I think that file will more than suffice...

Tell your dad its great [:)]

[gugliel]

Here's another contribution toward figuring what's involved, from looking back at some recent work.

It took me from April 19 to May 5 working nearly full time to prepare and record a 6 minute piece; also from Jun 23 to Jul 5 for an 11 minute piece. Both were already fully notated, both had an inflexible, basic midi rendition (fixed velocity level, full nominal duration, no instrument identification).

So facing an unknown piece I'd plan for a minimum of 2 weeks calendar time, 80 hours of billable time. Hard to know what to propose for an hourly rate -- in the past I've paid a teenager $10/hour to help with midi stuff, but wouldn't devote my own time for ten times that. For somebody like Jay Bacal who does very fine vsl realizations but probably doesn't make his living this way, you could try offering $30 or £20 an hour and expect to pay around $2400. (Have no idea whether he'd consider that even close to enough payment). The £500 price sounds like a definite bargain, if done by someone with experience.

The youth orchestra, with everyone playing for free, might also re-do their recording in return for a donation in the £150 range.

[rawmusic]

Lovely piece. Who is your Dad? I live in Bracknell and play loads of jazz. My surname is Whennell. Have we come across each other, perhaps?

I think £500 is a bargain, but also optimistic. Knowing how very long these things take, this will be a labour of love for someone, rather than a money earner, since I don't think you or your dad will want to pay someone making their living out of this what they would want to charge. If you can find someone who just loves to immerse themselves in this kind of thing, and has the time to do it for enjoyment, then you will have hit the jackpot.

I also think the recording is good and far better in standard than a quick mock up on a sampled orchestral library, unless serious time is put in. James Newton Howard does the most realistic sampled orchestra I have ever heard using about 30 odd Roland samplers and months of studio time. Your mp3 definitely gave me an idea of the composers intentions.

Hope you get what you are looking for.

[DG]

@rawmusic said:

James Newton Howard does the most realistic sampled orchestra I have ever heard using about 30 odd Roland samplers and months of studio time.

Nah, there's better stuff on this site [H]

D

[PaulR]

@rawmusic said:

James Newton Howard does the most realistic sampled orchestra I have ever heard using about 30 odd Roland samplers and months of studio time.

Nah, there's better stuff on this site [H]

D

And some of JNH's mocks have allegedly been regarded as suspect by some.

[Christian Marcussen]

@rawmusic said:

James Newton Howard does the most realistic sampled orchestra I have ever heard using about 30 odd Roland samplers and months of studio time.

Nah, there's better stuff on this site [H]

D

And some of JNH's mocks have allegedly been regarded as suspect by some. What does that mean?

[rawmusic]

...and have you actually heard his mock ups, or are you basing your sweeping dismissal on other peoples' opinions? As a pro musicians, I was gobsmacked by the standard of it. There is some fantastic stuff here, but that doesn't make his work any less amazing. Considering Disney were paying him mega bucks, it had to be good. It was his work that inspired me to start turning to samplers for orchestral MIDI arrangements in the first place, having relied on dodgy sound modules up until then.

[hermitage59]

There's no time like the present to step in.
I've just been to a couple of sites and listened to a bit of JNH stuff, including the short demos for Batman Begins. Like PaulR, I've heard various reports about JNH's stuff, not always good, but not all bad either.

As an objective outsider who prefers concert symphonic stuff, I don't always have a high, or neccessarily informed opinion about film music, except for straight musicality.
So, from a musical point of view.....

His stuff sounds mainstream, and much the same as a veritable plethora of other modern film music. There's a number of threads in this forum about the direction film music tends to follow, and i'm afraid to say JNH seems to be following the rest of the herd, with nothing particularly remarkable about his stuff.
This is only my opinion, but i think DG may be right. There's good stuff on this site to challenge JNH. (Jay Bacall's Wagner, Bill Kersten's Holst for just two examples)
From an orchestration and composition perspective, well, same old stuff, cadentially speaking. (2-5-1-2-5-1- 3-6-2-5-1 etc.)
Oh yes, and the same choirs who forgot the words, and simply hum along. (Man, they get a lot of work)

Continue on please Gentlemen, this is just my two Euro's worth!

regards,

Alex.

[rawmusic]

Alex, good informed opinion. Film music is a strange creature. Even John Williams seems to write to a formula a lot of the time. I guess, there is a precedent set, and I don't suppose many mainstream directors are going to want music to challenge an audience in a movie theatre watching a mainstream movie. Some composers spring to mind like Danny Elfman, except all his stuff sounds the same, or Dave Grusin, but then again, if you don't like mainstreamy jazz, he won't be your cup of tea either. I reckon film music is both easy and hard to write (sit on the fence why don't I). I wonder if there is mileage in the "if it aint broke...." scenario, until someone comes along and says "hey man, do something different for a change".

The track I was talking about originally, was called something like, birth of an egg, or something else. In any case, this was highlighted in an interview with JNH about MIDI orchestration. I downloaded both the MIDI mp3 and orchestral mp3 (about 5 years ago I think) on a dial up connection, and at first cursed myself thinking I had waited several minutes to download the same file twice, but then realised they were different. He talked about how he adjusts volume and filter for just about every note he plays in to simulate that of a real player. Had he waited for VSL he wouldn't have needed to do half the work he did!

Anyway, my opinion was based only on recollections of his work I have heard on the telly, and that one download instance, so my view is not all that broad either!

....oh and some of the stuff on this website is truly inspiringly good.

[mathis]

Nat, nice piece. But - as the other already pointed out - it will be a LOT of work and questionable how much it will really improve. I understand your points about tempo though.

[PaulR]

@rawmusic said:

...and have you actually heard his mock ups, or are you basing your sweeping dismissal on other peoples' opinions? As a pro musicians, I was gobsmacked by the standard of it. There is some fantastic stuff here, but that doesn't make his work any less amazing. Considering Disney were paying him mega bucks, it had to be good. It was his work that inspired me to start turning to samplers for orchestral MIDI arrangements in the first place, having relied on dodgy sound modules up until then.

Yes - try not to read into that post of mine - 'I think he's a poor writer' huh.

I'm talking about alleged 'mock-ups' done with samples. And I never make sweeping dismissals about anything.

That's because I've probably forgotten more about filmscoring and the history of it than you know at this point in your career. [8-)]

[rawmusic]

I stand in total respect of your views and experience. I do take exception to your utter arrogance and pig-headedness. There is no call for attitudes like yours, and your reply to my posting just confirms my impression of you. Let's try and be civil and all sing from the same hymn sheet shall we.