Ok, I'll talk you through a bit about what this is and how it was done.
The Project
It's a 12-track collection called 'Dark Fairytales' for a London library music publisher, with a recording budget of around $20,000 US which enabled us to record strings in Bratislava, Slovakia and choirs in Tallinn, Estonia this summer. The plan is for the pieces to be useable on adverts and movie trailers.
Stage 1: Real Piano Dictaphone Sketches
The pieces began life as about 20 fragments of ideas played on a piano into a dictaphone.
Stage 2: MIDI Piano performances
I chose the best 12 then for each one spent a few hours learning them, writing out a rough structure (like 'part I - The Moonlit Graveyard'), then after knowing it quite well played a set of impassioned performances into a sequencer to a click. The best bits were compiled, quantised and corrected.
Stage 3: String and Choir parts written by mouse.
Next I set up some basic strings sounds using Edirol Orchestral and wrote string parts with a mouse into the sequencer (Cubase Key Editor) on a laptop, based around the piano melodies and rhythms, and created basic written scores in Cubase. Then the same with the choirs using two simple kontakt choir programs - one male, one female. I wrote a few oohs and ahhs, and some made up lyrics.
Stage 4: Preparations for the Live Players
These scores were then exported as music xml files and sent to a copyist who prepared finished scores for the players. Meanwhile I sent an mp3 of the piano+choir+strings samples, and a MIDI file to the recording engineer so he could prepare Protools projects with the correct click and tempo and a guide track for the musicians to hear. One thing to watch here was making sure (a) the tempos were written on the score documents (important for the musicians to know when practicing before the recording!) and (b) the samples were all A=442 which is the norm for East European orchestras.
Stage 5: The Live Recordings
So then we went to record. The strings were fine but the choir were about to set off on a world tour and their leader wouldn't let them sing my many high, sustained, ff notes. So I had to sit in a hot office and quickly negotiate which bits to drop while the clock ticked. It was super stressful, becaude my ability to read music is quite slow, the choir were waiting to sing, it was a hot day and I had a hangover.
Thankfully for me I had our London engineer operating protools and keeping track of everthing, a conductor keeping the players happy and a local producer speaking the languages (in Estonia it was Michael Paert, son of Arvo Paert, composer). So I could just sit there and smile.
So then, afterwards the publisher's engineer edited all the recorded parts and sent me the best takes all edited and ready to drop straight into the project, as multitracks from different mic positions. This helped for example when needing to boost the cellos here and there, etc.
Stage 7: Making Notes
So finally for each track I'd listen to the mix with guide piano, real choir and real strings then make notes. First I wrote down what should happen in each section, then wrote a list of what sounds I'd use in order that they come in.
Stage 8: Working Down The List
Working through the list I'd then for example cross reference wherever I'd mentioned celestas and my description of what it should do, and play it all in, following my earlier instructions without worrying too much whether it was a good idea. So after a day of adding each sound in order I'd listen back, and more often than not it sounded pretty finished with just a bit of minor editing.
And That's It!
Each track took about 4 days. Piano version on day 1, string part, choir part, adding samples then fine tuning.
That's the methodology! The inspiration comes at four key moments - coming up with the first idea, playing the piano in, writing the real parts and then that hour of writing about what else should be added. Everything else is being a programmer and plodding through the work trying not to question your own earlier judgement!