@Conquer said:

I take DG's point, but some people prefer to hear their composition as it takes shape rather than write it all out on paper first. Dstorfer said, "I used to make a ton of music on a hardward sequencer with a 24 character LCD screen. And I was great at it." That being the case, he should have no problem working with Cubase or Logic, regardless of what version he has. A good notation program may or may not help in this case - what say you, Mr. Dstorfer?

That's easily fixed as well. If you can make a lot of music using a hardware sequencer with comparatively few sounds, then do the same again, and only transfer them music to VSL when it's written.

You can put a few extra piano tracks at the bottom of the project marked Strings A, Strings B, Woodwinds A etc. to keep the orchestration clear in your head, and you will find that this will allow the music to take shape much more quickly than trying to sequence each part individually.

You can also use a notation program with GM playback, which should allow you to hear what you've written as soon as yo have played it.

DG

Is there is a compatility between GM and VSL, I never heard of that !

@Cyril said:

Is there is a compatility between GM and VSL, I never heard of that !

I never meant to suggest that they were compatible, so sorry if it read that way. What I was trying to say was that if you want rudimentary playback, it is sufficient. Obviously when you want high quality playback you have to organise all your patch changes properly, but as the OP is using Cubase, it is less of a problem than with a sequencer that doesn't use VST Expression.

DG

 I definitely agree with the general line of the comments above.

I think it is important to separate the compositional process from the technical process of rendering the sounds. It is tempting to want to hear things as they progress but I would keep this to a minimum with some basic sounds.

I work on pieces with pencil and ms paper and Sibelius and only when I fairly satisfied do I move to a  midi export to Cubase and samples.

Of course you can still edit the music as you go along but composing and rendering sounds are very different art forms.

I think a lot of your frustration comes from mixing the two.

Best

Kanon

Thank you all for the input. I think Conquer probably has a similar work style so I will try his first suggestion first. Limiting the patches may bring me closer to what it was like with my old synths.

@DG - I have programmed a few pages of Mozart's clarinet concerto. That was easy, especially with the expression maps. For me, it's during the initial creative process that I'm frustrated with the tools, but here's why a lot of these suggestions might be challenging for me unless I reboot my whole brain:

For one thing, I've never "written music" down, per se, I've always played, composed, recorded, sequenced, etc.. all at once. I do know music theory quite well as a jazz pianist and 3 yrs as a music major, and can write notation, but I don't really hear ideas in my head and can't get them down like that. For me, it was always easy to mess around on the keyboard until I found a few motifs that I liked, then develop them through improv and happy accidents. I'd start with a framework of the piece in the sequencer, then keep playing and recording different instrument tracks - just letting stuff fall out of my fingers in a rough draft. Then I'd go back, harvest the good stuff, and reproduce the good accidents in a cleaner way -- rinse, repeat. Something about Cubase (and Cakewalk) stops that process and I don't know why.

I certainly admire those who can just compose with notation or paper or just on piano, but I don't think I can do that. I'm fairly jealous of those who can, including my dad with perfect pitch.  

@Kanon - I don't think my intention was to fully render the piece as I wrote it, it was more that VSL presented me with these tools that I thought I had to use this way. I think Conquer's suggestion to use 1 articulation per track is good. In the old days if I needed some pizz, I would just do it on another track, which is probably exactly how I still should be doing it, at least for the initial writing. Or maybe I'll just use simpler sounds in Halion and forget about all these keyswitches.

>I certainly admire those who can just compose with notation or paper or just on piano, but I don't think I can do that.

No problem, you should stick to the method that works for you. It doesn't matter how you get there as long as some music comes out in the end! Personally I compose the same way as you do, by improvising, consolidating then sequencing the results. I too have had moments when the sheer complexity of my MIDI set-up has started to be counter-productive, and when that happens I just go back to basics and work with a very simple template. Stick to your guns and don't feel you need to compete technically - at the end of the day the samples are just tools to help you achieve your creative aims, not an obstacle that you have to overcome. Good luck with your musical endeavours! [Y]

@kanon said:

I think a lot of your frustration comes from mixing the two.

Did you try MIR ?

There is a free trial

I love it ! hardly any more mixing !

I spend a good bit of time setting up the orchestration first. I enjoy it, a lot. I'm going for a sound first. I don't have a single overarching template. the template might be based on a previous one and as far as a Cubase template it's just a matter of opening that prior project and repopulating it.

While I did compose via notation for years, I don't at all today. As far as detail in articulations, and I do make very convincing solo work, I input the lines with a good legato where available and as things occur to me I pencil them [keyswitches, CC11...] in in the key editor. I don't have a preconception in a score type of form to satisfy, I improvise lines and the idea of the right articulation is of a piece with the creation, but directly with the sound.

Over the time I've had tools such as VSL, I've grown with them. I think the preconception of everything ready to go rather than just start with the idea and THEN flesh it out and make it 'big' is the biggest obstacle you've put up for yourself here.

that's some belief, because you don't enjoy this work very much, 'one' must not have the expectation for realism... which I actually achieve in every work.

you need to get out more, you'd be surprised what people can do with some work, particularly if they enjoy that work more than anything in the world.

What's so great about realism anyway? You can make fabulous music with orchestral samples without attempting to closely mimic the sound of real players.

@Conquer said:

What's so great about realism anyway? You can make fabulous music with orchestral samples without attempting to closely mimic the sound of real players.

This is an interesting discussion and one that probably has no resolution.  This is where I fall.  I'm thrilled to have VSL (SE) sounds at my disposal and am very satisfied with the results I get out of Finale.  It gives me and any clients a reasonable demonstration of what the music will sound like with real players although some imagination is still required of course. 

Personally I've never tried to write to the samples but tried to write with an ear toward real players.  It can be frustrating at times and extra work to "hammer" the samples into submission but worth it in the end.  I'd say my craft has improved because of this technology.  I wish I'd had this in college.

The orchestral music begins with writing good arrangement, you can do this on paper or record it using piano. Once you have this sketch, you must know a lot about orchestration so you are able to put right voices to right instruments. If you dont know how to compose, arrange and orchestrate, it doesnt matter if you have all articulations and best of the best sound banks - you simply dont know what to do [:S] So listen to music a lot of orchestral music, study orchestral scores, practice harmony.....etc. etc.

If you know enough about theory and you have practice in writing music {not sequencing} your workflow should be easy. After I record musical phrases I am listening to those phrases and record all controllers I want {xfade, expression, etc.} sometimes one by one sometimes simoutaneously two or more at once {sure you need fader controler with more than one fader for this}. Keyswitches are made in realitme and sometimes by entering. As you can see there is no tutorial for this, because every instrumentation every phrase needs different approach.

But firstly you must have clear idea of sound in your mind and then you just reproduce it into sequencer. VSL and other banks are not holy grails, you must have extraordinary musical knowledge to create extraordinary compositons. VSL is just simply best orchestral tool to accomplish your musical ideas in orchestration world.

One good advice that helped me - try to recreate some scores that wrote masters {Beethoven, Brahms, Prokofiev, Ravel, etc. etc.} You will be surprised what you can learn from it....

thats my toughts....

@winknotes_282  - I wish I'd had it when I was wrestling with my E-mu Emulator's two seconds of mono sampling time! Getting back to the original poster's predicament, the extra time taken to hammer the samples into submission (as you aptly put it) does make a big difference in achieving realistic results, but it may also be an inspiration-killer. I felt the OP would have more fun if he just ploughed ahead with samples that were in the right ballpark, rather than beating himself up trying to incorporate every tiny orchestral detail into his template before playing a note in anger.

@Dstorfer said:

I'm seriously ready to quit.  20 years ago I used to make a ton of music on a hardward sequencer with a 24 character LCD screen. And I was great at it.  Now I have all this power of Cubase and Vienna, and I just can't get any creative flow. I can use Cubase in general pop music recording, but orchestral just seems different.  It's making me nuts. 

Here's some of why -- I have to try to setup my keyboard or the VSL presets because it's got 61 keys and all the Vienna presets are made for 88-key keyswitches.  Then map MIDI CC to expression, cross-fade, etc....  How to do this for all different instruments, then set up 30 track templates in Cubase with all instruments laid out, etc....   Does everyone go through this torture? How do you get anything done?

All I wanted to do was write some neat orchestral music like I used to do in college, and I'm just running into 42 yr old frustration with analysis paralysis.  What's worse -- I'm actually a computer programmer (senior, significantly respected at work) and I just can't get this stuff to flow like I did with much simpler tools.   I must be missing something simple? I feel like I just need to see the light.

Does anyone have starting point suggestions?  What's your creative flow?  Do you have a video of how you get started and how you lay down tracks, do you work with a click track when doing orchestral or just work freely, etc...  Stuff like that.

I have Cubase 7 and Vienna Special Edition 1 (basic orchestra and a few solo).  Just got a Nektar Panorama P6 keyboard with the new Cubase integration.  (I also have an Alesis QS8 weighted 88, but I didn't think it had the right stuff to work with Cubase like the new controllers do, and weighted was hard for me to play faster parts, but maybe I should have gotten the P1 and kept my keys.)

"Creative flow"? "...But orchestral just SEEMS different"!!!???

Please! Do anything BUT write "neat" orchestral music - above everything else, NEVER post it publicly or share it with ANYBODY. Shhhh!.... Isn't absolute silence so much more preferable? Stick to computer programming (If you're so good at it). 

However, and if you promise to keep the C.H.U.D. product to yourself, there are powerful softwares and libraries out there (VapidComposer, Cine Ork, Project Sham, etc.) for those cross-over hopefuls like yourself. Give those a try, but

There is no crossing over, for there is no bridge! And everything that sorta sounds like in the middle comes from the immense and bottomless trough that separates the artists from the fartists; the composers from conposers. 

Still, if you're dead set on creating some neat orchestral stuff, please, in the immortal Michael Jackson's admonishment, keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet,keep-it-in-the-closet.....................

Gosh Errikos, thanks for that brilliant insight and helpful advice.  I'm sure everyone on this forum is all the better for having you as a member.

I notice you don't seem to have any posts where you've posted your brilliant compositions so the world can hear how incredibly great you are.  But then again, I assume that your music was just performed at the Disney Music Hall by the LA Philharmonic, or perhaps your scores have accompanied some of the greatest films of the last decade. We'll all be sure to listen for your next egomaniacal opus.

I guess we can't all be awesome like you - never needing to ask for help on anything.

@Dstorfer said:

Gosh Errikos, thanks for that brilliant insight and helpful advice.  I'm sure everyone on this forum is all the better for having you as a member.

I notice you don't seem to have any posts where you've posted your brilliant compositions so the world can hear how incredibly great you are. 

I guess we can't all be awesome like you - never needing to ask for help on anything.

Is that what you inferred from my post?

a) No problem. My insight is always brilliant, and my advice habitually helpful.

b) Well, you'd have to ask them. Run a census.

c) That's right. Nobody's burdened by the noise I make, are they? If your orchestral music is going to just "seem different" from pop music, or be "neat", you should also be respectful of others' sensibilities.

d) Nothing wrong about asking for help - I've done it plenty of times. Question is, what are you asking help for! And that was the point of my post.

Everyone else understood exactly what I was asking help for.   20 years ago, the tools I had allowed, and perhaps helped, me to be productive and creative. They were roughly similar: a sequencer, keyboard, and a synth.  Today the tools are more complex, and I'm trying to find the right route to utilize them so that they don't get in the way of creativity - having to jump between screens, back and forth from keyboard to screen. 

You decided to insult me and my music, which you know nothing about. The reason I would use these tools is because other than when I was in college, I haven't had access to a large, live ensemble to perform my works.  Back then I also wrote pieces for a live flute ensemble, string quartet, solo instruments & piano, and several arrangements for full jazz ensemble -- all of which I wrote out, by hand, on paper and were performed.

"artists..fartists" -- Really, dick?  So you are the authority on exactly what makes an artist? So nice that you've deemed yourself a high-artist, but determined with no knowledge of anything about me, that I cannot be one.

You certainly did not need to indict me or the type of music I create, as if the music you create is superior to any other type of music - and how the hell do you know what I mean by "neat"?  What if neat means Bartok-like, what if it means Celine Dion-like, what if it means dubstep?  What made you think that the music I intend to create would contain loops or pre-recorded snippets that I can just piece together because I don't know anything about writing?  And never once did I mention that I'd be posting it anywhere - and if I did, and you didn't want to hear it, then don't listen.

And furthermore - if someone does create music that uses Project Sam, sounds like a Celine Dion song, or loops or whatever else they wanted to use, and they enjoyed doing it, and it made them feel good, who are you to tell them they are inferior, could not be an artist, and should just quit?   You're clearly a big jerk. If you have nothing nice to say, then shut the hell up.

Not everyone does this to create perfectly structured esoteric symphonies, following every little rule so they can have high-art discussions about it. Some people just want to have fun because music is a nice outlet.

Dear forum members,

please stick to a respectful and friendly tone on these pages (... this is addressed particularly to our "Usual Suspects", hint hint ... ;-) ...)

Thanks a lot in advance.