@Another User said:

Hi Francesco,

I don't think it was possible to create virtual orchestra music in the late 80s, at least not with the samplers I had access to at the time.   I remember the violin patch I used could fit on a 1.44MB floppy, that tells you how few and small the samples were!   Out of the 99 Gumby segments I scored, a few, like the one I posted had no dialogue and had to be synced to the Gumby band.   I would watch the video and write the music in pencil onto score paper and my assistant would then sequence the music.  By carefully watching the hand and arm movements of the characters, I'd eventually get it right.  It was tedious, time-consuming and there were no shortcuts.  Luckily there were only a few shows like that or I would have gone crazy.  My assistant sequenced the cues using a Yamaha QX-3 sequencer.   Once the music was recorded onto tape, SMPTE time code was used to sync to video. 

 

Talkin' about "size": 

Back in the early 90ies, my first commercial sample library - called "ASL"! - fit on as little as five 3,5" floppy disks. On the spur of the moment, I just googled its name a few minutes ago, and to my biggest surprise it is still on sale! 8-0

-> http://www.chickensys.com/products2/sounds/floppy/austrian.html

... I think I have to ask the distributing company for an intermediate settlement covering the last 20 years or so. ;-D

@Francesco Pirrone said:

Hi Jerry,

thanks for sharing this episode of Gumby. I was born in 1985 and I didn't know this series at all, as far as I remember.

I enjoyed both the episode and your soundtrack, I really enjoyed the composition. I can only imagine how difficult it was to produce orchestral music with the available technology back then. I watched an episode from the previous series also, because I wanted to hear the original orchestral scores. I can understand that the audience preferred the real orchestra, I also prefer real orchestral soundtracks even compared to latest MIDI mock-ups (mine included).

William, you and Jerry are excellent composers, people like you pioneered MIDI orchestration and I sincerely admire that. Today we have really great plug-ins, that's because of decades of research, and composers demanding for better samples all the time played a huge role in such research. I enjoy listening to first MIDI attempts and I wouldn't mind listening to yours......whenever you should wish to share them. 😊

Jerry, would you mind sharing some details about the process, please? For example you said you had to match the guitar playing by sight........how did it work? Nowadays we import videos in our DAWs, did you have the footage playing on a separate screen while you were recording guitars on a tape multitrack? Or was it a digital multitrack recorder?

Francesco

I watched video from TV, there were no DAWS back then.   I would use a metronome to choose a tempo, and use a little software program I had written for me to convert SMPTE time into measures, beats and clocks, and calculate hit points from that information.  Much easier to do today with DAWs, no doubt.  I recorded the sequence to a 1/4" 2 track, SMPTE locked (to video machine) Fostex tape recorder.  Back then, tape noise was always a problem, so I had Dolby S, the best noise reduction at the time to deal with that.

By the way Jerry I think your compositions were very good on this, I was just taken aback by the removal of the original soundtrack.  However I learned it was a copyright issue at the time.  Also, there was no single composer originally, they were all Capitol Records library tracks by many composers.

I  think I flashed back (wrongly) to my rage at Phillip Glass whom I will never forgive for his outrageous removal of the magnificent, beautiful score by George Auric - one of the greatest film composers of all time - to Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast,  and the replacement of that masterpiece with Glass's caophonous banality, which was akin to a chimp shitting all over Micheangelo's David in my opinion. 

You certainly did nothing like that.  Concerning the main topic though, I originally was using a similar library to what Dietz mentioned, a 14 floppy disc sample library for a Roland S-50 which was state of the art at the time, along with a Proteus module, a DX7 and a Tascam 1/2 inch tape recorder. 

@William said:

By the way Jerry I think your compositions were very good on this, I was just taken aback by the removal of the original soundtrack.  However I learned it was a copyright issue at the time.  Also, there was no single composer originally, they were all Capitol Records library tracks by many composers.

I  think I flashed back (wrongly) to my rage at Phillip Glass whom I will never forgive for his outrageous removal of the magnificent, beautiful score by George Auric - one of the greatest film composers of all time - to Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast,  and the replacement of that masterpiece with Glass's caophonous banality, which was akin to a chimp shitting all over Micheangelo's David in my opinion. 

You certainly did nothing like that.  Concerning the main topic though, I originally was using a similar library to what Dietz mentioned, a 14 floppy disc sample library for a Roland S-50 which was state of the art at the time, along with a Proteus module, a DX7 and a Tascam 1/2 inch tape recorder. 

That is correct, there was a copyright issue with the original library music and Art Clokey wanted original music for the old series as well, so the editors took cues I wrote for the new series (about 750 of them) and used them in the old series.  I had nothing to do with that decision, but of course I didn't object as it doubled my royalties.  But that was in the late 80s; nowadays all the media corporations will have the composer sign over his (her) half of the royalties to them.   If I got that job today it would pay maybe a 1/4 of what I was paid, if that.  And today everything is far more expensive.   The music business is like the rest of Capitalist America, more, more and more for the corporations and little to nothing for everyone else. 

Yep, that was my first sampler, the Roland S-50.  Then I added the Roland S-550 which helped a little.  Proteus 2 didn't have bad sounds for those days, probably state-of-the-art.  The eight DX-7s in a TX-816 rack handled the bulk of the cues. 

@Dietz said:

Talkin' about "size": 

Back in the early 90ies, my first commercial sample library - called "ASL"! - fit on as little as five 3,5" floppy disks. On the spur of the moment, I just googled its name a few minutes ago, and to my biggest surprise it is still on sale! 8-0

-> http://www.chickensys.com/products2/sounds/floppy/austrian.html

... I think I have to ask the distributing company for an intermediate settlement covering the last 20 years or so. ;-D

My first sample library was the Peter Siedlaczek strings for Gigastudio.  It is wonderful to witness the advances in sampling and sample libraries.   I couldn't be happier about it.

For the past 14 years I've been mixing on the DM2000,  an amazing digital board by Yamaha.  I love this board, but this week I am donating it to a non-profit because it really is overkill for my studio, I am moving to software-based mixing (actually, I've been doing software mixing for many years, but now even the final mix will be done in software.)  For what I do, physical faders are not necessary.  If I were recording bands, or ensembles or doing live concert recording, I would feel differently.  But for studio work, I don't need physical faders, virtual ones work just as well.   I will be able to enjoy the same digital processing power as the DM2000, while reducing my environmental footprint, lowering my electric bill and lowering my insurance costs.  So goes the evolution of technology...

That is funny I had the Siedlaczek also, as well as Proteus 1 and 2.  I later got the Emu systems Emulator IV and  used Miroslav Vitous with it- the ultimate library back then and rather expensive!  Now individual instruments have more samples than that entire orchestra...    

@jsg said:

The Yamaha QX-1 and QX-3 sequencers were used for that show.   I was limited to 16 tracks.  I had a few samplers (Roland S-50 I think) and 8 DX-7s in a rack.  

Jerry

I thought I recognized the DX-7. There were far worse sounding instruments in those days - Very cute and ingenious music!

Mark Arnest

I too had Vitous and Siedlaczek. Most of the money I earnt in those days ended up being spent on Roland S760's of which I ended up having 5 and still have one for old times sake in my rack although It's never used. Roland had a decent enough orchestral library on cd rom at the time. I also remember the DX7 and some Prophet synths and a Heath and Allen desk.....oh and of course the Akai s500. (I think that's what it was called!).

Hi Jerry,

It's a kind of funny. I've read the whole discussion about the original score and your music... I'm completely unaware of what's what. In Belgium, we've never seen the Gumby Adventures. That makes me unprejudiced. But what I hear is what I like. I've written a pretty big amount of musc for synthesizers and sound machines myself, always with amiration for the new technology (at that time, the Sound Canvas, JV 1010, digital pianos...) My music was designed as accompaniment of religious songs for confirmation masses (12-year-olds). They loved them anyway.

As I love that version you've presented here,

Max

@jsg said:

...But that was in the late 80s; nowadays all the media corporations will have the composer sign over his (her) half of the royalties to them.   If I got that job today it would pay maybe a 1/4 of what I was paid, if that.  And today everything is far more expensive.   The music business is like the rest of Capitalist America, more, more and more for the corporations and little to nothing for everyone else. 

Is it really the music business Jerry or is it the fact that technology is such today that any 14-year old Hip Hopper wannabe with a decent computer set up can ditch school all day and masqeurade as a "composer"  by layering cinesamples, loops and beats?  He can then sell his "works" on a pleathera of sites offering cheap music for the masses across the Net.

Back in the eighties Jerry you weren't competing with the hordes of poop loopers, beat churners, Drone-iacs and so-called DJ's that permeate the scene today.  The Internet and the technology has effectively eliminated the gatekeepers that were the norm during the days of old who screened out all of dribble.

If Capitalism is guilty of anything here it is creating the atmosphere that has allowed the current state of affairs.  But then again, what would the alternaitve be?  Some big brother authority deciding who gets to be a composer and who doesn't?  As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."  I guess the same could be said for Capitalism; the lesser of all the other evils.

I don't think the problem is Capitalism or the music business Jerry I think it's just the fact that good composers such as yourself and others here are held to same standard as the Hans Zimmerites and the dime a dozen mouse clicking prodigies.  Which means there really isn't a standard anymore is there.

Anyway, I'm sorry everyone I got off on a rant there😳

"dime a dozen mouse clicking prodigies".

LOL Jasen, I blame the 'no fail' and politically correct culture too. Everyone is wonderful and talented don't you know.

@jsg said:

I watched video from TV, there were no DAWS back then.   I would use a metronome to choose a tempo, and use a little software program I had written for me to convert SMPTE time into measures, beats and clocks, and calculate hit points from that information.  Much easier to do today with DAWs, no doubt.  I recorded the sequence to a 1/4" 2 track, SMPTE locked (to video machine) Fostex tape recorder.  Back then, tape noise was always a problem, so I had Dolby S, the best noise reduction at the time to deal with that.

@mh-7635 said:

[i]"dime a dozen mouse clicking prodigies".[/i] LOL Jasen, I blame the 'no fail' and politically correct culture too. Everyone is wonderful and talented don't you know.