I write music and I create recordings of works by other composers. The approaches are different due to being creative on one end and trying to be true to the composer's intent on the other end.

If a work has a lot of legato passages, I might just start by using the legato patches of the various instruments. If the work requires more articulations, I will create each instrument set-up with about four to five slots for different articulations (using Vienna Ensemble). An important thing to consider is the string section you are working with: Not all Violin sections are going to work with a given line. Sometimes, the chamber violins work well, other times it will be orchestral violins. I was working on a symphony and the opening melody of the third movement sounded wonderful with the large violin ensemble. My hope is that the upcoming string section will help fill in some gaps with my compositions. My second piano conerto might really benefit from the use of the new strings.

I am very greatful that VSL is consistent with their provided articulations. I always want more!!

@mh-7635 said:

 

Well, getting back on track hopefully.

I agree with Guy that there is a limitation to ones' imagination using VI's, but if there is one company that tries to make things better for us it is VSL thanks to their exhaustive approach to articulation.

I was curious to read Williams' approach as it is different to mine. I compose on m/s and each line is articulated at conception so when I come to programme, I, like Fahl have everything to hand which suits me (having 128Gb ram helps too😊. Having said that, I do see the benefits of programming with one source but in my case, I use the crappiest piano in my DAW and then automate/articulate once I have recorded the part in. I am a pianist too and so this makes sense to me, I also try not to quantize too much and to get over latency, a sharp attack is very useful.

I have to disagree with Fahls' reliance on inspiration though. For me, composing is not necessarily easy and inspiration is hard won by work - as I see it, one needs to create the environment for inspiration to enter and that is done with due diligence. Even then there is no guarantee inspiration will show up, but hard work and an open mind, ready to go where it might be led, are essential (as is a bit of luck).

I don't believe in such a thing as a work inspired from start to finish, just as there is no real agreement on what inspiration is, nor indeed what moments in a piece are inspired - a composer may be proud of where a particular harmony led to, but a listener might not view that as particularly inspiring! Most composers will admit to some routine work in their pieces, of that I am sure.

Good points.

And to elaborate on what I was saying, and to be sure there's no confusion, just like in anything we do that has a minimum of depth, whether it's arts, sports or chess, you have to go to school first, whether it's through an establisment, private, or picked it up here and there, from the streets etc  it's still going to school, and during that time you are forced or force yourself to do things a certain way, simply because your mind is not use to think like this, so this becomes a huge asset in the end. You do not ask the person, what would you like to learn or what are you feeling today? Learning does not interfere at all with ones imagination and inspiration to be creative, just gives him more techniques to work with and express himself, but does require efforts to begin with. And regarding VSL, the point is, that certain exercises on how to connect the various articulations and beyond would be highly benificial, especially to the less experimented who wished to refine themselves. So I would tell a student for example, here is a melody, you must use these articulations to make it more expressive. That is the idea, to make it more musical and give him new ways to approach programming, and first thing you know, this all becomes natural to you and effortless. Of course, to each his own, and nothing wrong with doing it any other ways, maybe there are better approaches, but seems this makes sense to me.

William, your works are very much appreciated and that's all that counts. Complexity should NOT be a criteria for great music. I have little esteem for some composers with highly complex approaches. 

I wanted to share my novice experience on why and how I switched to VSL. I used to dabble with sound libraries in the early 2000's, during the days of 'soundfonts' and 'giga studio'. While most sample libraries made great quality samples, the one thing that was lacking was classical performance capability. Being a novice amateur composer myself, I couldnt take these libraries seriously beyond a point, as I didnt see how they could ever match the quality of a live performance. When you played a serious of staccto for example, the loudness will not be even. And legato was approximate...etc., I was mainly interested in classical music, and many of these liraries had 'canned' sounds that were suitable for film scores or pop music, but classical music demands a higher level of detail which they didnt have.

I knew about VSL then but it was too pricey for me at that time,

And then in 2015, after years of giving up on virtual samples, I happened to listen to a Beethoven string quartet demo on the VSL website. I was simply blown away. I ordered the samples and was blown away again when I played them. The legato was  amazing and the performance samples with repetition....And then there was the Sibelius integration which was phenomenal, and the organization of the VSL website was fantastic. 

While I am not as advanced as other users here like William and Guy, I feel that the key to me about VSL is organization organization organization.

No other library will allow me to put together a legato with staccato or pizzicato samples in the same musical phrase and make it sound like it was make in my room by one player at one time. VSL seems to have taken tremendous care in making sure that different articulations blend to give the appearance of a single performance. Without this aspect I dont see the point of sample libraries. This is more critical for classical music than other kinds of music. 

Best

Anand

@Another User said:

It is outrageous to dismis2s everyone here in your lousy arrogant attitude. The people here are professionals and artists not ignorant jerks as you treat them.  You have utterly poisoned this Forum and are in fact a sociopath who cares nothing about anyone except yourself.   

Haven't you read Dietz posting who asked all to stay focused. I still fear wordings like that do not help anyone here and does not show any respect for what Dietz expressivly demanded. So take a deep breath and calm yourself reminding that we are just discussing our obviously very different expiriences of the most efficiant way to use VSL.

@fahl5 said:

Haven't you read Dietz posting who asked all to stay focused. I still fear wordings like that do not help anyone here and does not show any respect for what Dietz expressivly demanded. So take a deep breath and calm yourself reminding that we are just discussing our obviously very different expiriences of the most efficiant way to use VSL.

Dietz said in this thread following fahl5's post:

"I want to ask _everybody_ to stay calm and polite during this discussion."

I hope you don't think he was excluding you fahl5? 

deleted. 

@fahl5 said:

Sorry I fear you again completly lost the track of the original argumentation. This thread is not about who has programmed how much how long and how complex pieces. My only point was that if you ever programmed a couple of pieces where one single movement is not 2-3 or 7-8 minutes but up to 20-30 minutes with an ambitious brilliant composer and a largescale Orchestra - at least this was my experience - it is especially in that situation very necessary to organize the whole variety VSL-provides to keep it always available, since you easily need most of it. And therefore the whole usage must be very much streamliined to keep enough awareness for the musical context of the composition as for the ensemble. I know that myself that this problem is not that urgent as long you just program smaller movements between of mostly 2-3 or even 6-8 minutes. So please keep in mind what we are actually discussing here.

I fear fahl5 that you weren't able to understand William's point. Don't misundertand me, you do fine work with VSL fahl5, however composing and making mockups are 2 different worlds, I already stated that, I know, but you think it's the same. Mockups demand more of an architectural organization, I have done a fair share, so I do know. Composing using VI, is different, and it might be hard for you to understand this since you don't have experience in that field, at least as far as I can see, so might be better you don't compare areas you are not qualified for, (as you elegantly previously said). For composers using virtual instruments, it is not unusual they could end with up between 50 and 300 tracks, among other complexe creative features, and personally, I've often used VSL in pretty innovative ways which is also the thrill of working with VI, being creative within the tools you have,  so the complexity and process here is different, the piece is constantly in experimental stages, not just with new ideas but how they would work with the articulations available. and I could go on.  This is specifically why I don't like to use templates, because the moment I have one, I want to do things differently the next time.  The production of a a 6-8 min composition, can be far more complex than a 30 min mockup, and vice versa, you are comparing apple with oranges. I could speak about some of my works and their complexities but since you seem only aware of my Christmas Carols, Fa,la, la, la, la,  and My Oktoberfest, you probably wouldn't be able to know what I'm talking about. I would certainly not argue how Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman like to work, because they have different kind of complexities that you are likely to be unfamiliar with.

@fahl5 said:

Haven't you read Dietz posting who asked all to stay focused. I still fear wordings like that do not help anyone here and does not show any respect for what Dietz expressivly demanded. So take a deep breath and calm yourself reminding that we are just discussing our obviously very different expiriences of the most efficiant way to use VSL.

Dietz said in this thread following fahl5's post:

"I want to ask _everybody_ to stay calm and polite during this discussion."

I hope you don't think he was excluding you fahl5? 

He has had absolutly no reason to include me, while the passage I cited in Williams posting is obviously more than enough reason for Dietz to call for a mote focused and non personmal aggressive way to comunicate. As I always kept  and will go on to keep.

@fahl5 said:

Sorry I fear you again completly lost the track of the original argumentation. This thread is not about who has programmed how much how long and how complex pieces. My only point was that if you ever programmed a couple of pieces where one single movement is not 2-3 or 7-8 minutes but up to 20-30 minutes with an ambitious brilliant composer and a largescale Orchestra - at least this was my experience - it is especially in that situation very necessary to organize the whole variety VSL-provides to keep it always available, since you easily need most of it. And therefore the whole usage must be very much streamliined to keep enough awareness for the musical context of the composition as for the ensemble. I know that myself that this problem is not that urgent as long you just program smaller movements between of mostly 2-3 or even 6-8 minutes. So please keep in mind what we are actually discussing here.

I fear fahl5 that you weren't able to understand William's point. Don't misundertand me, you do fine work with VSL fahl5, however composing and making mockups are 2 different worlds, I already stated that, I know, but you think it's the same. Mockups demand more of an architectural organization, I have done a fair share, so I do know. Composing using VI, is different, and it might be hard for you to understand this since you don't have experience in that field, at least as far as I can see, so might be better you don't compare areas you are not qualified for, (as you elegantly previously said). For composers using virtual instruments, it is not unusual they could end with up between 50 and 300 tracks, among other complexe creative features, and personally, I've often used VSL in pretty innovative ways which is also the thrill of working with VI, being creative within the tools you have,  so the complexity and process here is different, the piece is constantly in experimental stages, not just with new ideas but how they would work with the articulations available. and I could go on.  This is specifically why I don't like to use templates, because the moment I have one, I want to do things differently the next time.  The production of a a 6-8 min composition, can be far more complex than a 30 min mockup, and vice versa, you are comparing apple with oranges. I could speak about some of my works and their complexities but since you seem only aware of my Christmas Carols, Fa,la, la, la, la,  and My Oktoberfest, you probably wouldn't be able to know what I'm talking about. I would certainly not argue how Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman like to work, because they have different kind of complexities that you are likely to be unfamiliar with.

I actually never "compared" composing and programming an interpretation of an existing music. You should look in Williams postings if you want to know who  compares anything like that.

By the way I am aware of not more and not less than what I can find online of your music.

Could you please delete annoying allusions to my name this does not prove any objective or reasonable way to comunicate more over it disturbes very strong the discussion with personal aggressions. So please respect Dietz demand for a respectful way to comunicate as I still do and will not sdtop to do even when other Participants do not.

You obviously misunderstood me completlty if you believe that I do not know the point of view of a composer, I never said that anywhere, moreover I indicated that I of course composed when ever this has been in any way interesting for me and of course even up to an quarter hour duration. So it is nothing new for me what you say about the difference of composing and interpretation of music with samples. However I merely confessed that I never was interested in Filmmusic composing and therefore did not have any own expirience to compose filmusic based on which I would judge or comment anything which is like filmmusic.

@Guy Bacos said:

William, your works are very much appreciated and that's all that counts. Complexity should NOT be a criteria for great music. I have little esteem for some composers with highly complex approaches. 

Complexity is at least since Guy de Machauts Missa de notre dame in the 14th century a significant part of our musical tradition. Since that time It has presumably never been any musical epoque without overwhelming examples of large and complex compositions. I even do not see that much great composers at all who would have convinced anyone with consequently refusing to compose in a complex way. Even the Beatles have done several pretty complex things.

As far imho nothing but the spontaeous and individual taste can and might judge what kind of music deserves our favour, I would not rule out any possible dimension of music at all. Beethoven himself wrote beside his very large scaled and complex Missa solemnis a short very simple song "sah ein Knab ein Röslein stehn" which is of course also great music. But this does not mean, that the tremendous complexity of most of Beethovens late Works "should NOT be a criteria for great music". IMHO it defenitly is! And it is not more and not less than any other way music may appeal to  any faculty of our hearts and minds. At least I do have high esteem for Composers who follow the path of our musical tradition and are inspired by the challenges the great and very often at the same time pretty complex Masterworks in History provide. It is not all what it is about in music, but it also does not deserve any disregard at all.

However I tend to esteem productivity at least as an indication for an at least pretty livly musical mind, since most of tthe great composers demonstrate often an amazing productivity no matter how complex the music was they composed.

@fahl5 said:

Haven't you read Dietz posting who asked all to stay focused. I still fear wordings like that do not help anyone here and does not show any respect for what Dietz expressivly demanded. So take a deep breath and calm yourself reminding that we are just discussing our obviously very different expiriences of the most efficiant way to use VSL.

Dietz said in this thread following fahl5's post:

"I want to ask _everybody_ to stay calm and polite during this discussion."

I hope you don't think he was excluding you fahl5? 

He has had absolutly no reason to include me, while the passage I cited in Williams posting is obviously more than enough reason for Dietz to call for a mote focused and non personmal aggressive way to comunicate. As I always kept  and will go on to keep.

Sigh. 

What is ambiguous about the word "everybody" ...?

I've often used VSL in pretty innovative ways which is also the thrill of working with VI, being creative within the tools you have,  so the complexity and process here is different, the piece is constantly in experimental stages, not just with new ideas but how they would work with the articulations available.......Guy Bacos.

Hey Guy,

It is completely understandable that you have to adopt those principles given your job for VSL - I would have the same view and approach for sure, as you have to show off what the samples can do. However, I was wondering just out of curiosity what your approach is to composing for real players. Do you seperate out the limitations of VI's from your thought process and then write in a more technically unlimited way for instruments, i.e.  in a completely idiomatic way that utilises their capabilities to whatever extent you wish?

I ask out of curiosity because I feel that most media music for example that uses orchestral samples has become  cliched mainly because of said limitations and composers either settle for the constraints and work within them, or will refuse to be bounded by them and create scores that a real orchestra can play because they will write techniques that are not convincing in a mock-up, but are nevertheless part of standard playing and scoring techniques. (BTW, when I say media music, I am referring mainly to soundtrack scoring!).

In my serious work, I do sometimes have to battle the influence of VI's capabilities and I suppose my points above are more relevant and even possibly damaging to a composer who wants to write concert music, because limitations in mock-ups can be at their most damaging when hampering unfettered imagination (on the assumption that a composer will write using a DAW). From what I hear in film scoring these days generally speaking, the reliance on the mock-up sounding good, aided and abetted by the limitation in techniques from VI's has homogenised and diluted the emotional impact of scoring to mere self referential parodies and cliche.

Still, this is not to say that VSL is part of a problem here, because their ethos is in my view, the correct one and I wish all their major competitors would follow their lead in thinking musically first. I hope they continue their excellent work through the Synchron era.

William, apologies for wandering off the OP a bit........

@Guy Bacos said:

William, your works are very much appreciated and that's all that counts. Complexity should NOT be a criteria for great music. I have little esteem for some composers with highly complex approaches. 

Complexity is at least since Guy de Machauts Missa de notre dame in the 14th century a significant part of our musical tradition. Since that time It has presumably never been any musical epoque without overwhelming examples of large and complex compositions. I even do not see that much great composers at all who would have convinced anyone with consequently refusing to compose in a complex way. Even the Beatles have done several pretty complex things.

As far imho nothing but the spontaeous and individual taste can and might judge what kind of music deserves our favour, I would not rule out any possible dimension of music at all. Beethoven himself wrote beside his very large scaled and complex Missa solemnis a short very simple song "sah ein Knab ein Röslein stehn" which is of course also great music. But this does not mean, that the tremendous complexity of most of Beethovens late Works "should NOT be a criteria for great music". IMHO it defenitly is! And it is not more and not less than any other way music may appeal to  any faculty of our hearts and minds. At least I do have high esteem for Composers who follow the path of our musical tradition and are inspired by the challenges the great and very often at the same time pretty complex Masterworks in History provide. It is not all what it is about in music, but it also does not deserve any disregard at all.

However I tend to esteem productivity at least as an indication for an at least pretty livly musical mind, since most of tthe great composers demonstrate often an amazing productivity no matter how complex the music was they composed.

The problem here is you are defining "complexity" in a very traditional way and how you see it. Over many centuries music gradually got more complex in a pretty consistant way, and even then, if complexity is the criteria, then Bach is the greatest composers of all time, end of story, however we know that is very debatable. For Bernstein, it is Beethoven the greatest composer of all time. But I don't want to elaborate on this, however, one thing does bother me, is the necessity and insistance to make a point of this. I use to think this way, but I've changed over the years, it is possible that Gerswhin is more complex than the Beatles, however, the fact that the musical language of pop, jazz, blues, rock, is entirely unrelated to traditional music, in other words, you cannot make fair comparasons. In jazz, for example Bill Evans has different types of genius traits that are really unmeasuable. You mentioned the Beatles, they are a result of a lot of musical genres, including rock n roll and blues which was the language of their time, and their amazing abilities to come up with a unique sound and chord changes quite unique to rock n roll,  and I refuse to measure the complexity of genres that I cannot personally have a full understanding of or play myself as with the same ease as classical music, and for me to evaluate superficially and make comparisons is quite pretentious. Many of the musical qualities are passed on by ear. I don't know what is your background other than classical composers, but there is another world out there. 

The point is, maybe it is more complex, maybe it isn't, maybe it's the same, I don't know and frankly don't care. When I'm in my car these days I'm listening to Beach Boys, I'm in awe in front of what they did, some other days I'll enjoy Bach, and both equally, just in different ways.

It's fine if you want to give your opinion about this, however, people who tend to want to make a point and insist on the complexity aspect with compaisons between Beethoven and X with their traditional criteria, need to get off their high horse. 

@mh-7635 said:

 

I've often used VSL in pretty innovative ways which is also the thrill of working with VI, being creative within the tools you have,  so the complexity and process here is different, the piece is constantly in experimental stages, not just with new ideas but how they would work with the articulations available.......Guy Bacos.

Hey Guy,

It is completely understandable that you have to adopt those principles given your job for VSL - I would have the same view and approach for sure, as you have to show off what the samples can do. However, I was wondering just out of curiosity what your approach is to composing for real players. Do you seperate out the limitations of VI's from your thought process and then write in a more technically unlimited way for instruments, i.e.  in a completely idiomatic way that utilises their capabilities to whatever extent you wish?

This is a fantastic question for Guy, especially because he writes for both live musicians and virtual orchestra. I am also curious to know how different the creative process is for the two. When you write for VSL as opposed to a real orchestra do you have the limitations of the samples in mind? or is it just the same but you later adapt your interpret your composition to fit within the capabilities of VSL?

I also think this question is very relevant to this thread and will help us be better composers in the era of virtual instruments.

Anand

@mh-7635 said:

 

I've often used VSL in pretty innovative ways which is also the thrill of working with VI, being creative within the tools you have,  so the complexity and process here is different, the piece is constantly in experimental stages, not just with new ideas but how they would work with the articulations available.......Guy Bacos.

Hey Guy,

It is completely understandable that you have to adopt those principles given your job for VSL - I would have the same view and approach for sure, as you have to show off what the samples can do. However, I was wondering just out of curiosity what your approach is to composing for real players. Do you seperate out the limitations of VI's from your thought process and then write in a more technically unlimited way for instruments, i.e.  in a completely idiomatic way that utilises their capabilities to whatever extent you wish?

This is a fantastic question for Guy, especially because he writes for both live musicians and virtual orchestra. I am also curious to know how different the creative process is for the two. When you write for VSL as opposed to a real orchestra do you have the limitations of the samples in mind? or is it just the same but you later adapt your interpret your composition to fit within the capabilities of VSL?

I also think this question is very relevant to this thread and will help us learn how to use this software better.

Anand

Sure. Currently a little tied up with a few things, but will reply to this in the next days.

@fahl5 said:

Haven't you read Dietz posting who asked all to stay focused. I still fear wordings like that do not help anyone here and does not show any respect for what Dietz expressivly demanded. So take a deep breath and calm yourself reminding that we are just discussing our obviously very different expiriences of the most efficiant way to use VSL.

Dietz said in this thread following fahl5's post:

"I want to ask _everybody_ to stay calm and polite during this discussion."

I hope you don't think he was excluding you fahl5? 

He has had absolutly no reason to include me, while the passage I cited in Williams posting is obviously more than enough reason for Dietz to call for a mote focused and non personmal aggressive way to comunicate. As I always kept  and will go on to keep.

I just love it! Thanks for the good laugh!

@Another User said:

You have utterly poisoned this Forum and are in fact a sociopath who cares nothing about anyone except yourself.  

A moderator who is not able or willing to keep such pure personal aggressions out of his forum deserves severe requests to care for his own duties. I still hope it would be not necessary to solve this imho blatant breach of existing laws more formal.