@PaoloT said:

Composing without thinking to the real instruments, but to the sampled instruments, is really a game-changer. It is not easy to change one's attitude, after years spent thinking to the very versatile human-driven instruments.

Composing with what you have is really liberating. You can try the sampled instruments, explore their abilities, immediately listen to the results, feel the sound under your fingers. Having good libraries would be worthless, if you still force yourself to hear sound you don't have, and can't really listen to.

This is interesting. While I also agree that it is amazing to have the ability for instant feedback with a virtual orchestra, I wonder how composers were able to make such amazing music before the computer era. In other words, my question is not so much about how would Beethoven, Strauss, Ravel, or Mahler would exploit these modern tools if they were alive today, but rather how they produced such amazing tone colors without these tools, but purely with pencil and paper and imagination. 

Obviously the older generations had to undergo rigorous training to hear sounds in their inner ear(precisely because they did not have these tools), otherwise they could not have written with such finesse. But does having the ability to instantly get feedback from sampled orchestra do away for the need for inner hearing? Does the presence or abscence of inner hearing ability have any influence on the quality of the artisic output? On the other hand, if having an orchestra at our fingertips is really a game-changer and gives us so much power, why arent today's composers exceeding, or even matching the compositional prowess of someone like Prokofiev or Stravinsky? Just wondering.

Anand 

@agitato said:

I wonder how composers were able to make such amazing music before the computer era. In other words, my question is not so much about how would Beethoven, Strauss, Ravel, or Mahler would exploit these modern tools if they were alive today, but rather how they produced such amazing tone colors without these tools, but purely with pencil and paper and imagination. 

My 2 cents on this:

I think it has to do with the time and enviroment you live in. Surely the young talented musicians of those times must of developed extraordinary abilities that would be impossible to duplicate living in today's world. Once your mind gears into a certain way of learning, it starts to become lazy in other areas, and how far this can, well seems there's almost no limit. Just an example, imagine not having the invention of the phonograph or radio, you would develp a much better ear, you would take the habit of memorizing much of what you hear, orchestra colors as well. This is impossible for us to conceive, different times. 

@agitato said:

Does the presence or abscence of inner hearing ability have any influence on the quality of the artisic output? On the other hand, if having an orchestra at our fingertips is really a game-changer and gives us so much power, why arent today's composers exceeding, or even matching the compositional prowess of someone like Prokofiev or Stravinsky? Just wondering.

Anand 

[/quote]

I agree wholeheartedly with Guy's assessment, but would like to add some further thoughts for consideration.

First, as someone that composes concert works strictly using notation and media music strictly using a daw, I can vouch for both the different creative processes involved, as well as the stylistic output of the music that results from each method.  When I compose using notation software, I hear the sounds internally, imagining the blend of timbres from the various instruments, the extended techniques and articulations each instrument will use, etc. etc.  Without the benefit of VSL playback, it forces me to think idiomatically for the instruments; it forces me to do a lot more in my head, and to perhaps write with greater complexity, because I can see my notes in the score and understand the resulting harmony and counterpoint visually on "paper".  In daw composition, I become more influenced/inspired by the actual sounds of the samples as I play my keyboard.  In turn, I sometimes can get more creative in terms of the variety of articulations, the timbral pallette, and a myriad of other things that might simply not come to mind when writing with notation.  That said, I rarely can achieve as complex a piece of music in terms of harmony, counterpoint, metre, etc. when composing in a daw.

Now as to your assertion that today's composers aren't exceeding or even matching the abilities of earlier giants, well, there's much to consider, some of which Guy mentioned.  First, how many composers today are blessed with the ability to focus exclusively on creating music without worrying about a myriad of other things that distract them from music-making.  Sure, distractions existed in Mozart's day too, but composers were able to earn a living through their art, whereas today, those that earn that living are rarely doing so with serious orchestral music.  In other words, if the demand for such complex, developed works doesn't exist, and if the opportunities for modern composers to work with orchestras is so limited, what incentive exists for them to continually create such works and improve their craft?  Further, even if they desire to improve their understanding of what works/doesn't work with a real live orchestra, they don't have the opportunity for the learning process of "demonstrate...try...feedback...revise" that composers in previous eras had.  Simply put, I can't create a symphony on paper today, do an orchestral read-through tomorrow, get feedback, go home and revise the score, and repeat the process.  Being "immersed" in the active learning and creative process is something modern composers can't benefit from (except with the wonders of our sample libraries).

Second, while there is in no way a diminishment of the greatness of the giants of the past, their recognition wasn't always immediate.  It can take hundreds of years for their impact to be realized and written about.  Furthermore, as societal values reflect the world in which we live, it's clear that modern composers today won't receive such recognition in their lifetime, save for a few individuals who can "break through the clutter" (and rarely ever do those that break through qualify as the best/most deserving individuals...see Hans Zimmer).  

Third, as has been discussed ad nauseum in the "tonal vs. atonal" debate (which I don't want to revive), it is simply impossible for a composer today to write music without either being compared to those that wrote similarly in the past, or being criticized for writing music that's too "out there".  Let's face it...there are twelve tones, and millions of works have been written already that exploit every possible combination of harmonic progressions, melodic lines, and rhythmic patterns.  Obviously there are many more pieces to be written, but you can't reinvent the wheel when a million wheels are already out there.  So, composers today face the burden of being aware of everything that came before them, and having to constantly find a way to express their voice in an authentic way, completely aware of the fact that others will judge them against that which already exists.  A lot of pressure, to be sure!

Finally, think of the sheer number of distractions in our lives today, entertainment and otherwise that pull our focus from a constant pursuit of musical excellence.  From television and video games, to books, social media, and outdoor activities, there is more to do today than ever before.  And in my estimation, the greats that we recognize today, probably didn't have the most balanced of lives.  They lived for their art and had many more opportunities to immerse themselves in it for many hours a day than composers today do (again, save for those with academic appointments, film composers, etc.)  

Sorry for rambling, but I felt the need to at least play devil's advocate.  The funny thing is, generally speaking, I agree that very few living composers today are achieving at the same level as those composers of previous centuries...but I don't believe it's for lack of ability, as much as for lack of opportunity to develop those skills to a higher degree than they currently do.

Dave

"Sorry for rambling, but I felt the need to at least play devil's advocate.  The funny thing is, generally speaking, I agree that very few living composers today are achieving at the same level as those composers of previous centuries...but I don't believe it's for lack of ability, as much as for lack of opportunity to develop those skills to a higher degree than they currently do.

Dave"

True that todays technological advances come with the downside of other distractions that perhaps prevent people from achieving a higher level of compositional artistry compared to 100 or more years ago. (although some people even today reach that level but face other limitations you mention) 

Anyways, composing tools like VSL give people like me...non-music professionals....an opportunity to directly interact with this amazing thing called orchestra, even if the intention is not to make a living out of it.

Cheers

Anand 

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@William said:

I think it is the basic fact that creativity always finds a way.

This is so true. And should be a guiding motto for all of us who want to compose. Even one hundred years ago, composers were complaining that all of the best ideas had been used and there was nothing of value remaining to be written. How wrong was that?

Paul

Many interesting points made in this thread. The reason I can compose in notation using Sibelius is the NotePerformer soundset, which makes it possible to get a very good idea of how things will sound just using standard notation. Without Sibelius and NotePerformer I would be forced to go back to composing at a keyboard. Of course, NotePerformer is far short of the quality of VSL and other top-tier sample libraries, so I also do a VSL midi-performance.

Almost all of the great composers composed at the keyboard. The only two I can immediately think of who could compose entirely "in the head" are Mozart and Handel. Even Bach composed at the keyboard. This is not to say that great composers did not do some things "in the mind's ear." Beethoven would take long walks while singing his ideas. Dvorak also was a walking aficionado walking every morning to the local train station and thinking about his composing for the day.

Before recorded music every family created their own music. Every middle-class family owned a piano and most families had several musicians. As a result, composers could easily bring together a string quartet or various wind and brass instruments to try out ideas before making a final commitment to publication. Beethoven in his many notebooks often made notations regarding various "readings" with musicians that he held in his apartment. Bruckner was notorious for making changes to his orchestrations after hearing the initial performance. When I began composing in the 1970's I had numerous musician friends who were willing to try out new music for me. Today there seems to be fewer gifted family and amateur musicians, so getting a reading is probably impossible unless one is connected to a music school. To compensate we have software. 

I do believe that with experience and training, one begins to have a firm conception of what various instrument combinations, harmonic progressions, and articulations will work in performance. So the more feedback we receive (as someone previously mentioned) the better we become at composing in the mind's ear.

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@Acclarion said:

Finally, think of the sheer number of distractions in our lives today, entertainment and otherwise that pull our focus from a constant pursuit of musical excellence.  From television and video games, to books, social media, and outdoor activities, there is more to do today than ever before.

Like this morning I saw in my coffee, "don't forget black friday!".

@William said:

Another thing that occurred to me is it can be very helpful to first compose in notation like Finale or Sibelius because converting that into MIDI is fairly easy.  However, if you have something that was composed first playing into a keyboard, especially with a lot of different tracks, it can be a nightmare converting that into notation.  I've had to do that on a lot of stuff that I deliberately did with loose performance accuracy in order to make it sound more human, but then I wanted a notated score.  That of course requires quantizing and no program does that perfectly, so it becomes a huge editing hassle to get everything accurate for conversion to notation.  It is interesting how the humanize features of VSL have become so good that having a perfect sheet music quantized MIDI sequence works very well without a mechanical feel.  So now it makes sense to have a notated score to begin with if you ever plan to convert it into sheet music.  

Yes, my experience exactly! It is easy to export MIDI from Sibelius or Finale into a DAW, which gives a great starting point for the midi-performance. One still has a lot of work left to do, but it isn't too onerous to select articulations and paint CC curves for dynamics and other controls like start and release. Once again this is another area of VSL advantage because as you point out, the VSL humanization features obfuscate the need to manually humanize note start times and tuning variations. 

My limited experience with going from MIDI to notation also matches yours. This became painfully clear to me a few weeks ago when I was trying to create notation from a MIDI file created by another composer. The midi sounded great, but it was so sloppy that it took forever to get it notated.

As we discuss these VSL advantages, it really makes me wonder about the folks on the VI-Control forum who seem to hate the VSL instruments. I wonder if they simply do not think like classically trained musicians? For so many the only consideration seems to be "out of the box" initial impression of the sound.

@Paul McGraw said:

As we discuss these VSL advantages, it really makes me wonder about the folks on the VI-Control forum who seem to hate the VSL instruments. I wonder if they simply do not think like classically trained musicians? For so many the only consideration seems to be "out of the box" initial impression of the sound.

@Acclarion said:

(...) and the fact that a large percentage of consumers are amateurs that see sound libraries as products that should "just work" without developing skills and intricate knowledge of how best to use these tools. And unless you have a solid foundation in orchestration, music theory, etc. you may not understand how to improve the quality of your midi recordings, and so, would be better off using a library that provides a "decent" out of the box sound, that is often quite good for virtually all styles, but classical. Dave

This is also what I experienced back when I started making music with samples. I am not a professionaly trained musican, but have at least 10 years experience with notation software and also play some instruments.
When I started using VSL over a year ago my results were far less good and realistic compared to results with other libraries because I didn't know how to use it properly; but the other libraries couldn't deliver the realism I was looking for, so I took the time, researching not only how to work best with samples (and VSL) but also how an orchestra and the instruments in it are working (in particular the strings). As result my mockups are far more realistic than I could ever do with the other libraries out there. And you get better at using VSL every day you are working with it 😊

Right now I am working on a CD project with some friends and we needed a good piano that fits our budget. So I listend to about 70-80 virtual pianos out there to find the best within the budget. Some of the pianos sounded great, but they are not so good for classical music. So we bought the "Bösendorfer Imperial" and we are happy with the results so far.
MIDIs from notation software are a good starting point. I import the scores of my friends into the sequencer and the results are great after a lot of work. But if I compose directly in a sequencer it's even better and sounds more interesting because the available samples inspire you to experiment with new sounds and techniques.

Speaking of "out the of box" libraries, I don't believe in that, to me it' like hiring a cellist who could only play 3 typles of articulations. As long as you stay within these articulations you're fine, but don't ask him for more.

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?

Sorry, I got distracted by another argument and ended up mindlessly deleting posts like Godzilla stomping on miniatures.  But there are some interesting observations in this thread.   

"I prefer to work WITH the samples, and my ideas will revolve around what is available and sound most pleasing to me in a particular library... I prefer to work WITH the samples, and my ideas will revolve around what is available and sound most pleasing to me in a particular library." - Guy Bacos

That is a good approach especially for the demos obviously, but also for generating ideas when one doesn't yet have something already composed.  It is almost like a kind of play which results in new ideas.  I think I have done that a little but not much, and mainly have used VSL for realizing prior compositions.  This includes a number of pieces that had actually been played by live ensembles but not very well.  When they were realized using VSL it was amazing to hear the music actually came together.  In this sense I have had exactly  the opposite experience of people here who come on talking about how great a live ensemble is and how samples can never match that quality.  I have found the VSL performances could not be matched by the live orchestras !  That is mind-boggling when you think about the state of MIDI ten years ago with horrible machine gunnning single-sampled spread across a keyboard, analog synths being abused to create a faked orchestra, etc.  (Interesting how the analog synthesizer has had a renaissance and now Moog is back, Korg has several including a new Arp Odyssey, many others - now that it no longer has to be used to fake other instrument sounds its own sound can be used for its own sake.)  

In the post by Guy he mentioned the Variations on Lie Ciocarlie for piano and orchestra, and I finally listened to that.  That is an amazing complex piece of music, virtuosic, really brilliantly written!  I love how it is in a recognizably Romantic style - somewhat Rachmaninoffian especially with the scary pianistic ability required) but also modern.   Btw Guy, can you play that live?  

William,

very interesting points.

I guess sampling technology has made it possible today to play any kind of instrument in a virtual form, which is just an extension of what composers did in pre-sampling era - when they could only access the piano or a single instrument at a time,

However I am trying to understand your statement:

"I have found the VSL performances could not be matched by the live orchestras".

I wasnt sure what you meant since I cannot imagine that professional symphony orchestras (like the Berlin Phill or vienna phill or LSO or a 100 others) will perform worse than VSL ... in fact I would think it would be many years before samples can achieve what is truly possible by exceptional orchestra muscians...after all the samples were recorded by live musicians and hence at best they are an approximation (which is gettting closer and clsoer to real with advanced sampling technology like used by VSL). If the Berlil Phil or BSO or VPO or LSO play your work they will do an outstanding job....evidence abounds in the thousands of recordings that are out there. I am yet to hear one sample based recording of masterworks that I will replace these recordings with.

Please dont get me wrong here...I am just trying to understand/learn from your statement. Unlike you I am not a professional musician, and have no experience working with live orchestras, so I am very curious about what goes on 'out there' in the real world of orchestral performances by composers like you.....This is very interesting to me since it involves the business of music more than anything else.. I guess hiring musicians costs money and good quality music is hard to realize with live performance wthout spending a lot of money. 

Anand

P.S. btw tomorrow I am attending a live performance of Boston SO performing Prokofiev 2nd violin concerto (!) and Strauss's Alpine symphony. I am way too excited as we got the balcony seat!! Here is the program:

https://www.bso.org/brands/bso/features/2017-18-bso-season/november-30-december-2-bermel-prokofiev-and-strauss.aspx

"I cannot imagine that professional symphony orchestras (like the Berlin Phill or vienna phill or LSO or a 100 others) will perform worse than VSL ... in fact I would think it would be many years before samples can achieve what is truly possible by exceptional orchestra muscians"

I don't mean to be obnoxious but try to get those orchestras to perform your work !

You think that level of performance is normal?  Normal is the orchestras that have played my music.  So if you have those orchestras you mentioned, you are in the most rare strata of composers.  

And yet everyone here on this VSL forum thinks that is the norm. I keep on seeing this reaction here.  Oh, VSL samples aren't as good as the usual orchestra - like London Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, etc.  There is  no concept of how absolutely different from usual musical performance these orchestras are.  There are a thousand orchestras for every indiviidual Berlin Phil that can't even come close.  And you would have a huge difficulty getting even one of those lesser ones to LOOK at your music.  Let alone play it.  

I guess I should tone this down but do think that there is a basic usual assumption that "orchestral performance" is something easily obtainable and flawlessly virtuosic and largely because of mass distribution of great orchestras, not the usual ones that exist.