@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.  

Well, I guess your answer to my question is: 

yes it is nearly impossible to get one's work played by leading orchestras...even if there are hundreds of them and yes most of the orchestras that you can typically perform your work totally suck.

This is very interesting to know and yes you can call me naive in this respect. 

"If anyone wants to post right here a live orchestral performance that is outstandingly great compared to VSL - go ahead.  I want to hear it.   let's hear it right now! "

You mean live performances of new music by VSL users in this forum right? 

"You think it is because you have CDs, DVDs, etc. that you bought...."

btw I dont just have "CDs and DVDs," I've listened to 1000s of live performances of both contemporary and classical pieces. There are many local orchestras in Boston that are quite amazing, including the new england concervatory which has many student ensembles...some of their performances are quite incredible and Ive heard the same pieces by the greats like Karajan and Bernstein and so on. You may have heard of Benjamin Zander who leads the boston philharmonic..But Boston might be an exception in this regard and I see your point on the whole that most local orchestras suck.

Also as a footnote, please dont take my questions personally. You seem to have been riled up by my post. There is no need for that. I am not questioning your achievements.

Cheers

Anand

There is no need to even discuss this further even though not one of us has heard every no-name orchestra there is. The personal pronoun 'you' used in the discussion below addresses no one specifically.

Incontrovertibly, the advantages of the VSL are: a) Intonation (try and get that with anybody that you can get your hands on, especially if your work is not just spiccati and brass-drones), b) Metric/Rhythmic accuracy (try and get that with anybody that you can get your hands on, if your work is not just spiccati and brass-drones), c) The quality of the instruments themselves (try and get that with any 4-tier and lower orchestra), d) Musicality in the single pitches that constitute the samples (incomparable except with the best players around), e) Infinite forgiveness for your uninspired composition, unacceptable orchestration, blundering voice-leading, illiterate use of instruments, etc. (try that with almost any orchestra) and -most importantly- e) The unlimited "rehearsal" time (really try and get that with any orchestra - unless your father owns it).

The advantages of real orchestras, any live orchestras are: a) Live instruments, live performance (I don't care how great a programmer you are, I can tell the difference, easily in most cases), b) Humanity in the playing (I have experienced this in even the most amateur ensemble I've worked with. I have cringed at every other aspect, but the human feeling you get with a live ensemble I have rarely heard approximated with samples), c) The unlimited amount of nuance (dynamics, etc.) in the same articulation.

So, if you are recording a work for demo purposes, let alone for a producer, which of the above would you choose, VSL or live orchestra (not the Berlin Phil., the orchestra that you can get your hands on)? If you could ever have only one recorded version of your work your whole life, which of the above would you choose, VSL or live orchestra (not the Berlin Phil., the orchestra that you can get your hands on)?

Having done both, and not having been fortunate enough to be commissioned by the Concertgebouw, or given generous sessions with expensive professional studio orchestras, I take the electronic version of my works as overall closer to my compositional intentions. Be that as it may, I always welcome and am excited (and scared) everytime I get an opportunity to work with a real ensemble; way more thrilling than sitting at home drawing articulation lanes... 

And we should not forget that -as with orchestras- the skills of the individual musician/programmer will yield results of very different quality, even when using the same VSL samples!

Sorry Anand it wasn't you personally I was railing against though it probably sounded that way.

No worries Bill. I understand you spoke from the frustration about the quality of orchestras. Anyways it is insightful to know the reality of what goes on in the business of classical performance.

Sorry for the addendum, it's as academic as this discussion is really, but it is an important point: Working with living musicians helps make you a better composer exponentially if these musicians are at least graduates (if they are not good it has the opposite effect), and that is because through your experiences with them you learn what works and what doesn't. It is one of the advantages the old masters had over us; we have access to infinitely more recorded music than they did, but every one of their days was spent in live music making and/or observing. It makes a lot of difference...

Working with living musicians helps make you a better composer exponentially if these musicians are at least graduates (if they are not good it has the opposite effect), and that is because through your experiences with them you learn what works and what doesn't. It is one of the advantages the old masters had over us; we have access to infinitely more recorded music than they did, but every one of their days was spent in live music making and/or observing. It makes a lot of difference...

Maybe a small correction. I do understand perfectly what you mean, but there's actually a lot one can learn from non-academic or even totally amateur musicians (in musical practice of course) as well. Every musician comes with his/her level of ability, skills, talents and it provides wealth and diversity to the musical context we all live in. (We've already had the discussion about professionally trained composers and folk music composers who often even don't know how to read notes... But both are almost equally important in the music scene, influencing each other. e.g. Mozart used a number of folk tunes, the people in the streat picked up many lovely arias from his operas and turned them into street tunes. Here is a small example of that statement: "La douce flute", a song that I found in a handwritten booklet containing all kinds of dances in Leuven (Flanders) in a single melody line (late 18th century). The arrangement was made by myself.

Kindly, Jos

Hi Jos, I very much enjoyed your arrangement of that tune.

I think you misunderstood my thoughts or I wasn't clear enough. I am certainly not denigrating non-academic/amateur musicians at all. However, the discussion here is about orchestral samples, not folk instruments and practices, so ethnic/folk musicians -professional or amateur- are not examined here.

As far as symphonic music is concerned, I must say that I prefer hearing that someone is an amateur than a professional, for it is a dedicated audience we are lacking these days, not professionals. I also consider B.Mus graduates as amateur performers if they make their living as teachers and not play regularly (I don't mean recent graduates, but referring to 30+ year-olds that have done next to nothing but teaching since graduating). In addition, recent graduates are young, beginning professionals. A composer benefits from those musicians' performance and advice when he is at a similar level of development. A more advanced composer is liable to get limited, even false feedback and advice from inexperienced youngsters (allowing for rare exceptions). It is rather the reverse. The seasoned composer will help the development of budding performers instead.

Incidentally, I am not convinced about the concept of everybody's a priori equality and importance. Mozart is infinitely more important than any folk musician if, regardless of many other reasons, due to his historical and global influence, compared to the more localised stature a talented folk musician can generally enjoy. I am all for the pluralism and diversity you propose, as well as for the osmosis between various types of music (ex. composers of disparate idioms borrowing melodies from one another and treating those in their own style and manner), but I wouldn't call such superficial hommages 'influence', it is too strong a word. 'Inspired' maybe.

Jos

I love those finds of yours - where do you get these things!!?  They are fabulous.  They are very important also.  I think folk music is actually the true nature of all music.  The greatest melodies ever composed are folk melodies.  And melody is the essence of music.  That is why so many composers throughout music history have studied, even based their music upon folk music, including Dvorak, Mussorgsky, Vaughn Williams, Bartok, many of the greatest compsoers realized that the essence of music is contained in folk music.  In America, the Blues is the real folk music and obviously hugely influential - it is after all the entire basis of rock!  

Hi Jos,

your arangement of La douce flute was so beautiful.

If I might guess this recording was a live performance?

Anand

Hi William, Anand, Errikos,

It was not my intention to open a post in a post. I merely wanted to state that classical composers took inspiration and advantage from street tunes (or let's call it folk music) and vice versa. This one here was the 'versa'. Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" must have been so popular that even in Flanders the tunes were picked up by the crowd to sing and dance to. The extract here was indeed a live recording by my chamber orchestra in 1998. When I found that tune, I didn't realise it was written originally by Mozart (unless Mozart would have heard it elsewhere, but I've never read anything about that assumption). I wrote an arrangement for my ensemble and a few weeks later, I heard the Mozart tune in the south of France, performed by a brass quintet. Then I realised that it was an air taken from Die Zauberflöte. It was a strange experience to compare the two pieces (one set by Mozart, one by me).

William: all over Europe you can find thousands of the-like pieces, mostly collected by anonymous musicians in a single melody line, sometimes with limited basso continuo annotations, sometimes with some kind of steno dance description (interesting to define the original tempi).

Errikos: you've made your point perfectly clear now and I see we actually do agree. But I want to explain why I reacted to your post. In my country, the term 'academic' has two different meanings: learned scholars, scientists, philosophers... but also pedantic know-alls pretending to have all wisdom. The latter is always meant ironically with a rather negative connotation. And true folk musicians are quite the opposite: honest, simple players/singers/composers producing fine and well inspired little pieces. (Although the late 19th century Quadrilles are not so much little music anymore.)

That said, let's go back now to the essence of this topic. 😉

Jos