@fatis12_24918 said:

 Well... in case one is customer of both the companies (as I am) and one want to make some nice comparison, the Ork-estrator is a lot of fun: it drives MIDI channels to VEP and you may play a full VSL Orchestra with it!

I'm also a customer of both companies (Symphonic Choirs - since nobody else will release a fully "phoneticizable" choir). Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying the Orkestrator engine will play VSL instruments through VEP? That is, the Orkestrator will apply its patterns and settings onto other libraries' sounds? I don't get the 'as-it-is' in your post.

@Errikos said:

I'm also a customer of both companies (Symphonic Choirs - since nobody else will release a fully "phoneticizable" choir). Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying the Orkestrator engine will play VSL instruments through VEP? That is, the Orkestrator will apply its patterns and settings onto other libraries' sounds? I don't get the 'as-it-is' in your post.

Yes:

- in VST (e.g. Cubase) you may route the MIDI output of the plug-in to another instrument for real time playback (or to a track for recording the midi data).

- If the instrument is VEP, then each channel of the Ork-estration will play a VEP channel: if they are assigned to the right and corresponding VSL instruments what you get is a VSL playback version of the original score/ostinato etc.

- the instruments of VSL Synchron and/or Synchron-ized collections sound pretty well without additional effects or manipulation (the EW effect chain of the orchestrator is pretty complex with e.q. compression reverb and dynamic/velocity compression etc.) because the Synchron default set up are already including similar (in my opinion more natural and less invasive) effects for a final large Orchestral sound suitable for cinematic effects.

VSL sound is a bit less bold/normalized (sound softer) but a bit more acoustic and less artificial in my opinion. Obviously if you save MIDI data and edit it to best fit the VSL controllers and articulations, the effect is even better, but even without any editing in live playback (that's the intended sense of "as-it-is", without further processing) it's already good.

...anyway out of pure technical curiosity and feedback, and out of easy jokes about the clichè and creativity delegation, I have a serious comment:

- as you all stated art is art, and tools are tools. Without talent there is no tool that can transform you in a genius and if you are a genius, there is no need of special tools to show it. This is the bitter and obvious reality. But...

- as educated composers with technical know-how, we still have to remember that music is made of layers and ingredients, components that target different levels of consciousness, different levels of education and different mixes of rational and emotional stimulations: the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint... so with fine counterpoint you will catch just a few educated or hyper-sensible people, while with good rhythm and emotional sound you will get all...

This is the key to understand the actual industry and the success or failure of different approaches:

- industry is based on success (because success is money...) and even if success is a mass/social average factor, manipulated by the media and a recursive education vs. brainwash process, still success is based on customers satisfaction. So why so often people love crap? That's the question we always ask... and it's misleading.

- because the concept of "crap" itself is subjective and context dependent: here the theory of music and perception enters the game and explains why fake orchestras and AI clichè can be succesful vs. original mastercraft and innovation.

- low education makes the musical perception more basic. People will stop to sound and rhythm, and will be moved by the loudness, the spectral richness, the punchy basses, the martial patterns and exciting ancestral stimulation. They will perceive pleasure and satisfaction, despite the lack of original or sophisticated melodies, and total absence of any counterpoint etc.

- is your audience educated? would your audience listen to Bach's fugues or the maximum they can afford is a popular tune of Mozart? Are they more exposed to rap and disco, or to chamber contemporary music?

Then the paradox is we composers still have to write for an audience. If we don't, we are just selfish idealists, perhaps we will be discovered and appreciated in the future, but it's unlikely... perhaps not impossible, but really unlikely,

If the average and rewarding audience today asks for basic emotions made of timbral hype and rhythmic excitement, "the art" is finding moving and exciting combinations of colours and patterns, whatever the source, in the comfort zone of clichè common language everybody understand... and this is not trivial. It's an art itself.

Perhaps closer to pop-industry than academic composing, but still about music, about audience, and about talent.

edit - I shouldn't be so obnoxious but these statements set me off.

 "fake orchestras and AI clichè can be succesful vs. original mastercraft and innovation." - fatis 

"If the average and rewarding audience today asks for basic emotions made of timbral hype and rhythmic excitement, "the art" is finding moving and exciting combinations of colours and patterns, whatever the source, in the comfort zone of clichè common language everybody understand... and this is not trivial. It's an art itself." - fatis

-  In other words, auto-generated musical cliches are just as good as individual musical artistry if someone likes auto-generated cliches.    Like a producer or audience who demand the cliches.  So go ahead, line up and supply the cliches. Stop being a stuck-up "artiste" and just do what the audiences and the producers want.    

@fatis12_24918 said:

- because the concept of "crap" itself is subjective and context dependent: here the theory of music and perception enters the game and explains why fake orchestras and AI clichè can be succesful vs. original mastercraft and innovation.

- low education makes the musical perception more basic. People will stop to sound and rhythm, and will be moved by the loudness, the spectral richness, the punchy basses, the martial patterns and exciting ancestral stimulation. They will perceive pleasure and satisfaction, despite the lack of original or sophisticated melodies, and total absence of any counterpoint etc.

- is your audience educated? would your audience listen to Bach's fugues or the maximum they can afford is a popular tune of Mozart? Are they more exposed to rap and disco, or to chamber contemporary music?

Ultimately everyone has the moral right to do what they like, whether a composer or listener. So people can make crap music and others can listen to it. But that doesnt mean crap music and good music are the same.

Mind you I am not saying everything has to be a Bach Fugue. As long as the music is well thought through  and with adequate knowledge of possibilities I consider it original.  Again that's my choice.

Was the Doors song 'The End' well thought through? Perhaps. It just has a drone background and nothing fancy going on from a music theory perspective, but yet it makes a huge impact on me (I am influenced by 'Apocalypse now'). I guess music is highly complex so it can evoke so many reactions in so many ways.

So I am not really sure how to judge music on an absolute scale without ultimately failing.

But then, I can't compare Jim Morrison to someone who simply uses software to make music without really understanding music theory.  I guess music could also reflect a life experience. If someone has had a genuine experience that they manage to convey through art that's precludes any technical virtuosity. It is still original music and touches people's hearts.

Your post reminded me of an incident . A person I knew who was not musically trained or knowledgeable was raving about 'Epic' music (which we all know as that horrendous thump thump/taiko/ostinato genre invented by dear Hans). I convinced this person to attend a concert in which they played Mozart, Barber and Rachmaninoff (Isle of the dead!!). He was completely BLOWN AWAY by the sound, the acoustics and the intensity of the experience, He never mentioned Epic to me again,

Its sad that most people who think classical/romantic/orchestral music is either boring or for snooty rich people will never find out how amazing it is, as few will ever attend live concerts. I think that's the key to the survival of this great genre (and by extension good film scores) and I hope it will come back.

Ive made some rambling disconnected points. Will sign off now.

Anand  

@William said:

edit - I shouldn't be so obnoxious but these statements set me off.

 "fake orchestras and AI clichè can be succesful vs. original mastercraft and innovation." - fatis 

"If the average and rewarding audience today asks for basic emotions made of timbral hype and rhythmic excitement, "the art" is finding moving and exciting combinations of colours and patterns, whatever the source, in the comfort zone of clichè common language everybody understand... and this is not trivial. It's an art itself." - fatis

-  In other words, auto-generated musical cliches are just as good as individual musical artistry if someone likes auto-generated cliches.    Like a producer or audience who demand the cliches.  So go ahead, line up and supply the cliches. Stop being a stuck-up "artiste" and just do what the audiences and the producers want.    

Obviously not William.

My point is that there is an art in composing elegant and emotional patchworks, more or less as composing pop songs, that can make common people happy and provide work and money for producers.

If it wasn't the case, we had not big investments in the segment, and if no art/talent was requested to make it properly, everybody should be rich and famous, and obviously it doesn't happen.

So we can keep our choice of being artists, and being the educated and original artists, and I think we can be proud of being, but we simply shouldn't underestimate the talent and the business of clone makers, that are successful in the middle of the crowd and that's because they succeed in making common people emotional 😊

@agitato said:

Its sad most people who think classical/romantic/orchestral music is either boring or for snooty rich people will never find out how amazing it is, as few will ever attend live concerts. I think thats the key to the survival of this great genre (and by extension good film scores) and I hope it will come back.

Ive made some rambling disconnected points. Will sign off now.

Anand  

 

And my conclusion is we should invest as much as possible in musical education. That's what I did at my best during my life, studying, financing, teaching, performing etc.

Unfortunately the pop culture try to keep the educated music away, to manipulate audience for business, but as you mention, if you provide experience to the listeners, they won't step back anymore. So hope never dies...

OK, that makes sense - you previously seemed to be justifying that appalling MIDI generator but I see you were not.  Sorry if I went off - I think I transferred my shock at that huckster to you.  That guy actually reminds me a little of a carnival barker.  

Back again.

I would like to discuss a few points, cued by some things that were said here.

First of all, does somebody's expression in literature, music, painting, architecture, etc. qualify as high art, merely from the effect it has on the eye or ear of the beholder? Not really... It can qualify as a preference of the beholder (intimating his tastes), but not as a consensus. Now, what if a devastating number of people subjected to that somebody's expression, world wide, agreed that it indeed qualified as a product of high art? Again, not enough. One would have to review what other works these people also consider as high art. If Bieber is mentioned...

Can we make an, as objective as possible, pronouncement regarding this 'so-called' Epic school, as an artistically valid type of orchestral composition? We certainly can:

This type of orchestral composition is exclusively utilised as background scoring for film and video games. There is no way that any orchestra of any note will perform such a work, unless it already exists as a score to something... No one will ever commission orchestral music of this type for its own sake (for a symphony, concerto, opera, ballet, you name it), and I don't know of any 'serious' composer that belongs to this "school" of orchestral writing. Conversely, I know of 'Minimalists', 'Spectralists', 'Neo-romantics', 'Free-atonalists', etc. Enough said. This kind of "music" is dim, and its composeurs are a joke outside of Hollywood, BBC, and Playstation.

Let's now eliminate all other types of orchestral composition and concentrate exclusively on media music and why, Hollywood for example, propagates this kind of symphonic refuse. Is it,

a) Because people like it? Not necessarily. People did not have any problems with the likes of Williams, Shore, Barry, Goldsmith, etc. before this kind of orchestral bile rose inside Hollywood's oesophagus. People are mostly there for the movie. They'll like pretty much anything although, other than Hans, I haven't seen much veneration for any other such composter, comparable to that which say Morricone enjoyed,

b) Because this kind of score suits a particular kind of movie (or game)? Again, no. This monotonous, lobotomous, layered crap has been employed in most genres: Action, Thriller, Suspense, Adventure, etc. I refer everybody to the aforementioned names. They scored such films a lot better, a lot deeper - with real layers,

c) Is it because this kind of music costs less to produce, so in effect it is the product of financial considerations? I am not an expert, but I don't see how this kind of orchestral claptrap is cheaper to record with an orchestra than any other score; and if it is, I have never read it from anyone in recently published books, or relevant YouTube interviews.

So what's the reason for this music's use then, if it's absolute crap and no cheaper than a proper score?

I won't go into that, but I'll just say that music is not the only aspect of film making that has gone down the public toilet. Compare the Star Wars of the '70s to today's as an example. Compare re-makes, etc.

Anand mentioned Jim Morrison. Who is the last 30 years' Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Roger Waters, Benny Andersson, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Phil Collins, Jeff Lynne, Barry Gibb, Roger Hodgson, Mark Knopfler, Eric Woolfson, name your own... Anybody comes even near?

Back to the software. fatis12_24918 said the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint. This only applies of course to this Trailer park "music" this software facilitates. Music, in the western world at least (and orchestral music was born there), began with melody/rhythm (we'll never know which came first), then counterpoint, then harmony, and finally timbre. And it was always sophisticated; as sophisticated as it could be at any time. 

Finally, the orchestra is an instrument in itself. It has developed from the chamber ensembles of the past, to the Classical orchestra, then the Romantics added size and instruments, and so did the Modernists in the 20th century. Its constituent instruments have developed and changed over time from their original forms, much like the development of the piano. 

How one composes for this 'instrument' does not depend on the 'instrument'. It is capable of Mozart's 40th, as it is of Lutoslawski's 3rd. Capable of Captain Blood, as it is of Superman (1978). Sadly, it is also capable of Man of Steel (2013).

The instrument does not make you a composer - any instrument. It will however reflect the composer you are, according to how you write for it. And remember: Technique is not a matter of taste, or opinion.

Very probably the best post I've ever read in this forum, Errikos. Really top prose, and the opinions you assert are music to my ears - not a smidgen of disagreement from me. Very well said, Sir.

Errikos:

"Back to the software. fatis12_24918 said the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint. This only applies of course to this Trailer park "music" this software facilitates. Music, in the western world at least (and orchestral music was born there), began with melody/rhythm (we'll never know which came first), then counterpoint, then harmony, and finally timbre. And it was always sophisticated; as sophisticated as it could be at any time."

Sorry but it's a great misunderstanding of my post. I talk about perceptive layers... the amount of instinctive vs. rational involvement requested to "understand or enjoy" a musical content. It has nothing to do with history/chronology or culture, the opposite it's some how ancestral and human.

(this rating is based on some ethno-musicology and anthropology studies and musical theory speculations, beside some neuroscience studies etc. but it's also a way to approach music "components" of several didactics, and not by chance... but in my opinion it's also self-explanatory and evident: people love the sound of something (a nice ring instead of a brutal noise etc.) before it become music, and people recognize and enjoy rhythm even when they are poor in intonation, they can't sing, or they come from a totally different melodic culture. Melody start to be more challenging and more culture-related. Then harmony and counterpoint are really educated expressions, that can deeply characterize a style, an age, a culture, and ethnicity etc.)

Fatis, if that's really the basis of your creative musical endeavours, would you mind awfully if I avoid your music like the plague? It's nothing personal.

Hope one day you'll acknowledge (at least to yourself) and perhaps understand the ghastly effects that the absurd and grotesque over-exaltation of rationality in modernity and modernism have had on all the arts especially, and on our cultures more broadly. In Europe and (at least western) Russia it appears we're at last approaching some sort of resolution or settlement of the cultural turmoil of the 5 centuries of our era of modernity. China struggled with similar cultural dichotomies more than two millennia ago - Taoist versus Confucianist mentalities - although it does seem they've been revisited by some of those issues during the past 80 years or so.

If music isn't to a great extent intuitive and subconscious - regardless of however long it takes novice music-makers to struggle consciously in learning its ways at first - then it just does not and cannot serve as a cultural language.

It seems you're advocating that music-makers, armed with 'advanced knowledge' and 'rational methodology', can and should consciously contrive their productions such that 'targeted' (and lower caste) listeners are receptive in an intuitive and unconscious way and never suspect that they've been manipulated. People who do or try to do that sort of thing were called "cunning meddlers" in ancient China; these days we Occidentals could call them propagandists, among other, far less polite names. (See also NPD in DSM-IV.)

Are you seriously claiming that in this day and age it's alright for music to be weaponised and for audiences to be abused in this way? Truth and honesty no longer matter in the soul-to-soul communication medium of music???

Macker: I appreciate the cheer!

fatis12_24918: I see. Be that as it may, I am not wrong in what I said in the context I established, I believe. As far as the anthropological/neuroscientific studies are concerned, I agree that the more basic the musical element, the more common it will be cross-culturally (much like the ring vs. the brutal noise). The same could be said of phonemes. Vowel cries on their own are probably shared amongst people on all continents. And then, as language/musical language develops into more sophisticated expression, we notice significant differentiation across cultures - for example, you mentioned melodic culture. It is because we were talking about orchestral music, I thought you meant instrumental timbres/colours as your second element and that's probably where the misunderstanding occurred, as this aspect of orchestral writing is one of the more recent developments, i.e. a more recent rung in music's evolutionary ladder.

Insofar as Orkestral music is concerned, since it has chronologically "developed" after the most sophisticated orchestral possibilities (let alone form, harmony, polyphony, etc.) had been invented, its primitivistic features are not merely a step back, but leaps back. Hence, logic dictates that if it is true that people prefer Ork music to Debussy or Stravinsky, it is because their musical cognition and appreciation stems (pun intended) from a chronologically much earlier stage of mental/chromosomal development. We -as a symphonic culture- have planted our flags on the highest peaks. Are we to compromise and sit on mole hills, simply because this kind of orchestral writing is more "inclusive", as everyone and a trained monkey are capable of such tripe?

The last thing I'd want as a consequence of this discussion is for any kind of dampener to fall onto VSL's business - indeed I want the opposite.

It so happens that I not only prefer but also admire VSL's approach to the hugely expanding market associated with all kinds of music-making using sampled orchestral sounds. In particular the whole business of making "programme" (as distinct from "absolute") music is now of course of the greatest interest, and VSL are addressing that interest in their own inimitable and most highly creditable way.

I think the vast majority of us interested in this topic can readily agree that there are far, far more people currently engaged in various stages along the very long journey of learning the crafts and arts of making programme music for media, than there are adepts who have arrived at top-class professional mastery - and I don't suppose any of those adepts would say they've stopped learning!

So I regard any products that really and honestly encourage, facilitate and assist this colossal learning (including the crucial so-called "reverse engineering" aspect of learning) are not only perfectly valid but also most welcome. And I'm in no doubt that VSL's latest offering in particular (the Capricorn BBO chapter expansion) qualifies not only as valid and welcome, but also as highly desirable for many potential new customers eager to learn. Because then, as is the way of smart young creatives, once they've clearly understood the way it's been done, they'll go ahead and do it their own way. (It can be easier to break a 'rule' in music if you know what that 'rule' is).

VSL's BBO products let anyone learn the way it's been done, and then of course other VSL products are ready for those BBO 'graduates' who know exactly what they want to do and try out next in their own, original way. It's the functional transparency and clarity of BBO (including provision of the score of riffs and other recorded phrases) that helps enormously in this learning and creative development. Certain other brands seem to be catering more to those who really aren't creative but are just happy to "get with the program".

For me, the honesty and integrity I sense in VSL's approach to the market make all the difference in the world. Looking at VSL's promos for their latest offering is a breath of fresh air, in marked contrast to the nauseating and demeaning experience of being subjected to certain other companies' devious appeals mostly to base and crass motives, and to the lowest possible common denominator. (But regardless of all that, I just do not like what the Aw-Castrator appears to be about). I don't regard this difference as a snobbery or elitist thing; I firmly believe it's an honesty and integrity thing.

@Macker said:

Fatis, if that's really the basis of your creative musical endeavours, would you mind awfully if I avoid your music like the plague? It's nothing personal.

Such a sad example of the modern communication of self-referential sarcastic attitude.

I don't pretend my Ital-English is crystal clear but it's quite obvious that for bad was my language you didn't pay attention to anything more than 2 out of 100 lines of my posts, but you take the time to write an almost offensive answer directly to me... wow, kudos.

I actually make ancient music,  acoustic and in live performance, so don't worry you don't have the risk.

@William said:

Anand posted an excellent statement as he always does.  I find his perspective as a musician and scientist very valuable.    Macker and Errikos - I had decided not to post anything partly from being permanently banned on another forum but you kept tempting me with your deliciously sarcastic dialogue.  I was enjoying immensely  your mutual, uncontestably valid dismissals, but avoided, - somewhat like a Freudian patient desperately attempting to stop the eruption of repressed contents of the Id -  posting anything here for a while.  I have annoyed VSL enough over the years and have tried assiduously to do more of the same recently.  

But then it was unavoidable after fatis posted a statement that seemed to support the creation of musical idiocy.  Because  - as fatis implied - dumbasses like it.  So music is good if complete idiots like it (?)   

Apparently I was wrong about that though  - fatis is simply expanding awareness of stupidity in music (?)  Or what is he saying? I don't know.   Right now he seems somewhat incomprehensible.  Perhaps he wants to put in a good word for musical carnival barkers.  Which is what Errikos was originally pointing out...

William your fair feeling is just due to the mess that having a complex conversation about complex matter across different posts with different writers references and different focus is unavoidably creating 😊

Despite the wonderful and intriguing topic, the mess is so deep that Macker is convinced I make this type of music, even if I never stated that and even if I wrote the opposite, and even if he knows absolutely nothing about my background. The good and the bad of Forums all in one place 😛

It was probably enough to read my very first sentence to avoid following misunderstandings, so I re-post it here to close the discussion. I think we are all in agreement about it, (...and if we are not, then we have to stop talking about LOL 😃 ):

Fatis wrote at the beginning: "- as you all stated art is art, and tools are tools. Without talent there is no tool that can transform you in a genius and if you are a genius, there is no need of special tools to show it. This is the bitter and obvious reality. "

Bye guys, peace and love, and make some good music in the spare time, whatever the tool, even glasses and coins, since good music will always be good music, and that's all.

fatis, I can assure you that I've made, as is my habit, considerable efforts to transcend language difficulties. You make your snarky little personal insult and falsely accuse me of jumping to (adverse) conclusions without having read what you've said (I read every word of your posts, matey); you haven't attempted to answer (to me) anything in the main body of my post to you; and now I see that in your post to someone else you're attempting to smear what I've said to you,

I'd say that's all pretty sad and offensive of you. And I'd also say your evasiveness and semantic acrobatics have nothing at all to do with linguistic difficulties. The pattern is obvious now. William's first response to you was spot on. But no matter, I'm not in the least bothered. You carry on, chum.

I rest my case.

@Errikos said:

Macker: I appreciate the cheer!

fatis12_24918: I see. Be that as it may, I am not wrong in what I said in the context I established, I believe....

In my humble opinion you believe it right. I think we are almost totally in agreement and had just some language issues to properly follow the logic of our posts.

In general I think that we may be proud of passion for traditional and original composing. ( I say we, because yes believe it or not I'm a graduated composer, musicologist, early music passionate and I was studying teaching and performing as much as I can. What I'm not, and I will never be, is a professional producer, soundtrack writer, pop-music maker or similar. Then perhaps I'm not really entitled to represent that category at all).

What i always recommend by the way, is to be open minded: a composer MUST know and take care of the psychology of audience. The whole theory of music and composition is about that, and if few of us love and understand the Music (with capital M) and millions don't we should try to use our knowledge to understand, and analize, and learn from the events, instead of being self-satisfied by just "avoid others music like a plague" in a selfish and arrogant way.

That's the attitude that kills the tradition and makes educated composers appear as outdated useless self-referential niche of gurus... It's not the service great music deserves, and we ALL agreed on this point and repeated across all posts.

Spread the love for the quality, invite sceptical people to experience the power of good music, contribute to musical education, and so less people will buy music made with ork- estrator, and more people will understand and enjoy your fine music instead.