Oddly enough, a test like this was done recently in Japan (I've spent the last hour looking for the link but for the life of me I can't find it).  If I remember correctly, they took ten members of a professional orchestra, sat them down in an acoustically treated room and played two versions of the same piece.  They were asked to identify which version was a real and which was sampled.  Wouldn't you know it?  They all chose incorrectly.

Actually, the test proctors pulled a fast one on their subjects.  Both versions were sampled.  But they were sampled by two different skilled MIDIstrators, if you will.  They never mentioned which libraries were used only saying that they were top of line, the best money could buy from the most professional manufacturers in the business.  I think it's safe to assume that VSL libraries were used to some extent.

Now some flaws that I see with this test, right off the bat, are that they limited their test subjects to musicians who play in an orchestra.  I know a flautist who plays in a professional orchestra and she's never even heard of sample libraries.  So if she were to hear a sampled piece programmed by the great Guy Bacos, she probably wouldn't know the difference either.  Why didn't they use composers who work with samples for a living?  Also, why trick the subjects by using two sampled versions?  Why not use a real one?

@Aerovons

You’re right.  Most people who do this for a living would be able to tell the difference but that doesn’t necessarily make a live piece sound better than a sampled one does it?  (I think that’s the point William was trying to make) Maybe it’s all a matter of taste.  I’ve said this on this forum before and I’ll say it again, there are just times when sampled performances sound better than the real thing.  Ask yourself, what is it about sampled performances that give them away?  For me, it’s the fact that samples just sound so pristine and clean.  There are times when that’s what I want in my sound, so samples are a godsend.  I agree with William in that we are at the point where it’s nearly impossible for the AVERAGE JOE (not professionals) to tell the difference between real and fake and if the average Joe comes away remembering my little melodies then who cares whether the orchestra’s real or fake. 

I think we composers think within the realms of the orchestral box too much as well.  How many of you guys run your string or brass samples through various guitar amps and then put a car horn impulse verb on it?  It makes a pretty interesting color.  How many of you have over three hundred players in your Double Bass section as a standard?  There are an infinite number of things you can do with samples that would either be too cumbersome or too expensive with a real orchestra. 

I think of samples as another means to an end and not as an artificial means that approximates a real orchestra end.  If the real deal is what you want and you have it at your disposal and you restrict yourself to that orchestral box then more power to you.  If I had a real orchestra at my disposal I’d probably be looking for ways to make them sound like a fake sampled one.  But that’s just me.  Again, I guess it’s all just a matter of taste.        

My apologies to aerovons if I was offensive but I was in fact joking with the old geezer stuff since I myself AM an old geezer. 

@aerovons said:

If there are many among you who, given the choice of using a roomful of excellent live players and a sample library, would choose the library, that's super and more power to you. I would not have think about which I would choose for a nanosecond.

This is a totally artificial hypothetical situation created to support an argument and is irrelevant to what I am saying.  Almost no one has a roomful of great orchestral players ready to play the second he finishes his  music.  Not even John Williams, so how are you going to ge that?  Answer  that.   

And the same goes for smaller ensembles.  You act as if you can just mosy on down the street and find them (along with the union salaries) ready and eager to play for you.

And again, you are making the same old assumption I have heard here before - every orchestra is just like the London Symphony you hear on CDs and soundtracks, and sample libraries are pathetically trying to copy that.

That is totally false.  99% of orchestras for both concert and film have musical abilities far below that of the few great ones which are incredibly difficult to get to play your music.  That is contrasted with the Vienna players you have at your beck and call within the samples - they are by and large the equivalent musical ability, and are in fact ready to play the instant you turn on your computer.

...............given the choice of using a roomful of (the usual) live players and a sample library, I would not have think about which I would choose for a nanosecond..................    (and in fact I've been given the choice and the samples won out each time)

William, thanks for clearing that up. With age comes experience, but also, just...age;)

I'm sorry you seem to have had problems with live players. What I've found down here in Florida (Miami) is that there were jobs I did where the samples were just performed better (some difficult string passages were sloppy with the live players) and there were times I'd have to sneak the samples in the mix at those points to "help" out the live players. Fortunately, those were pretty few and far between, most of the time the biggest problem I have had with live sections is making sure the string players were in tune;)

Still, I have just always found the live session sounded more...real. Well, duh...but there was more air, more transparency, and no amount of artificial reflections with room simulators, etc could make up for it.

So I'm not saying the real players' instruments sound more real, as in most cases the samples have gotten to the point where that is no longer an issue, but there is some magic with live people that isn't there with samples ...in most cases...that I haven't heard with samples. The best mock ups I've heard still sound like great mockups to me. I do agree that I have heard things on TV where even my wife has come into the room when something pretty was playing and said "Are those real strings" and I've had to say "I don't know...". But again, that's without a reference point. If I were able to hear real vs non real of the same passage I'm pretty sure I'd be able to tell.

I recently did a pop piece where there is a section where all the pop stuff stops and an orchestral section comes in, some strings, horns, and flutes. I mocked it up and I liked the samples, they sounded fine. But I had a chance to use real guys as they were already doing something else for me so I had them do it. Maybe it would be interesting to post the results. I think it's good example of samples vs real sounding DIFFERENT, but neither one sounding particularly BETTER....

Tom

@William said:

99% of orchestras for both concert and film have musical abilities far below that of the few great ones

As a New Yorker, I don't understand this comment -- it's pretty hard NOT to assemble a group of pro musicians from within the NYC community that isn't superb. If a player is actively working in NYC, I can count on a great section. Unfortunately, 99% of our recording studios have closed. We only have one big room left.

And as a touring conductor, I have had the pleasure of working with pops orchestras in: Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Cleveland, Birmingham, Salt Lake City, Miami, Denver, and about a dozen other large cities in the US with SUPERB orchestras. There's no lack of talent out there. So be careful -- 99% of the orchestras are NOT sub-par. maybe 5% -- but not anywhere near your 99% number.

I guess I should specify exactly what I mean by that.   I know there is a lot of talent, but probably what I am thinking about is how even getting a good orchestra - not the greatest but a good one - is first of all very difficult for a composer and involves a lot of buttkissing or schmoozing, or being in the right place at the right time or whatever - and also, I am comparing the average to good orchestral/symphonic band/chamber ensemble/recording session players that I have had on my own pieces with the Vienna Symphonic Library specifically.  I was blown away by the recent performance I got out of the VSL sounds on pieces that were played by a fairly good college orchestra, a ballet orchestra, a very good university symphonic band and a nationally known chamber orchestra.  They are talented as you put it, but  I am being influenced in my own attempts at perfectionism WHICH ARE ENCOURAGED BY SAMPLES FAR MORE THAN LIVE PERFORMANCES because you can tweak until you die.   Even a group of talented musicians - not the Berlin Philharmonic, no, but just talented - cannot do as well as VSL samples. And I am NOT talking about sample libraries in general also - I mean only VSL because nothing else is remotely comparable with the full orchestral sound.   The choirs out there and a couple string libraries now are getting close, but not the full orchestral sound. 

 Also, to specify it a bit more - you have your great New York musicians all assembled and eager to record, your world-class studio all powered up, and all the money for the union salaries and the engineers.  O.K.   Now, you decide to change the exact articulation of a phrase in the middle of your composition. Because, it is truly evolving and getting better.  Are you going to do that?  What about doing it five times in a row?  Ten? 

So that aspect - being able to perfect not just a composition, but a PERFORMANCE is what lies behind my championing of samples.  I have often compared serious music done with samples - not crappy cheapskate substitutes for film orchestras but serious music performance by samples (and I know there isn't much of it)  to painting.  A painter doesn't write out specifications for his colors, he paints them himself.  With a sufficiently developed sample library - and VSL is the one - one doesn't have to stop with merely specifying sounds as with a score  but can paint the actual performances himself.  That is a revolutionary development which  is unique in musical history.  It has always been attempted - for example, the piano forte and the pipe organ are both attempts at allowing one person to control a huge amount and variety of sound - but it has never been fully achieved until now.

Ah... this is where we will never agree.

I use samples. Extensively.

I orchestrate and conduct and work with live orchestras. Extensively.

Music to me is about emotion. NOBODY, i repeat, NOBODY gives a crap about any single articulation.

Part of the magic is that sometimes, collaborators will all inspire and influence each other. If you view your orchestra as robots trained to perform on cue exactly your vision of perfection, you will be one very disappointed composer. And a composer without musician friends who don't look forward to playing your work.

I use VSL as much as anyone -- at the highest levels, but never, EVER discount the importance of the hybrid and the collaboration with the real guys. Never.

We're only making music. It's just not that important. Sure, I get notes from fans, "your music helped me through a difficult time" or "we played your music at our wedding and it brought us joy" -- that's a fringe benefit of what we do... but it's never so important that we miss the bigger picture: "does it feel good?"

As a non-film maker, I would never say, "but the DP should have used a different lens for the wide shot... it ruined the film" -- I may leave the film unsatisfied, but the viewer never would call out any technical moment. Unless you're a pro. NOBODY will ever say, "but the viola section didn't articulate the detache's with the snap that VSL library would give it..." that's total bullshit if you think that ANYONE anywhere is actually listening to your music that way. Trust me, nobody cares. Do they like the song? Does it make you feel something? Does it score the scene and make an emotional impact? Everything else is just stuff you do for your own entertainment.

If you truly think that you can make better music with machines -- great. I use the machines as a creative choice and usually financial issue -- machines vs. $30,000 session?  Then there are the hybrid scores...  so we do whatever services the music. But maybe it's my age, but I no longer believe that anything I do is important. Yeah, people enjoy it. And they pay me. And I get pleasure doing it. And I get pleasure knowing others enjoy it. But if not me, it will be someone else. I am not the only guy who can make a song sound good. So I just do my thing... speaking of, I have 170 bars of orchestration I need to deliver by tomorrow.

Couldn't agree more Jeremy. I've always enjoyed the interplay between the musicians and myself at sessions. While not letting it get out of hand, there have been plenty of times when a concertmaster said "Tom, do you want it like this....or like this..." (because I had not made it clear enough in the score) and I often changed my mind on the spot based on hearing someone play the the figure differently than I had thought it out.  I wish I had the budgets you do Jeremy, as live sessions for me are more and more rare.

And as far as changes "on the clock," William...yes they are done all the time, sometimes they have to be in film because of last minute changes....whole bars and even sections are taken out (no fun, but it does happen.)

TH

@aerovons said:

  I wish I had the budgets you do Jeremy

is this a comedy forum? know any other jokes? 

VSL was a purchase that came right off the top of an album budget -- we either paid for 1 day in a studio with orch, or we bought VSL -- that was a "jumping off the platform without knowing if there was water in the pool" moment. Because if it didn't work, I'd be out $14k + nothing would be recorded. Of course, our $14k was only going to get us about 30 minutes of music. we had a 60 minutes of music. It cost me about a month of really learning the tools. And then another month while getting up to speed. And some hardware issues.

Major label budgets are a fraction of what they were. As in 1/10th -- for years and years, we did projects in the 500k+ range. Now, we're lucky if they can find $50k -- that's just how it is. And the big live sessions are the first thing to go. We just did a single 3hr big band date for 4 songs (used to only do 2 songs per 3 hrs) -- and instead of an entire record of orchestra, some songs are specifically arranged ot be smaller -- these are choices based on finances... from the label. Fortunately, there's always another way to tell the story. Would it be great with an 80 piece orch? yeah? Will it be great with a trio? Of course it will. 😉

William needs to go work with real players to really appreciate the samples. And to really appreciate the musicianship that only a room full of cats can bring to the project.

And yes, I have never done a session, ever, where the robots, er, musicians, didn't interpret the score and make it better. As I said in a post earlier -- any crappy orchestrator can sound good if you write for a good band, since the musicians will always make it sound good. But the samples are unforgiving. Useful tools, huh? 😊

Go to work with the real players? How long did you play in orchestras, operas and chamber ensembles? I spent 25 years going to work with real players for your information. Playing as a professional horn player. Then conducting and recording live music for concert or film. One other thing - you are a New Yorker. O.K. - I live in the sticks - Reno, Nevada. So laugh at that, Mr. Hot shot New Yorker. yeah, I'm pathetic. I can't go down the street and bump into great players every second and know everybody who is sophisticated and ultra-talented like you. But I can do this...

www.williamkersten.com/page13.html

My last statement on this is not a bunch of hot air but some music - the last section of a 15 minute symphonic poem. I tried to make it realistic and expressive and made innumerable changes I could never have done with a live group. Go ahead - you can put me down and show me how much better you are in New York or Florida or wherever. But if you do, I want to hear it. Put it right here. Live or sampled. [8o|]

William, the work at your link is very well done, impressive, and I'm sure took many hours. I cannot for the life of me see how you could compare it to a live orchestra playing the same thing with good players. It would sound 3 times larger to begin with, which is one thing that all emulations seem to have a problem with...the air and size of the sound. 

The position that an emulation of the real thing is better than the real thing is untenable. Will it work? Will it fool some people? Will you get paid? Absolutely. But those are different subjects. And I think you are taking all this too personally and getting far too angry over a difference of opinion. If you like samples better than the real deal, that's entirely your choice.

TH

It's a very nice piece, William.   

@aerovons said:

William, the work at your link is very well done, impressive, and I'm sure took many hours. I cannot for the life of me see how you could compare it to a live orchestra playing the same thing with good players. It would sound 3 times larger to begin with, which is one thing that all emulations seem to have a problem with...the air and size of the sound. 

The position that an emulation of the real thing is better than the real thing is untenable. Will it work? Will it fool some people? Will you get paid? Absolutely. But those are different subjects. And I think you are taking all this too personally and getting far too angry over a difference of opinion. If you like samples better than the real deal, that's entirely your choice.

TH

What is "the real thing"?    Is it performers?  Is it a composer's score?  Is it a composer's imagination of sound?  Is it a dream of sound a composer had and tried to realize? JUST WHAT EXACTLY IS THE REAL THING?  Answer me.      You can't.  Because it never occurred to you that music is not just what performers do to annoint a composer with their genius.  MUSIC IS THE WORK OF A COMPOSER.   Performers are lucky if they even begin to approach that.    No one like you will ever understand that.  In this time of cutesy glamour string quartets and beautiful young cellists and artistically posing young phony conductors and aping of the latest sound design masquerading as film music and what-have-you. THEY DON'T EXIST compared to what a composer creates out of his life, his inspiration, his agony,  whatever someone wants to list as part of being a composer.  And so for the first time in history, this artist can express his ideas without the compromised world of begging for performance and catering to conductors and grovelling before music directors.  That is a tremendously exciting development in the history of music.   It is nothing less than the direct realization of orchestral ideas from the mind of the composer limited only by his imagination and skill.  AND YOU DON'T LIKE THAT?  To you it is nothing but an "emulation" ?   

Enough William...enjoy your libraries!

TH

Actually......it doesn't necessarily sound larger with a human orchestra. It can in fact, very often sound quite a lot softer in amplitude when it's live. I can be very surprised when sitting at an orchestral concert and getting attuned to the live, rahter than sampled sound. It's not so much a larger sound but a different sound. 

The trouble with sampled sound is that very often it can be unrealistically too loud. Especially certain types of string sound like staccato. Some of the staccato things you hear on a sample based recording are almost impossible for a live section of really good players to reproduce.

What you get with a live orchestra of good players is an organic sound that is impossible to reproduce with samples. It's impossible and that's all there is to it. That is not to say that a sampled recording is not as good as etc. It's just different and then it's simply down to personal taste. For example - is this live? Yes it must be. But could a good sample operator reproduce this piece of music and make it sound the same. Doubtful but there are some good sample people out there.

And than after all that - are samples added to the recording? Or is it a sampled recording in the first place? Hahahahah. 

Incidentally is there a difference between New York and Reno? I thought these were figment places and merely sampled for the only real place in America......HOLLYWOOD!!!!!! Hahahahaha.

Paul I'm speaking of recordings re the size thing.

I'll post an example of what I'm talking about when I get a break tonight.

TH

Yes, please post something.  I was waiting for that.  A LARGE SCALE SYMPHONIC WORK you have recorded with either VSL or the equivalent great orchestral players.  Also Jeremy Roberts (from New York) I'd like to hear from  - some actual music.  Though he seems to have vanished from this thread.  Perhaps he bumped into Yo-Yo Ma on the streets of the Big Apple and they are having a latte and croissant before strolling to the studio to record his new cello concerto with The Phil.  

You're being childish and abusive, and turning this into a personal matter.

It has nothing to do with what I write, or what Jeremy writes, or what you write. I was very complimentary to what you posted, it takes great skill to put something like that together. You just didn't like the fact that I said I would no way find it a substitute for a real orchestra playing the piece. Sorry, but real is real, sampled is sampled.

If you can't hear the difference, then your ignorance is bliss and you can go on thinking samples sound as good as the real thing forever, I could care less.

There is a terrric VSL mockup of a John Williams piece from E.T., why not listen to it, then listen to the real John Williams work with live orchestra, then come back and tell us about how the sampled version sounds just as good as the real orchestra, and that you could have saved John a ton of money.

You're ridiculous.

TH

I was on a plane to Korea. I'm orchestrating a new musical for Broadway - out of town tryout is in Seoul.

http://tearsofheaven.co.kr/html/

some of what you hear on this site is stuff i produced -- and yes, VSL (except the wood flute, played by David Weiss)

I am non-disclosed with my artists -- we don't talk about production. if I give you links to iTunes, I'd be breaking the trust of my clients, who don't want anyone to know how we did it.

William, your contempt for musicians is astounding.

I have nothing to say to you.

@William said:

MUSIC IS THE WORK OF A COMPOSER.   Performers are lucky if they even begin to approach that.    No one like you will ever understand that.  In this time of cutesy glamour string quartets and beautiful young cellists and artistically posing young phony conductors and aping of the latest sound design masquerading as film music and what-have-you. THEY DON'T EXIST compared to what a composer creates out of his life, his inspiration, his agony,  whatever someone wants to list as part of being a composer.  And so for the first time in history, this artist can express his ideas without the compromised world of begging for performance and catering to conductors and grovelling before music directors.  That is a tremendously exciting development in the history of music.   It is nothing less than the direct realization of orchestral ideas from the mind of the composer limited only by his imagination and skill.  

PS -- I just had to quote this, since it beyond amazing any music creator could show so much disrespect for musicians. I hope you get your work played by a major orchestra, and I hope they spit on your music when they discover you feel this way.

FInd me a successful composer or orchestrator, and I will show you someone who loves making music with musicians. I'm done. I have to prepare for my orchestra rehearsals, First read is later today. 😊