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. 😊

@Another User said:

You're ridiculous

Yeah, I'm being abusive. 

Everything you say is an absolute statement of fact, but you can't understand it is just your narrow-minded opinion. 

Yet again,  someone compares one of the greatest orchestras in the world - the London Symphony -   with samples.  I already stated over and over again that the absolute best of live performance is very difficult and rare to obtain.  This difficulty profoundly affects a composer's existence and if you don't understand that just take a brief look at music history.  And the advent of sampling has changed that immensely. 

I posted this  little statement  on the other thread, speaking to someone who is not dogmatic and adamantly opposed to samples as art as you are and this is my last statement to you : 

"It is impossible to discuss this on that other thread because those people are dead-set against the artistic aspect of samples.  They are of the narrow-minded and depressing ilk  which views samples as nothing more than a cheap substitute for live players.  But my idea is that one can create things for samples which would never be presented to live players for one reason or another - musical or practical.  Also, this affects one's concept in the composition process in a very good way  You are not thinking "O.K. Is some orchestra going to play this and is a conductor going to take it seriously?"  That really affects what you compose.  Hugely affects it.    In fact, it can profoundly change your entire approach.   Samples add immensely to the art of composition in the highest sense, not merely for crap-film scoring or music library potboiling. "   

Oh my, now we are quoting people of great ignorance who dismiss film scoring as "crap".....now there's some credibility! 

Idiots like that will never be fit to shine the shoes of people like  Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams. Complete morons.

And again you keep changing the point, changing the point. No one said samples weren't a wonderful addition to our arsenal, but a straight ahead mock up of a piece for traditional orchestra will always be a mock up of the real thing. Something you want to play around to be something a real orchestra could either not really do, or could only do with great difficulty is a different subject, it wasn't the subject of this thread, and never was. 

You are insulting and have great trouble keeping to the subject without personal attacks and attempting to reduce the discussion to the equivalent of a shootout. Again, really childish, which seems to be the mode of operation on Planet William.

Boy - you Yanks are fucking mental!

I watched an episode of Miss Marple tonight and I believe Dominic Scherrer who uses VSL does that with VSL and probably other sample libraries. It may not be real, but it sounds good. Isn't that what it's really all about?

No, it's not what THIS THREAD was all about.

It wasn't about "Can samples sound good?"

"Can samples be used creatively in ways the real orchestra can't?" 

"Do some TV shows use sample libraries instead of real people?" 

"Does Joe Blow on the street know or care?"

It wasn't about any of those things.

If someone could please tell me how to unsubscribe to this thread, let me know, please. I feel like I've entered Monty Python's Argument Clinic.

TH

@aerovons said:

No, it's not what THIS THREAD was all about

What is it all about?

This thread is about...

@Stephen W. Beatty said:

An interesting video highlighting the production methods for the film Tangled scored by the composer Menkin. With the advent of MIR and the ability to acheive a superb realism for instruments samples in a real hall, how different are these sounds from the actual orchestra?  If  you are comparing the digital recording of an actual orchestra with an equivalent live ( not a step edited ) midi performance using MIR and VI can a listener really tell the difference in a double blind test? The problem with comparing a step entered (Jay Bacal)  well known Classical compositions and a digital recording of the same compositions by an live orchestra is not the quality of the resulting sound but the gesture and expressive flow of the music. Are we on the verge of  or in an era of equivalence of sound of the recorded real orchestra and a recorded midi sampled orchestra?

Regards,

Stephen W. Beatty    

Mr. Beatty simply asks, are we at the point where a sampled orchestra can conceivably replace a real orchestra?  It is my opinion that, for the average listener (average Joe), yes a mock up would sound just as good as the real thing.  I think it's safe to assume that the average listener wouldn't include somebody who works with samples for a living.  The average listener isn't listening to the same things we are in a particular piece and, whether we like it or not, the average listener doesn't care about the same things we care about.  As I said in my first post, I know a flautist who wouldn't know a sample library from the Public Library so even some musicians wouldn't know the difference.

I am also of the opinion that we are at the point where the real thing isn't always superior to the sampled rendition.  I think it's a mistake, and rather narrow-minded as well, to think of samples as nothing more than tools to make mock ups totally disregarding their worth.  Of course, samples are not infallible but neither are real players. 

Composers who have real orchestras at their disposal can't appreciate what a MIDI composer/orchestrator goes through when trying to create a virtual emulation of what they are hearing in their heads.  The countless tedious hours of painstakingly tweaking a couple of articualtions to get a brief phrase to sound like it should.  Composers who use real orchestras just get it as close as time will permit then just have the players figure it out when it all goes live.    

 Strangely enough, this is one thread where I think everybody has been staying pretty much on topic actually.

BTW just click on "Email Subscription Enabled" if you don't want replies to this post going to your email.

" It is my opinion that, for the average listener (average Joe), yes a mock up would sound just as good as the real thing. "

But professional industries do not judge the quality of their work based on what the "average Joe" thinks. If they did, we'd all be using mp3's as our final masters, wouldn't we?

The resolution of high end video as allowed us to view remarkably life like images evening on nightly news broadcasts. I do not confuse the news anchor on my screen with any of the real human beings in the room.

And please stop putting words in my mouth, implying that someone is narrow minded if they prefer real orchestras to pretend orchestras. I use samples every day...literally...of my life...and have since the Emulator days. I am huge fan of good sample libraries because they are a necessity in today's economy and with 19 year old agency producers asking you to have the music by Friday. Given the budget, time, and choice, no...I would not choose any sampled version of a large orchestral piece over a real orchestra playing that piece.

I don't understand what the fuss is about. The question "Are we on the verge of or in an era of equivalence of sound of the recorded real orchestra and a recorded MIDI sampled orchestra?" does not have a yes or no answer as such.

1) To whose ears?

2a) Are we talking equivalence between the best orchestra in the world with the best conductor and this library and the best programmer? Then, apologies everyone, the answer is "Not in your dreams", yet... Whether it's possible in the future or not we shall see. However, a great orchestra employs great musicians who collectively know their instruments incomparably better than a programmer does, and if the piece is a good one (well-written) they will collectively perform it much more poly-dimensionally than a programmer will, even if he's the composer in most cases. If the piece is - intentionally or not - unplayable for whatever reasons by real musicians, then the sampled performance will tower over the Concertgebouw's, Berlin's etc. IF that's your thing.

2b) Are we talking equivalence between your average community orchestra and their conductor in residence against the VSL and say, Jay Bacal? Then the answer is still "Not in your dreams", in favour of the VSL this time.

How many of us here (the ones that are literate in music-writing and don't just sequence sounds) would sit in front of the computer for days on end twisting knobs, tap whole novels in morse on the mouse, etc. if money was no object and we could have the London Philharmonic assembled in front of us on a whim, ready to workshop every sketch, every experiment, anything really, everlastingly, tirelessly, patiently... 

But LPO is not available to us is it? Not even our regional orchestras are most of the time. Hence, we use our computers with the best available tools to us, to the best of our individual ability, to get orchestral sounding renditions of our works for us and our employers. So, what exactly is your question Mr. Beatty? Are you a director/producer wanting to know whether paying real musicians is a waste of money because there are computerized libraries around these days? If that is the question really, the answer is "pay real musicians" if you can get good ones. If your interest is purely academic, it's time for me to sign out.

Best wishes.

"Are we talking equivalence between your average community orchestra and their conductor in residence against the VSL and say, Jay Bacal? Then the answer is still "Not in your dreams", in favour of the VSL this time."

Not to me, because the instruments themselves, especially the strings and brass, just don't sound like the real deal. If some of you have gotten to the point where you believe the brass and strings especially from VSL SOUND as good as the real thing, you've spent WAY too long in front of you computer. The sole exception for me are the VSL horns, which are pretty wonderful, but trumpets and bones in a section compared to the real thing I can't see anyone preferring, for instance.

...sorry that's my opinion and it's as valid as the pro sample folks.

I have an idea...why don't we all just use what we prefer and agree that no one is a bad guy over it?

TH

@jasensmith said:

This thread is about...

No - I meant life in general. [8-)]

@aerovons said:

Not to me, because the instruments themselves, especially the strings and brass, just don't sound like the real deal. 

Really?! I know a little about community orchestras, I was even conducting one briefly at one point. Put up a segment here of a demanding brass passage from your (and I said average) community orchestra - say from Ein Heldenleben, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, something from the Planets, etc. and let's compare... Something maybe missing from the 'real deal' in the samples, but I'll take that over the cacophony, that is for my own works. For the Pastoral, sure, I got great recordings, but for my own works, if I can only have one of the two - VSL or average community - I'll take VSL, unless the work is undemanding of course, but for bravura scores, please...

But your slanting the discussion. It's like saying "I'd rather using guitar samples than a sloppy guitarist who can't play well." 

I'm not talking about comparing apples to oranges. I'm talking about professional players. Studio musicians of high calibre that walk into sound stages daily and sightread complex parts (or not) and play wonderfully. 

And all of this discussion over performance still is completing ignoring the the question of the sound of the instruments themselves...some of which, like flute and other woodwinds, some brass (as I mentioned, love the french horns from VSL) etc are very very good now, but maybe I'm listening to the wrong mock ups, or have an inferior version of the VSL library, but I wouldn't for a moment compare any of the strings, trumpets or bones to a real section.....we have different ears and different priorities I would simply say, which is fine.

Fantastic Mock Up:

@Another User said:

And please stop putting words in my mouth, implying that someone is narrow minded if they prefer real orchestras to pretend orchestras.

No.  What I'm implying is that most people wouldn't know the difference between a real and a fake orchestra.  I think it's narrow-minded for composers to use samples only for mock ups thinking that they are not useful for anything else other than mockups.   

I'm slanting the discussion? You're the selective retention debater. I've already conceded the 'Great Orchestra' vs. great emulation point. Whereas the part of my post that you quoted and for which I replied regarded the average community orchestra, and by that of course I meant any mediocre or inferior ensemble. I don't see any YouTube URLs of those in your reply. I also conceded the fact that a sampled orchestral recording will sound different to an actual one to trained ears, speaking of which, what do you mean maybe you have an inferior version of the VSL? Do they come in qualities? You say "we have different ears and different priorities". What are they? What music do you write exactly? Do people pay you to deliver recorded performances? What are their priorities? If pressed to choose exclusively between a real orchestra with 25-40% wrong notes and fluctuating tempi and a great mock-up which would they prefer for their money? 

Come on now, you can tell me, have you personally ever gotten the "studio musicians of high calibre... etc..."? Did they just need to play an arpeggiator strings-pattern under soporific woodwind quintet pads, with the occasional brass/percussion punctuation, or was it an atrophied caricature of a J.W. score that was scanned with the lowest possible resolution?