to the "jerermyroberts" personage- I am certainly not contemptuous of musicians. That is absurd. I am currently organizing a chamber ensemble for some original compositions. Some pieces that were also played by VSL samples. You, in your dead-set hatred of everything I say and attempts at finding the negatives missed the point I was making about composers needing to be given more credence, especially in an age in which performers are lionized to ludicrous extent, such as the string quartet made up of fashion models who do a glamour photo-shoot for each CD they release. I am also tired of overrated, posing, foppish conductors whose faces are always plastered over recordings instead of composers. The composer is the true creator of music, and it is his imagination that performers try - and I repeat TRY -to recreate.
Also, in addition to the incredible arrogance and obnoxiousness this "aerovons" person has shown - being totally hypocritical in calling ME abusive - he also makes the mistake of thinking that he is the only one here with experience. I also started BEFORE samples even had been thought of. I come from a totally non-digital, non-sample, classically trained background. I wrote all music by hand, including all orchestral and symphonic band parts, xeroxing them for the players. Then I used an Roland S-50 with a few megs of samples and a dx7, then an Emulator IV with Miroslav Vitous, little sound modules, Proteus, Proteus II, then finally went to VSL first edition and on from there.
This person also equates all sample libraries. They are NOT equal. A quantum leap (no pun intended - a true quantum leap) was made when VSL began sampling, and all other companies are struggling to compete with it. There are some other good string and choir libraries now, but no full orchestral library. But this equation he makes reveals completely what he really thinks: samples are nothing but a generic replacement for the "real deal."
I hate to break this news to you, but samples ARE real. They are not synthetic. The early use of analog synthesizers was both a pathetic attempt at falsely reproducing orchestral sound and an abuse of the true character of the analog synth which has since been reborn for its own unique qualities now that samples have supplied the REAL DEAL to composers.
of course this person is so implacably stubborn and entrenched in his narrowmindedness he will absolutely overlook anything I say, but I don't give a damn and am simply stating my opinion. I do wonder - WHY IS HE POSTING THIS ANTI-SAMPLE STUFF HERE? Why doesn't he put it on a website for something OTHER than a sample library? Like Stop_Samples_Now.com or whatever. In fact, he ought to form that website. With the other person who thinks that music is ONLY performers collaborating with a composer who is their humble servant. Beethoven would have a few choice words for you if you tried to tell him that. I am in fact a disciple of Beethoven and Wagner in insisting upon the composer being the center of musical creation, and I am truly DISGUSTED at the overvaluation of prancing, preening, cutesy, sexy, phony performers and conductors that exists now in the shallow pop-driven culture.
My philosophy - and I don't care in the slightest whether jeremyroberts and aerovons like it and in fact I HOPE they hate it - is based on the realization that with the development of technology two new artforms have been created that are of immense significance for the composer and the filmmaker. In the latter case it is the advent of digital HD, which gives a near-film level of quality but with extreme economy and controllability far beyond the old-fashioned studio/lab approach, thereby opening up huge possibilites for the truly independent and even INDIVIDUAL filmmaker or film-poet. The kind of filmmaking that Cocteau wanted - pure, uncompromised artistic creation with cinema - but could only do sporadically because of the very expensive realities of the studio system and photographic film costs. All this has changed tremendously with the advent of HD, NLEs, Blu-ray mastering, etc. An individual can now create in uncompromised form, beholden to no one and nothing but his own inspiration, a complete motion picture. This has never been possible except in the most impoverished, infrequent or crude ways in the past.
The other development has been that of sample libraries, and as I pointed out the one that has taken an intensively artistic approach has been VSL. The sounds with the samples are REAL. They are vibrant, powerful, beautiful and perfected tones that exist in a nascent, as-yet-unformed state, waiting to be born into a musical composition. Because of the astounding detail and consistent supreme quality of the playing, recording and programming these sounds correspond in a wonderful way to pure imagination of sound a composer hears in his mind when thinking of, for example, a fortissimo trombone ensemble chord, or perhaps an ethereal, mysterious solo flute. This imagination of sound, still not-fully-formed, finally jells into a section of music. I have actually derived huge inspiration from listening to the REAL sounds of these instruments. Though most of my pieces I have programmed were written years ago - for example the Invocation excerpt - without the benefit of this.
This magic - to use the often-quoted Clarke dictum that "sufficiently advanced technology is indisitinguishable from magic" has given the composer the ability to realize directly musical ideas without being forced to alter, truncate, compromise or ignore his original intentions. And when one looks at musical history - examples such as Schuberts C major symphony sitting in a drawer unplayed till long after he died - one can see the huge significance of such an innovation as what VSL has done. This is why I have developed an aesthetic which enthusastically embraces it as a near-miracle of sound creation.
