@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?

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.

I pasted those URLs into Safari and they led right to the videos. Try again.

Have I personally used studio calibre musicians? Well yes, when a client pays me for real instruments I don't use amateurs or go to the local high school orchestra. There are pros in every city, unfortunately like everything, their experience varies re recording, and unless you are in NY, Nashville, Chicago or LA it's hard to find an entire roomful of players who are really tops. And it gets harder all the time because less and less live sessions are used because of sampling, and the fact that it saves everyone so much money no one seems to care much anymore what it sounds like, again, as long as it is delivered by Friday.

What they needed to play, whether you consider it "sophomoric" or not, is immaterial, there's that snobbish attitude again that always rears it's head in these conversations, as if there is a standard of composition that is acceptable, and another, which is not.

Is there a "roll your eyes" icon anywhere around here?

TH

" I've already conceded the 'Great Orchestra' vs. great emulation point."

Again it's not always about a "great orchestra."

I did something, as I mentioned, recently, that only needed french horn and flute in one section, and good as my VSL mockup sounded, I had the opportunity to use the real guys on the part and had them do it, just for fun, at the end of another section. It was only a few bars long in the middle of a pop piece. The violins remained VSL/Lass, but it was interesting hearing the real horns and flutes vs the mockup. Both ended up sounding great, both entirely usable, but I preferred the real instruments. Just me I guess.

William...I see you've worked yourself into a lather again....

Do you always just make things up as you go along?

Please show us all where I EVER stated "ALL SAMPLE LIBRARIES ARE THE SAME."

Let's start there, THEN...let's move on to where you misrepresent me again and state they I have said

"I AM ANTI SAMPLE"

You absolutely sound like someone who should consider medication. This isn't passion, it's just weird.

TH

You're no fun to debate with since you don't want to hear what everyone else is saying. Your URLs point to Jay Bacal and the Boston Pops; I know! That's not what I was talking about - read my posts carefully; you'll become wiser. Further, you inadvertently answered my questions about the music you do. Snobbish attitude? Since when having clear aesthetic preferences is snobbery? Would you say that your preferring real orchestras/ensembles to samples is also snobbish, or is snobbery as selective as your retention of information? "When a client pays me... blah...blah..." I'm not talking about a flute and a horn. What do you do when the client wants an orchestra and doesn't pay for it. Do you go to your high-school since you prefer live musicians, or do you sample? 

Also, would you say that there is a minimum standard of performance that is acceptable and anything below it is not? Of course you do, you don't accept 'run-throughs' as finished products. The same goes for composition, and these days most of it is sub-standard.

P.S.: Is it that hard for you to compute that we also prefer the real thing? We just can't afford it (and neither can you), and so we sequence instead.

P.S.2: the word I used was 'soporific', but 'sophomoric' will also do.

Errikos I've heard what you all have to say, and I know you are all huge sampling fans, to the point where unless one compares the samples to the London Symphony, then the samples win (and I dare say with William they would probably win against anything).

Having aesthetic preferences has nothing to do with whether sample libraries sound as good as real orchestra, that was my point. I could care less whether you like Bach, The Beatles, or both. It has nothing to do with the discussion, I responded only because of what seemed like a dismissive attitude by yourself when you said "Unless it's some....whatever it was." Just sounded like elitism to me. Go reread it again yourself and perhaps you'll see how it could have come off. There is a lot of high horsing around these parts, and a lot of REALLY sensitive people it would seem.

No... preferring real instruments is not "snobbery" unless you've gone off the deep end. 

When my clients ask me how much it will cost to do a TV spot let's say, that I've demoed to them with samples, I tell them I will give them two quotes, one with real strings, brass, etc, and one with a better sounding version of the demo (meaning I'll go tweak the samples and programming and give them a good mix). Most say "The demo sounds really good" when they hear the difference in price. A few say "It's worth it, go for the real guys." Those are generally agencies whom have taken a chance on going with real instruments at one time or another and loved the results.

Is that hard for you to understand that I and many other pros I know ALWAYS prefer real? Even in small sections? Even in a flute solo? Does that mean we are ANTI SAMPLE people, filled with large egos? I think you know that's just silly.

TH

(Dear all: Once again - please stick to a friendly, respectful and polite tone in this thread. Thanks!)

Yes Dietz, I'd be all for that, I'm afraid it's gotten a bit heated, as we are all passionate about one thing I think we can all agree...and that is music and it's creation. I do apologize if anyone has taken anything personally and for going over the top in some replies to posts which I considered in themselves personal attacks.

TH

My call for moderation wasn't aimed at you personally, but at all participants of this nice "heated" discussion. ;-)

Kind regards,