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  • VSL and film scoring

    Hi,

    I'm a film score composer (but old fashioned, pen and paper) and don’t have much knowledge when it comes to electronic or sampling. Recently I have purchased Garritan Personal Orchestra, but I found it more as a joke than it is claimed realistic sound. Then after hearing few demos and positive feedbacks I was thinking of purchasing the VSL symphonic cube edition but before I do so I thought about making a little research. How beneficial could VSL be in term of scoring? Could it replace certain section of an orchestra or it’s only for demo purposes?

    Also, what are the steps of composing using sampling technology? (Is it as easy as Garritan or there is more work/experience involved?
    ==============================
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    Off topic, I was thinking of renovating my office, and make it a proper home studio using electronic equipment. But by having VSL do I still need a Synthesizer, if yes, what could be the purpose?

    And what Electronic do you recommend?

    I would really appreciate your reply

    Regards,

    Benjamin

  • Welcome Benjamin -

    You will get several first-hand opinions about using our Instruments pretty soon - our forum is visited by enthusiast as well as highly discerning people.

    But I have to admit that it won't be easy to answer your _basic_ questions by virtual communication only. The best ideas would be to find a music shop you can trust and let them suggest solutions for your home-studio to-be [:)]

    All the best,

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • Benjamin. I've been using VSL for about a year. I'm sure others with more experience will be able to give you more information, but here's a start.

    >How beneficial could VSL be in term of scoring? Could it replace certain >section of an orchestra or it’s only for demo purposes?

    Have a listen to the demos on this website and judge for yourself. For me, the finished product is good, but nothing like as good as a live performance. Some of the people contributing to this forum however, do use VSL for television and some film work.


    >Also, what are the steps of composing using sampling technology? (Is it >as easy as Garritan or there is more work/experience involved?

    I'm going to have a go at answering this one, because I wish someone would have tried when I started!

    You can 'drive' the VSL samples either with a sequencer (such as Cubase) or a notation program (such as Sibelius) and some sampler software (such as Gigastudio) to render the VSL samples. If you are a pen and paper composer, then you would probably be more comfortable with a notation program where you can work on a recognisable manuscript form of score. You will also need a beefy computer(s) with a big processor (3.6Ghz, lots of memory 2Gb+ and at least two big fast disk drives (250Gb+). I can just about get away with one computer for a small orchestra, but most of the people on this forum use multiple computers.

    I've not used Garritan, but VSL is a lot of work for me. I find have to attach a different sample to virtually every note when I'm scoring. You'll see that the Vienna people are pushing their new offering, Vienna Instruments, which looks to be much easier as it will interpret the score and choose the sample for you (as far as I can understand). This is shipping soon.

    As for the synthesiser, most of the software (Cubase, Sibelius) can receive signals from a keyboard via the MIDI port, so you can plug your synth into your computer and directly 'play' your music into the software. This will capture your keystrokes and display them in the score of your notation or sequencer program.

    Making it all work is quite fiddly, but this is the jist of it. I hope this helps. I'm sure other will pitch in and give you some quality advice.

  • Thank you Jonathan for the info, you've somehow saved me few hours of research.

    I have purchased both Sibelius 4 and Finale 2006, and it would be great if I could use VSL with it as long I don not need to run it on Kontakt 2 or cubase [*-)] (I have them both, and I found it pretty difficult to work with specially Kontakt 2)

    Thank you again for the advice

    Benjamin

  • Benben:

    Like you, I am a pencil and paper composer who has just recently become involved with sample based music. I set-up my system this past November and have acquired several sample libraries and am starting to learn the whole process.

    The first thing I feel you should understand is that it is definitely NOT quick and easy to learn and use this medium well. No matter what any of the hype and advertising imply's, the reality is that there is a very steep learning curve involved. Just spend some time on this and a couple of other forums and you may get an idea of the kinds of issues involved. Eventually, I believe it is possible to get a truly wonderful sound from sample based equipment but there is no fast and easy route to achieving that, no matter what anyone says. Some of the advertising would have you believe you can just hook up your equipment, load a few programs and off you go with a fabulous, realistic sounding orchestra. This is just not true and there appears to be no chance of it coming true any time soon. Even the players like the upcoming Vienna Instruments won't make things that easy. Consider the amount of time and effort you have spent learning all the aspects of becoming a skilled composer/orchestrator/arranger/player, etc. All the mass of detail, practice, frustration and eventual achievement will also be involved in sample study as well. You must be prepared to put in a lot of time if you want this to sound like anything worthwhile.

    Another important point is that there is a wide range of people with very different goals who use these libraries. Some are full time professionals, some are complete amateurs, some play in top orchestras or bands, others have rarely heard a live orchestra, there are composers, conductors, players of every instrument, some need to be fast and accurate and others can take as long as they need, and there is every other variation you can think of. It's really important to be clear about what you intend to use this for and find the set-up and libraries to fulfill those needs. In particular, if you are a film composer you have to look very carefully because the requirements in that world are very specific in terms of time and because each film may require a totally different sound palate.

    If you do decide to get into it, there are many, many options as far as equipment and libraries. You could spend a huge amount of time just looking at that. I spent months doing all sorts of reading, listening to demos, talking to musicians and bugging the music stores as well as on-line vendors before I made my final choices. I use two 64 bit PC computers each with 4GB of RAM and each with three hard drives. Sibelius 4, Sonar 5 Producers and Samplitude are on one computer and GigaStudio 3 Orch. and several libraries including the VSL Pro Edition are on the other. They communicate using MIDIoverLAN. This is only one of many, many ways to set up and I chose it because I thought it would work best for me not because it is the best possible approach.

    Will it be worth it in the end? I believe so. I think I have very high musical standards and I believe, in time, this medium will be able to satisfy those standards but it will not be quick nor will it be easy. If you decide to get into it just don't do it with any illusions. It's going to take time and effort. But, what else is new. Good luck!

    Be Well,

    Poppa

  • unless your john williams you can't score films without VSL to at least do mockups and demos. period. I don't think many would argue with that.

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    @magates said:

    unless your john williams you can't score films without VSL to at least do mockups and demos. period. I don't think many would argue with that.


    Not necessarily, many composers have the ability to score without playback and it all depends on their musical background, as for me, I have graduated from Vienna Conservatory as a pianist and continued my education to become a composer and most of the time I compose without listening to the score "there are certain rules and bases in composition and if you fulfil them, the arrangement will be instant”.

    John Williams is a fine composer and probably one of the best now days (for movies), and that’s not because of his composing skills or ability, but mostly because of his unique style and creativity comparing to the 50s – 60s style of film score such as Miklos Rozsa, Alex North, etc…

    There are 1000’s of composers like John Williams (style wise) but sadly there is only one room available and it belongs to John Williams himself.



    Benjamin

  • I didn't mean that in terms of the process I meant that in terms of getting work. In LA at least if a director must hear a mock up of it and it must be realistic. And if you don't have acess to a live orchestra (most of the time this will be the case). you must be able to produce something that is still on that extremely high level.

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    @magates said:

    I didn't mean that in terms of the process I meant that in terms of getting work. In LA at least if a director must hear a mock up of it and it must be realistic. And if you don't have acess to a live orchestra (most of the time this will be the case). you must be able to produce something that is still on that extremely high level.


    Depending on the Director or the music supervisor, but yes you are right most of the time is worrying (special for old fashioned composer like me) and this is actually the main reason I want to purchase VSL. I usually arrange the main cue or theme of the project for a quartet or the piano and then record it (less cost) but most of the time the director is not impressed as he has no idea what is running through your mind and how the final recording would be.

    From what I hear VSL, is one of the greatest thing ever happened to a composer and I think it have created/saved many job opportunities for composers. As for me, I can not wait till I get my hand on it.

  • Benjamin,

    Right, if you have Sibelius 4, then let me tell you how I've got it set up.

    I have Sib 4, the Symphonic Cube and Gigastudio 3 Orchestra.

    Set up Sibelius to point at Gigastudio.
    >Play>Playback and input devices
    Check 'yes' against 'use' for Gigaout Port 1. Leave soundset at General Midi
    Make sure nothing else is checked as 'yes' or it won't work.
    This makes Sib fire it's MIDI at Gigastudio.

    Now you need to make some sounds.

    Load up the VSL samples you want to use into Gigastudio
    These all get a bank/program number assigned to them.

    Back in Sibelius, you can use the program change function in your score to access the sample.
    For example, if you have an oboe sample (say OB_pV_sus) loaded into Gigastudio on bank 0 program 14, you can select a note in Sibelius and then use the Control-T (techniques) function with this command ~P0,14 to access that sample.

    You can add reverb etc, in the Gigapulse section of Gigastudio, either to an individual instrument, or else the whole orchestra. This needs memory and lots of it!

    Good luck!



    When you play back the Sibelius

  • Hello:

    My Set-up works very similarly to Jonathans. In addition, I can have Sonar5 pointed at Gigastudio3 as well. I can save the Sibelius4 files as MIDI, import them into Sonar5 and it will play the file using the samples loaded ito GS3. That way I can mix using Sonar if preferred. If you want, you can save the actual audio files in Sonar and you won't have to use GS when you reopen the file.

    As mentioned above, I am only a beginner with all this and it took some outside help from forum members to get up and running (thanks again kevjazz) but, so far, this is working reasonably well. However, I haven't tried anything really memory intensive yet. I just wanted to get all the programs working together, which they do now.

    Be Well,

    Poppa

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    @magates said:

    I didn't mean that in terms of the process I meant that in terms of getting work. In LA at least if a director must hear a mock up of it and it must be realistic. And if you don't have acess to a live orchestra (most of the time this will be the case). you must be able to produce something that is still on that extremely high level.


    I would have to agree and say that for 99 percent of the working composers, this is true. If you are a John Williams or very well established composer with a strong relationship with the filmakers, you might be able to get away with no mock up.
    For the rest of us, directors and fim makers have gotten spoiled with near perfect mockups and I have found that it's almost impossible to work with out them. It gives them the ability to make more direct decisions about the score when they can hear it mocked to picture before commiting to a real orchestra, or to a certain score for that matter.

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    @Jonathan Mitchell said:

    Benjamin,

    Right, if you have Sibelius 4, then let me tell you how I've got it set up.

    I have Sib 4, the Symphonic Cube and Gigastudio 3 Orchestra.


    You can use Giga/VSL with Sibelius as well? Darn, wish I knew that earlier, I've been using that dreadful Kontakt and the cheesy samples it comes with! So my projects never sounded the same when I went from sequencer/Giga to notation!

    Does it work with Sib3 as well? They keep releasing updates the moment I purchase something! I should probably read their press releases a bit more so I don't keep getting caught in the crossover!

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    @Tripit said:

    [quote=magates]It gives them the ability to make more direct decisions about the score when they can hear it mocked to picture before commiting to a real orchestra, or to a certain score for that matter.


    Also means if you go into a recording situation, you're not going to get any surprises! Would probably write all the wrong articulations, knowing me. Heck, I'm just going to hire an orchestrator instead.