I was in the film scoring market long ago sir.

As to my challenge - I thought so - a coward! I was ready to post something- in fact, I was cogitating excitedly over WHAT to post, since there are so many possibilites for devastating non-entities such as you. But since you have nothing to offer, tsk, tsk, tsk, such a pity - for you.

The first challenge to a Samples vs. Live duel in the history of the world - and the wretch, the beggar, the blaggard is a coward!

Ha-ha!

My seconds were ready to call upon you sirrah, but I suspected as much from the likes of your kind. I spit upon you sirrah, and trust you will no longer show your miserable face in any of the Digital Taverns or Sampling Inns I frequent! Ha-ha!

[[:|]]

Um. You win. Please stay away from my house.


_Mike

I think that we're getting confused here. There is no doubt that my music sounds better when recorded by players than when using samples. There are various reasons for this:

1) I wrote it for players, not samples.
2) I'm not the world's best programmer and engineer.
3) An orchestra full of individuals, with their own views on musicality, is very hard to match with samples, where one brain is "directing" every note.

However, in the past there were many times when my demos sounded better than the final result simply because the players were not up to the job.

Now here is where the confusion starts. There are times when composers write specifically for samples, and in these cases I have yet to hear a live version sound better than the sample performance. This is especially true when mixing rhythmic electronic instruments with orchestral instruments. On my current project, without the best players in the country, it would have been impossible. Having said that there are still as many as 200 edits per track....!

The time that "real" players shine is usually where the music is very simple. There are many times that I've heard film cues that are musically ignorant and badly written where the strength of performance actually makes it sound like proper music....! This is very hard to pull off with samples. However when it comes to blood and guts racket, samples can actually be an improvement.

The last point is "does it sound real"? I would say "does it matter"? If you are recreating a standard from the Classical repertoire, then it probably does matter, but for original composition the only criteria is "does it sound good?".

DG

ooh, things are getting a little toasty in here, hey?

I would have to say that, given absolutely *ideal* conditions, in terms of rehearsal time (read: budget), players abilities and attitudes, and a host of other factors, there's probably no situation in which I wouldn't ultimately choose "live" over sampled. I mean, if Ensemble Modern suddenly wanted to record a few of my works, I'd be over the moon! However, meeting these conditions is simply not a day-to-day possibility. Not for me, and not for anyone. The musical and financial resources simply do not exist. So there's a pragmatic side to all of this which is impossible to ignore.

Also, there's the question of process, which DG is getting at in his last post. If I sit down at my (slightly flakey but improving) little VI "farm" and start bashing around ideas, there is direct experience involved. As I continue to compose, I'm hearing and responding in a very direct and almost instantaneous way. In this sense, my "virtual" orchestra is actually more "real" than anything I could auralize and transcribe to a pencil score. Obviously there are those who will argue against this, but I think the ground is pretty stable under that statement. The simple reason is that, if I auralize a passage of music, for a given instrument or ensemble, and transcribe that auralization to paper, I'm still imagining it with a certain performance in mind. And that performance is absolutely personal, absolutely "virtual"; I may never, in all my days, hear a performance like it. (In fact, it may not even be possible for me to hear a performance quite like it, since it's at least partly informed by many mental structures quite foreign to phsyical hearing... but that's another thread.) This is why I agree with DG that there are works that simply *will* sound better in their sample-based realizations, than in live performance... though the word "better" is, of course, slippery ineed! But it would be a mistake, IMHO, to suggest that this is because the work is poorly composed, or poorly orchestrated. It is simply informed by an entirely different process, and I don't think there's any way to completely divorce the product from the process through which it was formed.

Lately I often find myself concerned that my concert music is becoming too dependent on my studio setup. But my setup is now intimately tied to my compositional process, so I try to understand it and refine as much as possible. As long as I have some awareness that the manner in which I'm working is a primary influence on the work I produce, then I retain some hope of keeping a relatively clear head about what my music is all about. But I do sometimes miss the idealized world of pencil and paper composing... Perhaps someday I will find my way back to it.

btw, I realize that got a bit off topic, but I think it's sort of relevant... no?

J.

Regarding this topic. Today, I see four ways to compose music to be performed and recorded:

1) You compose for a known orchestra or ensemble. You obei to what can be performed with this particular ensemble. You don't write melodies, lines or rhythms who can not be played by all members of a section. In this scenario you have to know the niveau of each ensemble member.

2) You make a model (mock-up) for later being recorded with an orchestra or ensemble. Here the same scenario as under 1), you have to know the niveau of the performers.

3) Compose and arrange pop music. The music is simple. It can be played by an orchestra or ensemble as well can be realized with synths and samples.

4) You compose exactly as complex as you hear it. No reduction and compromise to the niveau of an orchestra or ensemble. That's often my scenario. The music can not be played by an ensemble, not even when the ensemble or the whole orchestra would consist of soloists only.

.

In every field I've ever come accross there have been serious, knowledgeable, experienced people with diametrically opposite points of view. This is true even in the hard sciences where one would think the "answers" are concrete and quantifiable. If anyone here has ever spent any time around the field of medicine then you know the level of contentiousness there is legendary.

There are people who feel passionate about their particular point of view. Many of these people are quite competent and base their feelings on long experience. It is fascinating to me that intelligent, sincere, thoughtful people, who may even have similar experiences, can come to hold completely different and often incompatible perspectives on a subject. In the history of the arts, real (not virtual) duels have been fought over smaller differences than the ones being considered here.

I believe the world is large enough for more than one school of thought or artistic practice. I believe it is perfectly acceptable, right and good that various artists should commit themselves passionately to the approach that they feel is "best" for them. I believe that the evolution of art is fluid and constantly changing. It is when there is no change, no evolution and no passionate differences among artists that something vital is lost. I believe we are in the midst of another, major change which I have tried to articulate in an earlier post. There are those who will embrace this new paradigm and those who will reject it. That is the way it always has been and should be. For me, its all music and its all good.

Be well,

Jimmy

I've read through the later posts and offer the following....

Poppa, right on man (You too, Angelo and Bill, for the same point). The means of expression, particularly musical, remains ever fluid, and no one medium could ever be actively dismissed as mediocre, because as we know, its the performer's responsibility for the sound of the final result, and if that performer is mediocre, close minded, and already readily dismissing a potential opportunity for an even wider pallette of medium, then the end result is going to be, well, mediocre.
Daryl nailed a good point too. Which medium do you want to use? Are you writing for live, or sampled? (or the alien gig....Britney Spears)
Live's been done for the better part of 500 hundred years or so, as an orchestral, or ensemble reference. (and of course, several thousand years before that for 'expressing one's self'.)

Mike, personally, i wouldn't send you anything, because i'd have no certainty that you'd take it seriously, given the vast gulf, and credibility gap between live and sampled, that you've expressed as your view in this debate. Too closeminded for me, and the enthusiastic dismissal of performance with samples as a viable opportunity, makes me wonder if you weren't wiser to refrain from mentioning 'virtuoso' as a means of making your barbed and somewhat derogatory judgement of someone else's capability as a musican. There is a small but growing band of sample performance 'virtuosi' who continue to push the limits of this new, and (IMHO) exciting medium, and with further development, and, to put it bluntly, practise, there's no telling just how far we can go. Virtuosi are the outstanding performers in their field, whatever the medium may be (generally), so to make a comparison using this criteria seems, well, somewhat naive. Those in glass houses.......

In all of this, we come back to individual talent. We know of several chaps here and elsewhere who can perform with samples to an extrordinarily talented level.

There's no doubt it's only the hardware and software interfaces that may in fact be holding these fellows (and us?) back from attaining even greater heights of performance, and just as the pipe organ and piano unleashed composers and performers, and gave them a big chunk of creative capacity and freedom, samples, (maybe in the guise of a 'soft' instrument, replete with almost infinite layers, articulative segments, and a realistic means to perform/manage those segments and sounds) have great potential to release modern day composers from the restriction of using a complete, and traditional, 'live' orchestra.

Daryl made another excellent point about the reality of writing for 'live'. It's fairly simple stuff, and when played well, is wonderful. (And i'm a former orchestral player with conducting experience as well.) Ok if you write for live.
But if you want to express something beyond orchestral capacity, and it's not only possible, but creatively neccessary, then a 'virtual orchestra' comes into it's own. We hear the world's best orchestras playing stuff WRITTEN for them, specifically. Of course they're going to sound good. There's a lot of myth attached to symphonic ensembles, and you'd be surprised just what goes on inside a performance, including all the 'humanity' that is touted as a clumsy difference between live performance, and sample instrument performance.
There was also a comment about the differences between orchestras, and their performances. The same thing applies with sample instruments. Although the source sound may be the same, part of sample performing seems to be blending and layering, and it's here, and in the mix, that we'll hear the 'individuality' in sample performance. Those with talent will build their own 'signature', and those who aspire to greater recognition will and/or emulate/plagarise/practise/sit on their arse throwing cheap shots, and failing to understand their own mediocrity.

No doubt this debate will continue, but it still comes down to the skill of the performer and quality of the arrangement, be it a composition with a live ensemble, replete with 100plus muso's all doing their interpretation, or a single performer playing 100 parts from the same thought/emotive/perception source. If you're good enough, the medium of your choice will sound good, provided you can 'play' it well. (virtuoso?)

Regards,

Alex.

Just to add to the above post, i think Bill and others are on the right track, in their perception of the potential in a sample performance setting, and i look forward to hearing the progress they make, and the work they do, specifically written for this medium.

Exciting times ahead for those who can, and are willing, to 'see' that far.

Alex.

Good post, DG.

Some of the replies here are brilliant and inspiring, no joking.

One other thing that occurs to me is specific types of music in this context. Mention was made of 'simple" music being hard to do in samples - I completely agree. An example is an almost childishly simple violin solo piece I once tried to program. It had been played fairly well by a live violin, but I tried later on to do it with some very good samples and it was terrible. I would never let anyone hear it. A single line with piano accompaniment! On the other hand, some massive orchestrations seem to work in an exciting, even thrilling way that I immediately want others to listen to.

I agree on specifically writing for samples being a deciding factor, though perhaps also there are certain types of orchestral music originally written for live that, because of their particular orientation toward sound and timbre, benefit from sample performance or might even sound better. For example, certain modern pieces that put extreme strains upon live players in their emphasis on unusual timbre. I often wonder what would Ligetti's Atmospheres, Lontano and Apparitions might sound like with samples on the level of VSL. These are pieces which treat the live orchestra almost like a tone generator in a fascinating timbral experiment. The Bacall performance of Varese worked very well and seems to demonstrate something similar though with the added element of highly complex rhythm in the percussion.

The exact opposite of this is the terrible, dull music for "Last of the Mohicans" which was simply a huge mass of undifferentiated sound, "scored" (to use the term very, very loosely) for a live orchestra, a group of studio players who must have been so bored by performing the exact same repetitive theme, doubled over and over throughout the ensemble, that they ended up the recording session in comas and had to be taken out on stretchers.

For the people who think that live orchestras are always better - that piece of shit of a score could be represented by a small, older sample library PERFECTLY. The live players represent nothing more than snob appeal and bragging rights for the producer and composer.

@William said:

I agree on specifically writing for samples being a deciding factor, though perhaps also there are certain types of orchestral music originally written for live that, because of their particular orientation toward sound and timbre, benefit from sample performance or might even sound better. For example, certain modern pieces that put extreme strains upon live players in their emphasis on unusual timbre.

The really sad thing is that todays sample libraries don't have the content to do this.... I'm currently writing a piece consisting of choral washes of soft and warm woodwind multiphonics. Besided being an absolutely uninspiring amount of work getting acquainted with the particularities of each instruments I don't have the means to demonstrate it well to my director. Westgate has some but by far not enough. So I'm currently organizing my own sample recording sessions...

I actually would also love to include the brass multiphonics (with singing), but organizing the WW material is already enough of a hazzle...

@mathis said:

...but organizing the WW material is already enough of a hazzle...

Have the nouvelles techniques in 1994 catalogued, and could give you the following, or better let you know where to order:

Oboe, recorded, notated and fingerings:
multiphonics (circa different 340 samples)
timbre fingerings
eight-tone scale
double harmonic
eight note trills
effect without reed
air tone
key noise,
slap tongue
double harmonic

Bassclarinet, recorded, notated and fingerings:
multiphonics
multiphonic glissando
extreme high register
harmonics
frullato
aeolian sounds
kissing effect
playing on the neck
mouthpiece alone
vox humane
shakes
tremoloes
glissando
key percussion

.

Angelo,

I would be EXTREMELY interested in these!!! Are there any other instruments sampled in a similar fashion?

Please PM me with the info -- I'd very much appreciate it.

J.

-----------------

On my comment above, I should clarify a little. I've been working on a side project which is entirely sample-based, and was sample-based from its conception. It sounds great, IMO. However, on hearing some of it, a friend of mine commented that it would be amazing with a live band... reflecting upon that for a while, I realized that he was absolutely right. I've since been seriously considering putting this band together at some point in the future.

However, I've also done work that is sample-based, and which basically could not be otherwise, without a huge amount of interpretation and approximation. This work is, to me, completely "at home" in a sampled world, and it would basically be wasted effort to even consider replicating it live. So, of course, I absolutely agree on the idea that work can be created specifically for samples, and can be every bit as 'artful' in its execution as any live piece.

cheers, All.

J.

@jbm said:

I would be EXTREMELY interested in these!!! Are there any other instruments sampled in a similar fashion?

Yes, there are mutiphonics available for all wind instrument. Most I own came on compact disks with special books written for the particular instrumentalist and for the contemporary composers.

Of course not all possible multiphonics are recorded. For example on the Oboe alone are over thousand possibilities to blow several notes at once, of which I have only 390 different ones, but all nicely catalogued and notatated. An oboist would call those the most important multiphonics.

If anybody else is EXTREMLY interested, I can post the most important info right here, or in a new thread. Infos like book titel, authors, ISBN numbers, websites of instrumentalist where you can order nouvelle techniques sounds etc.. just let me know. Otherwise I send you jbm a PM.

Also, I don’t own this samples 100%, but bought them for using under licence, and the ones I recorded myself, the instrumentalists are the co-owners. So it would be no good idea just to make a copy of those huge library for any of you.

.

Others multiphonics are available online. For example here a Heckel-System Bassoon multiphonic site:

Heckel-System Bassoon Multiphonic Fingerings_
http://idrs.colorado.edu/bsnfing/fingmult.htm

Indexes > Bb1-B1 > Heckel Multiphonic fingerings Bb1- B1:
http://www.idrs.org/Pub/BsnMulti/BB1_B1MU.html

Home.
http://idrs.colorado.edu/bsnfing/finghome.htm

.

@Angelo Clematide said:

If anybody else is EXTREMLY interested, I can post the most important info right here, or in a new thread. Infos like book titel, authors, ISBN numbers, websites of instrumentalist where you can order nouvelle techniques sounds etc.. just let me know.

PLEASE do so! Maybe make a new thread.
Yes, the Heckel bassoon site I already found. Thanks for the confirmation that I can get my bassoon material from there.

Bests,
- Mathis

"The really sad thing is that todays sample libraries don't have the content to do this..." - mathis

Actually that's not true, as your own work proved with the time-stretched vibraphone.

Also, on those pieces I mentioned, Ligetti used mainly normally played instruments, in unique combinations. Though I agree more samples of anything are always a good thing.


Though again, oddly enough, when you start talking about using these specialized articulations - that is when I would want live, not sampled instruments. To totally contradict everything I just said. Whoops. I always do that...

@mathis said:

PLEASE do so! Maybe make a new thread.

Okay, give me a few days for the whole compiling the info, so around middle next week, first have to mix one rock song tomorrow for a band from Long Island, they wait since a loooong time for that one on this Island...

.


Btw, this site has some really good quality, go to > Sounds with tag "multiphonics" I just don't know how to download them.

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/tagsViewSingle.php?id=2920

.

@mathis said:

PLEASE do so! Maybe make a new thread.

Okay, give me a few days for the whole compiling the info, so around middle next week, first have to mix one rock song tomorrow for a band from Long Island, they wait since a loooong time for that one on this Island...


Brilliant, Angelo. I'm very much looking forward to it.

cheers,

J.

@William said:

"The really sad thing is that todays sample libraries don't have the content to do this..." - mathis

Actually that's not true, as your own work proved with the time-stretched vibraphone.

No,sorry, but it's the other way round, the vibraphone is recorded by myself. No commercial samples involved here. In fact this kind of piece is not possible with sample libraries, because my electronic treatment works like a magnifying glass to the noises and imperfections of the playing, something that usually is edited out in a commercial library.
I would never do this kind of piece with a sample library because the results would be terribly boring. The major and essential part of the creative process is the conceptualization and improvisation, the recording the material.

For the ones not knowing what piece we are talking about:
http://www.mathis-nitschke.com/mp3/TT_Vibraphon_part1.mp3">http://www.mathis-nitschke.com/mp3/TT_Vibraphon_part1.mp3
http://www.mathis-nitschke.com/mp3/TT_Vibraphon_part3.mp3
(especially part 3)