First Shot at Writing for Strings--

[matto]

Quote:For my own "education" lately, I've been working on a VERY short piece. It uses violins, violas, cellos, basses, and flutes. Each are playing their own line, rather than doing "chords". There are three articulations for each section... expressive, legato, and sustain. I imported a recording of a live orchestra doing a piece with kind of a slow movement. I used that as my "template" for composition, sound and overall realism. Doing this, even though my composition was a little different, I was able to A/B my stuff until the instruments, phrasing, and overall production was very close to the original recording. My stuff starts the piece and at 0:13, my "pretend" orchestra fades out and the real orchestra recording fades in...www.DaveWaltonMusic.com/PrivateArea/Orc ... mple.mp3If you pick a simple orchestral recording and constantly A/B it with the track you're creating, even if your track is compositionally different, you'll quickly hear whether or not your track is "realistic". In a sense it's not easy but on the other hand, now that I know kind of what to do, it's not that difficult.There's nothing better than listening to a real orchestra (or orchestral section) and A/B'ing it against your composition. Cause I think when you play with a sampled orchestra for a while you start to get used to the sound of it and think it sounds realistic when it really doesn't...When you listen to Dave's piece, he was able to match the sound VERY closely and probably learned a ton of little tricks while doing so. Really the only thing that sets the real orchestra apart in this example is the "connectedness" of the lines and depth of the phrasing. By comparison the samples are kind of "unfocused"...but without hearing the real orchestra for comparison this would likely not be noticed by most people.

[davewalton]

Quote:When you listen to Dave's piece, he was able to match the sound VERY closely and probably learned a ton of little tricks while doing so. I actually did learn a lot (and I'd be glad to share with the forum but I don't really have it organized to that extent - yet). There were changes in the EQ to get a "smoother" sound to match the real orchestra, things like that but mostly I was amazed at how much difference the little things made. Like adjusting the start time of a note for one section so that it started a hair sooner than the other sections. Same with note endings. Little things that when I was A/B'ing made a big difference. I was really surprised too at how much more life it seemed to have when I started messing with the tempo... slowing down the tempo at the end of a phrase and speeding up it again at the beginning at the next phrase. Can't do that very easily with "Stormdrum" banging away in the background but for orchestral on its own, it makes a noticeable difference.It's interesting that the more I listen to it with the A/B right there, the more I realize the little "tweaks" that could still be made, depth of phrasing and the other things that Matto mentioned. The main thing about this is that it's VERY short and VERY manageable. I can take what I have here as a template for larger, more ambitious pieces. For me, trying to do this while tackling a three minute piece would have been such serious overload I never would have made it to even the first level of detail.

[mazz]

Dave,I couldn't listen to your stuff earlier but you did a fantastic job with your emulation. There's a slight change in depth when the real orchestra kicks in but you really nailed it.Some of the things you've mentioned about starting things a hair earlier and so on are things I've been discovering myself. The thing that's made the biggest difference for me so far is using the CC11 for making "breathing" movements within phrases and held notes. I did the tempo changes on my Satie piece and it really did add that life to it. I listened to a recording of Debussy's orchestration before I did mine and was very influenced by a lot of aspects of his orchestration and it was good to have it fresh in my mind when I was working.Great stuff Dave!!Mazz

[ibanez468]

Quote:There's nothing better than listening to a real orchestra (or orchestral section) and A/B'ing it against your composition. I have to A/B constantly since I don't know what the heck I'm doin'. Quote:Cause I think when you play with a sampled orchestra for a while you start to get used to the sound of it and think it sounds realistic when it really doesn't...Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. Dave, you did a VERY good job of emulating that piece. I barely caught the switch from one to the other.ibanez468

[hummingbird]

Quote:For my own "education" lately, I've been working on a VERY short piece. It uses violins, violas, cellos, basses, and flutes. Each are playing their own line, rather than doing "chords". There are three articulations for each section... expressive, legato, and sustain. I imported a recording of a live orchestra doing a piece with kind of a slow movement. I used that as my "template" for composition, sound and overall realism. Doing this, even though my composition was a little different, I was able to A/B my stuff until the instruments, phrasing, and overall production was very close to the original recording. My stuff starts the piece and at 0:13, my "pretend" orchestra fades out and the real orchestra recording fades in...www.DaveWaltonMusic.com/PrivateArea/Orc ... mple.mp3If you pick a simple orchestral recording and constantly A/B it with the track you're creating, even if your track is compositionally different, you'll quickly hear whether or not your track is "realistic". In a sense it's not easy but on the other hand, now that I know kind of what to do, it's not that difficult.For anyone learning/doing orchestral music with their spanky new orchestra software packages, I'd highly recommend doing simple excercises like this. Sustaining "realism" for two or three minutes or more is a pretty big task. I always start with snippets of 10 or 15 seconds, do a little short piece. If I can succesfully sustain realism for that amount of time, then I move up a little. If not, then a three minute piece is definitely going to be out of the question. beautifully done - I had to look at the time to even know it had changed from what you did to the live orchestra. okay, I'm going to try to do this myself. good exercise!

[mazz]

Here's an interesting course on MIDI orchestration. I've purchased several of their books and have found them to be useful. It's always good to have different views of a subject. I haven't tried this one yet but I'm going to take the plunge. The price is right. (Not sure how much notation reading is entailed).http://www.truespec.com/professional-or ... 0.htmlMazz

[bmete]

Dave & Mazz,Started thinking horizontally.... wow what a difference it makes. Added some (simple) 3 part strings to a new age listing, and the harmonies just jumped off the page. I'm on the road this week, can't wait to get back to the studio. I decided a good piece to practice orchestration on would be the first 4-8 measures of Betthoveen's Piano Sonata " Facile". Mazz- thanks for the links both sound great, can't wait to take the midi course.Thanks Guys!Bob

[bmete]

Hi,Well gotta say first off that attempting to write for strings is a very humbling experience.....This is my first real attempt at thinking horizontally and playing each part separately. I'm trying to get a string quartet sound----the one thing that has me stumped is no matter how hard I try starting a phrase on the down beat seems very difficult- click track on- it sounds right, but when I check the score on the matrix it is always a 1/16th or 1/8 off..... is there some kind of delay I should be adjusting?Here's the first phrase of Piano Sonata 49 opus 1 by Beethoven..Sonata Facile:http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_ ... ream=trueI look forward to you comments and advise..... maybe we can turn this thread into a master class for everyone trying to write for strings..Bob

[crs7string]

Bob,I always leave at least two measures blank before at track begins. (start recording at measure 3) This leaves the necessary "breathing room" for a pick up or to hit the downbeat.I don't use Logic, in Sonar staff view I can click on a note and change what beat or click the note is on.This may help this issue.Chuck