So little time...

As I write this, it's 2:13 AM and I'm in the middle of my relaxation phase from the usual late-night gym session.  My days have been filled with stresses of work, and lack thereof.  While I collect my schedule and get organized the next week or so is only going to get busier, more intense, and more frantic!  I wish I could get some time to start working more on some personal projects but until I have a steady job with set hours, these side jobs with the hope of pay are all I have to look forward to whilest applying for work.

This weekend was fairly busy recording at the studio with a friend's band, slowly building up their song when we could fit them in.  The rest of the time Troy's been busy at his day job while I have been getting calls and requests for some pretty odd jobs.  As of right now i'm working on building a rather large symphonic movement for 4 songs in a band's upcoming album which requires a LOT of attention. I've also been contacted about the possibility of doing production sound mixing and recording for a couple of local films coming up soon and possibly some scoring for 1, along with another indie film IF they decide to contact me again about it.  3 video projects up in the roster now.  Sometime this week Troy and I may start working on an advertising campaign for a client, and we're also awaiting another call from 2 bands about upcoming albums they want to do.  On top of that, I've also applied for the studio engineer position at Celldweller Studios and I can only hope I get the opportunity to do some engineering work for one of my favorite music artists!

The Orchestral work has the video blog for the studio in the backseat at the moment.  While it's close to done, there's the final timings and B-roll shots I need to hone in on, and the final pieces of VO material I need to finish recording when my gracious helper has the time to lend me his voice again, Thanks Myke!

My biggest endeavor has come back to the foreground in terms of learning scoring and orchestration at a more complex and realistic level.  While I've been doing research on the various libraries available, I've found that there are several ones that offer up a slurry of realistic mockups, some specialized, and some multi-purpose.

I've found the market is FILLED with virtual orchestra products (look for yourself, on the left-hand side under Brand click on view more and take a look at the list)!  Here's the main ones I have found are considerably authentic in terms of composing and realism for producing stuff on par with what I want to achieve (in no particular order):

• Vienna Symphonic Library-Huge product list with an even bigger range in price ($155-$7,000)
• Products range from individual libraries in several formats, to various software packages that can aid and even host the libraries making composition easier and more intuitive for mixing.
• East West Symphonic Library- much smaller product list but still pretty varying ($175-$995)
• They're products range from dated Kontakt 2 windows XP based to newer 64-bit specialized ROMpler engines, which also boast the older sample collections with additions of newer patches and better controls.
• Project SAM Libraries-A more discreet but authentic products ($400-$1,250)
• CinematicStrings-A specialist library offering a free edition and full edition ($700)
• AudioBro-Another specialist library offering a ton of control at a decent price range ($300-$1,000)
• Realtime Instruments-A more obscure one out there, it may seem new but it debuted at AES and NAMM as early as 2006 ($1,500-$3,700)

Now, before I go into further detail, I'm going to scratch Realtime Instruments off the list.  There's a couple of reasons I'm not going to consider this one:

• I speak only for myself at this point, but just look at this requirements list, I'd probably just go with Option B but I still have to get Vienna Ensemble Pro
• I assume they don't list sequencers like Sonar for a reason, which is what I use. If they don't list it, I won't bother.
• The pricetags associated with the software aren't that unreasonable compared to some of the other packages.  They have also listed a turnkey solution.
• The conjunction of these reasons is that while I may have a pretty fast computer, I do multiple things on it, and the likelihood of running this beast as well as I'd like, I'd rather opt for a networked solution which multiple computers running midi over lan and multi-IO audio... at that pace it's going to be extremely expensive and simply beyond the reach of your average home-enthusiast / indie level composer, ie: me.
• The fact that it's so obscure while being used by some pretty prestigious if not large names (they dropped videos of Serj Tankian supporting the product, and even mention it being used on American Idol), the product just doesn't seem to be catching onto the mainstream of music composers out there, and there's all but any ranting/raving in online forums of any validity (Cakewalk, VIControl, MusicRadar, etc...)

So, As I write this I've listened to this video on youtube courtesy of CinematicStrings



Pretty cool, pretty authentic.  There's so many out there though.  Here's another video that compares what I'll refer to as "the big 3" thanks to FilmScoringPractice



I honestly liked all 3, each one had a certain vibe and colour to it that makes it sound authentic and a lot of the comments below the user's videos (aside from the flametards blazing idiocy trails).  I think FilmscoringPractice' post in the comment section was pretty accurate:

~ this demo dealt specifically with ensemble patches. Both VSL and LASS are much better suited for playing individual sections/parts and both are more than capable of giving you the nuance needed for the classical style. but there are differences- VSL has a darker, more european sound, whereas LASS has a more hollywood sound. VSL is more controlled (tighter sound/feel). LASS has a nice 'air' but can be a bit hard to tame, and divisi playing in LASS is great for realism. mix them! :) ~

I completely agree with this statement. It's not that any of these are "better" than the other, each one has a certain feel that lends an emotional quality to a particular era of music just as the statement suggested.  They left out East West's Symphonic Library for a reason and I believe it has to do with it's limit in program-ability (speaking only from my experience with the Platinum Plus Kontakt 2 editions).

However, each one poses their own set of obstacles, the biggest being their learning curve.  While Vienna Symphonic Library has the largest, most expensive collection, their software allows for the most intuitive programming that seems to make it easier to compose and mix.  The specialists LA Scoring Strings and Cinematic Strings both offer a more controlled approach with a standard ROMpler like Kontakt but ultimately still have to do a bit of diving into the UI and learning control scripts and the like.  At the worst end of the spectrum you have East West's older Symphonic Orchestra Platinum Plus Kontakt 2-based libraries which are fixed to rather large or undecidedly small groups of instruments and while they offer 3 mic positions (always cool) it seems to need the most setup work in a DAW and a serious plan of attack when programming how the composition should move through each of the various patches to get the various articulations of any instrument sounding authentic.

East West isn't all that bad though, it's sound is actually really "big," and "heavy," which lends to it's appeal to a lot of indie level composers like myself.  That same note, however, is also limiting in the sonic palette that sets it into a niche of scoring to picture, mostly because of the type of emotion and colour it presents.  because it is so dark and big, I've had a hard time getting authentic passages to sound more intimate and romantic without having arguably dark underpinnings. The other hard part is programming convincing patches for things that either need a lot more attack, or faster moving material without sounding too heavy and over-produced.

I ran into this guy's video blog, who seems an avid forum-contributer at VI-Control, and he produced exactly what i'm after in this blog:





Not only did he demonstrate what he did, he gave a good analysis as to why he chose the packages he did.  Not only do they sound convincing, but they nail that typical "hollywood blockbuster" sound.  These packages can all offer a lot on their own, but when they are combined the way he combined them, they are extremely versatile and it seems only best to have combinations like this at a composer's disposal to cover the gamut of potential filmwork available.





A producer for an action flick might want the score to have that Hans Zimmer coloured orchestra, it sounds epic, but the colour allows for a more modern and current theme to be established.  Libraries like VSL are astouding (in price and sonic capabilities) but their color seems to work better for more theatrical effect: take a listen to some of the scoring behind tv shows like Family Guy, or comedy movies, or Harry Potter - obviously more European *see above quote*).  The colour just sounds more suited to conveying those particular emotional qualities better for those scenarios.  If any of you have paid any attention to films you've watched and noticed a certain "color" to it's score, please feel free to comment about it below!  I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on the topic.