Great video. I'd add one thought. As a brass player, I can recall doing many sessions where the composer composed everything in the DAW. However, the composer did not understand the endurance limitations of brass. So the piece contained nearly 100+ bars of wall to wall brass playing. Samples don't get tired, but real players do. FWIW, this was written for pro Nashville session players. We had to stop and do the piece in chunks. The composer was disappointed we didn't sound as strong and "brassy" as the mockup.
I love DAWs and digital instruments btw. But it’s an easy mistake to make when your brass libraries can crush everything without considering endurance and range issues
OMG I'm sorry to hear that! That is what I always say about digital score. You are limited by your libraries and you can't use them as an escape way to get better at orchestration. You have to understand the nature of each instrument and how difficult it is. That is why many composers tend to go with the synth route because they are not satisfied enough with the real performance.
This is excellent instruction and exactly what I was looking for. I'm binge-watching your harmony and orchestration series. Thank you for making this information available online. Your explanations of rubato and phrasing, the reason we don't want to double fifths and octaves, and the way bumps and holes affect our various compositions were the best explanations I've heard anywhere and are very helpful to me. Thank you so much!
Thank you for the video! It's always good to have a reminder like this. I love having a few instruments at home, even when I'm not a good player, it helps me practice passages on instruments in between editing details in a DAW. So far I've fooled a solfège teacher & a composer/pianist by using VSL Solo Strings carefully, so maybe not all hope is lost for me and my sore lack of personal orchestra at hand 24/7.
Excellent advice. I would also like to point out that many libraries are designed now for composition rather than simulation, by which I mean that phrasing and other colorations are "baked in", so to speak. I suppose this is most useful when the rendering is the final product and turnaround time is minimal (i.e. - in low-budget projects). The Spitfire Albion series, and Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark series are good examples of this. The trade-off is that you are more-or-less stuck with the vendors' stylings. I personally prefer libraries aimed at simulation (the Spitfire Symphonic series, the Vienna Symphonic Library products) because they are more flexible. I want my renderings to sound as "live" as possible, but I also want to learn how to compose for actual musicians. I try not to write things where the wind or brass players would run out of breath!
If you write a score for tutti and you make them all play pianissimo, for example, will they blend naturally? If I do this in musescore, it will not blend at all, I will have to make some groups play louder or softer. Is this realistic?
I wonder: have you tried Spitfire Audio's BBC symphony orchestra? There's a free version. I think it sounds fantastic, based on the mockups some arrangers have put up on RUclips
Great video. I'd add one thought. As a brass player, I can recall doing many sessions where the composer composed everything in the DAW. However, the composer did not understand the endurance limitations of brass. So the piece contained nearly 100+ bars of wall to wall brass playing. Samples don't get tired, but real players do. FWIW, this was written for pro Nashville session players. We had to stop and do the piece in chunks. The composer was disappointed we didn't sound as strong and "brassy" as the mockup.
I think we can thank Hans Zimmer for that, to some degree.
I love DAWs and digital instruments btw. But it’s an easy mistake to make when your brass libraries can crush everything without considering endurance and range issues
OMG I'm sorry to hear that!
That is what I always say about digital score. You are limited by your libraries and you can't use them as an escape way to get better at orchestration. You have to understand the nature of each instrument and how difficult it is. That is why many composers tend to go with the synth route because they are not satisfied enough with the real performance.
Sounds like a bad composer
@@Milan____ the bane of my existence
This is excellent instruction and exactly what I was looking for. I'm binge-watching your harmony and orchestration series. Thank you for making this information available online. Your explanations of rubato and phrasing, the reason we don't want to double fifths and octaves, and the way bumps and holes affect our various compositions were the best explanations I've heard anywhere and are very helpful to me. Thank you so much!
What gorgeous music of yours is this at the beginning , luscious but in a completely "anxious ' mode evocative of our last few generations .
This is awesome as are all your videos - thanks so much !
Thank you for the video! It's always good to have a reminder like this. I love having a few instruments at home, even when I'm not a good player, it helps me practice passages on instruments in between editing details in a DAW. So far I've fooled a solfège teacher & a composer/pianist by using VSL Solo Strings carefully, so maybe not all hope is lost for me and my sore lack of personal orchestra at hand 24/7.
Excellent advice. I would also like to point out that many libraries are designed now for composition rather than simulation, by which I mean that phrasing and other colorations are "baked in", so to speak. I suppose this is most useful when the rendering is the final product and turnaround time is minimal (i.e. - in low-budget projects). The Spitfire Albion series, and Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark series are good examples of this. The trade-off is that you are more-or-less stuck with the vendors' stylings.
I personally prefer libraries aimed at simulation (the Spitfire Symphonic series, the Vienna Symphonic Library products) because they are more flexible. I want my renderings to sound as "live" as possible, but I also want to learn how to compose for actual musicians. I try not to write things where the wind or brass players would run out of breath!
Thanks for this great video.
I really enyoyed it
Great Video! I was wondering, what libraries are you using here?
Nice video!
If you write a score for tutti and you make them all play pianissimo, for example, will they blend naturally? If I do this in musescore, it will not blend at all, I will have to make some groups play louder or softer. Is this realistic?
how exactly does one edit in the DAW?
I wonder: have you tried Spitfire Audio's BBC symphony orchestra? There's a free version. I think it sounds fantastic, based on the mockups some arrangers have put up on RUclips
More video about this topic!
cool, thank you
👏