Great piece of Christmas music! 🎄 But at 25:47 is the final playback of the piece meant to be in mono? It was in stereo when you played it back near the beginning of the video 6:55. Anyway, it was a really entertaining and informative video! 👍
He’s also one of the best teachers I ever saw, both online and offline. It’s fun to listen but never goes into “I’m just having a laugh but am not really paying attention” territory as with some “funny” instructors.
I sent YEARS experimenting with different approaches for the "articulation problem". I settled for the 1 instrument per track and 1 articulation per Midi channel approch, this way you have very few tracks. It works like this: You load multiple instances of the vst on different midi channels with only one articulation each on the same track. IMO 16 articulations per instrument are more than enough but if you need more, you can split it up to multiple tracks like Guy did. I set up all orchestral tonal instruments the same way: Ch1 is always Legato, Ch2 Sustain, Ch3 Spiccato, Ch4 Staccato and so on. If you set up all instruments this way, you can easily copy midiparts to other instruments and it will always work - regardless the VST manufacturer! And the best thing is that you don't have to look up or remember all the different keyswitches or fiddle around with expression maps. The way I work is that I record a part with the most easy to play all-purpose articulation of that instrument (i.e. marcato) and then assign the notes to the different midi channels afterwards. I use Reaper (which is very easy to customize) and added 16 buttons for each channel to the top of the midi editor for easy channel assigning. Edit: If your DAW allows it (Reaper does), you can change the view options of the pianoroll to display the notes in different colors depending on the midi channel. This way you can see the different articulations in the Piano Roll by color. The CC problem: If you record or draw CCs, it's only sending on one channel. I don't know about other DAWs but in Reaper, if you change the midi channel of a note, it also changes the channel of the corresponding CCs automatically. Or you use ReaControlMidi in Reaper or - the easyest approach - some plugin that simply sends CCs to ALL channels instead of only one. For Reaper some nice user made such a plugin - which is free.
Thank you. This sounds like a good working method. If I leave a project and come back to it after a couple of weeks, it can take a long time to work out where everything is and what it's doing. A structure (whether based on articulations, keyswitches or expression maps) is essential. I will definitely try your approach.
@@LautaroArino I simply select the notes in the pianoroll and assign them to different midi channels. It's very fast to do - for example i select all of the shortest notes and assign them to Ch3 (Spiccato), the longer ones to Ch4 (Staccato), the longest notes stay on Ch1 (Legato) or in chords get changed to Ch2 (Sustains) and so on ... If your DAW allows it (Reaper does), you can change the view options of the pianoroll to display the notes in different colors depending on the midi channel. This way you can see the different articulations in the Piano Roll by color.
This is way beyond both my brain capacity and the storage capacity of my PC. Congratulations to Mr. Michelmore and all the other great musicians out there that produce this kind of excellent music.
One alternative (still experimenting with) is to create an instrument track, have up to 16 articulations loaded into the sampler, assign a MIDI channel to each. Next create an expression map that switches between the 16 MIDI channels instead of relying on programming in the keyswitches. It’s much, much quicker to set up. Then from the info line in the piano roll, select a note and assign it to the midi channel you want it to switch articulation to. The cool thing is, you can just use 1 instrument track to write lines and if you want to work like a split template, just create 15 MIDI tracks that connect them to said instrument track & sampler.
GUY, it is so inspiring to see you go through a proper orchestrated piece like this, I know how much work that goes in to making all the midi information sound how you want, thanks for this Guy
I am only beginning to work on compositions, and I have already discovered that I need different templates for different things. I have created a super simple template with a small number of tracks and articulations which will allow me to focus on writing - sort of a basic or sketch template, I guess - which has been adapted from my larger templates, so I can fold the content into the larger template easily and consistently later. Having a sketch template really helps me write - and the work on the bigger template is where the polishing comes in. Again, as a relative beginner, I'm still finding my way, but for me, I think at this point it's more important to create music and work on articulations and perfection later than to try and take it all on at the very start. Inspiration first, then turd polishing. :) I really appreciate your "simplify" approach as it validates what I've started trying to do. Wonderful stuff, sir - thank you very much (and happy new year!).
Honestly. Someone gotta come up with a better solution. I am not a professional in composing and either way, having gazillions of tracks or all these expression maps and I’m not even aware off 100 % what an expression map does. There is absolutely no one that can keep track of that many things at once while writing music. Maybe when we get that neural link connector directly from the brain to the computer. Just watching those 200 tracks templates makes my head spin. And I’ve been working with IT for years, and this is on a scale of very advanced coding for IT specialists, and musicians and composers arent math professors or computer coders, or at least very few are. And these gigantic libraries with all those articulations is more and more an advanced coding language than a composing tool. But great video Guy. I’m impressed of those of you that make a living writing music actually get something done with this. It seems a lot easier just to learn the old school way of writing musical sheets on a piece of paper and have an actual orchestra play it 😎
Perfect. I just started creating a 3 track per instrument template last week, but paused. Good to know that Guy has had thoughts about this approach too. 👍
Great video, thank you Guy! After years of meddling with various ways and templates, I also came to the conclusion that what you propose here is a good compromise and least-problematic way of working. One could also use only keyswitched longs (incl. legato), shorts, FX & phrases tracks. Tip: If you can live without a video track: Studio One 5.5 realy is a great alternative these days, in conjunction with Vepro. Its expression maps (sound variations) are IMO more intuitive to setup and use, while general handling of large templates (visibility functions, load & save times) are even better compared to Cubase.
Thanks for being an inspiration. I don't like expression maps. I spent three to four weeks messing about, only to find that, at the end of the project, Cubase's Asio Guard was creating unwanted sounds. I use Key Switches on single instrument tracks, but that method lacks spontaneity. This whole roundabout with articulations sometimes forces me to limit choices to ten or, at most, fifteen articulations. Update: 23 July 2024: I've solved the Asio_Guard problem, poked into each plugin in the Cubase Plug-in Manager, and disabled Asio-Guard. So now that expression maps are useful, I'm using the attribute setting as the type in the articulation mapping in the Expression Map setup in Cubase 13. Composing music as a joy, here I come!
Well, I actually don't watch your videos because you "finish" a song in twenty minutes, but because you are entertaining and fun to watch … I do learn a thing or two while watching your videos, even though I'm more into writing electronic music and would be bored to death if I had to use the same pair of violins over and over. But for me, the "education" part just slips in through the back door while I really enjoy watching your videos.
That sounds incredible... watching you inspires me but at the same time discourages me. I am new to the whole recording vibe and only play guitar and bass... Just purchased my first midi keyboard (M-Audio oxygen Pro 49), and I have always been attracted to soundtracks and wow... each time I hear your compositions I am blown away! Thank you for such good, friendly, and very enjoyable content!
I've taken a similar approach. For each section I have an overall patch that has all the articulation switches. I use this when I'm doing a first pass. And with Reaticulate in Reaper, I'm able to combine articulations if I want to. I've also added tracks with shorts and long articulations in case I want to do more layering, or play another line. I keep it to the basic articulations and have saved those that I use less frequently to TRACK templates (you can do this in Reaper, I don't know about other DAWs), which can be called up with the click of a button. So, for example, if I need a harmonics line, I just click "Harm" on the toolbar and the track comes up, perfectly balanced, with all the settings I saved.
After finishing the video now I can also comment that this is exactly what I've been thinking to try. I don't have a lot of libraries, so I'm thinking to build separate articulation tracks for most of the main tracks I'll use, but for the extra libraries or remaining articulations I'll group them as leg, long, short for example. So it's fun to find a professional who thinks it's worth trying this method.
I have no idea what he is referring to when he says "slave computer". Please explain. Is he talking about accessing samples over a network or something like that?
@@avsystem3142 Yes, he is talking about running Viena Ensemble Pro, where your DAW runs on computer A and you can have Computer B or even more running the plug ins and then audio and midi data is transferred over your computer network. Just search the subject, there is a million videos on how this works already.
@@rbingraham Thanks. Controlling a remote computer simultaneous with the DAW sounds complicated. I assume you would have to run some type of remote desktop app.
@@avsystem3142 I've got a Master/Slave setup too. 1. Master has Cubase installed. 2. Slave has VEPro, the previous version, installed on it. Also has my VSTs installed on it, (Play, Native Instr, some others). 3. Ethernet cable (can't remember if these are crossover cables or straight thru) plugged into back of Slave, runs to a cheap switch I bought, (NETGEAR 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS305) actually). Run an ethernet cable out of that to the Master. 4. Create server project in VEPro with whatever VSTs you want on the slave computer. 5. Config Cubase on Master to connect to VEPro. (You install VEPro on the Master too, but you elicenser key sits on the slave computer where the VEPro server is.) This is all on Win 10, which needs no configuring; I don't think I even had to configure that hardware switch on Windows, it automatically does that. And I don't think I had to configure VEPro to use that particular network on the Master, it just does that automatically I seem to remember. The details of 4 and 5 I'll leave out because it's in the VEPro manual and I don't know if you're using Cubase or what. But believe me that doesn't matter, I was surprised at how easy VEPro was to configure. It almost does it for you if you follow their instructions. I would imagine the new version of it is even easier to configure.
Thanks so much, Guy. You've been an inspiration to me from the moment I first stumbled across you here. Took the music theory and how to write courses and made more progress with my music in 6 months than the previous 20 years of faffing about. Regarding templates, as with any creative endeavor, it's 90 percent preparation, 10 percent inspiration.
Tom does a very nice tutorial on this. I've been using Reaper with OTR2 (Orchestral Template for Reaper), which now includes integrated support for Reaticulate. Reaticulate is essentially a simplified (at least IMHO) implementation of Expression Maps, for Reaper. One of the things I like best about it, in addition to its very nice and super-simple U/I, is that the articulation changes can be shown in a single lane right alongside the other CC lanes, rather than trying to view them in multiple, stacked lanes, independently from CC1, 7, 11, etc.
Glad to see the love for key switches. I built a template using all articulations in east west Hollywood orchestra set to key switches. 1 track per instrument. Very nice to use. Searches and endless scrolling are not needed.
Love your video! I have also grappled with exp maps, resorted to CC controllers for VSL dimensions, gone completely template free, used Cubase disabled tracks, VST preset media pane (my current favourite way)… none of which finally answer the template problem. I must say creatively I LOVE a blank screen. No template. But also love key switches for performance flexibility whilst actually composing. Ah, the days pencil paper and a piano.
I have started building a template with very complex routings that I have just decided to strip apart and do it like this: Violins Longs Violins Shorts ...and so on - each instance has keyswitches from multiple libraries. I mostly use SA libraries so you can balance all of their articulations per track, same goes for shorts as well. Then I output them to their corresponding groups for most flexibility: Strings Hi Longs, Strings Hi Shorts, Strings Lo Longs, Strings Lo Shorts etc... Yes, it does take a bit of time to organise this but it lets you truly separate those types of tracks when you’re done with sketching and it’s time to orchestrate it
In my opinion, the best way to handle all the articulations is the way I do it with a 3rd party midi out called BRSO Articulate. It lets you use only 1 midi track for the entire instrument and u can switch between the articulations with colored notes. It makes it super easy to organize and you can have very few tracks. Though i'm pretty sure it's a FL Studio specific solution
I use Studio One as my main DAW, and, with the help of Babylon Waves' Art Conductor, S1's 'Sound Variations' (keyswitching) is super-super-SUPER easy. But yes, it still seemed wrong to do just one track per instrument, because of reasons some of which you mentioned (different mic positions? different amounts of reverb? different EQ? different track delay?). I really like this 'hybrid' approach which splits the difference between 1 track per articulation and 1 track per instrument. ~3 tracks per instrument seems about right! Thanks for helping us all think outside the box, Guy! I don't really do film/TV/media scoring... my music more song-oriented, in the neoclassical/electronic genres. But templates are a good idea in this world, also!
I always thought, 'oh you can't beat a good template.' Then the libraries' articulations start multiplying like rabbits and the track count gets silly so it's back to keyswitches but that becomes time consuming if you want to try a phrase in different articulations. Hmm, what to do? Spoiled by choice is leading to spoiling the moment of inspiration. I'm finding that getting the vast majority of it composed in a very limited template is step one (always thinking I'll sort that bit out later) then fine tuning at leisure with keyswitches. Not perfect but, for the moment, the most efficient use of my depleting creative energy. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Guy.
Great little video Guy. That's the same solution I landed on regarding templates. I found that there is also another opportunity with this approach: with solos, the first legato track can sound as the leader and the long track can work as the other two players in a polyphonic passage. Very quick and quite effective.
Great video and great topic! One option I have tried and it often works well: For example: Violins 1 - > 2 instrument tracks, one for legato (because of the track delay) and all others (short, longs ...). 1 additional miditrack on the same midichannel as the non-legato tracks, where only the keyswitches are managed. How to play this is a matter of preference. So record both at the same time and then delete either notes or KS. Or record once with a good marcato articulation (with short release) and record the KS in the second pass in the miditrack. This has among other things the advantage that in the instrument track a problem-free transposing is possible without moving the keyswitches (just select both tracks in the key editor if you need to see notes and KS). Copying to other tracks is also somewhat easier. This works at least as long as you don't have to work with big delay differences in the other articulations. For some libraries like Pacific strings you need 1 - 2 extra tracks because for example marcatos need 80 ms, spiccato 100 ms and legato 180 ms trackdelay. David Kudell's track delays list on VI-C is very helpful. I experimented with expressionmaps, but it doesn't really fit with my way of working.
I hope that Cubase 12 will have a totally revamped VST expression maps set-up allowing for individual delay for every articulation, like it's now possible in Digital Performer, Guy's old DAW. Also Studio One now have a Sound Variation feature, thats much faster than the Cubase version, and furthermore allows for automatic import of articulation maps from VSL Synchron Player. But the 3 tracks pr. instrument is actually quite clever, letting you balance the volume of longs and shorts much easier.
Absolutely fascinating! I had no idea people built 1300 track pieces! I come at this from a completely different direction: score-based composition using Dorico ( incidentally v4 released yesterday and looks fantastic). Here it is one instrument per stave and the key switches are entirely built in via the use of musical expressions ( make a note staccato and the magic causes that sample to be played). In this way it looks like a comprehensible piece of music with a score on one page. This relies on expression maps plus the requirement that there is a memorable musical symbol for all the different techniques needed. Ultimately this isn't going to give the total control possible from Cubase, although Dorico 4 looks like it is heading that way. And in any case, the full set of audio tracks can always be imported into Cubase for the final mixing precision etc. GUY - thanks so much for this priceless material - really very generous to share your current thinking like this!
Great video Guy; thanks for sharing this! Through lots of trial and error, I've customized all of my expression maps and set them all to Attribute, rather than Directional. It's been working fine for about 4 months now.
Hey Guy. Just to tell you great job w this channel! Great inspiration for this guy from Brazil that is trying to go to the deep end of film scoring and producing. Cheers.
Thank you for the video Guy. You taught me about Templates from your first video on this topic. I agree, using VEP Pro does make things so much easier. Thank you for you all you do.
This was helpful. I’ve always used only key switches, but now I see the advantage of at least being able to layer different articulations on the same instrument. Now I’ll just have to figure out which layerings work best. Thanks for your informative and entertaining videos!
I'm really grateful for the video Guy. I'm new to everything here and was wondering how to go about template creation weighing different options and looking for advice and then you put out a video on the very topic I was looking for. Fantastic timing! Thank you. I'm going to try this approach and see how things go.
A really interesting insight into your workflow, thanks Guy! I’ve found that key switches work well on separate midi tracks to the performance. Seems to provide an efficient workflow in logic for small numbers of instruments 😁
For a small number of articulations, that channel per articulation thing works pretty well! I made a BlueCat Plug'n Script plugin that can do that translation from midi channels to note articulations, I guess I ought to post the compiled one somewhere :D I use it quite a lot. Things like SINE really helpfully let you split it out by channel->articulation, like the accidental first setup :) but for things that don't (like a lot of Kontakt libraries), it can be nicer to use the channel to articulation thing than loading 16 copies of it.
I recently created a huge template with custom expression maps for every single Instrument. It took me several days but it was 10000% worth it. Many of the Problems with expression maps you addressed in this video are fixable. For example the problem that the articulations are barely readable in the key editor. You can easily fix that by just selection the articulations via the interface on the top of the keyeditor
While I’m into slightly different genres than orchestral music (so far absence of sufficient money has prevented me from diving into actually useful libraries), I’m all about templates. It would not be viable from nearly any perspective to recreate workflow and the bread and butter settings every time I start writing and producing (often with me a fluid process). Great videos always, Guy!
Hey Guy. I have always preferred the method you used in this video, and mainly for one reason - it affords me the ability to listen back to what i've written at the same time as i'm inserting KS's. Adding switches is NOT a big deal to me, and i will do it in one of 2 ways - either inserting notes directly to the midi data, or by recording over the track as i listen to it and punching in the switch notes. Considering that i will usually create/add parts in small sections, adding the KS data while listening back seems easy and logical to me and doesn't take extra time at all. Great video Guy TYVM.
Hey! The way i approach this is that in logic you can save channel strips. Doing that gives you very fast workflow. Everything would be saved in categories. For example if you wanna load a choir patch starting from a completely empty project. Simply select channels strips and you go to the choirs folder and select whatever choir patch you would like to use loading in only 1 specific choir library. That way your template don’t t have 10 choir libraries loaded without you even using choir. I do use key switches for the most part but sometimes I layer articulations so i would need a new duplicated track just with another articulation.
Great video! One solution I found for expression maps with lots of articulation is to split them up into two: 1 with the most basic and useful articulations 2 additional techniques (Bartok pizz, col legno, etc.). Then I just duplicate the MIDI track if I need one of those additional articulations and I assign the 2nd expression map. That way you avoid having too many lanes at the bottom of the screen but at the same time you have all the articulations available if you need them. The only problem is that you have to manually create the expression maps...
Thany very much for this! I follow a similar approach, but I hate the key switch fiddling. So my trickster move was: I use different midi channels for articulations, but they are not layed out as separate midi channels. Instead I switch the articulation in the note itself by changing the midi channel per note. This trick requires three things: Set up the instrument midi channel output to "all". Set the note color scheme in the grid editor to "channel". Then you can distinguish the selected articulations easily by color. You habe to switch the midi channel (and this is actually the drawback of this method) of your keyboard (or use midi transformer) to select the articulation you want to play.
FWIW, I started watching with the bias that custom templates with grouped keyswitches is the way to go! Much of the video was affirming! Thank you! One thing not mentioned (or I missed it) is the issue with keyswitch delays that can sometimes require splitting articulations into separate tracks to get the timing right. In my case, I also like starting with a template system which may be DAW-specific. Specifically, as I use Reaper, I like starting with OTR (Orchestral Template for Reaper) by Storyteller.
It's all good. I'm not sure where you landed. I am just starting in on the idea of a template as my collection of libraries and instruments grow. I would like to know what I'm doing before I'm in over my head. Thank you. Every video like this is helpful!
Yeah, I like the starting fresh approach but also agree one needs template. The way I do it is: I save track and instruments template. Not a session template. I have a massive template session that has all the vsts I have. The busses, the mixing chains, everything. Then, I start from an empty session and "important session data", meaning, I import my "ready to go instruments (with routings, fx, macros, versions with keyswitch settings, versions with one articulation per track) on as per need basis. It works pretty well for me and it seems to be a hybrid of all of these approaches.
Don’t let this tutorial video mask the genius behind that wonderful piece of music composition. Fantastic and worthy of any Hollywood Xmas flic. Techie time. Curious what’s the performance meter showing? What audio interface etc?
This is interesting! I tend to write via notation rather than piano roll, and I've been using grace notes to do the key switching (with timing tweaks to eliminate any delay on the main note) which has worked quite well for me. It was useful to see this approach. Thank you!
I think a good way to “start from scratch” (which is more like a hybrid scratch-template way of working) is to (1) have all the desired effect sends set up in the template; AND (2) I have all the busses set up in the template; AND (3) I have “individual sound” templates. So, for example, if I want BBC Symphony Orchestra strings section, I have a template that I can pull up in any given session that will have all the strings how I like them with all the relevant effects. I have this with all my instruments from ample sound guitars to orchestral libraries to arturia’s synths. The only thing with this is that I have to do it in two steps. One for the instrument and another for the channel effects but I find it quick enough. This system gives me the flexibility of starting from scratch with the speed and effort of thought similar to a pre-populated template
I found this solution where you make a mega template per usual, but instead of leaving all of the articulations open you plop every single one of them except your Legato patch into an "Artic" folder that sits below the legato patch. really clears up space in the arrangement view and makes managing loads of articulations manageable. When you use an articulation, just pull it out of the folder and put it below your legato patch
3:10 I'm one of those "completely barking mad". I do it for a reason though: I layer lots and lots of different articulations from many different libraries to get the most convincing performance. It is not a feasible approach for working fast, because it certainly isn't fast, but every single one of the people who produce stunningly realistic mockups uses heaps and heaps of layering. Thomas Bergersen and Andy Blaney come to mind.
If your kinda short on resources, there can’t be many places to turn, thanks for giving me the insensitive to make a template and not be embarrassed about the way I might approach it.
Keyswitches are definitely the way to go but unless I want to buy another controller I need to have them mapped to reasonable keys, which I hoped Art Conductor 8 would help me do. They are weak on documentation but seem to have every library under the (known) sun covered. That being said, you pointed out a key point. If you can't edit the value, then it becomes a moot point. you are back at starting from scratch. I loved it when Spitfire Audio for the BBC Symphony Orchestra included a template, which had they taken it one step further and included an expression map (which I really need to check - maybe I missed it) would have greatly helped me with that library (I have BBCSO Core). I love your composition/production - thanks for sharing. And, thanks for walking us through a difficult subject. As we are synthesizing orchestras or other collections of playing instruments, working with templates can really save you some time but also can put one in a box. I have one template devoted to some 25 piano tracks. I play around with them and delete all those that didn't inspire me that day. Better than hunting through all my libraries to figure out a decent piano. So, that works for me - one instrument per track. The Symphony/Articulation/Delay/Volume goes quickly geometric with so many different things to work from. I'm almost back to single track per instrument and then duplicate, as you did, where you need to insert other articulations (and have to slide the track forward or back based on the associated delay). I love what we can do these days as electronic musicians. I remember seeing the hype in the mid-to-late 80s where we would just magically produce in a box (MIDI hype was like science fiction at the time - greatly imagined science fiction, which has now arrived). Now, we just need to get comfortable with it. You're a shining light on what we might achieve with work and good application of our developing skills. Thanks for continuing to educate. Cheers!
I've been all over the map on this one myself.. to slave or not to slave? 1500+ track count vs start from basically scratch? Controller switching, keyswitching, no switching.. its all a freakin soul crushing, inspirationally extinguishing exercise which most often winds up in the dark bogs of futility, as in, you have to try it a different way.. and by the time that you do get it tracked... the end result is less spectacular than what you had initially envisioned.. the magnificent art you had imagined is rendered as something more akin to organized bird droppings. Having said all that... as of my last project, I'm using a system very similar to what you are illustrating in this video. ;) It's still too slow to suit me, and ripe with opportunities to spend more time troubleshooting software/hardware than actually writing music. And yes.. having vented.. I do feel a little better now. Thanks
Spitfire BBC orchestra can be set to trigger articulations by the MIDI channel of the note, so you don’t have to deal with key switching. This has been a game changer for me in ease of use and playing with different articulations. Choose the track and set the MIDI channel on the keyboard to play it in, or change the note channel later in the DAW or when programming by hand. And they all use a common expression/vibrato curve for the track. Other libraries (outside of Kontakt) can do this as well, but I don’t see much discussion about it as an alternative to KS.
I recently built a 3 instance per instrument template like you show here but with expression maps - great solution. My main library is BBCSO core and its articulation maps were super easy to setup... by in large it was a cut and paste across all instruments in a section, with handfull of extra articulations in some instruments. The articulation maps are triggered with an APC key25. My slave server went from 100% +++ running a track per articulation, to about 25% load with the smaller 3 instance template. This allowed me to also setup a choir, a solo strings libray and an epic percusion library on the same server server... and its now on about 35% load, ~45gb of ram used (not purged).... this is on a circa 10 year old server running 2 Xeon E5-2620 v1 CPU's.... about 10500 passmark for the system. A new entry level system running a Ryzen 5 1600 CPU (1200 passmark) and 64GB DDR4 ram goes for about AU$800, which in the scheme of things is super cheap - so yes, I agree... this template approach for has been a great solution.
Talking about articulations and flexible templating, isn't is to time to switch to Studio One? No need for expresion maps anymore and the VSL integration is a no brainer. Sets itself up automatically. Huge time saver and really fun to work with.
Hello Guy! Could you please elaborate more on this topic and show us how you have set up this template to bounce your final stems for delivery to the dub stage? I'm a Logic user, but I wouldn't mind if you showed us your Cubase workflow in a bit of detail. Thanks for the great videos as always.... Cheers!
Happy New Year Guy . Interesting stuff. I’m still an advocate for starting from scratch (rather the smallest template possible) just feels like something new - I find I always end up doing similar things and don’t push myself out of the same favoured sound sets/combinations and articulations. Having said that - I often end up with 5 or six tracks just to sort out a violin 1 part etc always ends up with 50-100 tracks in total - maybe it’s because we are all relentless fiddlers !
Thanks Guy, I learn from you everytime you publish a new video. I have a suggestion for a new video: can you explain what expression maps are and how to use them? I have heard you talking about expression maps in a couple of videos and I would like to learn what you can do with them. Cheers from the Netherlands, Marc
I just switched to an almost 100% VSL Synchron template. I was using Logic and Babylon Waves for articulation maps but like you mentioned it can’t access them all. I just started using Digital Performer and version 11 has articulation maps that read all of the articulations. Best part is you just ask Performer to scan the instrument and it makes a map preset for you.
![Oasis - Oasis Live '25 [Official Trailer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gol_JnuEtKM/mqdefault.jpg)
The finished piece is here on Soundcloud tinyurl.com/mpufeftk
Great piece of Christmas music! 🎄 But at 25:47 is the final playback of the piece meant to be in mono? It was in stereo when you played it back near the beginning of the video 6:55.
Anyway, it was a really entertaining and informative video! 👍
Guy Michelmore is the most underrated film composer of all time.
He’s also one of the best teachers I ever saw, both online and offline. It’s fun to listen but never goes into “I’m just having a laugh but am not really paying attention” territory as with some “funny” instructors.
I agree. Wholeheartedly. But who needs ratings? He’s already a genius. Accolades are for egos.
even more than Zimmer?
@@dfgvjnkjdsnbkjsbdvjkhdsb hans zimmer is not underrated, basically everyone interested in (modern) music knows and likes him/his music
Composing music: 10 minutes.
Playing music: 1 minute.
Producing the sounds: several days.
This man is singlehandedly keeping my interest in music alive. Thank you for existing. 🙏
I sent YEARS experimenting with different approaches for the "articulation problem".
I settled for the 1 instrument per track and 1 articulation per Midi channel approch, this way you have very few tracks.
It works like this:
You load multiple instances of the vst on different midi channels with only one articulation each on the same track.
IMO 16 articulations per instrument are more than enough but if you need more, you can split it up to multiple tracks like Guy did.
I set up all orchestral tonal instruments the same way: Ch1 is always Legato, Ch2 Sustain, Ch3 Spiccato, Ch4 Staccato and so on.
If you set up all instruments this way, you can easily copy midiparts to other instruments and it will always work - regardless the VST manufacturer!
And the best thing is that you don't have to look up or remember all the different keyswitches or fiddle around with expression maps.
The way I work is that I record a part with the most easy to play all-purpose articulation of that instrument (i.e. marcato) and then assign the notes to the different midi channels afterwards.
I use Reaper (which is very easy to customize) and added 16 buttons for each channel to the top of the midi editor for easy channel assigning.
Edit:
If your DAW allows it (Reaper does), you can change the view options of the pianoroll to display the notes in different colors depending on the midi channel.
This way you can see the different articulations in the Piano Roll by color.
The CC problem:
If you record or draw CCs, it's only sending on one channel.
I don't know about other DAWs but in Reaper, if you change the midi channel of a note, it also changes the channel of the corresponding CCs automatically.
Or you use ReaControlMidi in Reaper or - the easyest approach - some plugin that simply sends CCs to ALL channels instead of only one.
For Reaper some nice user made such a plugin - which is free.
Thank you. This sounds like a good working method. If I leave a project and come back to it after a couple of weeks, it can take a long time to work out where everything is and what it's doing. A structure (whether based on articulations, keyswitches or expression maps) is essential. I will definitely try your approach.
I do this in FL Studio with Opus
Interesting. So you draw out midi channel changes along with the notes to swap articulations?
@@LautaroArino I simply select the notes in the pianoroll and assign them to different midi channels.
It's very fast to do - for example i select all of the shortest notes and assign them to Ch3 (Spiccato), the longer ones to Ch4 (Staccato), the longest notes stay on Ch1 (Legato) or in chords get changed to Ch2 (Sustains) and so on ...
If your DAW allows it (Reaper does), you can change the view options of the pianoroll to display the notes in different colors depending on the midi channel.
This way you can see the different articulations in the Piano Roll by color.
@@herbertmetzmusic This sounds like the best solution ive heard of so far. I agree 16 articulations is well enough.
This is way beyond both my brain capacity and the storage capacity of my PC. Congratulations to Mr. Michelmore and all the other great musicians out there that produce this kind of excellent music.
Guy missed you so much! You are the best on RUclips! God bless you with health and longevity! Of all you are the best!!!
One alternative (still experimenting with) is to create an instrument track, have up to 16 articulations loaded into the sampler, assign a MIDI channel to each.
Next create an expression map that switches between the 16 MIDI channels instead of relying on programming in the keyswitches. It’s much, much quicker to set up.
Then from the info line in the piano roll, select a note and assign it to the midi channel you want it to switch articulation to.
The cool thing is, you can just use 1 instrument track to write lines and if you want to work like a split template, just create 15 MIDI tracks that connect them to said instrument track & sampler.
GUY, it is so inspiring to see you go through a proper orchestrated piece like this, I know how much work that goes in to making all the midi information sound how you want, thanks for this Guy
I am only beginning to work on compositions, and I have already discovered that I need different templates for different things. I have created a super simple template with a small number of tracks and articulations which will allow me to focus on writing - sort of a basic or sketch template, I guess - which has been adapted from my larger templates, so I can fold the content into the larger template easily and consistently later. Having a sketch template really helps me write - and the work on the bigger template is where the polishing comes in. Again, as a relative beginner, I'm still finding my way, but for me, I think at this point it's more important to create music and work on articulations and perfection later than to try and take it all on at the very start. Inspiration first, then turd polishing. :) I really appreciate your "simplify" approach as it validates what I've started trying to do. Wonderful stuff, sir - thank you very much (and happy new year!).
Honestly. Someone gotta come up with a better solution. I am not a professional in composing and either way, having gazillions of tracks or all these expression maps and I’m not even aware off 100 % what an expression map does. There is absolutely no one that can keep track of that many things at once while writing music.
Maybe when we get that neural link connector directly from the brain to the computer.
Just watching those 200 tracks templates makes my head spin.
And I’ve been working with IT for years, and this is on a scale of very advanced coding for IT specialists, and musicians and composers arent math professors or computer coders, or at least very few are. And these gigantic libraries with all those articulations is more and more an advanced coding language than a composing tool.
But great video Guy.
I’m impressed of those of you that make a living writing music actually get something done with this. It seems a lot easier just to learn the old school way of writing musical sheets on a piece of paper and have an actual orchestra play it 😎
Perfect. I just started creating a 3 track per instrument template last week, but paused. Good to know that Guy has had thoughts about this approach too. 👍
Great video, thank you Guy! After years of meddling with various ways and templates, I also came to the conclusion that what you propose here is a good compromise and least-problematic way of working. One could also use only keyswitched longs (incl. legato), shorts, FX & phrases tracks.
Tip: If you can live without a video track: Studio One 5.5 realy is a great alternative these days, in conjunction with Vepro. Its expression maps (sound variations) are IMO more intuitive to setup and use, while general handling of large templates (visibility functions, load & save times) are even better compared to Cubase.
Studio One has a Video Window that is viewable during composing. What function is missing without a video "track"?
Thanks for being an inspiration. I don't like expression maps. I spent three to four weeks messing about, only to find that, at the end of the project, Cubase's Asio Guard was creating unwanted sounds.
I use Key Switches on single instrument tracks, but that method lacks spontaneity. This whole roundabout with articulations sometimes forces me to limit choices to ten or, at most, fifteen articulations.
Update: 23 July 2024:
I've solved the Asio_Guard problem, poked into each plugin in the Cubase Plug-in Manager, and disabled Asio-Guard. So now that expression maps are useful, I'm using the attribute setting as the type in the articulation mapping in the Expression Map setup in Cubase 13. Composing music as a joy, here I come!
Well, I actually don't watch your videos because you "finish" a song in twenty minutes, but because you are entertaining and fun to watch … I do learn a thing or two while watching your videos, even though I'm more into writing electronic music and would be bored to death if I had to use the same pair of violins over and over. But for me, the "education" part just slips in through the back door while I really enjoy watching your videos.
Well interestingly I spend all my time at the moment writing electronic music for a Netflix show so I live ith dune obsession serum and splice!
That sounds incredible... watching you inspires me but at the same time discourages me. I am new to the whole recording vibe and only play guitar and bass... Just purchased my first midi keyboard (M-Audio oxygen Pro 49), and I have always been attracted to soundtracks and wow... each time I hear your compositions I am blown away! Thank you for such good, friendly, and very enjoyable content!
I've taken a similar approach. For each section I have an overall patch that has all the articulation switches. I use this when I'm doing a first pass. And with Reaticulate in Reaper, I'm able to combine articulations if I want to. I've also added tracks with shorts and long articulations in case I want to do more layering, or play another line. I keep it to the basic articulations and have saved those that I use less frequently to TRACK templates (you can do this in Reaper, I don't know about other DAWs), which can be called up with the click of a button. So, for example, if I need a harmonics line, I just click "Harm" on the toolbar and the track comes up, perfectly balanced, with all the settings I saved.
After finishing the video now I can also comment that this is exactly what I've been thinking to try. I don't have a lot of libraries, so I'm thinking to build separate articulation tracks for most of the main tracks I'll use, but for the extra libraries or remaining articulations I'll group them as leg, long, short for example. So it's fun to find a professional who thinks it's worth trying this method.
Guy, what you said about slave computers is very interesting. Can you make a video on how to best setup a computer for composing in a DAW?
That would be very helpful indeed!
I have no idea what he is referring to when he says "slave computer". Please explain. Is he talking about accessing samples over a network or something like that?
@@avsystem3142 Yes, he is talking about running Viena Ensemble Pro, where your DAW runs on computer A and you can have Computer B or even more running the plug ins and then audio and midi data is transferred over your computer network. Just search the subject, there is a million videos on how this works already.
@@rbingraham Thanks. Controlling a remote computer simultaneous with the DAW sounds complicated. I assume you would have to run some type of remote desktop app.
@@avsystem3142 I've got a Master/Slave setup too.
1. Master has Cubase installed.
2. Slave has VEPro, the previous version, installed on it. Also has my VSTs installed on it, (Play, Native Instr, some others).
3. Ethernet cable (can't remember if these are crossover cables or straight thru) plugged into back of Slave, runs to a cheap switch I bought, (NETGEAR 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS305) actually). Run an ethernet cable out of that to the Master.
4. Create server project in VEPro with whatever VSTs you want on the slave computer.
5. Config Cubase on Master to connect to VEPro. (You install VEPro on the Master too, but you elicenser key sits on the slave computer where the VEPro server is.)
This is all on Win 10, which needs no configuring; I don't think I even had to configure that hardware switch on Windows, it automatically does that. And I don't think I had to configure VEPro to use that particular network on the Master, it just does that automatically I seem to remember.
The details of 4 and 5 I'll leave out because it's in the VEPro manual and I don't know if you're using Cubase or what. But believe me that doesn't matter, I was surprised at how easy VEPro was to configure. It almost does it for you if you follow their instructions. I would imagine the new version of it is even easier to configure.
Thanks so much, Guy. You've been an inspiration to me from the moment I first stumbled across you here. Took the music theory and how to write courses and made more progress with my music in 6 months than the previous 20 years of faffing about.
Regarding templates, as with any creative endeavor, it's 90 percent preparation, 10 percent inspiration.
Tom does a very nice tutorial on this. I've been using Reaper with OTR2 (Orchestral Template for Reaper), which now includes integrated support for Reaticulate. Reaticulate is essentially a simplified (at least IMHO) implementation of Expression Maps, for Reaper. One of the things I like best about it, in addition to its very nice and super-simple U/I, is that the articulation changes can be shown in a single lane right alongside the other CC lanes, rather than trying to view them in multiple, stacked lanes, independently from CC1, 7, 11, etc.
Yes, I am totally here for the geeky stuff🤓
Glad to see the love for key switches. I built a template using all articulations in east west Hollywood orchestra set to key switches. 1 track per instrument. Very nice to use. Searches and endless scrolling are not needed.
Great outtro, BTW. Nice to hear your work on your channel!!
Love your video! I have also grappled with exp maps, resorted to CC controllers for VSL dimensions, gone completely template free, used Cubase disabled tracks, VST preset media pane (my current favourite way)… none of which finally answer the template problem. I must say creatively I LOVE a blank screen. No template. But also love key switches for performance flexibility whilst actually composing.
Ah, the days pencil paper and a piano.
I have started building a template with very complex routings that I have just decided to strip apart and do it like this:
Violins Longs
Violins Shorts
...and so on - each instance has keyswitches from multiple libraries. I mostly use SA libraries so you can balance all of their articulations per track, same goes for shorts as well. Then I output them to their corresponding groups for most flexibility: Strings Hi Longs, Strings Hi Shorts, Strings Lo Longs, Strings Lo Shorts etc...
Yes, it does take a bit of time to organise this but it lets you truly separate those types of tracks when you’re done with sketching and it’s time to orchestrate it
In my opinion, the best way to handle all the articulations is the way I do it with a 3rd party midi out called BRSO Articulate. It lets you use only 1 midi track for the entire instrument and u can switch between the articulations with colored notes. It makes it super easy to organize and you can have very few tracks. Though i'm pretty sure it's a FL Studio specific solution
I use Studio One as my main DAW, and, with the help of Babylon Waves' Art Conductor, S1's 'Sound Variations' (keyswitching) is super-super-SUPER easy. But yes, it still seemed wrong to do just one track per instrument, because of reasons some of which you mentioned (different mic positions? different amounts of reverb? different EQ? different track delay?).
I really like this 'hybrid' approach which splits the difference between 1 track per articulation and 1 track per instrument. ~3 tracks per instrument seems about right! Thanks for helping us all think outside the box, Guy!
I don't really do film/TV/media scoring... my music more song-oriented, in the neoclassical/electronic genres. But templates are a good idea in this world, also!
I came here to say exactly this.
I’m not a classical composer however, I find your videos very informative and somewhat entertaining. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
2:10. Now then, not a lot of people know that. I learn summing new every episode. Happy New Year, Guy :).
I always thought, 'oh you can't beat a good template.' Then the libraries' articulations start multiplying like rabbits and the track count gets silly so it's back to keyswitches but that becomes time consuming if you want to try a phrase in different articulations. Hmm, what to do?
Spoiled by choice is leading to spoiling the moment of inspiration.
I'm finding that getting the vast majority of it composed in a very limited template is step one (always thinking I'll sort that bit out later) then fine tuning at leisure with keyswitches.
Not perfect but, for the moment, the most efficient use of my depleting creative energy. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Guy.
Always a refreshing presence!, Thanks Guy!,
You are very good composer The Christmas comp was very nice. Keep it up.
Lovely music. Very sweeping.
Great little video Guy. That's the same solution I landed on regarding templates.
I found that there is also another opportunity with this approach: with solos, the first legato track can sound as the leader and the long track can work as the other two players in a polyphonic passage. Very quick and quite effective.
Great video and great topic!
One option I have tried and it often works well:
For example: Violins 1 - > 2 instrument tracks, one for legato (because of the track delay) and all others (short, longs ...).
1 additional miditrack on the same midichannel as the non-legato tracks, where only the keyswitches are managed. How to play this is a matter of preference. So record both at the same time and then delete either notes or KS. Or record once with a good marcato articulation (with short release) and record the KS in the second pass in the miditrack.
This has among other things the advantage that in the instrument track a problem-free transposing is possible without moving the keyswitches (just select both tracks in the key editor if you need to see notes and KS).
Copying to other tracks is also somewhat easier.
This works at least as long as you don't have to work with big delay differences in the other articulations.
For some libraries like Pacific strings you need 1 - 2 extra tracks because for example marcatos need 80 ms, spiccato 100 ms and legato 180 ms trackdelay.
David Kudell's track delays list on VI-C is very helpful.
I experimented with expressionmaps, but it doesn't really fit with my way of working.
Love those windows in your studio!
Guy, your are the coolest music teacher...
So funny and helpful.
Yes, we just want to make music as effortlessly as possible.
Very helpful to see shortcuts together with rationale.
Your Winter beard is lookin' Good! Thanks for your time Guy!
Liking the John Williams Look :) ,also loving your videos
oh oh oh, merry Christmas!!
I hope that Cubase 12 will have a totally revamped VST expression maps set-up allowing for individual delay for every articulation, like it's now possible in Digital Performer, Guy's old DAW. Also Studio One now have a Sound Variation feature, thats much faster than the Cubase version, and furthermore allows for automatic import of articulation maps from VSL Synchron Player. But the 3 tracks pr. instrument is actually quite clever, letting you balance the volume of longs and shorts much easier.
Absolutely fascinating! I had no idea people built 1300 track pieces! I come at this from a completely different direction: score-based composition using Dorico ( incidentally v4 released yesterday and looks fantastic). Here it is one instrument per stave and the key switches are entirely built in via the use of musical expressions ( make a note staccato and the magic causes that sample to be played). In this way it looks like a comprehensible piece of music with a score on one page. This relies on expression maps plus the requirement that there is a memorable musical symbol for all the different techniques needed. Ultimately this isn't going to give the total control possible from Cubase, although Dorico 4 looks like it is heading that way. And in any case, the full set of audio tracks can always be imported into Cubase for the final mixing precision etc. GUY - thanks so much for this priceless material - really very generous to share your current thinking like this!
I do a version of this also, then add when needed, about 20 tracks to start with. It's quite flexible.
This video came at the exactly perfect time for me. I just bought some new VSL stuff which I have to integrate and now I have an idea. Thanks!
Love your Xmas score.
Damn, listening to you talking is soulfood. Thank you very much.
Worthy of a major disney film...I shall recommend you. Don't forget my cut. Wonderful. Thank you.
Great video Guy; thanks for sharing this! Through lots of trial and error, I've customized all of my expression maps and set them all to Attribute, rather than Directional. It's been working fine for about 4 months now.
This music sounds great! Thank you for sharing!
Hey Guy. Just to tell you great job w this channel! Great inspiration for this guy from Brazil that is trying to go to the deep end of film scoring and producing. Cheers.
Thank you for the video Guy. You taught me about Templates from your first video on this topic. I agree, using VEP Pro does make things so much easier. Thank you for you all you do.
Great Idea.
Key switching with multi timbral libraries makes sense.
Can save memory.
I totally agree...I've always worked that way! Thank you so much for sharing such a great passion and music knowledge !!!
This was helpful. I’ve always used only key switches, but now I see the advantage of at least being able to layer different articulations on the same instrument. Now I’ll just have to figure out which layerings work best. Thanks for your informative and entertaining videos!
Very timely video ... I am trying to figure out my work flow and of course it all starts with a template! Thank you for the insight Guy.
I'm really grateful for the video Guy. I'm new to everything here and was wondering how to go about template creation weighing different options and looking for advice and then you put out a video on the very topic I was looking for. Fantastic timing! Thank you. I'm going to try this approach and see how things go.
A really interesting insight into your workflow, thanks Guy! I’ve found that key switches work well on separate midi tracks to the performance. Seems to provide an efficient workflow in logic for small numbers of instruments 😁
For a small number of articulations, that channel per articulation thing works pretty well! I made a BlueCat Plug'n Script plugin that can do that translation from midi channels to note articulations, I guess I ought to post the compiled one somewhere :D I use it quite a lot. Things like SINE really helpfully let you split it out by channel->articulation, like the accidental first setup :) but for things that don't (like a lot of Kontakt libraries), it can be nicer to use the channel to articulation thing than loading 16 copies of it.
All your content is GREAT, GREAT and GREAT. Thanks
I recently created a huge template with custom expression maps for every single Instrument. It took me several days but it was 10000% worth it. Many of the Problems with expression maps you addressed in this video are fixable. For example the problem that the articulations are barely readable in the key editor. You can easily fix that by just selection the articulations via the interface on the top of the keyeditor
Guy!, love your new John Willams style!
While I’m into slightly different genres than orchestral music (so far absence of sufficient money has prevented me from diving into actually useful libraries), I’m all about templates. It would not be viable from nearly any perspective to recreate workflow and the bread and butter settings every time I start writing and producing (often with me a fluid process).
Great videos always, Guy!
I just love that Xmas piece, so inspiring.
Hey Guy.
I have always preferred the method you used in this video, and mainly for one reason - it affords me the ability to listen back to what i've written at the same time as i'm inserting KS's. Adding switches is NOT a big deal to me, and i will do it in one of 2 ways - either inserting notes directly to the midi data, or by recording over the track as i listen to it and punching in the switch notes. Considering that i will usually create/add parts in small sections, adding the KS data while listening back seems easy and logical to me and doesn't take extra time at all.
Great video Guy TYVM.
Thank you for making a video about this Guy! I requested this topic a few months ago and I'm so glad you get to make it ;)
templates are always a work in progress!
Hey! The way i approach this is that in logic you can save channel strips. Doing that gives you very fast workflow. Everything would be saved in categories. For example if you wanna load a choir patch starting from a completely empty project. Simply select channels strips and you go to the choirs folder and select whatever choir patch you would like to use loading in only 1 specific choir library. That way your template don’t t have 10 choir libraries loaded without you even using choir. I do use key switches for the most part but sometimes I layer articulations so i would need a new duplicated track just with another articulation.
Brilliant Christmas tune...
i watched the making of...
awesome insights..
Shoutouts from Australia!
Great video! One solution I found for expression maps with lots of articulation is to split them up into two: 1 with the most basic and useful articulations 2 additional techniques (Bartok pizz, col legno, etc.). Then I just duplicate the MIDI track if I need one of those additional articulations and I assign the 2nd expression map. That way you avoid having too many lanes at the bottom of the screen but at the same time you have all the articulations available if you need them.
The only problem is that you have to manually create the expression maps...
Thany very much for this! I follow a similar approach, but I hate the key switch fiddling. So my trickster move was: I use different midi channels for articulations, but they are not layed out as separate midi channels. Instead I switch the articulation in the note itself by changing the midi channel per note. This trick requires three things: Set up the instrument midi channel output to "all". Set the note color scheme in the grid editor to "channel". Then you can distinguish the selected articulations easily by color. You habe to switch the midi channel (and this is actually the drawback of this method) of your keyboard (or use midi transformer) to select the articulation you want to play.
Excellent work !!!! ... some of the finest I have heard in quite some time ... very inspiring !!
Thank you Guy!
Man, i run out of breath just listening to you. Less is more
FWIW, I started watching with the bias that custom templates with grouped keyswitches is the way to go! Much of the video was affirming! Thank you!
One thing not mentioned (or I missed it) is the issue with keyswitch delays that can sometimes require splitting articulations into separate tracks to get the timing right.
In my case, I also like starting with a template system which may be DAW-specific. Specifically, as I use Reaper, I like starting with OTR (Orchestral Template for Reaper) by Storyteller.
Wonderful piece Guy. Thank you for sharing.
It's all good. I'm not sure where you landed. I am just starting in on the idea of a template as my collection of libraries and instruments grow. I would like to know what I'm doing before I'm in over my head. Thank you. Every video like this is helpful!
Yeah, I like the starting fresh approach but also agree one needs template. The way I do it is: I save track and instruments template. Not a session template. I have a massive template session that has all the vsts I have. The busses, the mixing chains, everything. Then, I start from an empty session and "important session data", meaning, I import my "ready to go instruments (with routings, fx, macros, versions with keyswitch settings, versions with one articulation per track) on as per need basis. It works pretty well for me and it seems to be a hybrid of all of these approaches.
Really Intersting guy. I’m still trying nail the best way of doing this!
C'est vraiment magnifique une très belle composition 😍😍😍
Don’t let this tutorial video mask the genius behind that wonderful piece of music composition. Fantastic and worthy of any Hollywood Xmas flic. Techie time. Curious what’s the performance meter showing? What audio interface etc?
Awesome stuff Guy!! Would love to watch a video on how you have you external (slave) computer set up 😃
This is interesting! I tend to write via notation rather than piano roll, and I've been using grace notes to do the key switching (with timing tweaks to eliminate any delay on the main note) which has worked quite well for me. It was useful to see this approach. Thank you!
Guy you are the best!!
Guy you are the very best and I really mean it!!! cheers!!!
I think a good way to “start from scratch” (which is more like a hybrid scratch-template way of working) is to
(1) have all the desired effect sends set up in the template; AND
(2) I have all the busses set up in the template; AND
(3) I have “individual sound” templates. So, for example, if I want BBC Symphony Orchestra strings section, I have a template that I can pull up in any given session that will have all the strings how I like them with all the relevant effects. I have this with all my instruments from ample sound guitars to orchestral libraries to arturia’s synths. The only thing with this is that I have to do it in two steps. One for the instrument and another for the channel effects but I find it quick enough.
This system gives me the flexibility of starting from scratch with the speed and effort of thought similar to a pre-populated template
I found this solution where you make a mega template per usual, but instead of leaving all of the articulations open you plop every single one of them except your Legato patch into an "Artic" folder that sits below the legato patch. really clears up space in the arrangement view and makes managing loads of articulations manageable. When you use an articulation, just pull it out of the folder and put it below your legato patch
3:10 I'm one of those "completely barking mad". I do it for a reason though: I layer lots and lots of different articulations from many different libraries to get the most convincing performance. It is not a feasible approach for working fast, because it certainly isn't fast, but every single one of the people who produce stunningly realistic mockups uses heaps and heaps of layering. Thomas Bergersen and Andy Blaney come to mind.
If your kinda short on resources, there can’t be many places to turn, thanks for giving me the insensitive to make a template and not be embarrassed about the way I might approach it.
Keyswitches are definitely the way to go but unless I want to buy another controller I need to have them mapped to reasonable keys, which I hoped Art Conductor 8 would help me do. They are weak on documentation but seem to have every library under the (known) sun covered. That being said, you pointed out a key point. If you can't edit the value, then it becomes a moot point. you are back at starting from scratch. I loved it when Spitfire Audio for the BBC Symphony Orchestra included a template, which had they taken it one step further and included an expression map (which I really need to check - maybe I missed it) would have greatly helped me with that library (I have BBCSO Core).
I love your composition/production - thanks for sharing. And, thanks for walking us through a difficult subject. As we are synthesizing orchestras or other collections of playing instruments, working with templates can really save you some time but also can put one in a box. I have one template devoted to some 25 piano tracks. I play around with them and delete all those that didn't inspire me that day. Better than hunting through all my libraries to figure out a decent piano. So, that works for me - one instrument per track.
The Symphony/Articulation/Delay/Volume goes quickly geometric with so many different things to work from. I'm almost back to single track per instrument and then duplicate, as you did, where you need to insert other articulations (and have to slide the track forward or back based on the associated delay).
I love what we can do these days as electronic musicians. I remember seeing the hype in the mid-to-late 80s where we would just magically produce in a box (MIDI hype was like science fiction at the time - greatly imagined science fiction, which has now arrived). Now, we just need to get comfortable with it. You're a shining light on what we might achieve with work and good application of our developing skills. Thanks for continuing to educate. Cheers!
Or you get staffpad if you know how to write notation or counterpoint. The playback is so real better than any DAW.
You are legend!!!
I've been all over the map on this one myself.. to slave or not to slave? 1500+ track count vs start from basically scratch? Controller switching, keyswitching, no switching.. its all a freakin soul crushing, inspirationally extinguishing exercise which most often winds up in the dark bogs of futility, as in, you have to try it a different way.. and by the time that you do get it tracked... the end result is less spectacular than what you had initially envisioned.. the magnificent art you had imagined is rendered as something more akin to organized bird droppings. Having said all that... as of my last project, I'm using a system very similar to what you are illustrating in this video. ;) It's still too slow to suit me, and ripe with opportunities to spend more time troubleshooting software/hardware than actually writing music. And yes.. having vented.. I do feel a little better now. Thanks
Spitfire BBC orchestra can be set to trigger articulations by the MIDI channel of the note, so you don’t have to deal with key switching. This has been a game changer for me in ease of use and playing with different articulations. Choose the track and set the MIDI channel on the keyboard to play it in, or change the note channel later in the DAW or when programming by hand. And they all use a common expression/vibrato curve for the track. Other libraries (outside of Kontakt) can do this as well, but I don’t see much discussion about it as an alternative to KS.
I recently built a 3 instance per instrument template like you show here but with expression maps - great solution. My main library is BBCSO core and its articulation maps were super easy to setup... by in large it was a cut and paste across all instruments in a section, with handfull of extra articulations in some instruments. The articulation maps are triggered with an APC key25. My slave server went from 100% +++ running a track per articulation, to about 25% load with the smaller 3 instance template. This allowed me to also setup a choir, a solo strings libray and an epic percusion library on the same server server... and its now on about 35% load, ~45gb of ram used (not purged).... this is on a circa 10 year old server running 2 Xeon E5-2620 v1 CPU's.... about 10500 passmark for the system. A new entry level system running a Ryzen 5 1600 CPU (1200 passmark) and 64GB DDR4 ram goes for about AU$800, which in the scheme of things is super cheap - so yes, I agree... this template approach for has been a great solution.
I'd be very interested in your take on ERA II Medieval Legends library - and how to build a medieval orchestra with just those ancient instruments.
Talking about articulations and flexible templating, isn't is to time to switch to Studio One? No need for expresion maps anymore and the VSL integration is a no brainer. Sets itself up automatically. Huge time saver and really fun to work with.
Hello Guy! Could you please elaborate more on this topic and show us how you have set up this template to bounce your final stems for delivery to the dub stage? I'm a Logic user, but I wouldn't mind if you showed us your Cubase workflow in a bit of detail. Thanks for the great videos as always.... Cheers!
Happy New Year Guy . Interesting stuff. I’m still an advocate for starting from scratch (rather the smallest template possible) just feels like something new - I find I always end up doing similar things and don’t push myself out of the same favoured sound sets/combinations and articulations. Having said that - I often end up with 5 or six tracks just to sort out a violin 1 part etc always ends up with 50-100 tracks in total - maybe it’s because we are all relentless fiddlers !
Thanks Guy, I learn from you everytime you publish a new video. I have a suggestion for a new video: can you explain what expression maps are and how to use them? I have heard you talking about expression maps in a couple of videos and I would like to learn what you can do with them. Cheers from the Netherlands, Marc
I just switched to an almost 100% VSL Synchron template. I was using Logic and Babylon Waves for articulation maps but like you mentioned it can’t access them all. I just started using Digital Performer and version 11 has articulation maps that read all of the articulations. Best part is you just ask Performer to scan the instrument and it makes a map preset for you.