Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

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Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by FMiguelez »

I am impressed. What a difference it makes to program in DP instruments from a full professional score rather than "as you go" with no score (as I usually compose).

Something about this workflow and about seeing everything on the page makes dealing with dynamics and programming so much faster, easier and effective! I am finding much less struggle to program realistic-sounding ensembles like this. Dynamics are the key, and it's so easy to balance the sections like this!

Usually I compose/orchestrate as I go, kind of keeping a mental score image in my head keeping track of what I do. I do orchestrate first, but I only see notes. I want to see dynamics and articulations and phrase marks. ESPECIALLY phrase marks! It makes a big difference in the result. There's something about seeing the full score that makes all the connections easier.

Do you guys work like that? I mean, do you actually take the time to fully score and notate your music in Finale and then program the music from the written score?
I'm thinking it may be too time-consuming and not crazy deadline-friendly. Doing that Finale work takes a lot if time!

It WOULD make a BIG difference if at least I could notate in DP's QS dynamic markings and slurs. Maybe a few articulations as well... This would suffice to get what I want skipping the Finale part....

Or maybe I should try composing in Finale and then transfer to DP just to program the music?

MOTU> Please! I beg you to do something about QuickScribe! It's too old, almost anachronic :(

It's really time to inject some MOTU magic into QS...
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

You're preaching the choir here. If you look through my posts in the composing area (and elsewhere) you'll find many that tout that method, but I'll say it again...

When I am writing for real musicians (without exception) I am in Finale and NEVER touch DP except as a memo pad when necessary, which is usually not at all.

From start to finish in written scores, regardless of their complexity, I enter EVERYTHING in Finale and use the Finale Movie Window to establish all the sync points (if i am scoring a movie, that is).

So the idea of having 800 million tracks for every articulation and fart a musician does is completely unnecessary. The only time I might justify that would be:

1) if you're getting paid a $#&tload of $$$ to try and fool the listener that they are hearing a real orchestra (which never actually works) or;

2) you have no imagination for sound and can't hear the notes in your head (in which case you might consider a career as a butcher since that's what you're doing anyway).

(Note: if you're doing 800 tracks so you can "hear" what the session will sound like in advance, again, a butcher might be the best career choice for you. It's far less work and your hourly pay will be much better... LOL).

Now if only I could get the members to post in appropriate areas... :rofl:

James, could you please move this to the composing/songwriting area?
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by James Steele »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:James, could you please move this to the composing/songwriting area?
Sure thing. Then I'm off to go submit my application at my local Albertson's meat department since I can't look at a score and hear it, either. :)
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

James Steele wrote:
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:James, could you please move this to the composing/songwriting area?
Sure thing. Then I'm off to go submit my application at my local Albertson's meat department since I can't look at a score and hear it, either. :)
Ha ha ha! I'm talking about orchestral (or supposed orchestral) composers. And if you're amps didn't go to 11 your hearing might improve... but what fun would THAT be?! ;)

Thanks for moving the discussion. BTW, I would happily pay big bucks to MOTU for a notation program ported from and/or integrated with DP. How awesome would THAT be?! Of course, then I wouldn't have anything to bitch about...
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by FMiguelez »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:You're preaching the choir here. If you look through my posts in the composing area (and elsewhere) you'll find many that tout that method, but I'll say it again...

When I am writing for real musicians (without exception) I am in Finale and NEVER touch DP except as a memo pad when necessary, which is usually not at all.
Understood. I'd definitely do the same for those gigs...

The thing is that practically all my gigs consist of emulating orchestras to sound like the real thing. There's almost never budget for real instruments, let alone a full orchestra, and my productions must be broadcast-ready out of the box.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: From start to finish in written scores, regardless of their complexity, I enter EVERYTHING in Finale and use the Finale Movie Window to establish all the sync points (if i am scoring a movie, that is).
How does Finale compare to DP when it comes to establishing sync points? Is it as easy?
I'm used to do that by manipulating time signatures and or tempo. Sometimes I use the Find Tempo command. It can be quite handy too).
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:So the idea of having 800 million tracks for every articulation and fart a musician does is completely unnecessary. The only time I might justify that would be:

1) if you're getting paid a $#&tload of $$$ to try and fool the listener that they are hearing a real orchestra (which never actually works) or;
Exactly. That's what 99% of my gigs consist of.
It's a given that they expect my VI orchestra to sound like a real orchestra.
Sometimes I'm more successful than others in creating the fantasy that the orchestra is real. Most people, especially ones who are not intimate familiar with orchestras, certainly get fooled. Guys like you, who breath orchestral music, not so much.

It's funny when they send me reference tracks and they want me to create something in the style of "the big names". They expect me to be able to do --what took Danny Elfman a month, with the LSO recorded in Abbey Road-- they expect me to do it in 1 or 2 days with my VIs :lol:

Obviously there's no comparison, but that's what I'm expected to achieve. And so far I've gotten no complaints from the people who hire me :)
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: 2) you have no imagination for sound and can't hear the notes in your head (in which case you might consider a career as a butcher since that's what you're doing anyway).
Oh, that's not a problem for me. I can hear the notes in my head. I'm even used to orchestrate inside my head, "seeing" a mental picture of the score.

What I'm saying is that it's much faster and effective to program the music when you can, at a glance, see the weight of the orchestration and the different sections' phrasing and articulations at a glance in the printed score.

For instance, programming orchestrated phrase markings is so obvious and easy to see in the score, rather than remembering from memory that from measures 62 to 71 the horns play legato but the winds double them articulating with soft tonguing, alla Ravel, and that the bassoon uses the same phrasing as the cello from measures 99 to 103, etc.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: (Note: if you're doing 800 tracks so you can "hear" what the session will sound like in advance, again, a butcher might be the best career choice for you. It's far less work and your hourly pay will be much better... LOL).
Nah! That's not the reason. I need to use millions of articulations and CCs to get the music to sound real, broadcast-ready, since I almost never get budgets to have the pleasure to work with real musicians..
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: Now if only I could get the members to post in appropriate areas... :rofl:
It has been moved. Be glad I didn't "edit" or delete your post as usual when I forget we have moderating powers in this section :lol:
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: James, could you please move this to the composing/songwriting area?
Sorry about that, James.
That reminds me I need to go down and say "hi" to Doris before she thinks I've forgotten about the sweet lady who reduces her anger and annoyance with misplaced posts with a great box of chocolates :)
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

As far as sync points, I get Finale close but the heavy lifting happens in performance or the session. I use a combination of expressions and MIDI data (tempo) inserts to arrive at the right place. Finale also allows you to automatically fit x number of measures into a specific time but I don't use that as fine editing of that data is tedious (if even possible) and a "readout" of what Finale has done to perform this miracle is not available.

I know, I tend to be a little harsh about this stuff and just refuse to buy into the mindset of hundreds (or even dozens) of tracks trying to make an orchestra.

If my clients and collaborators want an orchestral sound, they pay for the effing orchestra. Then musicians get hired and paid and their families eat. There really is very little (if any) room in my life or work for cheap ass producers nickel and dining the creative team while raking in the profits for themselves. Besides the fact that I basically adore orchestral "recreations" regardless of how authentic they sound.

Music is about musicians playing notes and expressing the human condition. It's not about printed circuits and how well they mimic what great players do when they make music.

Sure, I make "orchestral simulations" for lower budget projects, but as a paradigm for a "composer" I maintain that, for me at least, it is a complete waste of my time - especially when I can get real, live musicians to play with.

Quick note on another rant:

Finale 25 and onward DOES NOT have a movie window and the implementation to port that to a DAW is completely lame.

Back to work. I should finish Peter Pan preliminary scoring today. 104 minutes fully orchestrated for piano, string quartet, flute and clarinet in about month. If i sequenced in DP first, I'd still have to do all that quantizing, porting over MIDI files, etc. Well that's another month of my life I can practice instead of pulling what hair I have left out.
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by FMiguelez »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:As far as sync points, I get Finale close but the heavy lifting happens in performance or the session. I use a combination of expressions and MIDI data (tempo) inserts to arrive at the right place. Finale also allows you to automatically fit x number of measures into a specific time but I don't use that as fine editing of that data is tedious (if even possible) and a "readout" of what Finale has done to perform this miracle is not available.
Thank you for this.
That's how I remember it... It must be much faster and easier to do all that tempo work in DP, and once all sync points have been established, transfer to Finale and work from there.

The perfect solution for me seems to be that the QuickScribe tool needs an urgent overhaul. Just let us change clefs, add basic articulations and phrase markings. I don't think that's too much to ask from a DAW in 2017...
That way I could do everything in DP, since the score would be only to "conduct myself" while programming the music in DP.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote: I know, I tend to be a little harsh about this stuff and just refuse to buy into the mindset of hundreds (or even dozens) of tracks trying to make an orchestra.
It's not harshness. It's passion.

But if that's what you need to do, to sound like a real orchestra with VIs, there's ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER WAY to achieve it.
You need every articulation and CC available to even approximate a decent orchestral sound. There's simply no way around this with VIs.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: If my clients and collaborators want an orchestral sound, they pay for the effing orchestra. Then musicians get hired and paid and their families eat. There really is very little (if any) room in my life or work for cheap ass producers nickel and dining the creative team while raking in the profits for themselves. Besides the fact that I basically adore orchestral "recreations" regardless of how authentic they sound.
I wish my clients were like yours. Unfortunately and realistically, this is the new modern reality, whether we like it or not.
Most TV shows don't have budgets to hire entire orchestras, let alone the time to do so with their crazy schedules. No way! I mean, if a hit primetime show like 24 was all done with VIs, what can you expect from productions with a fraction of the budget?

But I understand you, Mike. You have lots of experience with live musicians, and it's normal you feel that way. I mean, I would feel the same way if I were used to woking with huge budgets with great clients and awesome orchestras at my disposal... I'm not there yet. Hopefully soon, as that would be my dream to work with full orchestras!
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: Music is about musicians playing notes and expressing the human condition. It's not about printed circuits and how well they mimic what great players do when they make music.
Agreed. But one must be flexible if one wants to work.
Also, that is not necessarily the case anymore. Music, for me, is any sound that moves me emotionally, that tells me something like a story, something that will make me angry or cry regardless of the production method. If you can do that by banging a can of beer, or with a first-rate violin player, it makes no difference.
What matters is to move emotions, to say something meaningful, to connect with your audience regardless of the method used to do so. It can be a real or fake orchestra as long as the MUSIC has something to say.
Problem is, it's a bitch to make VIs have something nice to say :lol:

And I think it is a WONDER and something marvellous to be able to come so close to the real thing out of our own studios! It's like this art form of making music is beginning to incorporate other aspects that were not necessary before, like the ART of programming a piece of music with a fake VI orchestra. It is an art form all by itself!

And IME, unless you're dealing with FIRST RATE musicians, like a Hollywood orchestra, the results are ALWAYS BETTER using VIs than an amateur or college-level orchestra.
I know this from experience, and there's no comparison. The VIs will ALWAYS be much better (providing one knows what one's doing).
The few times I used amateur orchestras (or sections of it) it was always disappointing and a waste of time and money.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote: Sure, I make "orchestral simulations" for lower budget projects, but as a paradigm for a "composer" I maintain that, for me at least, it is a complete waste of my time - especially when I can get real, live musicians to play with.
Yes, I understand, but you would have to do as I do if you didn't have the option of using real musicians.
You've earned that privilege during your career, but what would you do if you HAD to use mockups? I bet you'd become great at it and make the VI suckers scream if necessary!
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by stubbsonic »

I'm not prolific by any stretch of the imagination. For me, the workflow and results are just different when I use pencil and paper first, then sequence vs working entirely within the sequencer from start to finish. And it isn't that I prefer one over the other. And as far as liking the results, I just keep working on it until it is right. Sometimes it works more quickly than others. Sometimes the result I'm after is elusive-- but so far I've managed to make it work.
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

I'll try to hit your other points (all valid) later but one quick note. What would really put MOTU on the map for me is a combination of the quickscibe editor and the notation window. Now THERE'S and idea who's time is NOW!
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by FMiguelez »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:I'll try to hit your other points (all valid) later but one quick note. What would really put MOTU on the map for me is a combination of the quickscibe editor and the notation window. Now THERE'S and idea who's time is NOW!
It's already in the map :)

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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Happy Easter Island!
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by terrybritton »

I just want to say (and I think I've said it before, but if not I should have), reading these conversations between you folks is always an inspiration. I should take special pains to read this forum section when I'm feeling stuck or am flagging in creative juices, for sure.

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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

I have a cure for writer's block, but I hesitate to post it as it involves massive amounts of humor and at times, perhaps "inappropriate" comments others may find excessive, abusive, or just a clutter of forum space. So, to some degree, artistic concepts that would be otherwise helpful remain unspoken here.

Bummer!

Then again, one might also consider these "trade secrets" better left to private conversations or paid lectures, which reminds me... I think I have a week of teaching at CALARTS coming up fairly soon. Students get so surprised when they are asked to STOP jumping though hoops and start thinking different. I mean, how did classical composers create such great stuff without 800 tracks? Given the option, would they? I doubt it. Not to mention people like Beethoven who were also deaf. Talk about effing obstacles! Or blind composers, one-handed pianists, and generally crazy people. LOL.

You guys have fun with your massive templates. I still say it is a terrible waste of your time and energy as composers. You are instrumental technicians, IMO. Some of you also make great music and it saddens me to think of him much more a prolific mind could produce in the same period of time given better resources to work with. I tend to be pretty picky that way. You want an orchestra, you pay for an orchestra. Can't or won't afford it? Then go to the next lower bidder because I'm not interested.

AND STAY OFF MY FRIGGIN' LAWN!

:rofl: :mumble: :rofl:

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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by cuttime »

I'm reminded of two of my favorite composer's methods: Prokofiev and Shostakovich, while being virtuoso pianists, felt that their compositions were of much higher quality when written away from the piano. If I recall, Prokofiev's First Symphony was his first attempt at writing away from the piano, and I maintain it could not have been written with a keyboard in mind.
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Re: Notating first THEN programming? What a difference!

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

cuttime wrote:I'm reminded of two of my favorite composer's methods: Prokofiev and Shostakovich, while being virtuoso pianists, felt that their compositions were of much higher quality when written away from the piano. If I recall, Prokofiev's First Symphony was his first attempt at writing away from the piano, and I maintain it could not have been written with a keyboard in mind.
Nice!
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