Mozart and I think most others, if they were alive, would embrace the technology if they had no other choice.MIDI Life Crisis wrote: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.
What choice would they have? To renounce to music due to lack of budgets? Never!
Remember> SOME people do use obscene, and in my view unnecessary, amounts of tracks, but that's their style and it's by no means the only way to do it.
I use a fraction of what some composers use because I use articulations and CCs to keep ONE instrument per track (per library), but it's still A LOT, I admit.
Actually, no. It's as much as necessary. As much as it takes to be ready to produce a real-sounding orchestra on a day's notice.
THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. That's what it takes, and that's what I use. There's no alternative, unless not working is an option.
Ignoring my template, which is huge because it's ready for ANYTHING, I can program my FULL orchestra with only 70-100 MIDI tracks, depending on how much detail I need (flutes I, II, III, or simply one flute or an a3 patch), how many percussion instruments I need, etc. That's totally normal and no big track-count deal.
It also depends on how I want to seat the orchestra, and if I'm going for realistic or "massive" sound (doubling horns with different libraries for stereo effects).
No, we're not.MIDI Life Crisis wrote: 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.
We're simply doing whatever it takes to complete the gig under the given circumstances, which are> 1)insufficient budgets to hire orchestras to score a season of a TV show 2) Given the usual crazy schedules and deadlines, it's simply unrealistic to use real orchestras even if there were money to do so.
I think you're comparing apples to oranges. You can't compare scoring commissioned silent films from the big studios to TV shows. Everything works completely different, from schedules to timetables to budgets to realistic expectations, etc.
But Mike, you sound as if we were doing this out of choice... At least I am not!MIDI Life Crisis wrote: 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.
Don't you think I'd JUMP at the chance to score something with the real thing? Of course I'd do!
But it's either mockups with VIs or I simply don't get a job because in México there isn't a TV production company that has the resources, time or desire to afford a real orchestra for a show, let alone a full season. Even if they did, I don't think our orchestras are ready or experienced to do that kind of work. They are used to lots of rehearsal time, and I doubt they are brilliant first-sight readers.
And I sustain that, unless you have the best orchestra with the best players/sight/readers in town, the best-sounding studio with great capable recording technicians and mixers, I will produce a better sounding mockup than the real thing any day of the week.
I almost shiver remembering the results with amateur or student orchestras... Forget about interpretation! Forget about details and making nice phrases and nice music! No! You're lucky if they can play in tune for more than a few bars and the horns didn't crack their notes. It was the most disappointing and frustrating thing for me, every time.
O, excuse me, Mr. Clarinet player, was that little run too hard for you?
I have even heard VERY MIXED results and stories from people who hire orchestras in East Europe much cheaper than London or Hollywood. I've heard good results, I admit, but mostly it has been not good enough (many intonation problems, timing problems, etc, that distract you from the actual music).
Consider this> There IS a reason as to why there has been such a ridiculous VI market boom... Because there's a huge market for it now. WHY? Because directors and producers know what we can do with these things and that's what they expect given their current small budgets.
It's the new reality for anything other than stellar-budget productions with great resources, and you should BE HAPPY it has not touched your niche (yet).
Do I like it? No. But if I sat on my laurels and refuse to work until someone gives me a gig with the LSO, or at least Mexico's Orquesta de Minería, I would have starved looooooong ago.
You must admit that, if you didn't have a choice, you would be programming VIs to make mockups as we do because at least that way you STILL would be making music. How real or engaging or satisfying it sounds would be only up to your skill at doing so.
Unless, of course, and I can't imagine that, you would rather do something else instead of music...
I also sustain that it is DEEPLY SATISFYING for me to make a computer sing and closely approximate the real thing.
I get to create, out of a metal box, whatever I can hear inside my head, easily and on my own. That was only a dream not long ago, and I think it is a WONDERFUL thing. A gift from technology, and I don't apologise for it.
Making music is the only important thing. It does not matter if I do so seated at the piano with pen and paper, or in Finale or in DP programming stuff. As long as I get to create out of nothing what I hear inside my head, real musicians or not, I will be happy and lucky to have the privilege of having such an amazing job that allows me to express myself shamelessly at the highest art form level there is: MUSIC!
Music that, without current technology, would be in my case, due to my current reality/situation, simply unwritten, unproduced, uncomposed, unrealized. THAT would be sad> A tragedy, I'd like to think.
The other day I saw in the street a fire-spitter. I could not help but thank my luck to get paid for playing with my amazing toys in the safety and tranquility of my own studio.
What matters is THE MUSIC, the resulting idea eternalised for one to enjoy. Who cares about the production method?
There are no limits and no barriers. Real musicians are no longer the only option! Different paths according to different budgets & current reality.
Actually, the only limit is our own skill level. But the potential is, or is getting to be, amazingly close to the real thing.