Orchestral MIDI - How Do???

[MaellaJohn]

Here is part of a song I'm working on for my own band.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9992828/Random Shit/periphery build up.mp3


Of the many things I don't know much about, orchestral music is a fairly big mystery to me.

It's not so much mixing or humanizing.. though I've got plenty of that to do from the example I'm posting.. it's more of composing.

I want to get a professional sounding orchestra composition. And this is unexplored territory for me.


I'm sure you can see what I'm going for in my sample. Does any body have any tips for composing orchestral stuff? It seems too unprofessional at the moment.

 

[MaellaJohn]

Buump

Maybe someone knows of a few songs I could listen to with orchestral stuff to reference?

 

[Skinny Viking]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/andy-sneap/711180-best-orchestral-metal-production.html

 

[Boerboel666]

A good place to start is getting a proper understanding of the instruments and how they are played . You need to be aware of what the usual pitch is for any particular instrument , much modern (usually cheaper) software will let you play an instrument anywhere on the keyboard/piano roll this is a dead give away with the wrong instruments playing the wrong parts . Also over layering is all to easy , I have heard people running about 6 string ensembles at the same time , again this sounds amateurish . Less is more start with you chord structure or melody and start building the piece slowly thinking through your instrumentation carefully . Bottom line is it is a very specialised field so have realistic expectations of what you can achieve .

 

[MaellaJohn]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/andy-sneap/711180-best-orchestral-metal-production.html

I totally forgot about this thread, I apologize.

A good place to start is getting a proper understanding of the instruments and how they are played . You need to be aware of what the usual pitch is for any particular instrument , much modern (usually cheaper) software will let you play an instrument anywhere on the keyboard/piano roll this is a dead give away with the wrong instruments playing the wrong parts . Also over layering is all to easy , I have heard people running about 6 string ensembles at the same time , again this sounds amateurish . Less is more start with you chord structure or melody and start building the piece slowly thinking through your instrumentation carefully . Bottom line is it is a very specialised field so have realistic expectations of what you can achieve .

Thank you. I'll take some time to study the pitches of the instruments and other works with orchestral elements and try to refine what I've got!

 

[locus_coeruleus]

If you need examples, please check Septic Flesh and Hollenthon. I think that those two are the best bands writing orchestral metal

 

[Skinny Viking]

I totally forgot about this thread, I apologize.

apologize for what? hope you didn't take something the wrong way ... you asked about reference songs and such, so I posted that link cause I'm sure there were a ton of suggestions in it that might help

 

[colton]

If you're a fan of some more complex musical textures, such as polyphony, check out the latest Scrambled Defuncts.



Nobody else in metal is doing the whole orchestra/metal blend like them, so it's worth checking out imo. Samples used were from a sample DVD by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Anyway, "Study of Orchestration" by Rimsky-Korsakov is a must have if you really want to dive into this. I would also recommend books by Stefen Kostka and Leon Dallin as well. "Tonal Harmony" will provide you with a solid foundation for understanding tonal harmony and more while "Techniques of 20th century composition" will help get you familiarized with the modern stuff and hopefully your creative juices are flowing by then. Fair warning though, these books are for the advanced music student and will require a lot of time to study. For listening, you should check out Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on piano and then listen to Maurice Ravel's orchestral version.

 

[MetalMiller]

^ This music is fucking horrible!!!

I recommend you to try better sample libraries like East West QL, Symphobia.
Miroslav sucks! Even most of VSL stuff isn´t any good for an epic cinematic blockbuster sound.

I love the music of Two Steps From Hell. I´ve learned so much by listening to it. Check it out.

 

[Heabow]

I think the most important thing is to know what instrument is able to play and how it has to sound. It's actually very complex and you gotta listen to many many REAL orchestras imo (and maybe talk with people who work in this kind of music). And, of course, let your ears guide you for the 'good sounding' programming...

 

[Sweetnothing]

It sounds too much on the grid for a "natural" performance, also lacks some nuances such as legato, and not keeping constant velocity all the time, except when needed to highlight the right notes

Also, counterpoint in classical composition is where the beef is. I hear the violins following the piano, same notes and all, try to make a diff melody for violins, diff note lengths, etc.

+1 to what metalmiller said, for cinematic sounds, EWQL, Project SAM are the best choices imo.

 

[locus_coeruleus]

Nobody else in metal is doing the whole orchestra/metal blend like them

Really? It sounds like they put together a random death metal track with a random classical composition. Most of the times what I'm hearing doesn't make sense it sounds totally unglued. I even thought my foobar started playing while I was listening to that YT video... You gotta be kidding.

 

[colton]

Really? It sounds like they put together a random death metal track with a random classical composition. Most of the times what I'm hearing doesn't make sense it sounds totally unglued. I even thought my foobar started playing while I was listening to that YT video... You gotta be kidding.

Well, I haven't heard anyone else use this kind of combination before. The orchestral stuff is full blown polyphony and is just as significant, if not more so, as to what the band is playing. I think it's unique. I wasn't commenting on whether I thought the music or samples are good or not, just providing a contrast to the general norm of composition regarding metal and orchestra. One of my favorite tracks is the closing shostakovich-ish quartet, lol.

[YOUTUBE]tB7wx5lhqxw&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

Regarding your comment on it sounding "random", it's going to take multiple listens to digest, unless you're turned off instantly and don't care to explore which is totally fine, but it's anything but random as Dmitri studied formally when he wrote this album, but I understand why you feel it sounds that way. In fact, much 20th century music sounds random, but that's hardly ever the case.

 

[locus_coeruleus]

I'm not saying his orchestral compositions are bad, I just think that they don't go with the music AT ALL. They seem extremely random and it sounds like they meant that and failed miserably to impress the audience by doing it. The mix doesn't help, the orchestra is way too loud, perhaps that alters my perception to the music as a whole.

By the way, this track makes more sense, but it still sounds overdone on some parts:

 

[Skinny Viking]

^ That shit is unlistenable

I appreciate the idea of trying to combine things in a different way than usual but this is like combining turkey giblets and ice cream