- Jul 27, 2009
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I'm looking for techniques and opinions on programming midi for piano and orchestral instruments for realism?
Orchestral midi programming
- Thread starter RichMinerva
- Start date
AdamG94
Member
I'm guessing you want a symphonic/orchestral part in a song that involves most of an orchestra.
1) Set the panning of each instrument, so that it feels like the listener is sat in-front of a real orchestra.
2) Listen to some orchestral pieces, like a philharmonic piece and study the mix.
3) Midi programming is incredibly important, spend lots of time getting it just right. Especially the velocities.
4) A good library is the most important thing for realism.
Hopefully that helps
1) Set the panning of each instrument, so that it feels like the listener is sat in-front of a real orchestra.
2) Listen to some orchestral pieces, like a philharmonic piece and study the mix.
3) Midi programming is incredibly important, spend lots of time getting it just right. Especially the velocities.
4) A good library is the most important thing for realism.
Hopefully that helps
luismars
Member
You need to know exactly how each instrument's CC affects the sound, then move slightly the velocities and the positions of the notes.
- Jul 27, 2009
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Manifesto
Martín
Midi is easy, it's the playing of it that's tough
What's your keyboard skill level
1) You can plop down chords and play scales at 30 bpm
2) You are skilled at all aspects of playing
3) You're the next friggin Mozart
if you want great midi sounds, try the Kontakt 4 lybrary
What's your keyboard skill level
1) You can plop down chords and play scales at 30 bpm
2) You are skilled at all aspects of playing
3) You're the next friggin Mozart
if you want great midi sounds, try the Kontakt 4 lybrary
Sweetnothing
¯\(º_o)/¯
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77mXAWr1QN8&feature=related[/ame]
These two made me think a little about it, about cc#1, not putting everything to the grid, etc.
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jarenare
Member
Scott Horner
Scottimus Maximus
If you go to the Garritan site they have an entire online course on orchestration, with audio and notation examples, in the stickies. It's a lot of info but very useful. I recommend checking it out.
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration-On-line
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration-On-line
Audiosprite
ok
i've been after an ebook copy of rimsky korsakov's book for ages, but i've never found one that included images and musical examples. this is incredible!now if only i could stick this on a kindle...
RemoWilliams
¯\(°_o)/¯ How meet Devil?
- Nov 13, 2005
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I think Vienna symphonic, but if you hope over to the VI Control forum, he posts there a lot and you could ask him.
The garritan orchestration tutorial is nowhere near as detailed as Samual Adlers book and cds. Goes as far as to show you how the instrumentalists play their instruments, and from the ground up orchestration and it's alot longer. Rimsky's book is more tips on orchestration, for people who already have some experience of it.
Sweetnothing
¯\(º_o)/¯
I think he said ( on the VI control forum) it's Sonar and Vienna Symphonic Library, cinesamples and project sam libraries
The French Horns are definitely VSL sounding.
Empathy
Bulging Member
I think he said ( on the VI control forum) it's Sonar and Vienna Symphonic Library, cinesamples and project sam libraries
The French Horns are definitely VSL sounding.
I'm fairly certain the strings are Symphobia, just by listening to them.
Aaron Smith
Envisage Audio
In my experience, programming the piano convincingly is quite difficult to do if there's even just a moderate level of complexity in the writing and performance. It might be easier to program for someone who's actually able to play the piano and visualize every single note from that perspective, but in that case they might as well just play it!
As far as orchestra panning, I've actually never been very concerned with making sure all the instruments are spread out "properly" in the stereo field in accordance with a traditional sectional arrangement. If you specifically want that sound, then fine, but there's not necessarily anything magical about doing it that way. The big larger-than-life Hollywood movie score kind of sound (Hans Zimmer type stuff) generally has little to nothing in common with traditional sectional placement, but rather the focus is on making the sum total sound wider, deeper, and just generally as large as possible.
With orchestra programming, the best advice I can give from my own experience is to spend tons of time adjusting the velocity of nearly every single MIDI note, and if your virtual instrument has the capability, change the articulations of each patch for almost every note as well. Between proper modulation of velocities and articulations, you can get some extremely realistic humanized sounding stuff.
As far as orchestra panning, I've actually never been very concerned with making sure all the instruments are spread out "properly" in the stereo field in accordance with a traditional sectional arrangement. If you specifically want that sound, then fine, but there's not necessarily anything magical about doing it that way. The big larger-than-life Hollywood movie score kind of sound (Hans Zimmer type stuff) generally has little to nothing in common with traditional sectional placement, but rather the focus is on making the sum total sound wider, deeper, and just generally as large as possible.
With orchestra programming, the best advice I can give from my own experience is to spend tons of time adjusting the velocity of nearly every single MIDI note, and if your virtual instrument has the capability, change the articulations of each patch for almost every note as well. Between proper modulation of velocities and articulations, you can get some extremely realistic humanized sounding stuff.
DanLights
Santa Hat Forever
and if I wanted to do something not so orchestral and more like "keyboards" stuff, like for example Swallow the Sun comes to mind, more background-ish keyboards on strings sound. Do you guys also mix different voices for this or just go for a good strings patch on a good keyboard (or a vsti)? If you do mix and pan voices, what do you normally put in the mix? Not trying to hijack the thread, just thought I´d ask it here instead of making a new thread
Sweetnothing
¯\(º_o)/¯
I usually mix and stack patches when doing that, but depends a lot on whats the focus on that particular song...
For example, if the pad is going on underneath heavy guitars, melody lines, and all that, usually a single patch on the synth of your liking ( or rompler, sampler) is more than enough, I stick a light stereo widener and send to a big hall reverb.
If the mix permits, having some free space frequency wise, I'd use a rich patch ( usually from omnisphere or symphobia) for the base of it, and add some high end line with LASS or whatever. In this case I widen the whole "synth bus", but then again, depends on the mix and the style.
This is like every other arrangement decision, there's no rules set in stone
For example, if the pad is going on underneath heavy guitars, melody lines, and all that, usually a single patch on the synth of your liking ( or rompler, sampler) is more than enough, I stick a light stereo widener and send to a big hall reverb.
If the mix permits, having some free space frequency wise, I'd use a rich patch ( usually from omnisphere or symphobia) for the base of it, and add some high end line with LASS or whatever. In this case I widen the whole "synth bus", but then again, depends on the mix and the style.
This is like every other arrangement decision, there's no rules set in stone
