Orchestras/Strings

snakeey11

Tool of the Devil
Nov 11, 2003
130
0
16
40
San Diego, CA
ieng9.ucsd.edu
One of my dreams would be to see Symphony X do a concert in the same vain as Metallica's S&M (probably my favorite Metallica album). When I saw them perform The Odyssey live, I just knew it NEEDED the orchestra treatment. I find myself to be especially drawn to music that is both heavy, but also contains string/orchestra arrangements. A few examples of albums that I find to be really great are Symphony of Enchanted Lands II (Rhapsody kicks ass, no matter what you say), Nightwish's Once, and countless others that contain anywhere from simple string quartets to fullblown orchestras. I'm just a sucker for metal music with that classical touch.

I was just wondering how many of you out there are like me, and your thoughts on the dream I have of Sym X doing this someday. Please stay away from the "OMG the orchestra on 8VM is sooo shitty and simple!!!11 LOL DT suckz!"; we've already been there and done that.
 
Oh yeah, I would really love to see the symphony orchestra + band concept. Everytime I hear something with an orchestra present, I also try to visualize it all, and it would be of course wonderful to see something like that.

The Odyssey has some interesting parts in it for that, but maybe the whole album V would be even better with it, including a choir for the prelude. That would be amazing.
 
Yngwie's Concerto Suite (especially live with Blackstar overture, Blitzkrieg & Far Beyond the Sun) was a great example of what can be done with an orchestra in metal. I think The Odyssey (the song) would be great with an orchestra, and perhaps an orchestral adaption of all V.
 
The band was born with that classical music influence, it would be apotheotically interesting to hear an "S&S" sometime in the future, maybe with a setlist with different album songs.
I'd sell an organ of my body for listening to TDWOT song (the monster!) with a full orchestration. Or Through the looking glass, at least a kidney...:p
 
Personally I did like Metallica's S & M. Even if you guys hate it, you owe one thing to it: getting me to cross over into the metal genre and eventually come to love a band called Symphony X. ;)

I would love to see SymX's music performed with a live orchestra. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this, but the conductor who played such a great part in creating the S & M concerts--Michael Kamen--passed away in 2003. Perhaps someone else could be found to do it successfully, but for me (as a Michael Kamen fan), that's my big reservation about it. :(
 
metallica doesn't have keyboards. SyX does. they are already capable of orchestration and string sounds. therefore why would SyX play with an orchestra when they practically are one?
 
Silent Song said:
metallica doesn't have keyboards. SyX does. they are already capable of orchestration and string sounds. therefore why would SyX play with an orchestra when they practically are one?

I, myself, like the sound of a real orchestra as opposed to the "string sounds" on a keyboard.
 
Symphonic Flames said:
The Odyssey has some interesting parts in it for that, but maybe the whole album V would be even better with it, including a choir for the prelude. That would be amazing.

I agree, because V in my opinion, would be much better for something like that, because there's actually so much more orchestration in comparison to the Odyssey, except for the fact that Mike Pinella would probably be left REALLY REALLY bored. Anyways, also, V would be so much longer of a production, and it would feel so much more dramatic.
 
Seeing SymX play V with an orchestra in a live concert would probably give me a heart attack. I don't think mortal beings were meant to witness such great greatness, greatly.

At all events, with the other orchestral parts taken up by the orchestra you could just stick Pinella on a real grand piano. That would rock.
 
Silent Song said:
metallica doesn't have keyboards. SyX does. they are already capable of orchestration and string sounds. therefore why would SyX play with an orchestra when they practically are one?

The same reason why Dream Theater hired a cello player to play on Vacant, as opposed to just having Jordan play the lines with a cello patch. The real thing just sounds better.

I am a huge fan of S&M. I love watching the DVD and turning Metallica off, just to hear the orchestra. However, I do think the two mixed really well (minus a few songs).

I'd love to see Symphony X play with an orchestra. However, I think only the epic songs would work with it (Odyssey, Divine Wings, TTLG, Accolades, all of V). It would be so...massive sounding!
 
snakeey11 said:
Haha, yeah I saw them this past December, and they were awesome. They had one violinist who performed some killer solos while she walked around the stage. Nothing like dueling violin/guitar action!
their recording electric violinist (and on one side of the tour) Ron Wood is amazing. if you didn't know, he designed and makes those violins as well.

Vacant is a great song that makes good use of one string instrument. i'd agree that string patches are no substitute for the real thing, but the arrangements of SX's songs would have to be changed quite a lot to accomodate an orchestra. then pinella would have to play a grand piano type patch to stay in the mix