/prod/ general

clyp.it/4lslrf50

Learn to sidechain
Put a saturator on literally everything
Reverb is your best friend

You're better off recording everything manually, sample packs will only get you so much. DSK Overture is half decent for demos tho

I can play guitar, a bit of piano, but that's it. I can't really afford, nor have the time to learn a bunch of instruments, at least not in the near future. I make music alone, which doesn't help matters

Sorry I'm too drunk to listen to all the things you listed. I read strings and horns though, and I know this field well. What I need to know is- are you comfortable with the prospect of writing the midi for the individual instruments? The violins, the violas, the cellos, the french horns, what not? Or are you looking for loops and samples of said instruments that you can chop and manipulate?

If your goal is to write midi driven orchestration in any form, then you need not look further than Kontakt. It has the monopoly on multisampled, sampler instruments of real instruments.

If you are willing to go hardcore mode in the pursuit of realism, you need to get extremely comfortable with setting up virtual sound stages using dry midi orchestral instruments, putting them 'in a room' with reverb techniques, and actually orchestrating them & giving them automation that reflects the way their real world counterparts are played.

For hard mode, i would recommend Sample modeling's instruments for brass and horns, Spitfire Audio Sable strings (volumes one through three) for the dry strings, and altiverb (or comparably sophisticated convolution reverb that has sampled reflections of real orchestral recording spaces).

For less-than-hard mode, (for 'out of the box' usable orchestral sounds), check out 8dio's orch libraries, or Cinesamples' string & brass libraries, or Spitfire Albion. Orchestral Tools Berlin Strings is good too.

Albion is probably the best all around sketchpad- good sounding but master of none.

Anyway. You will require lots of ram. 4GB will not do so bring your RAM game when you fuck with any orchestral libraries. They are big. You need lots of hard drive real estate as well. The good news is a lot of these libraries have multiple mic positions to choose from, and you can get a wide range of tones. Hard mode would be ignoring these mics except the dry / close mics and 'putting the instruments in the same space' using reverb techniques.

Thanks. The main problem I see with a lot of samples, such as strings, is that they come off as too processed or cinematic. A lot of the artists I listed are more stripped down. You can almost hear the singular instruments in the ensembles

>working on this song for hours
>just now realize one of the samples i used sounds like fucking Bane

clyp.it/c0b4zf3o

im keeping it

So, when is the next Sup Forums makes an album thread? Not trying to start one, just wondering

What's going to be doable with virtual instruments / sample library based orchestral: the big lush ensembles playing big ass chords.

What's not going to be doable: solo instruments, think: solo fiddle, playing delicately and dancing around daintily with lots of expression.

The last scenario is one that will reveal the weaknesses inherent in a sample based approach. You can fudge it more with a big ensemble that has slow dynamic swells, or relatively simple staccato or spicatto sections.

My advice: play to the strengths of the sampler library. Avoid the other shit. It sounds like you have found yourself a genre that is pretty comfy with respect to the strengths of modern sampler libraries.

Part of what you will need to emulate or at least pay attention to, is emulating (or at least considering) the way you WOULD record a group of strings players. With stereo mics in the front, where the violins 1 and two be? where are the Cello and Contrabass? The violas?

The 'spatial placement' as I'd call it, is half of the deal. The way real orchestras are setup on a scoring stage has the functionality that the "mix" might have in a purely electronic environment. Now, when pop indie band gets their strings players in the studio, they have a similar consideration, maybe not as involved as recording a fuckin' performance of Mozart, but it still matters. Try to pay attention to the way panning is used in your 'target' reference songs.

A lot of what helps you discern individual instruments in orchestral anything is spatial placement. How far away, where in the stereo spectrum.

The other half of this is REVERB, this is a fucking huge topic that will require shit loads of posts and im not sure I'm going to be awake.

If skeleton jelly guy is still here


>I just checked your song out man, I love the buzzy synths and the cold "lead" that comes in, as well as the loud bassy part after 2 minutes, I think a really simple percussion arrangement would sound good with this even though it's ambient, even just a shaker or something.

Thought of it i'll try some things
Shaker is an option or some things more like the very light percussion on stone in focus

>I called it poison village because it reminded me of classic rpgs when you return to your home town and it's been destroyed.

I can get that vibe yeha

S Y N T H W A V E

i'd like one too. maybe some noisy hib hob with 1-1:30 minute songs limit