Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?

[Josh Bass]

it would be insane not to. otherwise you might throw out everything youve done up until that point cause you find out it doesnt work, and that would probably piss him off

[Ryan Elder]

Well It was said before that I shouldn't pick the instruments and just let the composer pick them. However, int the past, the composer would pick ones I didn't like as much. They were okay but they just didn't pop. For example, there was one score a composer did for me where the harp was the lead instrument and the harp was not in any of the example tracks I gave the composer.

There is also another project, where the composer decided to have the french horn as the lead instrument and I just wasn't feeling the french horn as much. So shouldn't I have some say in the instrumental sounds therefore, depending if I feel they fit the tone, or no?

[Josh Bass]

No one's saying you shouldn't have input on the finished music. But a) really don't worry about it til you have an edited movie to score and b) tell the composer some general mood details, give him/her an example of your inspiration, let them do their thing (i.e. first draft), THEN criticize/refine/tweak.

[Paul R Johnson]

Micromanaging again, Ryan? The example track is mood, feel, air, emotion, purpose, support and if your composer picked a hair because he felt it fitted thematically what he was seeing - then please forgive me - it is probable that you expected the same instrumentation but different notes maybe? That is not composition. You really want him to produce new, excellent music, but be tied down to instrumentation. It's rather like being ZZ Top, and being given a Metallica track as inspiration or guidance for something new, then complaining when it sounds like ZZ Top.

May the snag with the music is that you don't understand it because you are not musical. As the producer it's perfectly OK to not like it, but expecting to not get a harp, because it wasn't in the demo is a bit silly. The important thing was does the harp work? It's a bit silly that if you are musically compromised you still want to make decisions like these on your own?

[Ryan Elder]

Well I didn't feel the harp worked with what I was going for. The composer can come up with new instruments that are not in the example tracks that can work. But I didn't feel the harp worked in this case for what the mood and tone I was wanting. I don't want every instrument in the example tracks and the example tracks are not perfect, just the closest I could find.

What I could do is listen to what a composer has for me, and that if he came up with instruments that I feel worked, then great, but if I feel they don't fit, should I recommend a different instrument then for the tone, or what should I do if I feel certain instrumental sounds, don't fit the tone here and there?

[Keith Rollinson]

Ryan - I've read a bit of this thread, and you have legitimate questions that have been somewhat answered. My suggestion is to now concentrate on the big picture. Let me explain - when you were surprised to hear a harp when there was none in the temp score - does it work? Or does it create a different mood or impact than what you looking for? When you suggest specific instrumentation, do you think the composer(s) share your emotional understanding of what instrument "X" might provide? And doesn't the same (combinations of) musical instruments) deliver different outcomes? Brass can be militaristic (march), or mournful (taps) - or deliver any number of other emotional messages, depending on the musical notes themselves, and context.

Instead of getting bogged down with details such as instrumentation - and it is relatively secondary, as an effective score can work musically prior to definite instrumentation (as in played on a piano while intended for a chamber orchestra etc.) - concentrate on the emotional content you'd like the music to provide, scene and genre dependent. A simple example - a main character is troubled, but you want to indicate that there is still hope. Music can connote that hopefulness. Where you energy for music will be best served is to be able to clearly communicate, in depth, what the emotional and action-supportive needs for music are. As the filmmaker, you need to identify and make literal what you are trying to achieve. That is what you need to share with your collaborators - the emotional foundation you seek, and how you want the action to be supported. Whether that's via a harp or an accordeon only matters once there's a score whose essence communicates what you are looking for. That is how I like clients to approach me for music; I'm a trained composer (western classical) and organist who has mostly made a living as a filmmaker, with intense period of composing applied music for film.

[Paul R Johnson]

You are the commissioner, so feel free to tell the composer you don't like it and have a conversation. Your recommendations might be (in musical circles) laughable - you are paying a musician to musische. If you had a dance routine in the movie, would you tell the choreographer how do do his/her job, or tell the set constructor what kind of joints he should be using? Your job is to say yes or no to what is offered, and try to explain why, so you can communicate. If you tell the artist who has no yellow in his pallet, he must use yellow, the result is never good.

You interfere too much Ryan. Leave the experts to do their thing without you tying their hands behind their backs. You need to stop the over management - we've told you so often, your idea of input is instructions, rules and edicts. Composers quite like being told it needs to be warmer, darker, colder, sexier, angrier, happier...... NOT instructions on musical ideas. What makes you think your competence in the musical area is good enough to produce accurate assessment other than your own likes and dislikes?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh, well the harp I didn't feel go for the tone. I know it's less about instrumentization and more about tone and feeling. I just thought that if I asked the composer to use certain instruments, the sounds of those instruments would convey the tone and and feeling I wanted more accurately, rather than end up with sounds I didn't like, which is what happened in the past on other projects.

So I thought if I could be more accurate in the sounds, then I could get the tone I wanted more accurately, in terms of sound. What I could do is show the composer what sound I have in mind, and then ask if that's the best choice or if he has anything better, if that's the way to go?

[Keith Rollinson]

Ryan - you don't need to communicate "the sound" you have in mind - just the emotion you want it to describe, as paired with the footage. And if you have some temp music that comes close to what you want, all the better. Sharing great ideas is always fine, but otherwise it's best to concentrate on your own rice bowl.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, but if the composer comes up with sounds that I feel do not reflect the emotion or feeling I am going for, should I then suggest to them to maybe pick a different sound, or ask them to pick a different instrument then?

[Keith Rollinson]

Neither - just better describe the emotion you're after, and make certain the composer understands. She/he will translate this to music.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, it's just when I did that before, I would get sounds that I feel didn't work at all for what I was going for like the harp for example with a composer on a past project. So I thought I needed to be more specific therefore, rather than just say what feel I was after.

[Keith Rollinson]

It's OK to comment on instrumentation, but really your job is to focus on relating, in words, the emotional state you seek, and how the music supports the action. If you can't express what you want in words - not in musical instruments or examples - as a non-musician you will never get the results you want. If your composer doesn't get it, either you're not communicating effectively enough or you are both on non-copacetic wavelengths.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, well sometimes it's hard for me to communicate in words. For example if I say I am going for suspense, so there are so many different kinds of tones of suspense, music wise. So I will pick an example track, that I feel conveys that exact feeling of suspense. But if the composer starts putting in different types of sounds that are not in the example track, then I feel a different type of suspens is being conveyed if that makes sense?

It may be better than what I had in mind, but if I feel it's not, then should I ask him to use the sounds that are in that example to get what I was going for more?

[Keith Rollinson]

No. "Sounds" alone do not convey emotion or drive action - it's the underlying music, and context, that holds the key. The instrumentation is just the actualization, the delivery person, of what should be there in the music score. If your suggestion for a different instrument does not resonate w/ the composer, it's because the music itself isn't working. This is super basic stuff - for example, a piano reduction of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is much more similar than different from the full orchestration.