Composing Orchestral Music
 

Hi,

Im wanting to find some software which will allow me to compose an orchestral soundtrack for my short film. By this, I mean that I want all the instruments to be digital, and manipulated on may computer.

Im after traditional, life-like orchestral sounds (violins, drums, woodwind etc). I can read music moderately, though would prefer an interface like Reason, which doesnt require me to score using musical notation.

Does anyone know of software such as this?


Thanks

Ditto
 

I'm interested in this too. I ve seen various programs with loops to work with like Acid and Audition, but this seems more like what is needed.

Site with Loops Seens to be a lot of them
 

Here is just one of many sites that has orchestral loops:

http://www.acidmusicloops.com/orches...cid_loops.html

You don't say whether you're on the Mac or PC. On the Mac Garageband is a surprisingly powerful - and fun - program for this. If you have any musical background then hook up a MIDI keyboard and suddenly you become a whole orchestra! It also works with loops but I haven't done much with those.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

Steinberg and PropellerHeads also have loop based and midi sequencing software with libraries of orchestral instruments. To see just how good they can get, go to Steinberg's website and download their sample audio clips of their concert grand piano synthesizer "The Grand."

Another option is the SonicFire software and royalty free librariy collections from SmartSound. They have music in a wide variety of styles, including classical. The beauty of this system is that it can be shortened or lengthened at will, changed in tempo, key or mood, and basically "re-composed" on the fly in the SonicFire program without having to know a lot about music theory or having performance skills etc

In addition to Acid Loops (PC), Garage Band and SOuntrack (Mac), Apple now has Soundtrack Pro which can also use loops from Acid.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Thanks for the input. Im on PC btw.

I dont think I really just want to mix a bunch of loops together. I want control over how every note is played, so I can actually compose my own music.

I actually have an old version of Reason, before it came with Orkester. Does anyone know where I could get free symphonic/orchestra samples?

Thanks

http://www.ntonyx.com/sf_f.htm
http://www.soundfonts.it/
http://linux-sound.org/sounds.html
http://www.sseyo.com/showcase/demos/soundfonts.html
http://www.sonicimplants.com/
http://www.personalcopy.com/sfarkfonts1.htm
http://www.glasstrax.com/download/soundfonts.html

Lots of great orchestral soundfonts out there. Additionally, ACID has several libraries recorded from the Moscow Symphony that are incredible. I hear them used in major commercial works all the time.
Garageband ROCKS! Soundtrack Pro is kinda lame. Soundtrack was better in terms of usability and user friendliness. Apple would do better to blow away Soundtrack, just have a high and low value version of GarageBand, IMO.

Garage Band has virtual instruments. You need a MIDI keyboard to play them. Oh, and the chops.

Ty Ford

I do my recording in Steinberg Nuendo. Hypersonic(Steinberg) is real nice for instrumentation and orchestration...there aren't millions of sounds, but it's real intuitive and easy to use.I also use emu proteus x, which has more sounds, but is harder to use. Then there's my Roalnd 2080,Korg M1......And you have to either play the parts in through a midi keyboard, or with the pencil tool.
I sometimes use Acid for percussion and wierd stuff, but haven't heard the acid orchestral loops. Acid is a wonderfull tool also.
Bruce Yarock

BiaB
 

Band In A Box is wonderful. I am not sure of the price, since I bought the first of my two copies several years ago, and my most recent one was donated to a high-school film program, but the program is a wonder. It actually composes music based on several algorithms, and every piece is original and royalty free. It will also generate chord progressions in any of several hundred styles, and either write a lead and melody, or permit you to enter the notes - writing your own melodies. It will also allow you to write the meoldy, and then generate chords around it.

Once you get the sounds you like from the links DSE provided, and assuming you have a MIDI keyboard, you should record and assemble the tracks with a multitrack MIDI editor like Cubase or Sonar. I've heard of, but never used Propellarhead's Reason -- maybe it's the same thing. If you are looking for sounds that are better than the free stuff and are really hardcore about this stuff, look at something like the PMI Symphonic Orchestra collection (expensive).

Band In A Box link
 

You can go to http://www.pgmusic.com/ and read about it.

thanks very much for all ur input, it was very helpful. presently im mucking around with my old version of Reason which has I found has some (though limited) orchestral sounds. Its actually going ok..its a bit quirky sounding but my short film is quirky anyway! Maybe ill post my results once Ive done a bit more - this is my first score ever.

Band In Box
 

Roy:

I've messed around with a version of Band in A Box years ago, and remember it doing a lot of what you indicate. I'm no musical genious, and it was fun fooling around with a melody and adding instruments, and then letting the program run and provide its version with chords and all. But I never thought it could get good enough for a decent soundtrack. Do you have some examples we could hear?

Chris Barcellos