What kind of hardware and software do I need in order to create a quality orchestral piece? Thanks.

Too many choices there. What budget? What quality? If both replies=infinte then buy an orchestra from some east european country.

Potentially you can create some good orchestral music with just a freeware tracker (Twisted Cinema using OctaMED was a good one). There are a lot of possiblities.

A separate orchestral sound module, a midi-keyboard and a sequencer like Logic or Cubase is one option. Roland and Yamaha both do one. Try a sound gear or music hardware site, or shop. Making orchestral music electronically is not easy. It'll take a lot of practise to make it sound 'real'... if it -ever- does.

Mark

[edited by - Mark Sheeky on September 19, 2003 3:06:41 PM]

Also there's Gigastudio combined with sound libs, but expect to pay at least a couple thousand for a full orchestra. The quality will be very good if you go this route and spend some time learning how to write parts and edit midi correctly for this type of music. You can also just get a full orchestral library for gigastudio, which will run you (with the program) a little over a thousand dollars.

A few warnings, though. Gigastudio doesn't run that well unless your machine is very good, from what I hear. Also, I think the current version is starting to get a bit outdated. I'm not for sure about any of this, since I've never used it myself, I've only heard clips of the libs and read about it online. Perhaps someone can give a bit more info about it? There's a few other programs like Gigastudio, such as Kontakt, but I don't know much about those. Oh, and these programs will only get you the sounds, so....

You'll also need a way to create the notes, most likely a midi sequencer, midi keyboard, or both, like Mark mentioned. Sonar is another option here in addition to Logic and Cubase. Expect to pay at least around a hundred here, probably more.

You might need a way to mix everything down, unless you're lucky enough to get that taken care of in Gigastudio. I think Sonar, Logic, and Cubase can all handle this area as well. You might want to research, though. You might have to cut some corners if you go with a low-end version of the programs mentioned.

Finally, you could get a mastering program if you want, but if you're serious about it and don't have an absolutely great ear, you might just want to pay someone to do that. The programs are T-raks and Sound Forge. Sound Forge is a pretty handy program anyway. Expect to pay a hundred or more for the software here, or pay anywhere from $100 to $1000 and up for someone else to do it. Then again, I think mastering is still uncommon in video game music.

Anyway, I hope that helps.
Travis

[edit: just checked, you can get a cheap cakewalk, low version of gigastudio, and a cheap full orchestra sound lib for about $800 total... dunno how much this will sacrifice, though]

[edited by - death adder on September 20, 2003 12:33:43 AM]

The least one would need for this is pen and paper..

If you want to make a great track with serious soundtrack-quality sound.. imho.. you would then need a real orchestra with very good recording gear.

Gonna make everything at home? Depends on how good you want it! A dedicated gigastudio-computer with soundlibrarys for ~$1000 connected to a nice mac with pro tools or logic would be great. I''m using hardware samplers instead. Check out www.emu.com .. they are almost giving away their samplers now

A little bit more budget.. mac g4 with emagic big box (a package for about $300 that contains sequencer, sampler, synthesizer, effects and so on..) + a smaller sample-library.

Another budget alternative.. a korg triton le 61 with sample-expansion.. www.korg.com..
..or maybe an e-mu module with a little midikeyboard + a small portastudio?

as mark said.. there are many choices..

Another way to take advantage of high quality gigastudio samples without having to use such a resource-consuming program like Gigastudio is to find a few converters (AWave and SampliConv are two great programs for this) and turn any Gigasample into a Soundfont. Then you can use the soundfont in a multitude of programs like Sonar and whatnot.

I personally use FL Studio 4 to compose in, and I can use the gigasamples to get realistic orchestral music. Its been working well for me.

I''ll simplify the basics, instead of listing my full studio gear, to give you an idea:

a Win2k PC running FL Studio 4 and Cakewalk Sonar 2.
an A-33 MIDI keyboard controller
a Proteus 2000 sound module
a Echo MIA recording card
a Echo Darla 24 recording card

Gigastudio is the leading software-based sampler right now; it''s the industry standard, but Kontakt is climbing the ranks due to some popular sample packages that have come out for it.

Gigastudio 3.0 is in the works right now and when released should have some cool new features with it.

The sample sets for Gigastudio are by far higher in quality than any other hardware samplers available right now. If you''re serious about doing a convincing orchestral mockup with a MIDI setup, I''d highly recommend it.

=)

-Scott

_____________
scott b. morton
game music composer/geek
www.scottbmorton.com
member of G.A.N.G. (Game Audio Network Guild)

to make realistic orchestral scores on your computer you need giga libraries, why? Because the majority of sample companies currently only release these libraries in giga format, however you do not need gigasampler to run these Libraries, a sampler such as HALion has great support for playingback giga files and is frequently updated to do so, infact many say HALion has now surpassed gigasample in terms of functionality :-)

Giga libraries also vary in quality and price, the most recent release was the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, it costs upto about 5k dollars for this library! In my own opinion its not worth it :-) Sure it covers everything, but I think you can get very VERY convincing results from using libraries such as Garritan Strings etc :-) for a far more reasonable price...

I have listed some great ones to check out below

Sonic Implants Symphony Strings - A great string lib
Available in an affordable lite edition

Garritan Orchestra Strings - An industry standard in string libraries for games - available in a lite edition.

Vienna Strings - You can break down the Vienna Set to get just what you want!

Kirk Hunters Solo Strings - check these out, the best darn solo violin I`ve heard, and very reasonably priced. You can also get solo viola, double bass and cello!

Project SAM`s Brass Collection - Great Brass, choose what you want from here, or get all of them :-)

Dan Deans Wood Winds - Some great woodwinds - also available in a LITE edition.

There are some other greats too, for choirs, check out

Choirs of the Apocolypse
Symphony of Voices
Diva Solo Voices

-------A note on PC SPEC

These libraries are highly demanding, you`ll read about lots of people running separate giga studio setups but in my experience this is highly unnecessary... I use a P4 2.53, 1 GIG of ram, and I will be upgrading to 3ghz, 2 gig ram soon but this is all you need to run everything, providing you have disk space, and the appropriate software.

for more information on software, just let me know.
Its an expensive game, if you are looking for a cheaper solution, do some hunting around and you`ll find some great downloadable giga files, and soundfonts, alternatively you can just use General MIDI... orchestral composing isn`t all about samples, but largely about arrangement, if you use the cheesiest samples, but arrange well, people will still get that impression that it was originally an orchesztral piece perhaps transposed to MIDI for game limitations, it still has the same feeling, it just doesnt sound real.

The problem with samples is it never ends :-) You can spend 3k on great samples and still need a sequencer, sample, mastering tools, a great reverb... although for reverbs, check out SIR it might help you :-)

Hope this helps.

David

These recent discussions bring up two questions, if I may:

1) Hasn''t gigastudio 3.0 been in the works for at least a year or two now? Does anyone have any press release or anything else that states it will be coming out soon, or is this wishful thinking? (not a bad wish, mind you

2) When you convert giga libraries, don''t you loose some sort of settings? (velocity, articulations... I can''t remember what exactly, just remember reading that somewhere).

Death,

The only things Ive noticed a loss of so far are things that are Gigastudio specific... Like mod wheel adjustments in the Voices of the Apocalypse series... the shift from OOOO to AHHH using the mod wheel is lost. Yet, you can jsut make one track of ooh and anothe track of Ahh and get a similar blending process..not exactly the same thing, but if you do it right, it''ll still sound good.

Ultimately, gigasamples are best used in Gigastudio, I cant deny that. Yet, if yo''re not familair with Gigastudio, using a program you''re familiar with is a lot more productive.