Mozart's Symphony no.25 First Movement
https://soundcloud.com/aaudiomystiks/mozart-symphony-no25-in-g-minor-first-movementAnd now for something compleatly different...to quote Monty Python.
One of the ways I've learned music production, and indeed music composition over the years is to pull apart tracks by The Beatles, which I've then either tried to recreate or interpret. Because I've been having some trouble with the music schools here in Oz, and their snobbery in regards to my reverse-engineering technique...I decided to take it up a notch so to speak. I've done this by trying to interpret Mozart's Symphony no.25 in gminor.
To do this, I've scribed into my orchestral instrument the piece from a score Notion (sorry cakewwalk you should have purchesed the rights to this software) :), this took 4 and half days straight - ten hours a day. Some of the chords are very discordant confusing me, plus I had to work out the horn section...horns were in bflat and g, and I had to tune the horns...this is why the scribing took so long.
Once I had scribed the score into Notion, I then bounced the audio into Sonar...yes, I did and always do use Sonar for mixing and further sound design. Still the best DAW in the bussiness, because of the way Sonar has implemented the analouge emulation aesthetic ;).
Now rather than do a straight interpretation of the symphony, I though about how I could improve the sonics. I did this by taking the sampled instruments, and then reconstituting these sounds using both granular synthesis and wavetable syntheis. The strings, were placed in Padshop granular synth, which acted as a sampler/effects synth, whilst the bassoon and bass instruments were reconstituted using Waves granular wavetable synth by taking a smaller grain and recreating the instruments sound that way. The granular instruments were then recombined with the 'real' sampled instruments to create what I'm terming an orchestral soundscape...there are some other whacky horn sounds in the mix too...trains and car horns, because originally I was going to create a film painting for the piece and to tie the images with the sounds together...I wanted to sculplt these real world sounds into orchestral instruments. I will do this one day :).
Now you would think that I was finished after all this, but no! I've discovered a set of emerging plugins which can be used to create what I like to call spatial mixing...I'm still researching this, but basically from what I can tell these plugs are an off shoot of ambisonics, think binaural sound for example. So what I've done is not only recreate the sampled sounds, I've also given each individual sound a place in the mix according to how an orchestra would be seated, and this includes height...oh yea, when the piece goes into a piano part (quiet for none music theory heads), you get the impression of space and where the instrument sits on the sound stage.
Finally, one of the coolest things I've learnt lately is how each componenet within Sonar's analouge emulation aesthetic interact together, for example the tape sim and the noise knob...if you know what you're listeing for it's a revelation when you get the setting correct. There is also virtual binaural reverb and delay as well, meaning if you listen to the piece on headphones...sound will fly around your head.
Enjoy Ben