--re: The piccolo and/or flute line in this file, I'm still wondering if there isn't an incorrect octave issue going on.  Libraries will have the same instruments in different octaves from each other, meaning that sometimes a MIDI track in a file like this may have to be transposed in order for a given synth instrument to play correctly.  Either that or you shift the patch inside the synth.

The G in the piccolo line is the one above the instrument's lowest note, C - I think that's right.  I can't break away to check the file.  But I do know that I had no issues of the lines being beyond the stretch of my instruments - and supposedly the soft synth instruments I'm using are programmed to play only in their real life possible ranges.

Kev, you mentioned the second trombone track - that's definitely a bass trombone, and a tuba substitutes for it just fine.  In the .cwp file I think I labeled the instruments.

Randy B.

bitflipper


I used a tuba for that low "trombone" part.

Sure, that works fine.  I guess some libraries don't have a bass trombone.  The one I'm using does, so I used that along with tuba also.  Good example of doing whatever adapting people need to do with this file.

Randy B.

Twigman


started work in this tonight - jesus is the orkester soundbank in reason3 cumbersome to work with in Sonar or what?  LOL....several instances of NNXT for each instrument!!! so that the various playing styles can best be represented.....I'm by no means a pro but i'm having fun and no it sounds nothing like a real orchestra yet...LOL

real orchestra????  oh shucks... here I was trying to make it sound vulcan.. back to the drawing table.

LpMike75


/waits impatiently to hear some submissions...

It Is going to be fun to hear all of these, Mike, guaranteed.  Since I'm the one collecting the MP3s, I've had a sneak preview.  Great stuff. 

Since Bitflipper started this whole idea off, I'm deferring to him as to when the first page of tracks will go up.  Looks like we'll be holding off for some time so that we're more sure to have most of the tracks that will be submitted.  We'll keep you posted.

Randy B.

bitflipper


Oh sure, make me the bad guy, Randy.

I haven't actually heard any of the submissions myself (other than the ones I submitted) so I'll be hearing them all for the first time along with everyone else. I'm looking forward to it, too.

But I'm concerned that if we post them too soon it may discourage others from joining in. I don't want anyone to hear some killer rendition and think "I can't top that, so there's no point in me making a contribution". I've therefore argued that we should at least wait until after the coming weekend before the reveal.

So if you were thinking it might be fun to give it a try - go ahead, it will be. Promise.

hehehe--But you're not the Bad Guy, Bitflipper - you're the Hero of this thing.  It all started on the "Strawberry Fields Cellos" thread and you said, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if..."

I think it's a fine idea to wait until we have the majority of projects people are working on.  It'll make for a Lot to take in when it's all finally posted, and then we add more as long as people come up with more tracks.  It's great.


Randy B.

Red Shirt Guy


Good to know we have some more time!

I'm pretty much down to tweaking my timpani track.  The rolls sound *terrible*...  :-\   I hope thinning the notes out is permissible...

Gordon.

Hi, Gordon - Answering your question right away - Yes, Absolutely it's permissible to change the percussion rolls.

This thread is huge and top heavy with words now, and it's impossible for anyone to keep track of it all.  We've been trying to keep the info prominent that editing the percussion is not only allowed, but encouraged.

In the original MIDI file, the tympani roll, and the snare roll, are both hard-quantized.  Robotic, impossibly perfect.  The first thing in making a roll natural is to Not have the notes quantized.  You may want to experiment with not only thinning out notes, but actually adding more.  You could try erasing the notes entirely, and starting from scratch, just covering the same number of measures.

As long as what was intended is still there - We can see there's meant to be a tympani roll - Make it sound as good as you can with what you're using.  If your library has a round-robin on its percussion, that helps a lot.  Imperfect timing is key.  And some libraries have the left and right hand strikes on a drum like the snare and/or tympani which would call for the notes being separated out to separate octaves - wherever the two different strikes are located.

In other words, yes, do whatever you can to perform those rolls with your soft synth.

Glad you're still plowing ahead!

Randy B.

Thanks, Randy!

Definitely learning a lot here... 

Gordon.

Grem


Questions maybe help!!!

I have the files loaded into GPO4. I never knew what ya'll were talking about when you said "Keyswitches". Now I know! But what I found was that if I used a KS on the Pics it affected the oboes. Anytips in this department?

I have never had this much midi going at once. CPU meter staying around 35 - 50% with sudden jumps to 75 -80%. I am also getting some clicks when playing back file. Any advise here?

I am loving this!!! Thanks again!!

Hi, Grem - So cool that you're enjoying this so much, and learning more about your software.  This is a small MIDI project, maybe "medium" sized in some people's books, so it's a good start - not a 64 track monster file.

Keyswitches on one instrument won't effect another instrument, unless you've somehow managed to get them on the same MIDI channel.  That's the only possible explanation.

And you use the keyswitches by having those notes added to your MIDI tracks.  You don't just click the red keys in the ARIA interface - that keyboard there is just for audition purposes.  You need to add keyswitching notes to the tracks so they're a permanent part of your project.  - I'm not sure what switching in the woodwinds you'd actually need in this brief piece though.

In the Aria player, as you load your instruments, it lays the MIDI channels out for you, 1 through 16, to match the slots in the mixer, 1 through 16.  BUT the default is for all of the instruments to play out of just one stereo pair "1 and 2"--that's L and R making one stereo pair.  There are 32 audio channels available - 1 and 2, 3 and 4 etc on through to 31 and 32.  Look at the mixer - where you see "1 and 2" drag over it and give each instrument its own audio channel out.  That's the best way to make the most out of your mix--Otherwise you'll be stuck doing all your leveling and mixing inside Aria, which is cramped compared to the space you have in Sonar.

Your CPU usage sounds fairly normal for an average computer.  Clicks are what happens when you have that much going on.  If you can live with it, those are the kind of playback clicks that won't be recorded in your final version.  In the Audio settings in Sonar, try the various sizes for buffers, 256, 512.  Increasing those could get rid of your clips.  Only adjust your interface's latency if you have to - you need to keep it under 10 msecs to be able to record MIDI tracks.

Randy B.

This is good, I'm enjoying it. I'm running around 19% cpu even idle, and around 35 - 40 at max. It was worse before I set up as another user in Vista and I can  easier switch off some startup stuff, although not perfect. It's great practice for someone like me who may not open Sonar for some time.
I lost everything yesterday when I tried to reopen the project, but it's easy enough to start again.
As I start and work through, it seems to my inexperienced (mixing wise) ears okay, then as more instruments get added I admit that things just seem to get a little muddled.
I haven't used  any busses etc as I don't want to mess up, but someone earlier said strings should be more prominent. Any other advice on the other instruments? No biggie, I know you all want to get back to it, although the wife's tiring of it just a little :)

rbowser


"...someone earlier said strings should be more prominent..."  Yes, I saw that.  I'll just say that this advice is debatable.  My general practice is to Not have the strings so prominent.  There's a perception of size and majesty that happens when the strings aren't as up front as they might be in a straight recording done of a live orchestra.

I agree here....more important to me than the levels in the mix is the positioning in the stereo image of the instruments.
I am trying to get the stereo picture of a traditional orchestra right......I don't have a surround mixing facility in my bedroom studio but am considering moving my PC down to the lounge to plug into the AV amp for a bit of surround mixing so that I could sit in the middle of the orchestra!! i probably won't though as the Mrs would get upset not being able to watch TV...LOL
 
 
Edit: mine'll probably not be ready for another week as I have my band's latest 7" vinyl to mix and my lads birthday and a trip to Belgium coming up......busy busy busy

Thanks, Jsaras - That's a nice succinct bit of writing.

On that same topic, Twigman said, "...I am trying to get the stereo picture of a traditional orchestra right..."

That's a worthy goal, but there is no definitive traditional seating arrangement.  If you look it up either in orchestration books or online, you'll see several different layouts.  There will be differences like if a harp is included, it will sit either far stage right (left hand side for the audience) or just the opposite on far stage left.

The sections, woods, brass, strings, percussion, shift around in different ways in different charts also.

The reality is that the actual seating of a particular orchestra will often be unique and based on several factors:

--The number of musicians + the size of their venue.  This is a biggie, with the space available causing orchestras to squish into all sorts of different shapes.

--The preferences of the conductor.  For instance, the traditional way of dividing up the five different parts of the string section is sometimes completely changed by a conductor who has theories about how the sound in the auditorium can be improved with some re-arranging.

Quite a few composers writing orchestral music are using computers to generate their sheet music and to produce scratch demos of their work.  For the most part these folks will stick with the most common seating arrangements for orchestras, and they'll put their demo recordings together so that a live performance is emulated.  Their "renderings" will be based on making listeners feel like they're sitting in good seats at the center of an auditorium.

Other people writing orchestral music get more adventurous with their recordings, because they get interested in the possibilities of improving the sound, or at least of making their recordings unique and crafted to particular pieces of music.  The reality of what's done in a live performance is less important to them.

A perfect example of a seating arrangement which is often changed in "virtual orchestra" recordings is the placement of the bass strings.   On stage they're traditionally way over on stage left (to the audience's right).  They're behind the cellos.  It makes for a pretty thick chunk of sound coming from one side of the stage - something which has been avoided in recordings for decades now.

To move the basses so they're center stage, the way the bass in pop recordings is always at the center, results in a recording which is more like what people are accustomed to hearing - and it really is simply a more balanced, and possibly a more pleasing sounding recording. 

And so on.

Jsaras also said, "...This is post #200.  I think it's high time to actually hear some music!..."

It's not unreasonable to say its time to hear some music.  But I refer you to post #189 where Bitflipper said, "...I'm concerned that if we post them too soon it may discourage others from joining in..."  I agree with that.  We do hope that more versions of this file are submitted after the initial release of the page with all the MP3s, but it's likely that as soon as the collection is available, people will fizzle out on the idea of making their own recordings.

We're doing fairly well - We have 10 projects so far.  I know that several more people are still working on their versions, so there are more to come.  We'll give them a chance to wrap up their work, then we'll post this great Orchestral Shootout!

Randy B.

OK, Jose, if it makes you happy your deadline is Monday at 12:00 AM PST. Better get busy.

Hi guys, this might have been covered already but just in case.  On the "Horn" track some of the midi
notes are doubled up.  There's not a lot of them and if your useing a Staccato articulation it might
not matter.  Some of them are on the top line and some are on the second line.  There's just a few of
them that are actually doubled and the rest are extended further then they should be.
 
T.S.

Yeap, noticed that too. 

I also separated the melodic lines from the harmonic content in the Horns.  They were all in the same track, so I put 'em in separate layers. 

As far as the low Piccolo note that was being discussed earlier in the thread, I didn't bother with it and just left that note to the Flutes (which are more suited to play it).


Thanks though! :-)

"...I read that you were gonna take longer before releasing the files, so I took advantage of that..."

Funny how that works - We decided to take longer because we've been waiting for you! 

Well, it's like someone said on this thread - it's dangerous to tell a musician there's no deadline - hehe.

I've seen quite a few downloads of the materials from my Box folder (they update me), so I have the impression there's a good number of projects still to come in.

Keep it simple, let the software you use shine, do what editing you feel you really need to do - and then just send the MP3 on in!

Randy B.