Just sent mine in! 

Here's a couple of links that I ran across that I found very helpful:

http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm an interactive frequency and instrument mapping chart.

The Reason Most ITB mixes don’t Sound as good as Analog mixes (restored) which helped me a LOT in understanding how to set up for mixing.

Cheers!

Gordon.

bitflipper


This (interpolate below) is what I try and use. Unfortunately it just doesn't work, doesn't do anything, about 50% of the time and I have no idea why. Tried it on Trek Improved.mid and nothing happens.
Do you also click the "Value" button? Do you leave it at channel 1-15 or limit it to the channel you've selected? I've tried all of these.
John

____________
First, make sure you have only one MIDI track selected.

When you bring up the Interpolate dialog, deselect all but "Control". In the first two textboxes next to the "Control" checkbox, type "11" into both Min and Max. Leave everything else as-is. Now click OK.

On the second screen, go to the corresponding textboxes to the right of the "Control" checkbox (now disabled) and type "7" into both Min and Max. Click OK, and all your CC11s are now CC7s.

Also pulled the horn solo out and gave it a diff horn sound. Is that legal? Or do you have to leave it as is?

I think that's entirely in the spirit of this exercise. Most of us have had to separate the percussion instruments to accommodate various samplers. Separating individual instruments to apply different sounds is conceptually no different than inserting a patch change.

Make sure you note these things when you email your submission to Randy, because other Miroslav users (like me) will find them interesting.

ChrisE


Hi, I saw the link to this from the VI-Control forum and think this is a great idea.  I just wanted to clarify the point regarding using the same library before I spend time mocking this up.

Alot of the high end libaries will only focus on a single section of the orchestra ie Strings, Percussion etc.

The opening post mentions hearing examples with LASS (a string only library) but the welcome-readme document says:

"The only restriction is we'd like to encourage you to use one library at a time.  If you have several at your disposal, submit seperate versions for each"

Now I can understand having a rule to impose one sample library per section but one library for the whole orchestra will severly impact on the legitimacy of this entire project!

Sorry if this has been mentioned, I have scan read this thread but didn't see this discussed.

Great, Chris - Glad you saw the info, glad you're wanting to join in-and WELCOME to the SONAR Forum!

AND - Excellent catch.  I agree, you found a contradiction in the text file.

David "Bitflipper" needs to speak for himself, but I'll say that it's a totally legitimate point you make.  At the very first of this, we were thinking of "full orchestra libraries only."  But then later that was too restricting, since there are good libraries such as LASS which are strings only.

So I would correct that info to say that it would be good if mixing libraries in each section of the orchestra could be avoided.  It wouldn't be helpful if a string section were hand chosen soloists from several different libraries - nobody would be hearing a clear demo that way.  But if the string section is all from one library--everyone will have a chance to hear that library.  Same with brass - if you have SAM Brass, for instance--sticking with that one library for the brass will demo that library well.

THANks for catching the contradiction - We'll fix that up.  Hope to be hearing a contribution from you!

Randy B.

bitflipper


I may not have expressed it clearly, but the readme file should convey the desire to use one library when possible. We certainly don't want to exclude any library just because it only does strings or horns or percussion. We've discussed earlier in this thread how it's common practice to mix and match libraries in order to get the best each has to offer.

So if you want to use more than one library, no problem. But I would encourage you to stick to one lib for all the strings, one for the brass, etc. That way, listeners will be able to correlate what they're hearing with the tools you used.

Hi Bit - Good to see you so soon on this same question.  Glad you concur that to stick with one library per orchestra section is the more accurate instruction.  As new member ChrisE points out, there are so many good libraries which focus on just one section - strings, brass, woods, percussion.

It's the pick and choosing of individual instruments which would make a recording of not much value, since we wouldn't be getting any kind of clear picture from that kind of mix-and-match recording--EVEN though that's more often the way MIDI musicians usually work in developing their tracks.

--side note - Important email just now sent to you, Bit--please check your in box.

Randy B.

Hi, Matt - Thanks for your thoughts here on your post.

The idea for this particular event grew out of another thread where advice was being sought about creating the cello lines in a virtual instrument recording of "Strawberry Fields."

David "Bitflipper" got the idea that it would be neat to create some recordings which could demonstrate what various orchestral libraries are capable of - with the important caveat that there's no such thing as a "pure demo" since the human being who uses any given soft synth will lend whatever expertise he has to the recording.

The scope of this thing we're doing, the parameters are to limit the selection of libraries used in these recordings all using the same source MIDI file so we can all do some shopping - we can take a listen and draw our own conclusions about how different libraries sound.

I think you understand all that, and you said you like the concept.

But the rest of what you're suggesting is beyond the scope of what we're doing.  This isn't supposed to be a demonstration of what users are capable of doing when working the way they usually work.  Of course people don't usually limit themselves to using only one library/soft synth in a recording.  But that isn't what's being tested - not the full capabilities of the contributors, but to try and focus on the abilities of specific libraries.

So the guidelines have all been thought out and put into motion here, and those limitations are what we need to stick to in order for this "shoot out" to have the intended results.

Thanks again for your post.

Randy B.

Randy, my Dim Pro version is enroute. It's the correct file this time. At least, I'm pretty sure it is. I'm not used to collecting multiple versions in one project folder.

Next up for me is another hardware synth, the Kurzweil PC2R. I normally use this synth as a temporary placeholder while I'm composing MIDI, the way a lot of people use the TTS-1. Using a hardware synth for that purpose has advantages, not the least of which is near-zero CPU load.

I've just sent you the PCR2 version. Of all the methods I've used so far - this is my sixth submission - the quickest and easiest of all was the Kurzweil. Very little tweaking was done, even the percussion track was no problem. This synth sits quietly in my rack most of the time and I rarely reach for it as a first-choice solution. After this exercise, I may put the old gal to work more often.

Thanks, Johannes.

I think we've almost accumulated enough submissions to justify posting them. I know there are a few folks who are very close to completion - let's get them up there so we can all hear them!

Really, we're not holding off on the unveiling to be cruel. We just don't want to put anybody off from contributing or to otherwise influence their productions based on what others have already done.

And if you play it backward it hits all the audio cues in the Wizard of Oz.

Hi Randy, out of curiosity how did you get this/these midi files?  Did you make them yourself from a score or did you get them somewhere else?
 
Sorry if you mentioned this before, heh heh, too many posts to go through them all.
 
Thanks,
 
T.S.

I picked up on that, too, and wondered "who the heck is Jerry Goldsmith?".

So I found his website, Jerrry Goldsmith Online, and read up on the guy. He's got quite an impressive resume, starting in the 1950's. Quite the music factory, Jerry has been! Even if many of the films and TV shows he scored were themselves pretty forgettable (quick - can you hum the theme from "Rambo"?), he is clearly one of the more respected practitioners around Hollywood.

Check out his lengthy list of awards and nominations. I'm guessing he's retired now, since there are no entries beyond 2003. Plus he's in his 80's now.

Jerry Goldsmith passed away in 2004. It's a shame that his name never quite became as popular as John Williams...

I've heard a lot of Jerry's work, and I've liked pretty most of everything I've heard. FWIW, I may be the only one here who thinks this Star Trek theme is actually a pretty good fit as a theme for the show. If you get a chance to read up on Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage (who wrote the original ST theme), you'll see their names are mentioned with John Williams' quite a bit.

Ironically, while Jerry replaced Alexander in writing the new ST theme, Alexander still orchestrated much of what Jerry wrote--including the theme we've been playing with here! That must have been awkward....

Wikipedia (yeah, I know, I know...) has some interesting info on both men, as does IMDB.com.

Personally, I wish we could get the score for this. I think this is a great exercise, but trying to figure out what the music is supposed to do by "reverse-engineering" the parts is not as easy as being able to look at the score and see where the crescendos decrescendos, etc. are. Still, it's fun, and I appreciate the efforts of everyone involved.

And Red Shirt Guy, thanks for those links--very informative!

Okay...I'm going back to finish orchestrating this for my Poly-800....

Finished but for some strange reason I don't want to go into the string volume is way low coming from the synth.

How can I bounce just the five string tracks and then use that to balance with. I've never bounced anything byut the whole thing.

John

ps:

using the Philharmonic my tracks look like...
1 Horn solo
2 Horn Staccato
3 Horn Legato

and same for all the brass and string parts for total of 27 tracks.

John6528


Finished but for some strange reason I don't want to go into the string volume is way low coming from the synth.

How can I bounce just the five string tracks and then use that to balance with. I've never bounced anything byut the whole thing.

John

ps:

using the Philharmonic my tracks look like...
1 Horn solo
2 Horn Staccato
3 Horn Legato

and same for all the brass and string parts for total of 27 tracks.

Hi, John

First make sure that the levels of the strings are coming out at a good level from your synth.  And make sure your controller data for controlling the strings are using a good range of volume, so that at their loudest their reaching the full value of 127.

It can be tricky mixing an orchestral group like this because instruments are competing for some of the same frequency ranges.  EQ helps on the audio, but that's an art, and maybe beyond what you want to try for this recording.

Here's how to bounce just the string tracks - and I suggest you bounce to 5 separate tracks, one for each of the string tracks, so you can make the most out of balancing them with the rest of the tracks.

--While holding shift, one by one select each of the string tracks, making sure the full lengths of the MIDI tracks have been selected.

--Still holding shift, also select the associated audio outs for each of the MIDI tracks.

--Go to the Bounce dialogue under Edit, and on the right hand side you'll see a menu choice which defaults to Entire Mix.  Click that, and choose Tracks instead.

--Now in the window there in the dialogue pop-up you'll see your audio tracks selected.

--The rest of the default settings will be OK. 

Go - and you'll have your string tracks bounced to audio at the bottom of the list in Track View.

Now you can control their volume even more, probably starting with lowering the volume of all the other tracks.

Note - I suggest you bounce all of your MIDI tracks to audio before mixing.  There's much more control available when you're working only with audio tracks during the final mix.

That should get you to the finish line.

Randy B.

Note - I suggest you bounce all of your MIDI tracks to audio before mixing. There's much more control available when you're working only with audio tracks during the final mix.

I think Randy meant to say "when you're working only with MIDI tracks during the final mix".

And I agree about bouncing prior to mixing.