Orchestral track tips?

[Leinad]

I made this orchestral track for my course at uni. It has 14 instruments in total. Any tips for improvement or comments on what I've done well would be a great help Glenfiddich by Dan Gaffey on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

 

[Duesenberg]

overall an nice composition and good work. i'm just not so sure about your interpretation of the orchestral instruments......dunno what libraries you are using, but this seems very static and "robotic" to me. try to work more with expressions and dynamics within the playing...leave some "room" for other instruments and maybe rethink the build-up/suspense curve of your track.

i was also working on an "orchestral" piece myself...not top notch work, but i might gives you some ideas



hope this helps...nice work

 

[Leinad]

It's the built in sound library in Notion 3. It's not brilliant but it sounds a lot better than Sibelius. I agree that it sounds quite programmed, I could get the MIDI to overlap to make it sound more fluid and real.

I see what you mean by the "room" for other instruments, there's a fair amount of tutti in it. Maybe in the parts where most, if not everything is playing the same (like from 1:06) I could have some woodwind or brass runs? or just thin it out maybe and build it up. Dynamics was one of the things I wasn't very happy with, it's all kind of the same level. I really like the way your piece builds up and moves, I could try and make the something in mine build up to something more spectacular.

Any tips for how to get a good suspense curve?

Thanks for the advice though

 

[grimtraveller]

Both pieces are lovely pieces of music, well thought out and stuff, but......
They sound too bright to be real. That's always the problem I have with VSTis. When I listen to virtually all my usage of them from 2004 to last year, there's a brightness and reverb~y ambience that always slightly irritated me. Well, on some of them, like Miroslav Philharmonik, I worked out how to turn all the FX and ambience and brightness off. Makes a big difference. Record them dry and dull~ish and go through the hassle of doing one instrument at a time.
These pieces sound like the kind of sounds that keyboard wizards from 70s prog bands like Yes, Genesis and Kansas would use in lieu of actual orchestras.
But as actual pieces of music, I dig both yours and Dusenberg's.

 

[Leinad]

Thanks for the compliment and the tip grimtraveller . I wish i had a decent enough sound library that let you turn off the ambience. I'm saving up for Albion by Spitfire, it's pretty cheap as far as high quality libraries go but it's a bit much for a poor student

 

[Duesenberg]

i would prefer orchestral essentials by project sam, if it's about the money...albion is more for "underscore" kinda stuff

 

[Leinad]

Had a look at it, looks pretty good . Is it useful for underscore and other scoring uses? Because that's what I'm trying to get into

 

[Leinad]

Oh and do they offer a student discount? Because I know spitfire knock a hefty chunk off the price if your a student