remote string recording services - anyone got experience?

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b00n

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Hello everyone,
I haven't been around for quite some time.
I'm looking to add real strings tom my next recordings.
DIY is a royal pain, finding and scheduling competent players and decent rooms and doing proper recording on location.

Over the last few years a cottage industry of remote recording services has sprung up all over the world.
Does anyone have experience with a good remote recording service beyond the SEO-optimized google top results?
Like a string quartet or a 22-piece orchestra?
 
The big snag is producing the music they need. For me it was a multi-stage process. I send my cubase file to a colleague, he produces the dots originally on sibelius, but more lately dorico. Now Cubase 14 has a version of dorico I'm trying to get his quality, and failing. The final part of the process is another colleague who takes the scores and returns full parts, or stems.
 
I know Fiverr gets mixed reviews but I remember seeing an ensemble on that platform which produced some very impressive samples (for context, I'm an award-winning string player) and offered a lot of customization.
Also, I assume you've done your research budget-wise?
 
b00n said:
Hello everyone,
I haven't been around for quite some time.
I'm looking to add real strings tom my next recordings.
DIY is a royal pain, finding and scheduling competent players and decent rooms and doing proper recording on location.

Over the last few years a cottage industry of remote recording services has sprung up all over the world.
Does anyone have experience with a good remote recording service beyond the SEO-optimized google top results?
Like a string quartet or a 22-piece orchestra?
Click to expand...
First off before using anyone you need a exacting score of the music you want played - so either you hire someone or do it yourself - if you are not an experienced writer (meaning you’ve written hundreds of scores for a recording) then you hire someone and stop wasting your time - strings it matters very little who you use - as long as they have a track record of recording parts and plenty of examples of recorded parts - String players are usually competent - but finicky about what they are to play - engineers on the season have to have a clear understanding of how you want to the strings mic’d - and you have to have a right of refusal if you what you asked for is not what you’ve got - I’ve used a few services but I’ve had a Arranger and Score writer involved - I get what I want 99.9% of the time.
 
Papanate said:
First off before using anyone you need a exacting score of the music you want played - so either you hire someone or do it yourself - if you are not an experienced writer (meaning you’ve written hundreds of scores for a recording) then you hire someone and stop wasting your time - strings it matters very little who you use - as long as they have a track record of recording parts and plenty of examples of recorded parts - String players are usually competent - but finicky about what they are to play - engineers on the season have to have a clear understanding of how you want to the strings mic’d - and you have to have a right of refusal if you what you asked for is not what you’ve got - I’ve used a few services but I’ve had a Arranger and Score writer involved - I get what I want 99.9% of the time.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply!
To put things into context, I'm a classically trained cellist, I played double bass in a bigband for 5 years, I've had my share of bad sheets to read. 🥸 My partner is a trained violin and viola player.
A friend of mine is a studied (and competent) composer/arranger. He would proofread my sheets or even do the arranging, so I'm pretty confident that I hand out sheets that won't cause friction in the sessions. :wtf::D

Outsourcing that whole shebang of finding and scheduling 22 players who can play the right temperament intonation for pop music, can sight read competently enough, in a nice room with nice microphones and 25-ish headphone feeds and sets of headphones...
...seems like a good idea.
I'd appreciate recommendations for ensembles or service providers you have had good experience with.
 
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Serendipity Records said:
I know Fiverr gets mixed reviews but I remember seeing an ensemble on that platform which produced some very impressive samples (for context, I'm an award-winning string player) and offered a lot of customization.
Also, I assume you've done your research budget-wise?
Click to expand...
Thanks!
I don't have yet budgeted for it as I really don't have any point of reference.
I will poke around fiverr, but it seems to be a pretty exploitive and price gauging environment.
I'd prefer a kinda established, independent service, I guess.
 
Budget is not that tricky. How long do you want the musicians for. In the UK, minimum call would be 3 hours, if the musicians are doing this stuff all the time. You might get amateurs for less. Let's assume you get a group of semi-pro musicians, but they're strangers to you. They have no investment in your music - you are just a paying client. If they said they'd do the session for £100/$120, you can get a rough figure for their cost. Distance might mean travel and hotels too of course. Somebody will have to generate the music (you?) and somebody will need to conduct. Add in the recording costs and away you go. It could be that buying a good sample library would be much cheaper, and then your time doesn't matter.

People are VERY expensive.
 
b00n said:
Thanks!
I don't have yet budgeted for it as I really don't have any point of reference.
I will poke around fiverr, but it seems to be a pretty exploitive and price gauging environment.
I'd prefer a kinda established, independent service, I guess.
Click to expand...
I suspect I know the answer, but is well done VST work an option? Mastering engineer I've worked with in the past has also done a lot of programming/arrngement work with virtual strings, I'd be happy to refer you.

I expect this to go over about as well as someone offering me a virtual guitar programming referral, so please take this with the intent it was given - wanting to help, but pretty sure it's not the answer. :lol:
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I suspect I know the answer, but is well done VST work an option? Mastering engineer I've worked with in the past has also done a lot of programming/arrngement work with virtual strings, I'd be happy to refer you.

I expect this to go over about as well as someone offering me a virtual guitar programming referral, so please take this with the intent it was given - wanting to help, but pretty sure it's not the answer. :lol:
Click to expand...
Thanks for your offer!
Right now I'm on a self-imposed "keeping it real"-trip, though. 🤷‍♀️
I'm really contemplating my options of making real strings work.
And "not having budgeted, yet", does not mean "there won't be any budget".
I've been looking a this, for example:
Remote recording in Ukraine via fiverr

I'm not exactly sure what ensemble size this would be, but 350 Eurodollars for a string section for one or two songs on my next record, I could make this happen.
The music education in the former USSR-countries is usually terrific, there might be great players involved.
Cranking out string tracks manufactory-style with competent players could be very efficient, so it could really be a win/win situation.
Outsourcing string and orchestra production does not seem to be widely popular, yet.
 
b00n said:
Thanks for your offer!
Right now I'm on a self-imposed "keeping it real"-trip, though. 🤷‍♀️
I'm really contemplating my options of making real strings work.
And "not having budgeted, yet", does not mean "there won't be any budget".
I've been looking a this, for example:
Remote recording in Ukraine via fiverr

I'm not exactly sure what ensemble size this would be, but 350 Eurodollars for a string section for one or two songs on my next record, I could make this happen.
The music education in the former USSR-countries is usually terrific, there might be great players involved.
Cranking out string tracks manufactory-style with competent players could be very efficient, so it could really be a win/win situation.
Outsourcing string and orchestra production does not seem to be widely popular, yet.
Click to expand...
The link doesn't work... but yeah that's what I mentioned earlier. Keep us posted and maybe once you finish your production, share a sample?
 
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