So, I have started setting up a template using my new orchestral libraries. As expected it's both a fun and a frustrating experience. Here's what I have so far:

The Sword Coast

Feels odd to say in this context, but never mind the music. This is the same old stuff I always end up writing when I have no specific idea in mind or anything to go on. My main concern here was putting something together that has enough dynamics and enough different instruments to allow me to set levels and panning and generally hear how everything sounds together as a whole.

My own thoughts so far? Well, Hollywood Brass is awesome. Pretty much set and forget aside from learning what all the different articulations are best used for. Soundwise, it's all I could ask for. Hyperion Strings Elements on the other hand seems to require a bit more massaging. They can sound anemic if you arrange them wrong, and there appears to be no easy way of making a quicker series of notes sound convincing (case in point, 1:45). Still, the library has a lot of options and I need to dig in and experiment more. I also definitely need some good section woodwinds. I'm using VSCO 2 here, which I love for winds, but the solo instruments don't have enough body for bigger arrangements, even with some tweaks to stereo width and even a subtle doubling effect.

Anyway, I'm kind of limited in terms of what else I can add right now since it appears 16GB RAM is actually on the meager side for modern libraries But I'm going to upgrade ASAP to at least 24GB or maybe 32GB if I can find a good deal.

Whaddaya think?

AIR Music Technology's Loom Classic is on sale for only $5.39 over on Pluginboutique. Since I'm a fan of Hybrid 3 from the same developer, I decided to give it a shot, and what can I say--this is also a very cool synth with tons of presets and an Alchemy-like "morph pad" feature. Just browsing through the pads alone got me instantly inspired! Loom II is also on sale for just $17.69, and I might snag that one as well. Just wanted to check its predecessor out first.

I have come to realize that my losing the passion for creating orchestral music might be a sign of me having outgrown the tools at my disposal. Over the past weeks I have had a handful of orchestral ideas that I've tried to capture, but every single time I get frustrated with the libraries I have--with them either sounding dated, not being able to capture the sound I hear in my head, or I'm simply sick of them--and consequently I give up.

However, later this month I will be receiving the final royalty payment for my Horus Heresy soundtrack, which amounts to around $360. This isn't money I was expecting in any way since I was under the impression the previous payment was going to be the last one, which is a pleasant surprise of course. So I'm going sieze the opportunity and invest it in a few new orchestral libraries to hopefully get my creative juices flowing again. I've been doing some research and some thinking the past week, and here's what I've come up with so far.

When it comes to woodwinds and percussion, I don't think I need any of that right now. The solo winds in VSCO 2 Pro are fantastic, and as for sections I can still use some of the older libs I have. Percussion--again, VSCO 2 has some great stuff for classical/oldschool arrangements, and I have more epic/trailer type percussion freebies than I will ever find a use for. Choral libraries? Would be fun to have, but I don't use choral parts to such a degree that I can motivate the expense at this point, not when there's stuff I need more. So I will be focusing on strings and brass here.

STRINGS

Hyperion Strings Elements. I love the sound of this thing (don't mind the silly gliss legatos prevalent in the Soundcloud demos, check out this video instead), and the fact that it has smaller sections and is recorded dry. This gives me more options and more versatility, since I can easily layer a small section with something else and add ambience/reverb to it to make it bigger, but I can't make a big sample smaller or less wet. Unless anyone has any compelling arguments why I shouldn't spring for this, Hyperion Strings Elements is what I'll be getting.

BRASS

Here's where things get a little more hairy. I have two similarly priced candidates right now, namely:

ProjectSAM Orchestral Brass Classic
Pros: I like the sound of it, it has smaller sections as well as two mic positions. Also, Kontakt Player compatible. Cons: Old samples reprogrammed and repackaged, with scripted rather than true legato. Edit: I knew someone here had mentioned this one. Nayrb, yay or nay?

EastWest Hollywood Brass Gold
Pros: More modern-sounding, very slick. Cons: Perhaps too slick for my taste, and has only one mic position. And it runs on the Play Engine, which I would prefer not having to deal with.

If anyone here has any experience with either of these, I would love to hear your opinions. Or maybe there's some other affordable alternative that I've managed to miss?


KONTAKT... OR SOMETHING ELSE?

"But," I hear you say, "that's only $200, what about the rest of the money?" Well, since Black Friday is coming up, I'm thinking I should save the final $160 and put it towards purchasing the full version of Kontakt if it goes on sale at a sensible price. Or is there some other library you think might be a good fit for the above instead?

Hi Folks!
I am testing this Cubase expression maps in the latest early release of CbB and they are working perfeclty. https://arpegiah.com/expression-maps/
Very useful addition to the program

D16 Group have released a new reverb called Spacerek at the introductory price of €59 (regular price €79). I downloaded the trial version and after having played around with it for a short while, my initial impressions are very positive. In fact, it sounds fantastic. Take a listen here.

In memory of our cat Simba, who left us last week. He was 16 years old and his health had deteriorated to a point where he could no longer lead a happy cat life, so we had to say goodbye to him. This is not completely finished yet, so any thoughts on the arrangement and mixing would be welcome.

On an unrelated note, once this is finished it will probably be my last VO piece for some time. Over the past year I've grown increasingly frustrated with my progress (or lack thereof), and I'm at a junction where I need to stop and have a good long think about where to go from here. Do I try to rekindle my passion for composing somehow, or do I simply move on to other more gratifying pursuits such as writing? I don't know. Perhaps the urge to write orchestral music will come sneaking back eventually, as it usually does, but right now, I don't have the patience for it. It takes too much damn time, and even after spending all that time, I'm rarely happy with the results. Rather than keep frustrating myself further and risking becoming so disgusted with it all that I'll give music up altogether, I'm going to just back away and focus on other things for a while.

Hi everyone!
Did any of you tried this sample library from Melda Production? I think it sounds pretty damn great, specially considering is 0$ price tag.

Hey everyone,

So, I just uploaded a new track and I was hopping to send it to one of the channels which promotes music. A basic necessity is that I mention the genre of the track with as much specificity as possible.
Although I can string a few descriptive words to fill out the genre section, I would appreciate some help in deciding the most suitable genre. Any help will be appreciated.

This track is quite special for me due to the fact who i have written it for. I recorded a guitar solo after ages simply because I had to make it special.

If you check the track out, do let me know what you think.

Thanks 

Hey everyone,

So, the people I know has been edging me on for a while advising me to share the music I make and I finally decided to comply. I uploaded a couple of tracks and I would love to hear what you guys think.

The first one is dark cinematic orchestral track in the lines of epic music infused with metal. Apart from the guitars and bass, all other instruments are from sample libraries, including the vocals.




 


I did all the mixing and mastering as well, so, any thoughts on how those aspects of production are will be helpful. If you feel there are avenues I can improve upon, please let me know so that I can improve the next time around. If you have ideas for making the videos better, that will be helpful as well.

Thanks,
Sayan



PS. I still am cringing at the 'artist' name but I had to pick one as my real name is too common to use

For a long time I have wanted to try a large diaphragm condenser mic, but the price of a nice one has always been more than I wanted to pay. Recently I found an Instructable called Modify a cheap LDC Condenser microphone; the idea is to buy a cheap microphone and replace the capsule and circuitry with better electronics. I wondered how much the parts would cost, so I told myself that I was just going to look it up (you know, out of idle curiosity). I went to digikey.com and found most of the components. After I had them all in the cart it was too easy to place the order. At that point, I just had to build it.

I tested the cheap microphone when it arrived, and sure enough it had a horrible high frequency hiss noise that was something like -30 or -40 dB relative to the signal. It was so bad that I initially thought it was picking up the sound of the AC, but I moved into a closet and blocked the entrance with a blanket, and still got the hiss.

I proceeded to gut it and set about replacing the internal parts. It took a few tries to get it right, which is a story of its own, but I finally got it working.

Here's a quick sound test:




Here are some pictures of the build:



This is a picture of the circuit installed in the microphone body, along with the new capsule in a mount that my brother made with his 3d printer:


This is the microphone with the cover replaced: