Just for fun, I've been refining the "cheapskate orchestra" I used for Imperium, adding in a bit of new freeware thingies that weren't out yet when I composed the album -- like Orchestral Tools Layers and the full ProjectSAM Free Orchestra -- plus that I have replaced a few instruments I weren't happy with using the cheapest possible alternatives (which usually means Sonivox).
This composition is just for testing purposes and I will add more bits to it, in different styles, so I can properly hear what everything sounds like toghether.
I have been using Dragonfly Hall for a project the past week, and it has worked great. Up until today that is, when my CPU usage in REAPER suddenly skyrocketed. Looking at the performance meter, I noticed each instance of Dragonfly Hall had gone from using 1% CPU to around 11-12%. Bringing the effects offline and back online helped for a bit, but after a few minutes the issue returned.
Michael, or anyone else who might know, is there any potential cause for this behavior?
Windows 10 Pro x64, REAPER 4.78 x64, and the beta version of the Dragonfly verbs you posted a while back.
Some rough non-quantized bits, so excuse those (too lazy to fix and my playing is too rubato to just click 'quantize'). As with most of my recent stuff, everything is improvised live on the keyboard, line by line (tons of outtakes as you can imagine, and a bunch of tweaks in the piano roll to fix my stupid mistakes).
Weirdly I haven't written big epic climaxes in a very very long time, at least since Airscape which I now realize was 2015... where the heck did time go??
Libs used are EW Hollywood Strings, WW, & Brass, plus VSCO 2 for percussion (tambourine, toms, hand drums, bass drum, timp, susp cymbal) of course. I'm actually not a fan of the HW WW (at least, the Gold edition I have, which only includes the pretty meh sounding Mid mics rather than the nice sounding Main mics, and has some weird glitches overall, like the rest of Hollywood ), but they worked out pretty well here in the little woodwind quartet section.
Hi everyone and hope you well in these quarantine days...
First saying that I am writing this post because I just wrote another one in a well-known spanish virtual orchestration forum, asking for opinions on VSCO Pro and Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra. The thing is that the majority of comments went in the direction of "better save your money and buy a better thing", "you need the BBCSO from Spitfire if you are looking for the best value and realism", "Subscribe to EW Composer Cloud and don't buy that shit" etc. You know, that kind of answers.
After reading all of that, I thought, WOW! these people have to be amazing composers! But the whole point was that I couldn't find a single release from any of them. And, in the best case, one of two demos or a single CD, one recorded by a real orchestra with an orchestrator writing the actual arrangement for it, because the composer didn't know how to put his own music into paper.
Are we really in that consumerist loop? Do we really need those expensive libraries? Do I am crazy or only poor?
#stayathomecomposeanddon'tspendallyourmoney
Hi everyone!
I am interested in cheap and light orchestral libraries and Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra and VSCO Pro catch my eye! How are this two libraries compared? Both products are the same price now with the Versilian deal and both seem a little bit overlapping to me, so I only want to buy one.
Thank you!
Hi again!
Well... Now I have the equipment for recording guitars, bass, vocals, keyboards.... But I don't have the mics or the space for recording a full acoustic drum kit in a convenient manner. Which drum libraries/VST drummers are you using this days? I tried MT Power Drum kit 2, it is intuitive and non bloated, but the cymbals doesn't sounded convincing to me and I would like to have some extra pieces (a splash is a must have for me).
Thank you.
Hi everyone!
I would like to know in which plugins categories are you still relying in commercial products because you feel that the freeware offers didn't catch up.
I begin first!
- Reverb
- Sampler
- Sample libraries/Sample based VSTi
In the rest of categories I am mostly relying in freeware products.
Hi everyone!
I am planning to record some things with a guitarist friend of mine in the following months (if COVID-19 quarantine allow us to do so). I am not a guitarist so I don't have any amps and I don't want him to mess around with his amp till my house.
Which amp simulator are you using this days?
I thought in Amplitube 4 CS because is free and maybe fits the bill for us. I know that there are other options like Ignite Amps which involves to use an Impulse Response Loader but maybe that is overwhelming for my purpose. What do you think?
Thank you and stay safe everyone.
Hey all, I hope everyone are OK out there. Things are fine on our end, we're not seeing any crazy zombie apocalypse type stuff so far. Most stores are well stocked, though there's less people out and about than usual. Being an introvert who normally works from home this situation is not a problem for me personally, but judging from social media posts, various local restaurants and bars are in dire straits and I definitely see a recession coming if this continues for much longer.
It's a surreal situation and something I never thought I would experience in my lifetime.
