Here are some new MIR Pro mixes of pieces I am working on... any comments would be good to hear. All the orchestra is VSL, but I had to use some other libraries for the choir (singing words in an invented language) and recorders, but put them directly into MIR Pro which is a fantastic way to import sounds into VSL.
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William Kersten music in MIR Pro
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Blown away, William...
I definitely have to listen to your Chivalry with more time and calm, but the first impression is... well, impressive (^_^). I'll be back tonight with more feedback when I've listened to it with more concentration. Now, you just assure me that (leaving the recorders and choir aside) this is possible using only VSL... (^_^)
Many, many thanks for this!!!
PS: William, again, the brass writing and programming is just spectacular. What are they? Do you use Dimension Brass or the solo instruments?
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Thanks popslaw and servandus. The orchestral parts are all VSL, only the recorders are not. It is Appassionata strings, and regular, not Dimension, brass. I had only two horn parts, but assigned one to horns a8, one to horns a4. The first trombone was similarly given to trombones a3, the 2nd to solo trombone and third bass trombone. The trumpets were 1st on c trumpets a3, 2nd to solo trumpet, and third to cornet. Also, on a few parts I swapped who was playing first depending on how soloistic it was. Thanks for listening!
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Thanks for the details about the brass section, William. I'll start playing with them soon and it's very helpful to know how it's used in well sounding productions like yours. I listened more carefully to your pieces, and I must say I also like very much how you make the other sections sound, but there's kind of a natural flow in the dynamics and timbral variations (also the playing gestures) of the brass section that somehow catches my attention particularly (not only in this, but also in your romantic symphony and the "Age of Light" overture).
I can only imagine how much satisfaction can the culmination of big projects like this one bring to you as a composer and producer. Wish I can someday be in a similar circumstance... now that I have the tools and disposition (^_^). Seeing this as an accomplished reality for others is certainly an inspiration for me. So, thanks again.
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Hi William,
I only got a chance to listen to these properly today and I think they are great. I don't think there is a harmonica in "The Troubador", but my ears keep deceiving me every time I listen, 42 seconds in when the recorders begin to play, there are a couple of places where the voicings sound very close to the reeds of a harmonica it gets me every time (not in a bad way, just sets my ears tingling). An absolute pleasure and inspiration to listen as always and thank you for posting these previews. I look forward to the final release and blessings of many pints of Guinness!
Regards,
Tom
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(speaking about MIR) So the nice thing is, one can concentrate on music. What a concept!
What a blessing! [:D] I'm sure it's just Saint Dietz & Co. [A] accumulating good deeds just in case heaven's doors open in 2012. But I [6] warn you, there're no concert halls to emulate up there [:P] (I have suddenly visualized VSL recording multi impulse responses from the clouds and sampling elysian harps and angel choirs (with wordbuilder, of course)... where's my medicine?)
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It sounds like watching a block buster movie. Certainly can inspires one's interest in wanting to make a movie for these files...
How long is the time curve this time, with the MIR and VI pro 2 ? Compared to the previous way of producing? Or one should ask, was it easy flow for you. Something new.. Or the tasteful intense parts took just as much care regardless? Certainly movie scoring at its best. Or Perhaps romantic serious music with deep emotion. I'm trying not to define in limitation, at this level. Its not easy. Congradulations on this accomplishment.
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thanks for listening, guys. Mcelvogue - Guinness always sounds good to me! 874,thanks! The production with MIR is much easier and faster.
The longest part of doing it is actually playing the music and selecting/ editing the articulations. That took a while but is purely musical, so very fun. Once that is done the MIR part is very easy. You assign the FX, the instrument appears on stage and you can just move it around where you want it, so it takes only a few minutes to set up the entire mix once the MIDI is finished.
Also, I love the "microphone" function of MIR which allows any sound to be placed right onto the stage with the VSL instruments. That is another function that is so much easier than the nightmarish mixing problems I used to encounter.
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I thought I would ask opinions on this related topic which these pieces involve. I am doing some material for a music library, but somehow I am disturbed by the idea of putting out music one is serious about, or feel is personal somehow, to a library. Is that insane? Should I have the attitude, just get it out there no matter what? On the Overture, it is a somewhat "classical" piece so will never make money. In my case, it will also not be accepted by an orchestra director for live performance, because it is not modernistic and is old fashioned tonality. They automatically think anything modern must be atonal or the composer is an idiot. So anything tonal and pleasant sounding is rejected. So I am doubly screwed there. On these other pieces though, I have a certain feel for them even though they are simple, and want to develope them into a large suite that will be on CD as a musical fantasy. So I am as usual agonizing over them. I would be interested in any thoughts on this kind of Hamlet-style self-torture. Hamlet without the larger-than-life tragic dimension of course. More pathetic than tragic.
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"Is that insane?"
No, but I think the danger is overstated. Let me elaborate.
I've spent my life in words and music, writing scripts and scores, none of which you have heard or seen, as I am under-accomplished. But by the grace of God and to his glory, I have made a living at it.
And the most ubiquitous fear in both industries, the fear I have had and observed in others (particularly in their twenties and thirties), is that choice morsels of one's own repertoire will be co-opted, stolen, or under-compensated. At my ripe old age, I can only wish that more of my material would have been treated that way, as the Heculean task of selling nearly anything dwarfs all other concerns.
So I have come to terms with this artstic dilemma by the culling of the best five percent I have ever done (as best my ears can tell -- and they can't, always) and sending the rest to a library. But this library allows me to keep the rights to my own music. And THAT is a bigger deal that the reflexive protection I feel for personal work.
More philosophically, Faulkner said, "A writer must kill his darlings." I don't know that renting cues to a library is tantamount to death. But the point is, our work is not as fragile and rare as we sometimes believe it to be. We have more music in us. Our talent is not an eggshell. And the truth of cue libraries is, our work is buried under a bed of atmosphere, dialogue, narration and SFX, heard from the other room at three A.M. So what? It's still ours, still very good, and it still lives to be heard another day in a better venue.
In the meantime, these libraries send us more money, which we promptly feed under Dietz's office door. Our orchestra gets better, we might steal another day avoiding a real job, and life is good.
So may you have wisdom culling the right five percent and make the most possible return on the rest. "Cast your bread upon the water...."
These cues show a welcome, shrewd use of the choir. Sampled vocals are usually "the end of the illusion." But you used the sustains and syllabes so shredwly, my ear went with it. Also, the best orchestration is the developmental section in the third piece, starting about halfway through the track.
Be aware of a tendency for the ascending perfect fifth. It can be overdone, particularly as a means to launch a melody. Also, you are in danger of harmonic rhythms (change rate and timing of chords) that are too predictable and almost always on the beat. "Barline tyranny," my professor called it in school, faulting my music because of it. I resisted the comment, but years later, yeah, he was right.
This is talented work. it's better than a lot of cues I've been selling for years. And you were very successful exposing the brass. The temptation is to bury it in a sea of strings, because octave bass -- chorded divisi mid-rage -- and octave violins *always* work. But you showed great restraint, and that with the Appassionata library. (The Appassionatas are the orchestral equivalent of double-fudge.) To keep the brass naked so to speak, and do it so credibly, is a testament to good writing and orchestration.
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What a great post. Thanks, Plowman.
Just one little detail:
@plowman said:
[....]In the meantime, these libraries send us more money, which we promptly feed under Dietz's office door. [...]Now I finally understand why I'm still poor: I don't have an office, thus no office door either! But wait - where's all that money ...? [:S]
/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library -
Sorry about the delay, I have returned from lovely Vienna only a couple of days now, and there has been a lot to do (there still is...).
Very well done William, and I think you went further up the ladder of mixing with orchestral samples. I don't see how you can avoid forever getting performed live, or becoming rich by these very attractive tracks - not so much from music library companies (steady but low income), but from the luxurious and lucrative market of PC/video games. Keep it up! It must happen someday!
