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The orchestral universe expands: massive, pounding Zimmer-esque drums and vast, histrionic string and brass sections dominate the world of trailer music where, in a rare quiet moment, you’re just as likely to hear a sampled koto (Japanese stringed instrument) as a harp.
Once we move into the sampled domain, all limitations vanish. Many contemporary works feature additional tuned percussion such as marimba, vibraphone and the beautiful high-pitched tones of crotales (tuned mini-cymbals), while the more muscular end of the percussion section, reflecting the influence of film composer Hans Zimmer, may well be beefed up by thundering Japanese taiko drums. You’ll also occasionally encounter the cimbasso, which manages to sound charismatic despite looking like a trombone that’s collided with a bus - it’s now used mainly in 19th-century Italian opera scores, but has become a standard fixture in orchestral brass sample libraries nevertheless. The standard orchestral instrumentation is listed in the box below supplementing these core instruments are variants such as the alto flute, the bass oboe and the wonderful contrabass clarinet.
Nowadays, the orchestra’s four principal instrument families - woodwinds, brass, percussion and strings - are often augmented by keyboards (piano and/or celeste) and occasionally a choir. Along the way, new instruments such as clarinets, trombones and tubas were added, while others fell into disuse: the 16th-century stringed instruments lute and theorbo are long gone, the harpsichord has been ousted by the infinitely more expressive piano, and the ‘natural’ horns and trumpets of earlier eras have given way to modern, precision-built descendants bristling with valves and levers, making it possible to play accurately in any key (providing you practice, that is). Real-life orchestras have grown in size from groups of 20-30 players in the Baroque period (1600-1750) to the 100-strong symphonic ensembles now heard in large concert halls and on Hollywood film soundtracks.
#Epic garritan personal orchestra 5 songs series
If you fancy dipping your toes in the water but are put off by the technical challenges or baffled by the jargon, if you have experience in the field but need a refresher course, or even if you’re an orchestral sample guru who knows the subject backwards but would like to see its principles confirmed in print in a reputable publication, I offer this series in the hope of stimulating a glorious outburst of orchestral creativity amongst SOS readers. Igor Stravinsky.The brave new world of orchestral samples is a great resource for musicians, composers and programmers.
It always has been.” Nevertheless, as the Millennium Bug hysteria makes clear, it’s important not to cave in to technophobia, nor let an irrational fear of the new hold us back. As Igor Stravinsky said, “Now is the best time ever for music making. We also have fabulous creative tools which, if used in a musically intelligent way, can help to shape the samples into astonishingly life-like performances. Music technology has changed greatly since then, and for users it’s unquestionably a change for the better: thanks to the advent of computer disk streaming we now enjoy virtually unlimited sample time, and this in turn has inspired developers to create a mouth-watering range of top-quality orchestral sample libraries.
#Epic garritan personal orchestra 5 songs software
At the time of writing, software sampler technology spearheaded by NemeSys Gigasampler had yet to gain a foothold.
Back then, the equipment scene was dominated by rackmount samplers such as the Akai S3000, preconfigured hardware modules (the Roland JV1080 fitted with an ‘Orchestral’ card was a popular choice) and a handful of keyboards containing half-decent orchestral sounds. While this fin-de-siècle nonsense was building to an apparent crescendo, my debut article on sample-based orchestral arranging quietly slipped out in SOS’s December 1999 issue. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair declared it was “one of the most serious problems facing not only British business but the global economy today,” Computer World magazine wailed “We’re accelerating toward disaster!” and schoolchildren were lectured to “Go and tell mummy and daddy, and ask what they’re doing to prepare.” Needless to say, the expected global meltdown didn’t happen - apparently, a few Australian bus-ticket validation machines malfunctioned, the US Naval Observatory web site reported the New Year as 19100, and a Spanish worker was summoned to an industrial tribunal on February 3rd 1900 (where he or she was presumably fined for showing up 100 years late). Remember the ‘Y2K Millennium Bug’ scare? According to experts, at midnight on December 31st 1999 computers would erroneously reset their clocks to the year 1900, wreaking untold havoc and destruction.
#Epic garritan personal orchestra 5 songs how to
Our major new series explains how to harness the power of today’s virtual orchestral instruments.