Orchestral tune made with Miroslav Philharmonik

[Rellik]

I wanted to enter the contest but I was too busy making other music

Finally one of the teams I'm doing soundtrack for asks me to do something I've been wanting to do for a while myself - so I take the opportunity to do my first full track using 100% Miroslav Philharmonik. I would have added some G-Town percussion, but I thought it would be cooler to do pure Miroslav in this case.

Anyway, I know a lot of people are curious as to what Philharmonik sounds like and are hungry for demos (or at least they were 6 months ago ), so here's one amateur Philharmonik piece:

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~alederer/Ale ... _Level.mp3

In my opinion the sound here really gives you a sense for what Miroslav sounds like. Hope that you enjoy it, or that it gives you some info if you're doing research! (by the way, it's supposed to loop)

[Shantar]

This sounds very(!) good to my ears. Did you use the reverb in Philharmonik, or something else? Keep up the good work!

[janka]

wow! Thumbs up!
/Anders

[Rellik]

Thanks for the feedback

I never use the reverb in Philharmonik just out of principle, although it sounds good (if I rely on it then I'll have to relearn some things when I incorporate non-Miroslav stuff like G-Town perc or Squidfont or QL Brass) - the best solution, I've found, is to use a combination of Ambience and FL Studio's Fruity Reeverb 2.

Ambience is great but, even after semi-thoroughly exploring and learning to understand the controls, I feel like it lacks body - it makes you feel like you're in a hall but it doesn't add the short tail that can help fill out the sound. So I set up each reverb in a separate Send buss, and just kind of play with levels on each different section until I like what I hear (sometimes more one reverb than the other).

[harmony gardens]

Nice Rellik

[PaulG]

Hey, Wow, Relik,

This was super.

I am going to guess that you sequenced in FL Studio, also, due to the mentioning of the reverb.

Can you share how you did this? (Was it FL ver 7?) Did you do any playing "live" on a MIDI controller?

I have FL 7 and have heard others do some pretty good orchestral work with it.

By the way, the writing and orchestration was pretty exceptional. One thing that may contribute to making it sound a little more realistic is to watch the attack velocities. I don't know if it was your intention, but they all seem to come in full blast at 100%, though I only listened to it once so I may not be giving it a fair assessment.

I really like some of the layering, and having studied classical guitar in college, I gotta say you did some pretty nice stuff with the nylon patches.

I am going to have to dive into Miro more. I stopped trying to do anything otchestral because I am more schooled in pop/rock/new age-type writing, but it's pieces like yours that realy make me want to get a handle on what I can do with this.

The reason that FL moderately excites me is that it forces you to think more "musically" rather than in traditional staff-based "paper" thinking since it doesn't have a notation editor.

Anyway, I'm sure others would love to hear about your programming/sequencing techniques as well.

Thanks for anything that you do share in this regard. (And please post more as you do them!)

Thank you,

- Paul

[Rellik]

Thanks for the feedback! Glad you liked it

PaulG, you're right about the attacks - that's because I'm too lazy (or have too little time) to automate like I would ideally. People say to use the mod-wheel or expression, but those aren't as accessible on the FL interface as CC#10/volume, so I end up using volume - and, of course, that ends up screwing up whatever balance I was going for, so trying to get good expression involves a lot of retooling in that case. So I recommend against automating CC10, but I definitely agree that recording some expression and getting the attacks more nuanced really adds to the realism. I'm not so sure about the technique of just setting the Attack param on the ADSR - just seems to make getting accurate timing even more difficult, but I haven't given it a lot of time, so I'll check it out!

I wouldn't say I have a lot of techniques, personally - the process is rather mundane . I guess one mistake I used to always make was, when layering staccato with legato (to even out the attack), I would have the staccato clearly audible, and it always sounded off, but I never realized that you just needed a tiny hint of the staccato to help it sound more rhythmically accurate to the listener.

Other than that, and some doubling of ensemble with solo instruments for effect, it's mostly straightforward: written how it sounds, more or less. Finding the right patch and working around its weaknesses, I've found, is 10x more efficient than trying to combine patches - only if it sounds really terrible is it worth it to mess with it. There are times that the 23 violin staccs are necessary, times when the 11 are necessary, and times when you need a combination - at least in my experience, this in particular can make or break the sound of the piece (if it's the type to rely on copious string staccs!). Of course, in a worst case scenario, compromise by switching or adding instrumenation... here's an example: the lead violin in this piece doesn't sound at all on time if you take out the glock that doubles it.

I only record stuff in via keyboard if it's not rhythmically important - i.e. I'll use the mouse for the percussion and striking brass and strings, since it's faster (too many mistakes, too little precision when playing it in), and then I'll play in the drawn-out melodic parts and chords and melodies (since it's faster just to play it most of the time, and it's easier to get the expressive timing/velocity right).

Oh yeah, and if you do use automation, and unless you have something cool like a ribbon controller or something, I'd recommend using your mouse rather than the kind of tiny little faders that comes with MIDI controllers (like mine) - I find it's easier with a mouse to be both precise and swift when it's necessary to change volume in between notes and such.

I find that there's really not too big a difference between sequencers/hosts in most cases, but especially in the case of orchestral - I like FL for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I'm comfortable with it . I can't really see where you're coming from with regards to the notation thing - do you associate "paper" thinking with "theoretical" thinking, like tonic dominant subdominant modulate etc.? If switching away from a notation editor to a piano roll helps you get out of that rut, then I think it can only be for the best!

Anyway, I hope some of what I said is helpful to someone - I'm by no means an expert, this is all just stuff I picked up through my experience over the last almost 2 years using Philharmonik, so be sure to listen to Jeremy Soule if he drops by . If anybody would like to contradict or corroborate anything I've put forth, that would be helpful.

[telebunke]

sounds very good to me

tele