help for orchestral song

[killswitchengage]

hi guys ,i sign up here requesting your help to compose an orchestral song
i am doing it for fun and for self improvement issue , and have no pro background what so ever
you see i am struggling with many reasons and its because of :
1- using fl studio and EWG edition vst under 2go ram , i know it low and it get filled up pretty fast so how i get around this without buying ram ?

2- i am getting noises when playing the song , manly cause of DBass and when i toggle off some instruments it goes softer , so what to do?

3-having limited knowledge of music , i am doing my best but it can take me 2 days to write just 10 sec only , you know in orchestra there is the lead
instruments and the background groupe it is here where i find probs to compose .

[sockofgold]

I am currently trying to get into writing orchestral music myself. So my knowledge is limited, but:

1. If you're limited to 2GB, you might want to invest in a smaller library. Miroslav and GPO4 are both fairly inexpensive and sound fairly good. They don't sound as hyper-realistic as the "big boys," but they are a bit easier to use, so they can be great for just composing and getting ideas down quickly.

2. Don't know what you mean here. Recording noise? Fret noise from the strings?

3. I have a few suggestions here:
* Read up on music theory and composition theory. You don't need to be a Mozart, but a basic knowledge helps. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition are surprisingly helpful. Seriously, check them out.

* What kind of songs are you trying to write? Find a composer who writes in that style, and dissect his music. Figure out what makes it sound the way it does, and then write your piece that imitates it. Nothing wrong with imitation--it's the best way to learn a new style.

* Write a good melody first, and then expand, expand, expand. Don't worry about getting all of the orchestration done at once. Just get the basic melody and chord structure of the song laid out, then you can decide which instrument plays what later on.

That's about all I've got. Like I said, I am fairly green when it comes to orchestration as well, but these guidelines have helped me so far. If you really want to do it, it will probably take some work. Most importantly: READ THOSE BOOKS. THEY ARE AWESOME.

Also, set up a template in your DAW of choice, so you don't have to mess with routing MIDI tracks and setting up samplers every time. With orchestral sample libraries, this can be REALLY time-consuming, so having a template can be a god-send.

[killswitchengage]

thnx alot for your contribution mate i am thrilled
i will check out the libraries you recommended hope they are not too big to download.
as for the noise , well the sound is like cut off for very short period note that the cpu usage is always above 30 % and it get some times even higher.

i have been reading some music theory , but its kinda boring and dont know how to use it , sometimes it can be confusing also .

lastly , i am trying to write a battle song following Hitoshi Sakimoto composer of many final fantasy and i following his work on ff tactics please you may youtube it if you want .

I dont know what templates are maybe the music sheets? , and daw stends for ?

[Panphobia]

Just a tip, you can bounce midi tracks to audio to free up ram. You can always go back and change things later if you need to. Also make sure to close out programs that may be taking up system resources. If you don't need a totally realistic sound, there are some pretty good physical modelling synths out there that use far less system resources.

For orchestral music, depending on what you want to achieve, the road may be long. You should start with a study of orchestration and music theory. Part writing is absolutely essential to a good orchestral sound. However, there are many 'exceptions' when it comes to orchestration: parts are doubled, and this does not count towards parallel motion, voice leading is a bit different, etc.

Beethoven only wrote 9 symphonies his whole life, so don't expect it to be easy to achieve the sound you want. However you can learn a great deal from slogging through a project. It might not be perfect, but nothing ever is.

edit: daw= digital audio workstation, referring to the system used including hardware, but often meant to refer to just the software: cubase, reaper, etc.

[killswitchengage]

panphobia thank you very kind of you , but how do i bounce from midi track to audio ?

[sockofgold]

thnx alot for your contribution mate i am thrilled
i will check out the libraries you recommended hope they are not too big to download.

They shouldn't be. GPO4 is about 1.5-2GB, and Miroslav is not too much more. Both can purchased as downloads, and if you're on a reasonably fast connection, it shouldn't be a problem.

as for the noise , well the sound is like cut off for very short period note that the cpu usage is always above 30 % and it get some times even higher.

I don't really know what to say about that, honestly. Sounds like an issue with the EW player--perhaps a RAM-related issue.

i have been reading some music theory , but its kinda boring and dont know how to use it , sometimes it can be confusing also .

Better get used to it if you really want to learn a new form of musical composition. Learning new things isn't always fun, but sometimes it's necessary. Try one of the books I mentioned before if you haven't yet.

lastly , i am trying to write a battle song following Hitoshi Sakimoto composer of many final fantasy and i following his work on ff tactics please you may youtube it if you want.

That's funny, because Nobuo Uematsu (the composer for all of the "core" FF games) is my favorite game composer, and it is his music that I have been dissecting lately.

I dont know what templates are maybe the music sheets? , and daw stends for ?

DAW = digital audio workstation, i.e. your host/sequencer. In this case, FL Studio.

Templates = session templates. Set up all of your instruments, MIDI tracks, and outputs the way you want them and save the session to use as a starting point. I don't think FL Studio has a template system, but most of the bigger DAWS do. Still, even without a "real" template system, you can still just save a session for a template and just do "Save As..." as soon as you launch it for a new project.

Personally, I wouldn't want to use FL Studio for orchestral composition. You end up with lots of tracks and instruments and outputs all over the place for orchestral stuff. I was originally trying to do mine in Live, but it was too messy and disorganized, so I had to switch to Cubase, which has been a god-send. Just my opinion...

[killswitchengage]

thnx again buddy
i think the noise is due to low ram or stuff

as for the books i had been reading one of them , and its quiet very long

and yea i like uboe noematsu too , let me know if you finished your song

and mind you fl studio has templates too , i think i am gonna download some cheap vst to help

[angelinni]

I guess you are using an old pc. If you are using XP, you may use a pendrive (up to 4gb) go to control panel -> system -> advanced -> performance -> settings -> advanced -> virtual memory and change it to the pendrive and it will be enhanced (remember to change it back after you work). There's software that allows you to use pendrive directly as ram as well (eboostr or others, just google it). Under vista or 7, it includes an option called speed boost which do the same trick.
I don't know fl studio. But there's free daw's, even in java which are multitrack and do the job well. Reaper is not free, but cheap and it will work fine, use few resources
For free plugins with some strings and stuff, I suggest you google for VST DSK. There's a few very useful
Don't overlook miroslav, strings are sweet. Sometimes the classic version (which is smaller) appears on sale. GPO is good as well. For better options probably you will need a newer machine. Best luck with your music!

[sockofgold]

and mind you fl studio has templates too , i think i am gonna download some cheap vst to help

Oh yeah, durr, I totally forgot about that. It ships with TONS of pre-made templates, and you can also make your own. I haven't used FL seriously since around version 8 or maybe early version 9, so I'm a bit rusty...

You might also check out:
http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/index.html

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it's a free SFZ library that seems to be pretty well-received.

As far as the long/difficult book goes, you might just need to "man up" on that one and muscle through it. It's not going to be super-easy to learn theory and orchestration, and you will definitely only get out of it what you put in. But, if you're just casually dabbling for fun, it might not be necessary. Just depends on what you what to get out of it, really.

[killswitchengage]

cool the link you gave me has an awesome demo very convincing

[killswitchengage]

ok the noise prob has been solved to a certain degree , just follow optimizing performance from the support site and the cpu usage isnt getting to high

[Panphobia]

Sorry, I don't know how to bounce from midi in Fl studio. But basically what I am talking about here is output the midi file to an audio file, and thus you can use that instead and save some ram at the cost of hard drive usage. Some hosts can do this automatically (more or less). I would ask over on the imageline forums, they seem to be fairly active. Or if someone here knows maybe

[killswitchengage]

thankx for the feedback panphobia