A combination of both. I wouldn't rely solely on experimenting as you'll only know what you know, and you won't know what you won't know.jontah wrote: Also, I'm wondering, is it really essential to read through and study these things? isn't it better to just practice and try how it sounds and try to work around it that way? I don't know, that might be hard, or?
I see this kind of thing a lot. People go out (with no idea what General MIDI is or it even exists) and buy a shiny new sample library thinking they will produce great-sounding orchestrations.
This is a fallacy. Good orchestrations come soley from good knowledge and understanding of the orchestra and no library, however expensive will change that fact. The shiny new sample library will just make "bad orchestrations" more realistic. Bad orchestrations can be poor use of doubling, crescendo, timbre, dovetailing, harmonic spacing, etc.
Once you get a good amount of hours practice with the General MIDI soundset and you get awesome sounding orchestrations, you can then use the EastWest library to give the orchestrations a bit more polish. And that's a whole new skill SEPARATE from making orchestrations - one which will take a vast amount of hours investment in!
So, go fourth and create. Just use the sounds from your soundcard (General MIDI) and focus on balancing the sounds and creating a good orchestral sound. I've been writing music for nearly 20 years now and even, as I type this, have the Cecil Forsyth "Orchestration" book on my desk!