Comparison of Samples to Real Orchestra - Which is Which?

[Beardedone]

Thanks Gary. True. Until we have a flexible performance tool that better emulates player-instrument interplay then the results will be less lifelike. But thanks to you we are a lot closer.

Cheers,
Gordon

[realmarco]

all fake

Wrong.

how's about MACing it(get it? Wink
...could you make a Mac version please?

The sample portions were done on a Mac (sequenced with Digital Peformer)

uh its just a signature

[BFDrummer]

If it's a toss up between no show or one with sampled orchestra then OK.... I see the benefits.

No, and here is the problem:

If some ballet company puts Swan Lake or Nutcracker in the civic center one season, there is ZERO motivation or opportunity for anyone else to do it. The opportunity cost is enormous. It does a great disservice to the community for a company to get the gig, and then do a mediocre or piss-poor job of it. It would be better if the civic center were booked for those nights with some other program. If there is a demand for ballet, at least there would be an opportunity for someone to do it right.

Maybe I am just used to how it would be in London where there is enough of an audience supply to accomodate different productions of the same work. But I can totally see where you're coming from.

But on the other hand if people are at least COMPOSING with orchestral sample libraries they are still learning to compose for an orchestra - and their works or their skills might transfer to real orchestras one day if successful enough.

I'd make the observation that many of them composing for "orchestra" using keyboard voicings and temperaments. There are aspects to the various instruments that composers need to understand, but which are hidden from the novice who is using a clavier and a synth. The output may be convincing, but there are dimensions to orchestration that are not going to be fully understood by someone who takes only the synth approach. It might be very frustrating for someone to translate their opus when they place it in front of an actual orchestra, much like learning to fly on a simulator, only to discover that the situation is *very* different when you're at the yoke of a real plane.

On the other hand, somebody coming from the other direction, who understands how to compose and arrange for the instruments, ought to be in heaven with a synth like this.

Yes agreed - except this is still a STEP on the way to arranging a real orchestra. Rather than a step away from it. It may not be the ideal tool for authentic orchestral arranging - but then again neither is an acousic piano - and how much 'playing with real orchestras' have NOVICE composers EVER had anyway. I'd say much of that kind of learning, to begin with, comes from just listening to orchestral music and reading up on the subjuct.

The point was there's more chance of a composer learning about 'orchestral dimensions' if they have access to this kind of sampling technology (if only because they'll be more motivated to to learn it all in the end) than if they don't and stick to composing scores with pads, synth drums, and samples of traffic noise etc - you know what I mean ?!