Composition Quality / What do you use

Composition Quality / What do you use

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10/10/2013 3:45:00 PM

Hello everyone,

I am new, and I mean absolutely green around here, and I wanted to bring a few things and get up to speed so I can start being productive and work as effectively as possible as a team.

First off, what does everyone use as far as composing / notating and stuff goes? I personally use Finale for notation and am debating a few VSTs through Reaper to get that "real orchestra sound". I also play guitar and plan on writing plenty of rock and such, but that's another story.

On the note of sound, I also noticed under "Brandon Leon Channel" that the .Wav files sound very close to Midi, especially in the drums. I don't know if that was meant to be a temporary demonstration of the composition, or if that was meant to be a final product, but I know I for one can definitely get a much more realistic sounding set of drums, and I think I can get better strings as well. Like I said I have no idea if this was meant to be temporary or not, but the compositions themselves are pretty solid. I am excited to be here, and I really look forward to working with you all!

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Heya!

My DAW is Logic Pro X and that has it's own scoring/notation built in, but can be easily exported to Sibelius! Sometimes if I'm writing on the guitar (nice to have a fellow guitar player!) I'll bash it out on guitar pro as a draft but that's really only to remember what I was doing.

Logic has quite nice little orchestra sets, I also use Reaktor quite alot to build synths from scratch for more electronic sounds/textures. The best "real orchestra" sounds you can get is from sampled libraries...the best being the EastWest/Quantum Leap Orchestra, a cheaper pretty good alternative is the "Miroslav philharmonik". At the moment I just use logic sounds and change them to suit me (not a fan of presets!).
On that note if anyone else needs help with anything I am studying for a degree in Creative Music Technology, so constantly learning loads of relevant stuff!
Feel free to add my on skype: rockstaraxe
:D

Hope this is slightly useful!

By : 10/10/2013 4:02:00 PM

I have just added you on Skype. And I have looked at the East / West and I was thinking of looking into some stuff in Komplete 8 / 9, and I don't know a ton about it, but It looks like Reaktor will be on my list of things to get as well!

By : 10/10/2013 4:11:00 PM

Hello!

I'm using FL studio 11 and muse score 3.0.

It's interesting that you mentioned the drums in my music because the drums are live samples and the chorus, strings, etc are midi instruments. :)

I can produce sheet music or wav depending on what you want.

Brandon

By : 10/10/2013 4:27:00 PM

Well I figured they were all Midi honestly. I just happened to notice the drums in particular because I like mine so much. And do you have a midi of the drums? If so and you send me two midi files, one with the drums and one with the orchestra I am hoping that should be sufficient to get a pretty good sound, but it is something I will have to play around with to get right.

By : 10/11/2013 12:05:00 AM

I use Finale for notation, and Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer as my DAW.

As for instruments, call me old fashioned but I have never clicked with VSTis. I like the sounds of them, but I don't like the interface of working strictly on a computer. Heck I even control Sonar from a physical control surface.

Here's where my sounds are coming from:

Roland-

Integra 7 Sound Module, Fantom G workstation, Fantom VS Sound Module, V-synth, and JP-8000. Also a VG-88 for guitar stuff.

It's really neat to see what everyone is using. I'm assuming because of our different DAW and Notation programs we will primarily be exchanging audio and midi files to collaborate? Do we have an agreed on standard or is it just whatever file type we are most comfortable with? I notice the two files by Brandon are .WAV.

By : 11/1/2013 10:00:00 AM

I just started a few days ago too.

This is going to sound stupid but I make midi signal compositions with a free software designed for guitar tablature called TuxGuitar. However I then export those MIDI signals to Pro Tools 10 and add/double instruments as fit, along with recording my own audio.

By : 11/1/2013 11:25:00 AM

Bruce, that actually sounds like an awesome and creative way to compose.

I mean once you have midi data you can do just about anything to it, and producing that data through a guitarist's perspective can have wonderfully original results. Often times I will use a Guitar/Midi interface when I need a different angle at writing a melody or chord progression.

Very cool!

By : 11/1/2013 11:33:00 AM

It's amazing that no two people really use the same software!

I also like to control things physically, I hook up my levels and panning to my little MIDI keyboard as it has controllers as well as the standard pitch bend and modulation wheels :D

It's interesting nobody uses Cubase, I stuck with that for a long time before switching over!

I'm curious as to how old everyone is as I wonder whether everyone's training and generation will affect how/what they use :)

By : 11/2/2013 3:52:00 PM

Alex, (Ms. Jones, if you're your nasty), I actually use Sequel, which is essentially Cubase "lite". It's a great program for advanced musicans/composers, because it feels intuitive and made by actual readers of sheet music.

I also use Finale, but only for live ensemble sheet music; composing on Finale and transferring to a DAW seems like so much work. I find it much faster to composer directly through the DAW.

By : 11/3/2013 6:34:00 PM

I'm nasty? :(

By : 11/4/2013 3:00:00 AM

Goodness, no! Not really. It was a Janet Jackson reference, lost, it seems.

By : 11/4/2013 4:36:00 AM

So sorry >.< For someone writing music maybe I'm just not well educated!!! :P

By : 11/5/2013 4:54:00 AM

Hello, All,

Quick question: has everyone (including the producers) been listening to composers' submissions? Conversely, we composers should be listening and commenting on each other's works, which isn't really happening enough.

Oh, and composers, have you guys seen any of the art?

Glas' Game Logo "finaltry2c.png" (in 2D - Kristina Glas - LOGOOOO) is pretty cool. You guys should check out the artwork of our colleagues.

Be well, and keep writing... hard!

By : 11/13/2013 8:30:00 AM

Hey!

I do listen to other composers work however I don't like to give feedback unless specifically requested, because someone's music is quite a personal thing, as music is an art at the end of the day, things that one listener may hate, other listeners may like...not that it's a bad thing at all, I think it's just something I'm a bit wary of! :)

Alex

By : 11/13/2013 1:02:00 PM

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