Dave Merrill
Axe-Master
Thank you for the detailed rundown, interesting.I would shudder to think, haha.
No worries, thank you very much!
I usually record as I go when I’m writing, beginning with an idea on usually a single instrument (or section) then add additional layers until the arrangement for that part of the piece sounds complete. Ideas often stem from the guitar if I’m writing a melody or riff, but in many ways I find it easier to write orchestral material starting from the bass guitar and working upwards, since electric guitar can easily occupy the same space as cellos, violas and brass. Trial and error has taught me that bass guitar and double bass should typically not be used at the same time
Once I’m happy with my arrangement of a particular part or riff, I sit back and think “what do I want to hear for the next bit?”, then jump onto whichever instrument (or VI) that I feel fills the space of whichever vague idea comes to mind, and mess around with that for a while until I come up with something more concrete. Then I’ll record that and start the whole process again. That said, I didn’t proceed like this from beginning-to-end, but in chunks. I wrote a fair bit of this piece back-to-front really, with many of the more layered and complex parts towards the end being written first, then deconstructing these into simpler variations for sections to use earlier on, or adding hints of these ideas into earlier riffs to build some familiarity.
I definitely don’t find this easy and there’s a lot of material written this way that doesn’t make it too. The actual DAW session is over 2 hours, mostly consisting of unused ideas that weren’t up to scratch. I hate discarding ideas because it’s a lot of hard work down the drain, but it would sound really random otherwise.
I rarely keep any orchestral material played directly from a keyboard, and I may not even touch an instrument if writing for a 5 part string section or something. Firstly I’m not a very good keyboard player (and will often use a LinnStrument for note input, which is more guitarist friendly). Usually this is just for brainstorming, and then I’ll manually enter all the notes in the piano roll or edit the MIDI for what I have played. Unfortunately I feel that this is a necessity for orchestral sample libraries, which can rarely be played convincingly in real time due to the quirks of the samples and the necessity to trigger articulation keyswitches frequently, in addition to volume automation to create a sense of flow. Any orchestral VI that I do record in real-time requires a lot of MIDI editing afterwards. The exception to this is the brass (sample modeling brass), which is the only orchestral VI with which I have been able to produce a lifelike real-time performance, and most of the brass parts are recorded with a keyboard or linnstrument and breath controller. This is undoubtedly my favourite orchestral VI because it’s the only one that actually feels reminiscent of playing an instrument while still sounding good, and doesn’t require too much editing afterwards.
I hope this answers your questionsand thanks for listening!
What brass VI(s) do you use that work reasonably well in real time?
Do you use any particular keyboard, for instance one with polyphonic aftertouch?
