Maybe you've got some good sample libraries, and you've got a strong foundation of musicality and expression, but you're STILL having a hard time getting your orchestral music created with samples to sound interesting and lifelike. Do you have all the tools that you need to make great music? You wonder if it's time to buy that new strings library everyone is talking about, but you have a gnawing feeling that you're not getting as much out of your existing libraries as you could.
Does this situation sound familiar?
THE #2 WEAKNESS IN VO (VIRTUAL ORCHESTRA) CREATED MUSIC
When I first started thinking about how to teach advanced mockup skills, I started by cataloging the most common problems I heard in VO (virtual orchestra) produced music. The biggest one (IMO) was the lack of dynamic and expressive performances, which I addressed in Volume 1 of this advanced course series. But the next biggest was the lack of knowledge about common sample library articulations types - what they are for, and how/when to use them in context of a specific musical function or part.
The result ends up being music that is stale and uninteresting, and the frustrated user might even end up caught in the dreaded G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome) cycle, never being sure if he/she has the needed elements to make exciting and emotive music.
But there's good news: if you have any modern orchestral sample libraries (from the last 10 years or so), then you probably have the basic components to do far more than you imagine.
SOLVING THE PROBLEM BY USING COMMON PATCH/ARTICULATION TYPES
To find and use the right tool (articulation/sample) for the job, you need to know three things.
1 - What is the job?
2 - What are the available tools (articulations/samples), and what their purpose?
3 - How do I do the job with those tools?
In this course I leverage the knowledge I've acquired in 18 years of working with virtual instruments (including 10+ years as a demo composer) to walk you through all three points.
Firstly, we identify common musical functions and parts that you will need to articulate with your patches: that's "The Job".
Secondly, I will walk you through the primary articulation types in orchestral music, their traditional purposes, and how they are uniquely expressed, packaged, and controlled in virtual instruments. This should provide both a enlightening vision for their purposes and give a foundation for how to use common sample articulation types. I will also show you how I audition and inventory my own sample libraries to determine what will be useful or not, and to determine if I actually need to buy the latest, greatest samples library (usually: I don't).
And thirdly, I will show you how I actually "do the job" in articulating common musical parts and functions, like melody, bass, sustained texture, moving texture, transition FX/accents, and more.