Orchestration, Tips and Tricks for composers. Options

[jesshmusic]

Hello All!

I thought it would be good to have a topic devoted to the art of orchestration. Great things can be accomplished when composers put their brains together.

Especially in orchestration... certainly the most difficult aspect (and most rewarding) of composition.

Feel free to get it rolling. Here are a few tricks I have learned in my days:

1. Less is more. Don't be afraid to have smaller parts of the ensemble playing. I'm sure everyone know's this.. An orchestra playing with every instrument at full force the entire piece is boring.

2. Know instrument's limitations. The bassoons, for instance, will not be heard very well in loud sections of the orchestration with a lot of instruments playing, but they can still make for good filler. During the big choral part in Beethoven's Ninth, they are playing the fast ostinato pattern with the strings.

3. Listen to as much music as possible... especially modern. Analyze scores and see what the masters did. Research.

These are vague things. I hope many different composers will post specific tips and tricks they have picked up over the years. Instrumentalists can also use this topic to tell us composers what not to do. We sometimes can make life hard on you guys. (Especially Horn in F players!)


Jess Hendricks
Composer & Arranger

[musicart]

A few tips for orchestrating with virtual instruments:

- Record every voice separatelly, for example instead of treating the woodwinds or brass as a block, record each part separately, this will result in a more natural phrasing.

- One of the hardest things to emulate from the real orchestra is the articulations between the notes, fot example if you have a fast scale assigned to the strings for example, reduce the velocity of every other note by 20% more or less, this will accomplish a more realistic preformance.

- For the string sections record a track for the first violin, and then record another first violin track with a different sampler sound (record it again, don't copy it) and try to detune it a bit, try not to quiantize, small imperfections in pitch and tempo is what gives thickness to the sound of a real string section. Try that your "detune" sligltly modulates in time. Be carefull not to exagerate.

- Know the instrument ranges and limitations, know the spacial position of the instruments in the orchestra, and try to emulate the panning. You can even go beyond, for example if you have three channels of first violin, you could pan them to cover a broad spectrum, lets say from 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock. Cover and area instead of one point.

- Use your controlers to add life and expression to each phrase.

- Very important point: A flute performing inside an orchestra will not be heard with the same "brightness" as a solo flute player in a pop of jazz song. In an orchestra the individual sounds will have a tenedency to sound "dull" (at least to pop or rock standards). If you trim the high frecuencies of some instruments this will diminish its presense and move them to the back, making them easier to melt into the whole orchestral "sound". So if you have to eq., try trimming first instead of adding. LIsten to a real orchestra to see my point.

- Treat reverb with care, a good reverb is a most. Usually 2 seconds of rev in a medium hall will give you a good starting point. You should have an idea of the space that you want to emulate and its reverb time, it will also depend on the style of the music, and if the orchestra is alone or with other non orchestral instruments, in which case it works better with shorter rev times.

Alex Rodriguez
Legato Productions.