Thanks for the kind words Foxfield.....
If you read my previous comments in this forum, you'll get the gist of how much I struggled with 'Reason'. So, here and now in Feb 2012, I'm 100% using Reaper 64 as my
DAW, (Digital Audio Workstation). Unless anyone knows of another, it's the only 64 bit Sequencer, which means you can utilise more than 4gb of RAM, which is important
with high quality samples.
Ocean Loader 3 (Cinematic) was done using 'East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra'. It's way waaaaaay ahead of anything else i've heard for fidelity. To give you some
idea, the samples directory is around 14GB. I use Kontakt v5, (most important coz it's also 64 bit) and simply insert a VSTi on each track for the individual orchestra parts.
I panned the various parts to where they would normally sit in an orthodox orchestra seating so....
Violins 25% left
Violas centre
Cellos 25% right
Oboes 12% left .... and so on
The above values place your listening position about where the conductor stands. If you lower the values and narrow the stereo spread, your listening position moves further back
in the auditorium.
The way the samples are constructed is, as far as I know, unique at the moment. Firstly, you have the various parts of the orchestra... 18 violins / 10 cellos / 9 basses /
4 clarinets / and so on. Then, if we take '18 violins' as an example, only the true range of the violin is sampled and every single note is sampled at 5 different 'bowing' levels.
This captures the different tonal qualities of differing bow strengths rather than just turning the volume down. In addition to this, (and this is where it gets really cool), you then
have different iterations of each note or varying samples of the way a violinist bows the instrument, i.e. 'on hard and push through' 'soft attack swelling slowly' 'steady legato'.....
So, for a single note of a single instrument you can choose from 1note x 5 vol levels x 3 to 10 iterations depending on the instrument(s). 1 x 5 x 10 = up to 50 samples per note
to choose from. Once you start to think about this level of detail applied to every section of the orchestra.... well, mindblowing really. EWQL stuff isn't cheap but it's VERY good
and if you want a bit of everything, their 'Collossus' package is really good.
Hope this illuminates a little.
If you want a little sneaky peeky of something I'm working on with 'Symphonic Orchestra' for submission later this year......
(apologies for not sticking this in the WIP section. It was just relevant to this post)It's all about the notes, where you put 'em, what you do with 'em and how long they last
hehe