Composing/Film Scoring Studio - Recommendations?

[gsilbers]

Originally Posted by londontown

ps mac minis - not great. Tried it, ran into a lot of problems. Looks cool, but there are better ways.
And it's just a personal thing, but I've always thought the east west strings were vile. VSL are passable, but only just. Sonic Implants strings have GREAT fx - eg harmonics, tremolos, but the ensembles aren't wonderful. Vienna instruments have improved vsl a lot because the legato performance bollocks was hideously cumbersome. They still lack some expressive elements and could more round-robin fx on short samples, but they're not offensive.

yep, you need samples from diferent libraries. the east west stuff is good but some have lots of reverb and sounds too lush sometimes. that sometimes is what u want.
the miroslav are ik also but i dont like the legato strings, but the pizz are cool

[londontown]

Originally Posted by gsilbers

yep, you need samples from diferent libraries. the east west stuff is good but some have lots of reverb and sounds too lush sometimes. that sometimes is what u want.
the miroslav are ik also but i dont like the legato strings, but the pizz are cool

yup. The VSL celeste is second to none. I find all their extra stuff beyond the main orchestra to be very nice, but the main orch stuff - somewhat characterless, even with reverb. Lifeless perhaps.

My biggest problem with so many samples is that you can either have realism or playability. I don't want to spend hours farting about with this keyswitch and that keyswitch (which incidentally, screws over an orchestrator trying to copy a simple flute line onto paper - nightmare). It's perfectly possible with volume, modulation and velocity to craft 99% of a good enough rendition for demo, and with todays schedules you have to be able to move fast.

But the funny thing is, despite all VSL's and East West's 'state of the art' and marketing speak, plus the many claims of people using this stuff to the nth degree (spending hours on a single flute line etc. etc.) - I've never heard an orchestral sample mockup that even came close to the real thing. Ever. And since balance is so easily fixed in an orchestral sequence (grab the volume!!) the art of orchestration is being somewhat diluted...

You simply can't mockup the sound of 90 of the finest musicians playing together as one through pristine mics, pres, and a/ds, wielded by an expert engineer. Not yet.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by pramrod

........(snip)...... you may lament this fact, but it's reality- it's 2007 and the death of real instruments draws closer every day... (snip)....

I disagree with the word DEATH. Illness, yes, but not death.

I work with the real deal all the time. Samples just arent the same!

[rodrigo]

SF Guy,

If you're liking the Mac Mini as VSL farms idea, you should really check out these articles:

http://www.createfilmscores.net/?page_id=9

Mac Minis as VSL Farms: An Overview

It's a three piece article, other two sections talk about audio routing and spreading your samples. Really interesting. If I had the money, I would've configured my system this way already. But I'm using an Akai sampler and a G5...

There's also a different configuration for your audio routing that some guy at the VSL forum had. He was using a lightpipe patchbay so he could route all the instruments from the farm to his DAW while dumping the audio for mixdown.

The approach on the articles is more about having the samples loaded all the time to keep the creative flow running, but I believe it doesn't separate multiple audio tracks from the farm to the DAW.

When you read it, you'll see your options more clearly. Best of luck!

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by SF_Guy

I'm putting together a new composing studio (Film/Games). This is what I'm thinking:

Mac Pro
Logic Pro 7 (Do I dare say 8)
Apogee Symphony
" Rosetta 200
" Big Ben
Millennia HV-3
Great River MP-2NV
Korby Kat System
Neumann KM 184 (2)
UA LA-2A
UA 1176
TC Electronics 4000
Altiverb 6
UAD-1e
GigaStudio 3.0
Sample Libraries: VSL, BFD, Symphonic Choirs, Spectrasonics
Genelec 8050

Any other recommendations?

i bin the genelec and get PMC's esp for film work!

TB2 actives or better even the new digi/pmc ones....

cannot go wrong

i promise you....

maybe couple with some adamp11a

peace

apart from that i might need a few gigasamplers dependin on ur demands?

u can usually only manage abourt 32 tracks max of midi with one gigasampler system

then you can hook them up through adat to ins on logic? on input channels and run midi over lan...

PT is for recording and mixing and tracking not for composing!

peace

[Kenny M]

Scoring to picture is what I do 90% of the time so take it for what it's worth. I have a lot of high end mics, pre's and compressors so I offer this with an eye on what really gets the most mileage and bang for the buck on this type of work. This scenario might be different if you are constantly recording a lot of different live audio. For the most part you probably will only be recording an ocassional vocal or solo instrument.

The list looks good, however if you're mainly sequencing with samples and synths I would make a few changes, especially if you want to save a few bucks on things I don't think are absolutes or steer the dollars into some things of more use.

First, just get one great mic. The Kat would be a fine choice, but any high end Neumann, AKG, Blue, etc. in the 1.5K to 3K range will be more than fine, unless you really do a lot of audio recording of different sources. Oh, and a 57 or two. Same goes for mic pre's and compressors. Just get one great stereo pre and compressor. As with the mic's stay high end and don't trip on whether it's this one or that one. You just want quality and something that works well on everything. This will be accomplished with any from the usual mentioned food groups, Neve, API, etc.. The compressor could be a little trickier and I would try to find something more versatile and stereo than the LA2A and 1176 unless you want to get two of each. A pair of Distressors might be of more use.

As was mentioned, at least one extra computer for Giga or other sampler instruments. Also, if you're doing any big "Hollywood" sounding scores, get the East West Platinum or Gold libraries. VSL is very useful, but doesn't have that big action thing going for it. It is nice on more articulate type things. I personally use a combination of the East West with some VSL and Sonic Implants.

I think you'll find Logic, DP or Cubase to be of more use for scoring work than Pro Tools. I have separate Logic and Pro Tools systems and I find it much easier to get tweaky editing midi and controller parameters in Logic. Pro Tools is almost there with that, but it's much easier working with a lot of tempo changes (a must for scoring to picture) in Logic. Spectrasonics and Stylus RMX in particular is a must. I've done fully blown out action scores entirely in Logic on one G5.