My First GPO Piece: The Adventures of Midas

[bmpsound]

This is amazing. I\'ve had GPO since just before Christmas and I\'m finally getting around to posting something. Unfortunately, I don\'t have the luxary of being able to just goof around with composing unless it has something to do with a real project - which is a real shame since GPO is the perfect tool for just such a thing.

Many years ago I used to work with just an Emu Proteus/2 Orchestral sample player as my composing tool. What I really liked about it is you just turn it on and start playing! I get the same results with GPO. Even though I use Giga Studio in my home studio, I have been using GPO at my office because I can run it on a single computer. At first I thought it would just be a composing tool, but I\'m finding that I\'m using it for production work.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from an animation project, a promotional film for \"The Adventures of Midas\". The piece is not finished, so I put together a kind of medley of the cues.

Thanks for listening.

The Adventures of Midas (\"http://www.thelightbulbfactory.com/audio/mp3/Midas.mp3\")

Steve Barden

[Shlomo4]

Nice tune, like the bassclarinet...

Shlomo

[Karl Garrett]

Wow! Very nice. I sure don’t want to hear anyone say that you can’t get that big, dare I say it? … sound any more.

[Ron Klaren]

Really nice indeed !!!

Very curious about the finished product... including the film /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Looper]

Steve,

Very impressive! Your orchestration sounds marvelous. I think Gary\'s going to want this one for the GPO demo page.

Can you tell us anything about how you created this.

Brian

[Hardy Heern]

Some excellent skills and ideas. It\'ll be interesting to see how all the cues fit together when your finished.

Frank

[bmpsound]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you tell us anything about how you created this.

[/ QUOTE ]


I\'d be happy to share any info I can. Other than using my fingers, I\'m not sure how to answer your question. What specifically do you want to know?

All the best,
Steve Barden

[trentpmcd]

Very nice. I\'d like to hear some of the whole sections or scenes when they are worked out - I get a taste for a part and it\'s suddenly gone. Even so, you did a good job of taking the various parts and welding them together into this medly.

[Garritan]

Steve

The Adventures of Midas has the Midas touch. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif After hearing the music I can\'t help but wonder what the animation will be like.

The medly paints some very nice sound pictures and was fun to listen to. I like how you effortlessly transition from one mood to another and some elements remind me a little of Gershwin, Copeland and a little Bugs Bunny.

Looper is right - I do want this for the GPO page if you wouldn\'t mind.

Thanks for sharing this.

Gary Garritan

[bmpsound]

[ QUOTE ]
I do want this for the GPO page if you wouldn\'t mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gary,

Thanks! I\'d be honored to be a part of the many great GPO showcase pieces.

[ QUOTE ]
...some elements remind me a little of Gershwin, Copeland and a little Bugs Bunny.

[/ QUOTE ]

I always say \"steal from the best!\" (especially Bugs Bunny!)

Steve Barden

[Declan]

Indeed, Carl Stalling would be proud. Really great work.

[mschiff]

Great work, Steve. I hope I get an opportunity to see the animation with your music included.

-- Martin

[NeoDavinci]

This is excellent. Best use of the technology I\'ve heard.
Mark

[bmpsound]

Thanks to all who responded for their kind words. Not only was I surprised to see this many responses on the forum, but was flabbergasted to see 120 hits yesterday on the piece in my web site stats! This must be a pretty big group.

I have another piece that I will probably post next week that I used recently for a commercial. Stay tooned.

Steve Barden

[Looper]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can you tell us anything about how you created this.

[/ QUOTE ]


I\'d be happy to share any info I can. Other than using my fingers, I\'m not sure how to answer your question. What specifically do you want to know?

All the best,
Steve Barden

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Steve, I like the whole production. I guess I don\'t know enough yet to know exactly what I want to ask. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

How about this; do you use the \'lush strings\' for anything? If so what?

Regards,

Brian

[bmpsound]

[quotedo you use the \'lush strings\' for anything? If so what?

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool! That\'s a good start. Below is my basic setup. I am able to fill up GPO Studio with every slot filled. I have 2.5 GB of RAM to work with so I have a lot of flexibility. I start with 63 of the 64 available slots and use the last one for anything special. This works for most everything. Later I can switch out any unused instruments for special things like solo strings. I use COMBO (key-switching) instruments whenever possible to get the most mileage.

Most of my work is film oriented, not concert, so I rarely use instruments like the Viola d\'amore. This is what I love about GPO and how I work and the type of music I write. It allows me to follow the 80-20 rule: I\'ll utilize only about 20% of what\'s available 80% of the time! The rest is icing on the cake. This allows me to work rather quickly.

Even though bigger libraries such as VSL (and even GOS), etc., have many more articulations to work with, I find it cumbersome to create music with those tools. It\'s sooooo time consuming to make it sound good that I feel you can get bogged down being a \"programmer\" instead of being a composer. I don\'t have the luxury of having an assistant to realize my scores for me. I have to do everything myself.

I hope this answers your first question and helps in any way. I\'m sure having fun writing music now!

Best regards,
Steve Barden


(Player 1: Strings 1)
1 - Vln 1 Sus / short
2 - Vln 1 KS
3 - Vln 2 sus / short
4 - Vln 2 KS
5 - Vla Sus / short
6 - Vla KS
7 - Cellos sus/short
8 - Cellos KS

(Player 2: Strings 2 and WW 1)
9 - Basses sus / short
10 - Basses KS
11 - Flute Ens 1
12 - Flute Ens 2
13 - Flute Ens 3
14 - Bb Clarinet Ens 1
15 - Bb Clarinet Ens 2
16 - Bb Clarinet Ens 3


(Player 3: WW 2)
1 - Flute solo V
2 - Oboe 1 Modern Solo
3 - Oboe 2 Modern Solo
4 - English Horn 1 Solo
5 - Bassoon 1 solo
6 - Bassoon 2 solo
7 - Bass Clarinet Solo
8 - Contrabass Clar Solo

(Player 4: Brass 1)
9 - French Horn 1 Solo
10 - Fr Horn overlay F
11 - Tpt 1 Solo
12 - Tenor TBone Solo
13 - Bass Trombone 2 Solo
14 - Tuba 2
15 - Tpt Solo Straight Mute
16 - Tenor Tbone Solo Mute


(Player 5: Percussion)
1 - Percussion Combo (Bass Drum, Timpani, Snare, Cymbals)
2 - Tubular Bells
3 - Marimba
4 - Vibraphone
5 - Misc toys
6 - Xylophone
7 - Glockenspiel
8 - Celesta

(Player 6: French Horns)
9 - Fr Horn 1 Ens 1
10 - Fr Horn 1 Ens 2
11 - Fr Horn 1 Ens 3
12 - Fr Horn 2 Ens 1
13 - Fr Horn 2 Ens 2
14 - Fr Horn 2 Ens 3
15 - Fr Horn overlay F
16 - Fr Horn overlay FF


(Player 7: Trumpets and Trombones)
1 - Tpt 1 Ens 1
2 - Tpt 1 Ens 2
3 - Tpt 1 Ens 3
4 - Tpt overlay
5 - TBone Ens 1
6 - TBone Ens 2
7 - TBone Ens 3
8 - TBone overlay

(Player 8: Harp Duo/Piano)
9 - Chromatic Harp 1
10 - Chromatic Harp 2
11 - Harp Harmonics 1
12 - Chromatic Harp 2
13 - Glissando Harp 2
14 - Harp Harmonics 2
15 - Steinway Piano
16 -

[Looper]

[ QUOTE ]
[quotedo you use the \'lush strings\' for anything? If so what?

[/ QUOTE ]



I hope this answers your first question and helps in any way. I\'m sure having fun writing music now!


16 -

[/ QUOTE ]

Steve,

Thanks for the detailed answer to my question. I always find it helpful to know what other composers working methods are like. Composing music isn\'t really a \'team sport\' so sometimes hard to know if you\'re \'doing it right\'. That\'s one reason I really like this forum.

Anyway, it sounds as though you\'re running GPO on a separate computer than your sequencer since you\'re using GPO studio. Is that for better performance? Thanks again.

Regards,

Brian

[bmpsound]

[ QUOTE ]
it sounds as though you\'re running GPO on a separate computer than your sequencer since you\'re using GPO studio. Is that for better performance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Brian,

I have two setups. My home studio is set up for GigaStudio which resides on a second computer. I do use GPO Studio on that second machine as well. But at my office (I have a multimedia production company) I just have a single machine - but is a much more powerful machine with 2.5 GB of RAM available.

My initial plan was to use GPO as simply a composing work station and do my real recording work back at home. But it has turned out that GPO has been very useful to me in a production environment.

I use Sonar as my sequencer and use GPO Studio as the VST host. I don\'t compose on a notation program. I\'m very old school that way. I still have to write with a pencil and keep Judy Green busy for score paper. I\'m trying to get the hang of using a notation program instead of a pencil but I\'m still faster with a pencil.

After I create my MIDI tracks in Sonar I will close down GPO Studio and Sonar, restart Sonar and create a new project that has 8 instances of the VST version of GPO. The reason I do this is that I\'ve had trouble with the audio engine permantly dying while trying to record parts. I just gave up and now work this way. A minor inconvenience.

I will open up the original project file, copy ALL of the tracks, and paste them into the new project that has the VST plugins loaded. Then I just record an audio track using the Lexicon reverb available with Sonar. Maybe I\'ll goof around with trying to get everything to work together again. If I can then I know I can load more than 8 GPO modules!

Steve