EPIC GAMING with Instant Orchestra
(click the picture for the MP3]
"EPIC GAMING with IO"
Doesn't that illustration just say it all?
I had a lot of fun with this - I listened to several game soundtracks of the epic adventure type, and emulated the bombastic style used by the guys who write this stuff.
I composed this and put it together with only Instant Orchestra.
Now--look at the fun you're missing out on if you don't have IO yet!
Randy The Game Master
Ok - I'll bite. HOW THE HECK DID YOU DO THAT?
Granted, I haven't had any time to really spend with IO since I downloaded, but I'm intimidated by it, I'm afraid to say. Then again, I'm just now starting to get GPO, finally. I think I get the concept of IO - it's as if you are given the right colors and canvas to product a great painting but you still have to create the image in your head and then put it to canvas in an artistic manner with the correct brushes. Maybe I just haven't had the right spark yet, while trying to learn GPO.
I would love to see a "newbie" tutorial on a step-by-step process, from beginning to end, on creating a piece with IO.
And I imagine one of Beethoven's contemporaries would have enjoyed the same, eh?
I love this forum!
Dono
Baja Oklahoma
Hiya, Dono in Baja Ok (and thanks for that geographical lesson, by the way!)-- Now, that's a good question--how the heck Did I do that? I put that together about a month ago, and playing it again, I was kinda surprised at how pretty much awesome it sounds--hehe. --Of course I'm a long time user of both MIDI and Garritan instruments, so it came pretty much naturally to me.Originally Posted by donplee
But you inspire me to open up the project file and give you some clues about what I did there.---At the moment, dinner calls. I want to get back to this thread either later this evening or tomorrow.
Thanks for the response!
Randy
Re: EPIC GAMING with Instant Orchestra
Greetings, sir! I'm pretty much a newbie to the forum as well -- logged in once or twice a couple of years ago, but I've honestly never done anything with GPO that I'm happy with, and while I wanted to learn I knew it would take more time than I had available.
And then, last week, I heard about IO. And I have been jacked out of my mind about it ever since.
I haven't got it yet, money's tight, but Oh My FSM it sounds amazing. And, already having GPO to basically be the "front end", I actually think I'll be able to put together some of the music that's been in my head for years.
And this little "Epic Gaming" piece you've put together, which sounds fantastic, is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking to do with it. I definitely agree with Dono -- a tutorial would be really helpful.
Anyway, Hi There and Cool!
Hiya, Dono and Filkertom
You guys are great, with your enthusiasm and interest in figuring out more how to use both GPO and IO. Both of your posts show that you get what IO is meant for --layering in some big, bad sounds--Instantly to your taste, and especially tasty when combined with GPO which has its large selection of solo instruments.
When I did this "Epic Gaming" demo, I was part of the Beta team testing the Library out, offering suggestions, seeing what worked and what needed improvement--etc. I did this with two versions back of IO, so some of the names of patches changed since that time, but the sounds I used are still in there. Just now I opened the Sonar project file for this piece, and wrote down everything I used. A few things have different names now, and I'm not sure what they're called now. But - this will get you started in understanding how something like this can be put together. A more detailed tutorial would take more time, and I want to do that, but here's what I can shoot back at you tonight.
First--Being an IO demo, the only sound set used for this was IO - it's a pure demo in that sense.
I'm a Cakewalk/Sonar user, so that's the software I record in. In Sonar version 8.5.3, I ended up with 3 instances of Aria. That's the sample player for all the Garritan Libraries of instruments. Each instance has room for 16 instruments - I didn't use all of them. The way I work is to set up how many instruments I want to work with initially, then when I'm ready to add more instruments, I start with a fresh instance of Aria. You can fire up as many copies of Aria as your computer can handle.
So, that means, right off, that this demo isn't done with just one or two IO patches, like some of the demos you may have heard. I wanted to produce a full, original piece, and have it as fleshed out as possible. Wanting to accomplish that meant that I had to use quite a few instruments/patches.
After listening to a number of epic gaming soundtracks for reference and inspiration, I developed this recording improvisationally, working up some bits, fleshing them out, playing with the order of measures, and eventually coming up with what you hear.
I ended up with 32 audio tracks - My method is to develop the MIDI tracks of a project as much as I can, then I bounce/record the data to audio, so that by the time I'm mixing my music, I'm working only with audio. A lot of people work that way, others stay totally in the MIDI realm until the final mix-down.
Here are the sounds/instruments/patches from IO I used for this Gaming emulation:
Earth Cavern Percussion
Earth Drums 2
Earth Drums 3
Orchestra Percuss 1
Orchestra Percuss 2
Orchestra Percuss Xtra
Tympani rolls
EZ Brass
Big Brass Agg (aggressive)
Low Brass
Horns clusters and rips
Wagner Orchestra
Marcato Strings
Pizzicato loose
Orchestra Hits
Alt bows Short attack
Chaos Orchestra
Silvery Winds
Reedy Winds
Clarinet attack
EZ strings-brass-winds
Orchestra glissando down
Weirdness
Harp plucks
Harp glissando down
Xylophone
Glockenspiel
And the rest of the instruments are things that are still in IO, but I'm not sure what the current names for them are - here are the original names:
Strings tuning
Sci Fi bowed
Become grand (a big patch with the full orchestra)
Epic (another patch which layers the full orchestra)
Reedy wind tremolos
After recording what I wanted each sound to play, using my MIDI keyboard playing into Sonar, then I edited the results to make the whole thing tighter and more dynamic. I used various amounts of reverb on the tracks, as needed (a lot of the IO patches don't need any reverb) - and then mixed it all down to a 2-track master. I always use Sony Sound Forge do the final touching up/Mastering work.
So - short as it is, this isn't something that I'd be able to whip out in a day - though there are speedy people who could probably do that. I probably spent a good 3 or 4 days working on this. I don't work any faster than that--And so by my standards, this was a fast project. -- For me, anything worth presenting to others takes a minimum of that long. So, the results weren't totally "instant"--but I have to honestly tell you, there's no Way I could have produced this in less than 2 or more weeks if I was using a more conventional Library of sounds like GPO.
It'll take time, but I'd like to add to the growing body of video tutorials which help newcomers see more directly what all this is like.
In the meanwhile--that's basically what I did to make this! Thank you both for asking. Hope I was more inspiring than boring!
Randy
I had a little chuckle at this Randy,
Somehow it still reminds me of Dorian!
I am sure many would benefit from a walkthrough tutorial from you.
Re: EPIC GAMING with Instant Orchestra
Randy -- Thank you so much. I appreciate you giving us both the types of IO patches you used and the time frame for putting the piece together.
I'm very familiar with Aria -- I got it with Acid Pro 7 as well as GPO 4, and it beats the heck out of Kontakt as far as I'm concerned. I am not a keyboard player; I use loops, I use Band In A Box and its RealTracks, and I draw MIDI sections the old-fashioned way, with a mouse (as opposed to the old-old-fashioned way, with a Commodore SID-emulating tracker). Which means, up to this point, I've been using MIDI either for a single melodic line, a single accompaniment line, or for an ambient drone or layers of ambient noise. It just seemed like so much work to get GPO to sound like a full orchestra to me.
My main DAW is Reaper, and it just loves Aria, so I think all will be well with IO.
Also a mix-to-final-audio kinda guy. I can't imagine not being able to make utterly sure that what I expect to be hearing from the MIDI instrument is exactly what I'm hearing in the final mix. Also a Sound Forge user. Damn fine program.
(Oh, and, I HAVE to check out Dorian the Musical -- I love that sort of thing. I'm working on one for Herbert West, Re-Animator.)
Hi, Tom - From your description of how you work, I have no doubt that IO is right up your alley. There are a lot of patches that would be simple and effective for you to get your drones going on- Like the patches which drastically change their tone as the modwheel (or drawn CC1) changes between strings, woodwinds and brass. One note, a bit of data - instant great sounding bed of sound for your project.
Don't be misled by the fairly long list of patches I posted above. I used so many different ones so I could have specific instruments I needed, like Pizzicato strings - But I could have used just a very few patches to get a big, atmospheric sound.
By the way, you're of course right that it Is a lot of work to get an authentically scored full orchestra project in GPO--But for people who compose music for orchestra, that's the kind of time they want to spend on crafting recordings of their music. You're into something different, and I have a picture of what you're doing--that's why I reiterate that it sure sounds like IO would be the perfect addition to your sound arsenal!
Randy
Robert Davis has been putting up some very helpful, straight-forward demos of IO's basic workings, so for now, we do have those.
--In theory I'd enjoy putting together a more detailed video tutorial, like I did last year when I showed how the Bagpipes demo was put together in the World Library.-- It's problematic though - I wouldn't be able to make a screen-capture tutorial at the same time that I'm actually writing and recoding a project, way too cumbersome. And if I open up a finished project and re-trace steps I took - it's difficult to be clear since what's on the screen is the finished product.
--Mostly just thinking out loud. I would need to do a lot of planning and figuring out to make a vid tute as useful as I'd like it to be. I'll try to squeeze that into my schedule!
Randy
actually libraries like IO become your 'front end' and then the other libs like GPO are the sprinkling on top. like when you want to introduce a solo english horn or flute. therefore it is nice and convenient to open IO and GPO sounds in the same player as you are orchestrating on the fly.
like I said in another post, this lib will not choke when you are doing dense and heavy orchestrations
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