My Musical Palette
But I am going to explain how wide my musical palette (software, virtual instruments) is and what we are capable of making with it.
Because we cannot frequently hire a full orchestra to record our music, we all rely on virtual instruments. Therefore the most importing thing to look for in judging a digital composer, besides pure musical skills, is the sample libraries - virtual instruments they have and their familiarity with the software ensuring that the music they record on a home-studio sound as if it is recorded by real musicians & instruments. In that regard, I can safely say that some world-class sounding libraries (such that with enough diligence, one cannot notice whether it is a real recording played by real musicians or entirely recorded on computer) are included in my orchestral palette.
Here are some of the sound libraries installed on my setup, with official demos:
- CineSamples - CineWinds CORE listen
- CineSamples - CineWinds PRO listen
- Vienna Symphonic Library - Vienna Woodwinds listen
- Vienna Symphonic Library - Vienna Special Woodwinds listen
- CineSamples - CineBrass CORE listen
- CineSamples - CineBrass PRO listen
- Vienna Symphonic Library - Vienna Brass listen
- Vienna Symphonic Library - Vienna Special Brass listen
- CineSamples CineStrings - CORE listen
- Vienna Symphonic Library - Vienna Orchestral Strings listen
- Vienna Sympgonic Library - Vienna Chamber Strings listen
- Vienna Symphonic Library - Vienna Solo Strings listen
- CineSamples - CinePerc CORE listen
- CineSamples - CinePerc PRO listen
- CineSamples - CinePerc EPIC listen
- CineSamples - CinePerc AUX listen
- Spitfire Audio - Hans Zimmer Percussion listen
- Vienna Sympgonic Library - Vienna Percussion listen
- Spitfire Audio - Albion ONE listen
- Fluffy Audio - Dominus Choir PRO listen
- CineSamples - VOXOS Epic Choirs listen
- Soundiron - Venus Symphonic Women's Choir listen
- Soundiron - Mars Symphonic Men's Choir listen
And many other single virtual instruments including Piano, Harp, Theremin, Tuned Glasses, Guitar...
To demonstrate how good these sound, have a listen to this short film score with CineSamples:
Or this masterpiece from Wagner, which I recorded only using Vienna Symphonic Library:
This track, which is the choral part of Mozart's Lacrimosa, is entirely recorded with my sound libraries:
Thanks to the word builder engine within my virtual instruments, "Lacrimosa" is not the only word that I can make the choir say. As long is the word includes Latin phonetics, I can record any word with a full choir musically.
For Piano recordings, I use a Steinway Concert D sound library:
I know that classical instruments are not the only tools a filmmaker might want in the soundtrack of their project. Happily traditional instruments are also not the only tools that I have. Below you can see unconventional recordings like Synth-Waves or Theremin:
For most of the virtual instruments, I use Kontakt as an instrument player. In Kontakt, it is possible to manipulate notes or add many effects to the instruments by using simple tools within Kontakt or writing a script (code) for Kontakt Script Processor. Alongside manipulating existing instrument, creating an entirely new virtual instrument out of any recorded sound is one of (actually the main one) Kontakt's abilities. Therefore I can also satisfy such absurd demands as "Play the tune of Ninth Symphony with the table sound that I am sending you!". Thanks to introductory Python courses I have taken in the past, it had not been extremely thorny to learn Kontakt Script Processor language. You can visit my github page to see a legato script I wrote for Kontakt.
Here you can listen to the distorted and, in the beginning, megaphoned (all upon the request of the director) version of a famous Turkish tune "Memleketim":
I use Studio One 5 as Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). There I can import the video-audio to be scored, and score the appropriate music with precise timing effortlessly. Also thanks to my world-class algorithmic reverb (ValhallaDSP ValhallaRoom) and convolution reverb (LiquidSonics Reverberate) plugins, I can make the music sound like it is anywhere: as if it is playing inside your ears, or as if it was recorded in Carnegie Hall. Due to the exquisite quality of my libraries and plugins, the final product usually needs little or no EQ. Finally, to demonstrate reverbs, have a listen to the desert-dry Vienna Symphonic Library Flute with an algorithmic reverb: