Ever since I was 14 years old I loved to write movie scores on my old keyboard. I'd like to do that shit now seriously. I'm talking about Hans Zimmer/ Harry G. Williams style. Biiig orchestras and choirs n stuff. Or stuff like this: Which software would you recommend? (I'm using OSX btw)
East West and Vienna Symphonic Library are the products you want to be looking at... Be prepared to shell out some SERIOUS cash though. We're talking $1500 plus. I have the East West Composers collection, and my GOD it's good. Pretty sure East West is what Hans Zimmer and a lot of Hollywood composers use for a large amount of actual scoring now (instead of hiring an Orchestra)
If you are looking to score things out, stuff like Sibelius and Finale is something to look at. Mostly has cheesey samples though, but I really like those programs for the actual visual aesthetic of writing, but with playback as a possibility. As KingAenarion pointed out, East West/Quantum Leap stuff is the biggest commercial name. There are some others that I can not recall right now. Film Music Magazine may provide some cool stuff, stumbled upon it when I did a paper for class last year. BIG movies still have live orchestras, but the price to pay American players, ESPECIALLY union players (which is all of of the big orchestra players ). There are also all these rules, where one has the Orchestra for 3 hours, but can only have 15 minutes of recorded audio. Lot's of shenanigans. Some guys have been using overseas orchestras, like ones in Prague, where you get the whole day + super fancy SSL rooms with full staff for almost what you'd pay a couple players in the US. So for guys like us who don't have that kind of money to go to Prague, East West is there for us! You can buy the small versions and build up.
Thanks guys The price comes second, I just want it to sound professional! I have a couple of score-requests incoming and may earn some bucks in a not-so-distant future with it. My tools right now don't satisfy me at all.
Give Eastwest a go. I don't know if you can demo it - I imagine it would be very restricted due to sample size (it comes on it's own harddrive!!) Maybe you just want one of their products like Quantum Leap Orchestra. It may get you by, it contains a full orchestra and percussion etc... I don't know it's individual price but I'm certain it would be more than 50% of the composers collection. And you get 6 products in that, I believe! Tools for life Just be careful with compatability - do your research. I think they do offer DVD's too if you can't run another harddrive, but if that's the case you better hope your HDD is huge, haha.
It's actually SEVEN titles not 6! I looked at the individual prices - they are less than I would expect but CCC is still a great deal However, King - I've been considering swapping out Goliath for Gypsy when I buy CCC..What do you reckon? It's just Goliath, to me, seems like a big mash up of all the software for someone who wants a bit of everthing (i.e. fairly redundant if purchasing CCC)
I have: Symphonic Choirs Voices of Passion Symphonic Orchestra Silver Symphonic Orchestra Gold Ra Storm Drum 2 Storm Drum Expansion I bought it second hand from someone a couple of years ago now. Goliath is pretty meh from what I've seen. It seems to try to do too many things at once. Ra is great... some really cool instruments in it. Haven't actually used Gypsy yet, but I've heard good things.
Yeah, I've got the equivalent of CCC from like 5 years ago - the old Kompakt sampler with Ra, Choirs, Piano, and Orchestra. I'd not bother upgrading but the new interface is much better and I am sick of using 32 bit plugins The new packages will be cool! Also, I meant Silk not Gypsy haha
Symphonic Orchestra Platinum Silk Pianos Symphonic Choirs Bundle Stormdrum 2 Bundle Voices of Passion Ra Will be my config I think Works out a bit more expensive but seems great! Tempted to get it now actually..was going to wait until I build a new DAW.
I've actually been wanting to start dabbling in this myself actually. I just love the huge epic feelings that you can evoke when you do it right, of course, there'll be a lot of orchestration practice ahead @OP not sure how much experience you've got with composing, if you want some reading on the subject, might be worth checking out "The Guide to MIDI Orchestration - 3rd Ed". I've got a copy in the post due to how comprehensive the thing is.
