Doctor Eternal's Oblivion Music (Sound track) Total Conversion MOD

Yup, I'm replacing all 28 mp3 files in Oblivion with completely original music. I'm using the same technology, same sample sets and same techniques as I use to record music for MyOwnOrchestra.net.

Have a listen! http://turingshop.com/oblivion

Dr.E

Handy reference for composers

Here's a very handy online reference of musical symbols. For those of you writing new music, or doing some score reading (which you should be if you're writing!), becoming familiar with these symbols is essential.

Young Composers Contest

I am thrilled to announce My Own Orchestra's first semi-annual Young Composers Contest.

It's a rare thing these days for a young composer to have their music performed by an orchestra. And when the chance does arrive, odd are it'll be in the form of a 'reading' by a college or local orchestra. Believe me, these can be pretty traumatic. On the one hand, there's the thrill of hearing your music played live, and on the other there's the pain and misery that come from actually hearing your music played live. :) Intonation! Intonation! Oh, the pain!

Seriously, getting a professional quality performance/recording of a composer's work is difficult at best. We're hoping to change all that with this contest. To sum up:

Grand Prize (1):

• $500 (US) in cash
• A recording contract with WhaleSound Records*, which includes:
  • A full CD (up to 70 minutes) of the winner's music professionally recorded by MyOwnOrchestra.net
  • A professionally engraved printed score of the composer's entry
  • Worldwide distribution of the winner's CD through Apple iTunes, Rhapsody, Arvato, AudioLunchbox, Bitmunk, BuyMusic, Chondo, Daiki, Destra, DigitalKiosk, Emusic, GreatIndieMusic, Mouzika, MP3-Extension, MP3tunes and many more!
  • A website featuring the composer's music
  • A profile and interview with the composer featured on MyOwnOrchestra.net

First Prize (1):

• $250 (US) in cash
• A CD of the composer's contest entry plus one other piece professionally recorded by MyOwnOrchestra.net
• A professionally engraved printed score of the composer's entry
• A profile and interview with the composer featured on MyOwnOrchestra.net

Runners up Prize (3):

• A recording of the composer's contest entry (output as WAV and MP3)

Not a bad deal, eh? We're starting locally with the press releases and working out way out into the big, wide world. I, personally am hoping we'll get entries from composers all over the world.

Good luck to you all!

How NOT to perform "In the Hall of the Mountain King" - A Rant

Having just spent the better part of a half an hour listening to new orchestral library demos (most of which are available at SoundsOnline.com) I am convinced that the people performing most of the demos have had little or no contact with musicians who actually play the instruments that have been sampled. Thus, the performances lack reality, clarity and most of all- soul.

For example, listen to this recording of Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King, as programmed by Jay Bacal using the Vienna Symphonic Library (Here's the full score for reference). Notice it says programmed by and not performed by. I'm not sure what they're trying to say there, but it implies that a MIDI file of the piece was used to generate the recording, as opposed to an actual performance with a keyboard. Anyway- here it is.
Now, I don't want to bash Mr. Bacal (on purpose), but this recording has several examples of what not to do when creating an orchestral recording from a sample library.

1: The obvious: the mix is unbelievably muddy. Sounds like a combination of ineffective mixing of the prominent lines and too much reverb.

2. The melody line in the beginning, especially the bassoon, positively yells out "I AM A SAMPLE!" This only becomes obvious at bar 6, where the bassoons go from playing quarter notes to eighth notes. Judging by the sound, no sample change happens here. The staccato bassoon in the previous bars is sufficiently short, but not short enough for the eighth notes. Thus the melody becomes muddied, and simply incorrect. Solution: Change to a shorter staccato sample or adjust the envelope of the sample to cut off sooner. I would recommend the former.

3. Where are the violins and violas? Granted, string lines are the hardest to emulate effectively, but here they fall apart completely. Well, not so much fall apart, as fail to deliver. Firstly, at rehearsal mark A, when the violas make their entrance, they are quite weak. Granted, piano violas are not exactly loud, but if you look at their part, you can see that not only are they entering on their lowest string (C) which has that wonderful, cutting woodiness, but if you examine the orchestration, you'll see there is almost nothing else playing in their register at that moment. Without the force of their rhythm, this section fails to deliver the increase in momentum that the part demands. Solution: 1. Just turn them up in the mix. 2. Use a sharper sounding sample, or detune the sample from the violas G string (stretch the sample range down) and combine it with the C-string phrase. You will hear me quite often recommending the mixing of voices in this way, as the results are almost always quite satisfying.

The orchestrator's essential reading/link list

Whether you're just starting out, are looking for a refresher or just trying to get some inspiration, here's a list of must-have books/links on orchestration, theory and music in general. I will add to this in the future.

• Composers on Music - Commentaries, essays and letters on various musical subjects from famous composers
  
• The Study of Orchestration, Adler
• Orchestration, by Walter Piston (my personal favorite)
• Treatise Instrumentation by Hector Berlioz - Straight from the master
• The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, by Anita Ganeri (Author), Benjamin Britten (Composer), Ben Kingsley (Narrator) - Good for young and old, IMHO
  

Some links to check out:

• Principles of Orchestration - An amazing site with huge amounts of examples of orchestral technique
• The Orchestra: A User's Manual - Another site with loads of information about the orchestra, full of examples (most in mp3 format)
• 
  

My introduction to loud music.

GrampieNKids1.jpg
Originally uploaded by Doctor Eternal

Here I am in 1978 in my grandfather's basement. I'm the one on the far right, sitting on my cousin Patti's knee. It was in this setting that I was first introduced to the joy of hearing music played very loudly on very tall speakers. If you look on the far right of the picture, you can see a bit of one of the speakers- it towered over me then.

We would visit every Saturday evening, have beans and hot dogs, then all go downstairs to listen to music. This was the first place I heard the music of Wendy Carlos, Isao Tomita and other synthesizer giants.

My brother and I would sit on the floor, drawing our own monster Moog synthesizers like the one on the cover of Switched-On Bach, and "play along" to those wonderful and weird sounds.

Another one of my favorites back then was the 1812 Overture. Not so much for it's rich orchestral sound, but for the sound of those amazing cannons that, when played through five foot speakers, shook the room (hey, I was 7, cannons were cool).

I am extremely grateful to my grandfather for introducing me to music in this way, and to my parents for always encouraging me to pursue it.

My thoughts on digital orchestration.

First off let's make a clear distinction. A digital orchestra is not an orchestra. It is thousands of samples of the instruments that make up an orchestra, reassembled at blazing speeds by a computer. Thus, when writing for a digital orchestra, I treat the instruments as they are- samples on a disk that can be manipulated in any way I can imagine.

To illustrate, let me tell you about an experience I had with one of my professors. I was presenting a portfolio of music for review, when he pointed out that a flute is not capable of playing A below middle C, as I had indicated it to do in my score. He informed me of my mistake and expected it to be corrected. Had I forgotten the ranges of the flute? C'mon! I've been writing orchestral music since I was 10 (in 1981).

I proceeded to explain to him that I had intended the part to be performed by a sampled flute, which was capable of being manipulated to sound lower than it's real-world counterpart. He then asked why I had not simply written the part for alto flute, since the line in question was well within that instrument's range. Back to me- I explained that the sound of a flute stretched to A below middle-C had the sharper tone I wanted, whereas an alto flute would have sounded too safe- in that situation.

This is one of the main reasons I love digital orchestras so much. If I want a tuba to play a C5 and sound like the player had just inhaled a lung full of helium, then damn it all that tuba's going to play a C5! It is data that can be manipulated, and I will manipulate it- and so should you!

BTW- to see the effects of helium on wind instruments, check this: