Hi folks! I wonder if some of you have the equipment to create film music in an orchestral style on a PC (w/o external HW). The main problems seam to be: Many sound channels, getting good samples (under $4000) and CPU hogging sample-replay routines. Can anyone recommend a working equipment he/she successfully uses for this genre of music? Boris Student of Computer Science, AI & CG

If you want to make ir really cheap, get a SBLive platinium, a good midi keyboard and some good midi sequencer (Cubase?). Then download FluidR2 and KR5ZX128 sound banks from hammersound.net and Orchestral battery from the creative labs site.
If you have any questions, go to hammersound.net there they'll advice you better than I.

Or if you wanna be a tracker you don't have to buy a thing but you'll barely be able to create a good orchestral soundtrack even after 5 years of experience. (www.modplug.com)



Edited by - Claymore on February 27, 2001 3:03:57 AM

Thanks for your help. Do any other musicians here use a recommendable equipment for orchestral/film music?

I''m currently thinking about what kind (quality) of soundcard to buy: from Soundblaster to SampleCell2plus/TDM/ProTools package.

The question if it is still affordable, but also if it is necessary to buy all that hardware. I heard that many people work with Cubase and GigaSampler (also coming with a GrandPiano Lib). Others use up to 4 external samplers... overkill? And every solution has its pro''s and contra''s (no Akai S1000 format support, no multisamples at all, max. 64 MB sample ram...). Is there maybe a survey site somewhere on the net specialized on working solutions or recommended combinations of HW/SW?

Boris

Probs with samplers? Then count in 90$ for registering Awave. It cross converts everything possible. (www.fmjsoft.com)

I say it again. You should better search with yahoo or altavista for some specialized music forums about hardware. I doubt that you''ll get good advices here. Most of the poeple here can''t help you and those who can are searching for a job, not for another good musician..

The last thing I know is the location of most recommended sound banks for PC and either for some good synthetizers. They are good for movies and such..
www.e-mu.com
www.sonicimplants.com

Ok, thanks to all.

Yes I know AWave... already used it to create SF2s for my soundcard. But I don''t get very far with only 32MB sample ram.

I already found some pages online, even in German. But they all cover the basics (down to sampling theorems) and never cover classic/orchestral memory hogging music. All they can recommend are external samplers like the new EMU/AKAI generations ($$$).

I''m into MODs since 1987 (Amiga500) and I noticed, that they don''t provide all the features necessary for classical music. Especially if you plan to include multi-samples or samples exceeding 8MB. It is also bad for exact film synchronization, since you have to calculate the exact time points in the patterns to make it look and sound right.

Thanks anyway... Have to check my purse now.

Boris