About Rob Evans Expertise Questions on all aspects of Computers and Music production. Setting up and using a computer based recording studio. Sound editiing. Creating Music CD`s and DVD`s. Software for recording and mastering and all of the pitfalls that you will come across.
Experience 31 Years of playing guitar, bass & keyboard and as a vocalist, in many bands. I have a huge amount of knowledge on all aspects of music and music production. 15 years in IT has given me the necessary skills to apply the power of computers to music.
Publications Local Papers; Evening Mail, Sutton Coldfield Observer
Education/Credentials Graduate of London's Guitar Institute
Graduate of London's Musicians Institute
Studied all grades of music, classical and contemporary
HP Accredited Systems Engineer (ASE)
Accredited Platform Specialist (APS) Proliant BL30e Blade Servers , Rapid Deployment and Integration
Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) ? NT4 Server in the Enterprise
Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) ? Metaframe XP 1.0
Compaq Accredited Systems Engineer (ASE)
Accredited Compaq Technician (ACT) ? Proliant Server, NT Performance
and Integration, Systems Management
Wyse Terminals Winterm Sales Certification, General Information Certification
HP Sales Star Associate (HPSSA)
Toshiba Laptop and Desktop Accredited Technician (TPCMP-A/ii)
Question I'll tell you what I'd like to do, and maybe you can tell me if and how it can be done. I want a basement orchestra. I want to write scores with dozens to hundreds of microtonal parts and render it as MIDI. Then I want to attach a virtual instrument (sampled, preferably) to each instrument on the MIDI file. Then the computer would know to play each MIDI track like a human would play the music; a microsecond-length sound for "hitting" the note at first, then a loop of the sound of "sustaining" the note, then the sound of the note "sliding" down to a lower note, then the sound of the note ending, etc. - all tailored to the instrument I patched in to that MIDI track, and all with myself doing nothing more than writing the MIDI score notation. Is this possible? Basically, I just want to write a score and have my computer perform the music as intelligently and organically as humans would perform the music. How can I do this?
Thanks for any help you can give, or any resources you can point me to!
Answer Yes it can be done. Writing the score can be done using the facilities in software such as Sonar or Cubase. You write score for each instrument and assign a midi channel to that instrument. When you play back the score it sends the midi equivalent information and tells the device at the end what to do. Now comes the more difficult part! The device receiving your midi information could be a Synth module, a sampler, both or another piece of software on your PC. Synths nowadays are capable of producing some fantastic reproductions of classical instruments, as they often use samples of the actual as well as the synthesized elements, and it would very much depend on just how real you wanted the sounds to be. If you listen to a full score reproduced on a Synth, you would be hard pushed to tell the difference, until you came to the soloing instruments. As the instruments are heard much more in isolation, it does become apparent, to the discerning ear that you cant here the player's technique coming through in the performance, just the individual notes. This is where the sampler, can kick in. A sampler records, or makes use of recorded sounds instead of generating its own. You would either record the actual instrument or load up a sample from a CD of samples or ones you have downloaded, this is a good place to start http://www.jeffrona.com/ReelWorldBook/p107.html
A good sampler is capable of combining several sounds to achieve a high standard is realism. The attack portion of the sound can contain the initial sound of the string being plucked for example, the hold portion either plays a complete sample of a set length or loops a shorter one and the release portion plays a sample of the note fading out. Sounds great eh! But it's not as simple as that. Don't forget that this is one sample of one note in one octave range. Any one sample can be altered in pitch to a certain degree to make a C to a c# and possibly a D. However, the further you take it from its original pitch, the less realistic it sounds. To combat this, Samplers usually use banks of many samples of the same instrument at different pitches, these are then mapped to the note range that they sound best in and when you move out of that range, the next sample is used. A high quality hardware sampler of the power required to perform the task to want will be expensive. I would instead look at a software sampler that you will load on to your PC. Check these out http://www.computersandmusic.com/category.aspx?SID=1&Category_ID=132&.
There is no real way round the fact that to produce something that is really realistic, a whole set of complicated, high quality, and well constructed samples will do the job. However, for the sake of ease, I would suggest that you get a decent Synth module and a software sampler. This way you can construct the body of you work using the Synth and the solo parts using the sample.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Rob
