Hi!
I re recorded my piece for orchestra "At Work" (original a solo piano work) with the Garritan Personal Orchestra, a great gift from a good friend! I still have lots to discover in this software but am happy with the results till now. After this recording, I also made a lot of changes in the score itself, I discover mostly many things during the recording of a piece that could be improved in the score, a great way of examining the score in detail!

Here is the link to the music,

https://www.box.net/shared/k4ma19ni7f

I would love to hear some comments on it, especially on how it is mixed. I am not very advanced in eq and compressing and the other more tecnical side of Logic 8, but is it nessecary to do these things when using a complete libary like GPO?

André

my goodness, one stumbles upon the most talented people at Piano World.

Your website is sooo impressive. I'm sorry I can't comment on the mixing but have never heard of that software.. a virtual orchestra? How fun.

It's a lovely piece and I really like the piano solo, but prefer the orchestral version.

('I was also happy to stumble upon the shocking poem 'A PAEAN'.. I remember reading that years ago).

You could put your homepage/website in your signature.

Thanks! I added my home page to my signature, good idea!

Yes, the virtual orchestra is called Garritan Personal Orchestra. I am working with it about 3 weeks or so, very impressive! But it takes a lot of tweaking and I play every single instrument on my piano into the computer. This piece took me about 2 weeks to finish.

I love Poe's poems. I also used a short story of him for an opera. ("The facts in the case of M. Valdemar").

André

you know, the Composer's Forum does not get much traffic. I enjoy a morning listen, but I think few Piano World members come 'down here'. There is a lot of activity in the Pianist Corner and the Piano Forum... for instance at 6.30 AM my time, there are 5 viewing this forum and 139 in the Pianist Corner.

I have really enjoyed compositions. they are seriously great.!!!!

I am going to save up for that orchestra.

Just wondering , do you run GPO in other software or can it run on its own?

By the way your music and orchestrations are very impressive.

Thanks

There is a stand-alone version of the player. Useful if you just want to use your computer to play e.g the piano sound directly from a MIDI keyboard.

You COULD set it up in this way and record instruments individually into a multitrack audio recorder. More typically, you'd use it as an insert in a sequencer program and record the tracks as MIDI data. No disadvantages, and added ability to correct and otherwise edit the performance.

Thanks for that Exalted Wombat.

The pop and rock guys would have us think that compression was a standard technique! I see little need for it in your type of music. Use eq on individual instruments if you find the mix becoming "muddy" - too many instruments fighting for the same frequency range. But really, we do this in the orchestration, not as a remedial measure while mixing! One tweak I do find useful - often sampled sounds are presented with rather too much reverb. This makes them sound more impressive when playing alone. But in the mix I prefer drier sounds with a single overall reverb applied at the output bus. I'm not sure if GPO applies reverb on a per-instrument basis, and if it can be controlled. But if it can, you might consider knocking it off the individual instruments and putting an insert reverb in the output bus.

My only criticism of the piece as a whole is that I heard the final cadence as rather lightweight, lacking the gravitas of some bass instruments.