Orchestral Programming - The SECRET WEAPON

how many media composers film TV games composers orchestral composers orchestral programmers users of virtual orchestral instruments are there on the planet today well being one having spoken to thousands of them and sold a fair few orchestral libraries to a lot of them I can safely say there's bucket loads so how is it we all have to use bits of improvised homemade and repurpose kit to actually make these often really expensive bits of software actually work because the brief is simple a midi controller with two or three sliders ones we can assign to different midi CC controllers without using any proprietary software or cables and if at all possible could we have it so it was well built and hard wearing and felt nice because we will have to have our left hand on it for the entirety of our professional lives so when an advert sprang up on my Instagram feed for a new piece of desk candy called the conductor by ghostnote Audio a British company that predominantly sells stomp boxes my interest was peaked would this at long last be what we were all waiting for something that we could work with every day all day take on the road with us zero downtime with no proprietary cables or software where well on unboxing I was none the wiser no branding no manual no link to a manual it's nice to get something that feels exclusive but this thing was keeping me guessing a sexy mysterious Enigma until I opened the second one I had bought the one I bought for my tour bag and this note popped out hello Christian first of all thank you so much for your order I greatly appreciate you taking a chance on a new product and supporting a British business hrah on the off chance that I'm wrong please accept my apologies but I believe you are the owner of crowhill company and the co-founder of Spitfire audio that is I I wanted to write you a quick notes since your order is quite a serendipitous event for me and I wanted to tell you why I'm a longtime subscriber of your YouTube channel and I've been following your work for years and it was from one of those videos that I got the idea of developing this product thank you for all the amazing content youve produced keep doing great things best regards of valdemir erlingsson ghost note audio so what I wanted to do in this video is to talk to you about why producers but particularly orchestral programmers are obsessed with these things how they use them there's a few different scenarios and whether this new controller new to the market is the real deal have they finally nailed it got it right piano controller keyboards control everything that we make pretty much within computers I mean people use the odd drum pad but 99% of what you hear coming out of doors that have been created with virtual instruments are with piano controllers now they're good at controlling on and off they're good at controlling soft and loud but what they're not great at doing is controlling what happens Midway through a note which doesn't really matter for pianos that hammer a note or guitars that pluck but for notes that are produced with bows and Bellows this is a profound part of their expression something the piano is not designed to do I'll demonstrate very pretty but very still compared to to make a noise out of a violin or a cello or indeed a saxophone is relatively easy to make it sound nice requires a degree of expression Humanity which is something pianos don't really do without the aid of one of these now what I've got is two different controllers that I'm using here the tambra and expression I'll start with expression a volume control but within the instrument itself if I was to use volume I'd simply be turning the plug-in up and down with expression I'm using a gain stage within the instrument so it doesn't cut everything out so there's a degree of room Reverb in there and often things like release triggers that kind of stuff so it's a volume within the instrument or the virtual instrument itself the second is tomra and in the case of this instrument what we're doing is we're using this fader to mix between two tomel layers then playing quietly and playing loudly so you'll hear both a change in perceived amplitude or volume but also a change in the tone from something softer to something more expressive now what's great about having these two controls combined is it gives us greater tonal expression but it also allows you to cheat things so take this sound compare it with now because those strings are being played with less Vigor less loudly they they have a softer sound but naturally are also quer versus but with expression we can use the quieter tomra and play it louder as if the strings have simply been [Music] muted so this next sound is interesting because we're imitating crossfading between different tal layers or different recordings we're actually all we're doing is opening and closing a filter slightly so compare this to this but with the two [Music] combined now it's really funny cuz that sounds odd to me because these controllers as far as I'm concerned are the wrong way around and what's even funnier is I think they're the wrong way around on our GUI as well this brings me to the problems I've been having with these in the past proprietary software there is no knob on this that enables me to change what that fader does versus what that fader does so what I have to do is go into the internet and go to this thing called ghost note audio conductor midi editor which you can find here on its website needless to say there's no indication of that anywhere in the package when it's delivered to you and this makes me less nervous than proprietary software because it's simply doing something called flashing not in the rud sense but it's using midi to basically give it a set of sisx information that this device then remembers so what I'm going to do is actually reverse slider number one and assign MIDI controller number 11 which is expression and one which is modulation for the second I'm going to hit upload there we go and hopefully we will now have something that doesn't match the GUI which is expression there tomra there expression I use less than tambra because it is a way of often balancing voices Within a section taror control is such a fundamental part of expression and when you get into instruments that have a greater number of dynamic layers you'll really want much more scrutinizing control of that and because this finger has a dedicated tendon whereas this doesn't this finger is more agile so therefore I feel much more comfortable changing the tomra like that as opposed to with this finger the reason people put it the other way around is control and number order I think so that's one that's 11 whereas I think it should be 11 and one even if our GUI suggest it shouldn't [Music] be you hear the shifts and differences you can make in volume what's absolutely fantastic about this device is that that's what I want I want that degree of control from zero to 127 it enables me to really be nuanced nothing's happening we're just sustaining but we've got so far to go and because this is simple midi information you can record it and adjust whether we're using modulation or we're editing expression so maybe what I want to do is make it a lot louder but bring down the tomal harshness make it more sensitive and silky sounding take away a bit of that or indeed what I might want to do is really be a little bit more Dynamic with how it's being played it doesn't just apply to Strings or things that AB Bode things that are bellowed so woodwind brass or indeed stuff like accordion organs they will all sound strangely unfamiliar without you adopting these controls but even with something like a piano I can use this controller to enhance my performance say for example I wanted to change the distance that the microphones are from the keyboard whilst playing to alter the aperture and the emotional effect now if I check here I can see that's assigned to cc12 so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go and change this to cc12 flash the unit and there we [Music] are but there's also this gray effect here called fractal [Music] so often with keyboard sounds we [Music] just wouldn't it be nice to not to over sugar the pudding with those to use those just like we did with the distance thing as a as a form of expression so I'm just going to change this to let's go so this is 13 and then this is 14 so we're not messing with any controllers that are being set up there let's Flash the unit and let's learn so learn 13 learn 14 and so now I have control of the [Music] yoke [Music] I've become so used to using these controllers that I will often use them on stuff like that I find it so much quicker to work to picture he looks and then Winks being able to control those moments on a fly in a human level helps with the connection between the picture and the performance and that's what for me composition is gesticulations and emotions and expressions are as part of the emotional tapestry of the story you're helping to tell along with getting some great notes and putting them in a good order now as for this piece of Kit what do I think the build quality is fantastic it does feel very much like a cottage industry piece of kit but it's it's something I'm going to have my left hand on all day every day and it's something I like the feel of it's got a good weight to it it's got nearly the right USB port at the back for me everything's becoming USBC and I would find it so much more I don't know heartening when leaving my house with one of these that it was a USBC as opposed to I think that's a USB mini less common and therefore not so guaranteed to be replaceable if I've forgotten that lead conversely it would also be great to just have a light to show us that it's come on something again just a bit more comforting I absolutely love the feeling of the faders they have a really like professional feel about them it's not like a quick KN desk I don't know may be more API in sensation but it just gives you just a little bit of push back and what's great about that is that enables smoother more nuanced than with ones that uh have absolutely kind of zero feedback where it's maybe just a little bit more Natty uh if I'd have my way I'd spend a little bit more money on the faders and maybe they could be slightly bigger but I guess the biggest gripe I've had over the the past few years with the solutions that I've come up with is distance that for me is not a natural finger position that is and the reason I say that is a lot of people don't realize that the piano is a very gendered instrument the octave is designed to be played comfortably by a male hand and for many women is actually a really difficult interval to play so I think that we need to be cautious of that I have quite a big stretch so I can completely control the expression versus the tomra this way and that but it's not comfortable it's got these rubber feet which is fine if you use them like that but everyone I know uses them like that so as you've heard I'll probably have to come up with a solution that is maybe some blue tack something like that it would be great if the whole thing or the sides were had this um tacky stuff on so it's stuck there and I guess a good thing to do and developing these is to look at the average size or depth of keyboards this for me feels average maybe above average depth for most controller keyboards when it's like that it's absolutely brilliant it really sticks but I know most people use it like that so is this my new controller yes it is as I say I really love this reach for me is a as a luxury and the feedback that you get the friction you get is just perfect for creating smooth nuanced Expressions it looks great and I think it's going to stand the odd jolt but I do like a light other than that you know I just would encourage the guys at ghost note audio to continue and take pride in your work and I think there's no better sign of Pride than expressing it in the shape of a a little note you gave me a note but you didn't tell me how to use the thing and and uh some of us need our hands holding we're not all Space Age super nerds um so for me I had to really do some investigating which for others could be slightly frustrating all we need is a QR code at the bottom we can zap it get the manual up or indeed just a little card showing us how to use this what to expect but it's great to support a British company uh this hasn't been made as an advert I bought two of these myself one for on the road one to stay here um and I really look forward to using it it's um fat bit of Kit and um just best of luck with the Enterprise and I hope you don't get overwhelmed with orders now because of this video well I do let's hope [Music] so

Channel: The Crow Hill Company

Views: 79,590

Keywords: spitfire audio, christian henson, behind the scenes, orchestral programming, media composition, media composing, media composer, orchestral samples, orchestral sampling, behind the scenes in recording studios, recording studios, music programming, music programming techniques

Id: H1zOvLFqRGE

Length: 19min 27sec (1167 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2024