Subject:Orchestra and Choir loops

Posted by: Knightmare65

Date:5/20/2007 10:35:42 AM

I am looking for a good orchestra and choir loops on a disk? Anybody know of any? I'm looking in the style of how bands like Dimmu Borgir and Therion use them. They are both death metal bands.

Also, I cannot seem to work with Soft Synths no matter what I do, it just doesn't work for me. I am using Acid Music Studio 6. Is there anything on the market that is easier than Soft Synths. The program is just too tedious and over complicated for me.

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:5/21/2007 4:30:15 AM

> I am looking for a good orchestra and choir loops on a disk?

I would start looking in the Sony Sound Series: Loops & Samples library. You can search by genre and there are several sets of Orchestral loops.

> Also, I cannot seem to work with Soft Synths no matter what I do, it just doesn't work for me.

Soft Synths are software synthesizers. Are you a keyboard player and do you have a MIDI keyboard hooked up to play them? Otherwise you'll have to use the in-line editor to manually edit MIDI notes.

~jr

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: Knightmare65

Date:5/21/2007 4:23:49 PM

Found a cinema orchestra disk that sounds good, thanx. Problem with the Sony Loops and Samples are that there is virtually nothing to be downloaded except the loops I think are junk. Sony's way of editing MIDI notes is horrible.

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:5/21/2007 10:21:57 PM

"Problem with the Sony Loops and Samples are that there is virtually nothing to be downloaded except the loops I think are junk."

You mean the free loops that Sony lets you download to get a feel for each library? I guess its a matter of taste, but there is actually some pretty good stuff on the loop disks. If you want to download more, Sony lets you buy loops one at a time and download them rather than get the whole CD.

"Sony's way of editing MIDI notes is horrible."

Acid is not really meant to be a MIDI sequencer, but I find the MIDI editor works Ok. For serious MIDI work, I use Cubase.

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:5/22/2007 6:53:59 AM

Knightmare65,
I think you're missing some thing about midi and soft synths. I use them in acid 6 pro and I have no problems. MIDI is a little tedious to learn, but it is worth it in the end.

I did check your specs, and I think your sound card could be part of the problem. Creative sound cards are not designed for music applications.

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: pwppch

Date:5/22/2007 6:56:36 AM

>>Acid is not really meant to be a MIDI sequencer

Yes it is!

What is wrong with our MIDI sequencing?

Peter

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: Knightmare65

Date:5/22/2007 4:15:30 PM

I guess if you have the time to learn the soft synths, more power to you. I'm not using Music Studio to publish music or learn to be a professional. I have it for personal use. I just want to create songs to improve my guitar playing. I guess I'm going to have to break down and start buying some of the Sony disks for bass, keyboards/ synthesizers, and orchestra loops. I do have fun creating songs from loops and it is a bit addicting. The better I become playing the guitar, the more complicated I will make the songs.

I thought Creative Labs FX-Music sound card was for music. Could of fooled me. It has music creating software and mixing board. Creative Labs make the best sound cards on the market IMO. I have some more learning to do. BTW, Music Studio is a great tool and it was exactly what I was looking for in what I wanted to do.

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:5/22/2007 6:35:41 PM

Peter,

You put me on the spot there re my comment on MIDI sequencing!

Well, what i was saying is that Acid grew out of its audio loop background. It is really an audio creation application with MIDI capabilities added on. Not that I think this is a bad thing, I am pleased that Sony added MIDI capabilities without damaging the simple and intuitive looping environment that we all bought Acid for in the first place.

By contrast, Cubase was originally a MIDI sequencer with audio added on. Steinberg has around 20 years experience with MIDI and you would expect Cubase to reflect that experience.

There is nothing "wrong" with Acid's MIDI. It works as a basic loop creation tool. It would be unreasonable to expect Acid to be optimised for heavy duty real-time recording and editing work.

I will concede that I know my way around the Cubase editing window pretty well, including most of the keyboard shortcuts, and I might be selling Acid a little short because I don't have the same fluency.

For me, the "loop" approach that Acid uses so well on the audio side doean't work as well with MIDI. I tend to think of MIDI more as a tape recorder for real-time performance.

By the way, whatever happened to the idea of issuing sample loop disks of MIDI performances? Back in the days of DLS synths, Sony (or was it SF?) talked about this. With Kompakt now included, there could be a demand for this kind of resource.

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: feign

Date:5/22/2007 10:29:34 PM

Creative Labs makes the best sound cards for playing computer games and watching movies on a computer. For creating music on a computer, Creative sound cards are extremely limited and actually cause problems with all their built-in effects and filters and upsampling. Sure, they may come with some toy music creation programs, but once you get to professional level - and whatever your purpose might be, Acid is a professional program - you absolutely need something better. For the same or lower price than Creative cards, you should instead invest in something from M-Audio or an equivalent. You'll be surprised how inexpensive a pro audio card can be. And your ears will hear the difference instantly.

As for orchestra and choir loops, there are not a lot of great ones out there for acidized loops. Although I have many Sony loop CDs and think a lot of them are outstanding, their orchestral loop CDs are a bit of a disappointment to me. I get more use out of some orchestral loop and element CDs from masterbits (masterbits.de)

Subject:RE: Orchestra and Choir loops

Reply by: PeterWright

Date:5/23/2007 2:10:35 AM

> "For me, the "loop" approach that Acid uses so well on the audio side doesn't work as well with MIDI. I tend to think of MIDI more as a tape recorder for real-time performance."

Exactly - you've said it. Midi is not really for loops, and Acid for me doesn't have a loop approch to Midi, although you can do that if you want.
I use Acid's Midi, with SoftSynths (Which are simply another choice of instrument to play your midi sounds through) for real time performance, and it is beautifully simple to use.

If you want some nice orchestral tracks - play them yourself.

I bought some nice .EXS orchestral samples (Peter Siedlaczek's Advanced Orchestra) for my previous DAW, Logic Audio, and was happy to find that Acid 6's Kompakt was able to convert them into its format, so I still use them.

For composition, Acid's Section feature can be handy for Verse, Chorus, Middle 8 etc, although I'd like to be able to make a copy of a section for say a second verse, but be able to vary some phrases in Verse 2 without also changing them in Verse 1.