Software program to Create Virtual Orchestral Music?

[izdawiz]

Hi Everybody. For the past few months I've been tinkering with the  Idea of  transcribing unsung Symphonies that have not been recorded into virtual Music. I'm not sure if the Technology exists yet. I know there is MIDI formats but I believe the sound is not Fully orchestral I also heard of Sibelius.. Yet I am not sure if the music that one produces out of it is Convincingly real.. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[mbhaub]

More or less, you could do this without midi. I use Finale and a virtual orchestra called Garritan Personal Orchestra. The sounds are sampled, then Finale uses them for playback. No, it doesn't sound like the Vienna Philharmonic, but it's vastly superior to midi, I don't care how good the sound card is. Finale also allows Human Playback so you can manipulate (to an extent) tempo and other variations. It wouldn't, and couldn't, be perfect, but it could certainly give a good idea what the music sounds like. There are many TV and Hollywood composers who never use an orchestra, and the untrained ear of most people can easily be fooled.

The problem, of couse, is inputting all of the notes, phrasing, accents, tempos et al. Very, very time consuming.

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, Garritan's the way to go. To get a feel for how a late-romantic score might sound, try the sample of Hugo Kaun's First Symphony half way down the page here. And here's a clip from Rüter's Third Symphony (near the bottom of the page).

[izdawiz]

mbhaub,

Thank you for the great suggestion    ... Mark I listen to the excerpts and they sound very good indeed Thank you for taking the time to post them up! I truly appreciate the Help Fellas.. 

[TerraEpon]

More or less, you could do this without midi. I use Finale and a virtual orchestra called Garritan Personal Orchestra. The sounds are sampled, then Finale uses them for playback. No, it doesn't sound like the Vienna Philharmonic, but it's vastly superior to midi,

Actually it's still MIDI, I imagine. Just using better sounds than you're used to. MIDI is just instructions (what note to play, how long, how loud, what instrument, etc) -- it can sound like pure crap or it can sound very good, it all depends on what you use.

Sibelius also comes with a sound library that's not too bad. I haven't heard the new Finale ones as I haven't gotten a new version of that since 2003 or so (or maybe 2001)