March of the Albions - a Chapperz original

[TPB]

What a great addition to the sound library  Strings are outstanding in this collection. But having good sound samples is only part of it the composition on this is great well done
Tim

[chapperz66]

I'm glad you like this.

I like it a lot, very nice work indeed!

How do you do this kind of thing? Do you just play basic parts on a keyboard to produce a midi track to which you then add the samples, or do you "play" the samples through a midi keyboard and record them in the normal manner? Whichever way you do it, a career in sound track composition beckons.....

I wrote this by playing the samples  a track at a time on a midi keyboard - a fairly cheap Arturia keylab 49 and recording the midi data into Studio One 4 pro. I then built it up a track at a time to what you hear.

Most of the Spitfire sample libraries use NI Kontakt and the ones that I have so far are compatible with the free Kontakt player.  If you aren't familiar with Kontakt, it is a VSTi that allows you to use multiple instances of compatible instruments inside one instance of Kontakt.  It is pretty much only limited by the amount of RAM you have in your computer.  These orchestral libraries are pretty huge but I managed to get up to 10 instances (and therefore 10 tracks)  before my 16gb PC started to struggle. I then had to render the 10 tracks to audio, but that was enough to get the basic shape of the piece.  I then added a few more tracks in a second instance of Kontakt.  Some of the brass and woodwinds were played on samples that I got as reasonably priced add-on sample libraries from Presonus.  I'm particularly fond of the fairly ridiculous trombone and muted trumpet bits in the middle section.

The major issue with producing this piece was trying to work out how to route the different instruments in Kontakt to separate tracks in my DAW. It took me ages but I got there in the end.  I just hope I can remember next time!

Obviously I was aiming for a fairly cinematic vibe and felt quite pleased with myself until my wife heard it and commented that it sound like a Tom and Jerry film.  Thanks dear!

Anyway, thanks for your comments.

Paul