introducing myself

Hello everyone. First thing's first i'll say I'm a 26 yr old military member and my job prevents me from getting a proper musical education. i don't read or write music, but I understand music theory somewhat because i took band class from 4th-12th grade (trumpet and perc), and I've played guitar and bass religiously for the last 14 years (strictly composing my own pieces). Through the years i have messed around with 4-track recorders and keyboards and some muli-track software. I am currently using Pro Tools LE and i have produced some pretty good little songs with just a couple guitars and some samples i downloaded. i never had the cash to buy nice synths or anything.

With that said, I am intersted in composing film-score type music, and i finally have the budget. However, i am isolated in a foriegn country, and i must rely on internet forums to learn what tools i need to compose. It would be a great thing if i could learn to write compositions for an orchestra or something, but i fear that will never happen because of my career, so i have made the decision to use mulit-track recording and perform all the pieces myself. Right now i am caught in between the war of softsynths (Garritan personal orchestra, etc) and hardware keyboards (korg, roland). no amount of online research i do can supplement experience or personal instruction, which i do not have the privilage of. My questions would be: Should i get a keyboard/workstation, or go the softsyth/sampler midi route? Is there a way for me to take music writing courses online? How does a musical mind that is isolated from the rest of the world educated himself and record a complete composition with brass/woodwinds/strings/chior/gutiars/etc.? , and say "here ya go, listen to this, i made this in my house all by myself".

Hey there and welcome to YC! ;)

I'll see what I can help you out with. First off, if you're going to go with the sample library route, I would recommend that you make sure you have the budget to buy yourself a good computer with at least 1GB of RAM as well as Finale 2007 which comes bundled with a version of Garritan Personal Orchestra and is perfect for your needs.

A keyboard workstation will not provide you with the level of realism in terms of sounds that the sample library route will. However, you can combine both worlds by getting a basic MIDI keyboard and using it to play in your parts for your sample libraries to perform.

To start learning about orchestration, you can take a look at this free transcription of Rimsky-Korsakov's treatise on the subject:

Principles of Orchestration On-line - Northern Sound Source

For film scoring, the best way to start out is to watch your favourite movies again and pay special attention to how they were scored, then emulate that in your own compositions. The more you practise, the better you'll get, as with anything else.

Best of luck to you, Sir!

Welcome to YC!

Thank you Marius.

I have heard that virtual instruments sound way more real than a keyboard/workstation. From the reviews i've read, it seems like you need a different softsynth for everything though. One for pianos, one for choir, etc. So with all of this plus a new computer with dual core and all that, i'd probably be looking at at least $3,000. Well, a keyboard/workstation is around $2400 anyway. so i suppose it's worth it. Then there's the learning curve.

On another note, considering musical education, I have tried to read plenty of books, but there's always a point where i just lose what the author is saying and can't go any further. Part of this is because i've mostly attempted to read music theory for guitar, which is a difficult thing because of all the little nauances of a guitar.

But i need to learn more theory so i can say "this chord plus this one is gonna sound scary" or something.

Hi, and welcome to YC!

Have you ever looked into Garageband? I know its for the Apple, but there are many free soundfonts available including the guitar. It comes as part of ILife and costs around $79.

I found a neat site which I love called ICompositions where people post their own soundtracks and mixes. Quite a few of them make guitar compositions and use garageband, and the sound quality of the pieces is very good.

You can check out ICompositions out and see what garageband pieces sound like. The about page of the pieces indicates what software was used to create the soundtrack.

ICompositions Website

Garageband Soundfonts

Hope this is helpful .. :huh: