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in. When the strings, for example, are properly sequenced I’ll drop them one by one to audio tracks. The player’s point of view Interesting things happen when you’ve spent a great deal of time preparing a score and then put on a different hat and become a MIDI bassoon player. I’ll play a section that has a legato grouping of four notes followed by another group of three and find myself, as the player, offering the orchestrator some options. “Do you really want two groupings? Listen to how the line sounds if all seven notes are slurred together... better, right?” Yes, that is better! So, I go back to the score and enter in this small revision. What’s your attitude regarding quantizing MIDI parts? I’m not rigid in this area. I record with quantization turned off, but I don’t hesitate to apply light quantization if I think it will help. More often I’ll simply fix a note here or there that’s a bit out of time. I don’t often worry about replaying parts that are doubled either, though some times I will. At other times I’ll copy the first flute MIDI line over the second flute track and alter velocities and start times of individual notes to add realism to the part. I also find that it is important to make use of the various layers of a sample during long sustained notes. In the past I rode the fader on a MIDI track to create this effect, but this method doesn’t take you through an instrument’s layers, and they are important. Now I might choose an initial velocity of, say, 93, that triggers the sound I like best for the beginning of a held note. Then I add a controller lane in my sequencer, dedicated to controller 7, and I draw a curve (or a straight line) into that lane. That way I’ll move through the instrument’s different sample layers along the way. As the piece builds and I start to create a mix, I invariably see that some orchestration changes can improve things. For example, there are several moments in “2” where the french horns carry the main line within a dense orchestral texture. They weren’t cutting through enough, and the trombones happened to be sitting out at these points. I doubled ’bones 1 and 2 and made sure that their velocity levels were lower than those of the horns. The result was exactly right—the ’bones gave support but the main color still came from the horns. If you have tons of experience working with live orchestras you may not need your workstation to help you in this way—the virtual orchestra is a great help to me, however.

“2” is a large piece; in addition to the standard orchestra I wrote parts for the sax section that was so brilliantly performed, recorded and programmed in Broadway Big Band (if you listen to the piece, note how beautifully these instruments blend into the orchestra), an African percussion ensemble that I played using NI’s Battery 3, several Spectrasonics loops (congas and triangle) whose MIDI data I laboriously massaged, and a guitar part. Ah, that guitar part! Back in the day I was a pretty fair blues and rock player, and an avid student of every lick that Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, BB King, Albert King—the list goes on—ever laid down on vinyl. The guitar part I wrote and performed sits right in the instrument’s meat range, with sustained notes midway up the neck on the first and second strings. I recorded this part using the fabulous Electri6ity plug-in from Vir2 Instruments, as reviewed by Allen Goodman in July 2011. If you need an authentic set of guitar samples, head over to vir2.com and check this baby out, it’s amazing. I used their Lipstick guitar, fed it through NI’s Guitar Rig, and recorded the track twice, using an amp simulation of my beloved early-’60s Fender Deluxe Reverb on the first take, and a combination that used some distortion effects on the second pass. Ready to mix After all the tracks were recorded at levels that allowed me to set each audio track’s MIDI fader on the main mixer without having to ride it during the mix, I laid down a rough mix that I sent to my friend Ed Goldfarb in the Bay area, along with the individual tracks. If you don’t know Ed’s work you owe it to yourself to check it out (www.edgoldfarbmusic.com). He’s a brilliant musician, producer and mixer. Ed did some eq carving, found space for the individual instruments and groups, and sent me a mix to review via yousendit.com. A few minor tweaks, and... it’s over, thank goodness! I’m now laying down the parts to “1” and should have the entire project completed in another couple of weeks. When all four movements are in the can I’ll hoist them up to my website, www.garyeskow.com. In the meantime, www.recordingmag.com/ resources/resourceDetail/384.html has some audio samples and snippets of the score. Gary Eskow (eskow@recordingmag.com) is a composer, arranger, and orchestral soundware fanatic living the dream in the New York City area. Check out his latest projects at garyeskow.com.
RECORDING August 2012

http://www.vir2.com http://www.edgoldfarbmusic.com http://www.audiobro.com http://www.yousendit.com http://www.garyeskow.com http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/384.html http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/384.html http://WWW.AUDIOBRO.COM http://www.garyeskow.com

Recording - August 2012

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