I have posted a lot of links to songs that I have composed, performed, and recorded on the Oasys. Here is my favorite. During two days in June 2008, I wrote and produced "Of the Evil Done on Our Behalf." It captures what I wanted to do with the Oasys. The solo at 6:48 was improvised on the first take.
http://www.gregorysidakmusic.com/compon ... lbum_id,2/
Scroll down to about the eighth song.
Greg
my best: "Of the Evil Done on Our Behalf"
Moderators: Sharp, X-Trade, Pepperpotty, karmathanever
my best: "Of the Evil Done on Our Behalf"
My website contains more than 150 songs recorded on the OASYS in a variety of genres--from hard rock and jazz to orchestral and country. Please visit: www.gregorysidakmusic.com
-
Trinity2112
- Platinum Member
- Posts: 578
- Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:35 pm
- Location: Delaware, USA
Most impressive....and progressive! Great job, Greg. 
Current Korg Lineup: Kronos 61, Oasys 76 · M3-61/RADIAS · Trinity Plus/HDR · 01/WFD · 01R/W · X3R · M3R · Wavestation EX · Wavestation SR · Triton Rack/MOSS · Z1EX · TR-Rack · Karma · D3200 · iM1 · iWavestation · iMono/Poly
Other Synths: Berhinger Deepmind 12 · iProphet · Moog Model D
Dearly departed: X3
Other Synths: Berhinger Deepmind 12 · iProphet · Moog Model D
Dearly departed: X3
-
peter m. mahr
- Platinum Member
- Posts: 1030
- Joined: Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:47 am
-
Akos Janca
- Platinum Member
- Posts: 1157
- Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Budapest, Hungary
- Contact:
Hi Greg,
Very impressive and interesting music. (Again I feel some influence from Rush.
)
Do you usually score with pencil on paper when composing? Do you record the whole song in one MIDI sequence or in more sequences that you chain later? Do you record everything in real-time or with step-sequencing / slowing down the recording speed?
Thanks and best regards,
Akos
Very impressive and interesting music. (Again I feel some influence from Rush.
)Do you usually score with pencil on paper when composing? Do you record the whole song in one MIDI sequence or in more sequences that you chain later? Do you record everything in real-time or with step-sequencing / slowing down the recording speed?
Thanks and best regards,
Akos
Akos,
Thanks for your comments (and thanks to everyone else on this thread for their comments).
To answer your questions, I never score with pencil and paper. I am too musically illiterate to do so. I do have my own system of setting the length of musical phrases so as to synchronize multiple lines that are in different time signatures. "Of the Evil Done on Our Behalf" opens with a 6/4 drum pattern, on which are overlaid a repetitive vocal phrase in 8/4 (or 2 x 4/4, if you like) and a second drum track in 4/4.
When I bought the Oasys, I assumed wrongly that it would be enable me to generate scores of my compositions. If anyone has a simple solution to generating scores from Oasys MIDI tracks, I would be interested in knowing it.
I do chain together different MIDI sequences. Sometimes I do not know what will be the verse and what will be the chorus. My style of composing is iterative, which is why I like composing at the Oasys. I never compose at, and rarely play, my acoustic piano any longer.
I never use set-sequencing when composing. I do not find it intuitive and have never really figured out how to use it. Maybe I am missing out on some powerful tool.
I almost always record in real time. My solos are definitely recorded in real time. I find that slowing the recording speed causes an improvised solo to turn out completely differently, in a way that I don't find pleasing. I play a lot of my solos with two hands so that I can cover more ground, particularly if I am trying to simulate a guitarist's tapping or sweep picking. Listen to "The Price of Experience" on "Courage and Remembrance," which is entirely recorded in real time (most of it improvised). The right and left hands are working together on the lead lines.
I have been experiencing a writer's block for the past few months. So I have not managed to finish my piece about Budapest, which I had mentioned to you earlier this year.
Best regards,
Greg
Thanks for your comments (and thanks to everyone else on this thread for their comments).
To answer your questions, I never score with pencil and paper. I am too musically illiterate to do so. I do have my own system of setting the length of musical phrases so as to synchronize multiple lines that are in different time signatures. "Of the Evil Done on Our Behalf" opens with a 6/4 drum pattern, on which are overlaid a repetitive vocal phrase in 8/4 (or 2 x 4/4, if you like) and a second drum track in 4/4.
When I bought the Oasys, I assumed wrongly that it would be enable me to generate scores of my compositions. If anyone has a simple solution to generating scores from Oasys MIDI tracks, I would be interested in knowing it.
I do chain together different MIDI sequences. Sometimes I do not know what will be the verse and what will be the chorus. My style of composing is iterative, which is why I like composing at the Oasys. I never compose at, and rarely play, my acoustic piano any longer.
I never use set-sequencing when composing. I do not find it intuitive and have never really figured out how to use it. Maybe I am missing out on some powerful tool.
I almost always record in real time. My solos are definitely recorded in real time. I find that slowing the recording speed causes an improvised solo to turn out completely differently, in a way that I don't find pleasing. I play a lot of my solos with two hands so that I can cover more ground, particularly if I am trying to simulate a guitarist's tapping or sweep picking. Listen to "The Price of Experience" on "Courage and Remembrance," which is entirely recorded in real time (most of it improvised). The right and left hands are working together on the lead lines.
I have been experiencing a writer's block for the past few months. So I have not managed to finish my piece about Budapest, which I had mentioned to you earlier this year.
Best regards,
Greg
My website contains more than 150 songs recorded on the OASYS in a variety of genres--from hard rock and jazz to orchestral and country. Please visit: www.gregorysidakmusic.com
-
Kevin Nolan
- Approved Merchant
- Posts: 2524
- Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:08 pm
- Location: Dublin, Ireland
- Contact:
Greg -
Alas there is no seamless way to generate scores from MIDI tracks. I had this confirmed quite recently while on a film scoring course delivered by a Hollywood composer (Craig Stuart Garfinkle) who is responsible for many/most Hollywood Blockbuster promo music. During the course he revealed quite clearly that he and all other such composers suffer the wrath of MIDI to Score conversion..
In fact the emerging 'defacto standard process' of composing for film involves live MIDI performance into MIDI tracks from sample package and other soft synths, with tempo maps set up and quantizing done as best as possible; then import the MIDI tracks into a scoring package like Sibelius or Finale. They then either tidy it up themselves or pass it over to an orchestrator who will add additionally correct orchestration and/or add the correct notation for things like French Horn glissandos which will sound fine in the MIDI sample mock up but which do not transfer into the likes of SIbelius (being controller articulation and not MIDI notes)...and so on. So even for the best of them there's a lot of manual adjusting on score. The problems arise because of the above mentioned controller data not transferring (or indeed interfering with interpretation of the Standard MIDI File)
Actually, this recent course was a bit of a shock to me (I've written orchestral music and for TV but not for film (yet!)). Traditionally, I compose orchestral music on paper, and then manually enter into Sibelius. I had hoped to shortly acquire some Vienna Libraries in the hope that once Sibelius scores were complete, these could be read by or linked to the Vienna Library so that all phrasing and articulations would automatically sound - and hence the MIDI mockup (ie - I was thinking the opposite to the way the current trend is). But alas this is not the case so it doesn't look like the industry is working towards virtual sample library performances of completed Sibelius scores.
So for your issues of converting MIDI to Score, the best you can do is tidy up the OASYS MIDI songs (quantize...) and save the OASYS file as a standard midi file, then import it into a scoring package and then manually adjust it.
Personally, I do this with just piano score. I improvise at a digital piano (or the OASYS) and save the improvisations to SMF. I find that Apple Logic is far better than Sibelius at interpreting the SMF and of course Logic can produce quite OK scores. Note however that because I was improvising and usually without a click, that the bar lines do not match up. But at least Logic seems to put MIDI tracks onto staves quite OK, whereas Sibelius usually gets the 'register' completely wrong and will place even a quite simple MIDI track in the wrong register and so with masses of ledger lines. Sibelius is also lousy at interpreting rhythm so it often will fill even single rest beats with ridiculous numbers of 32nd note or even 64th note rests.
Note that there's an amazing online service called "the Ravel Virtual Studio" who do top end mockups using the best orchestral libraries, so if you ever wanted any of your songs orchestrated, they'd probably do it for you. They work for top professionals, educators and students alike (and I haven't used them) but my email dealings with them seemed to suggest they are flexible.
You can find them at:
http://ww.ravel-vs.com/
Note also that if you'd like to improve youyr music composition skills there's an absolutely amazing computer based course called "The Secret Composer" which is very inexpensive, installs on your computer and takes you through theory rudiments, harmony, orchestration and composition. Its accesed through your browser (but is all on you hard disk) and the entire course is live with musical examples and dynamic scores. It even has two sections called "Quick Tricks" and "Compositional Moods" which show precisely how to compose and orchestrate about 30 - 40 emotions/moods for orchestra. Details are at:
http://www.secretcomposer.com/
Note I've no affiliation with either of the two products mentioned above - I just through them worth flagging to you given your amazing music and stated desire to have actual scores produced.
Cheers,
Kevin.
PS - go easy on yourself - if what you have is writers block then God bless the rest of us!! YOU've put out such an awesome amount of high quality music that you are entitled to writers block. Enjoy the break and rest assurred your creativity is alive and kicking and just recharging its batterys...
Alas there is no seamless way to generate scores from MIDI tracks. I had this confirmed quite recently while on a film scoring course delivered by a Hollywood composer (Craig Stuart Garfinkle) who is responsible for many/most Hollywood Blockbuster promo music. During the course he revealed quite clearly that he and all other such composers suffer the wrath of MIDI to Score conversion..
In fact the emerging 'defacto standard process' of composing for film involves live MIDI performance into MIDI tracks from sample package and other soft synths, with tempo maps set up and quantizing done as best as possible; then import the MIDI tracks into a scoring package like Sibelius or Finale. They then either tidy it up themselves or pass it over to an orchestrator who will add additionally correct orchestration and/or add the correct notation for things like French Horn glissandos which will sound fine in the MIDI sample mock up but which do not transfer into the likes of SIbelius (being controller articulation and not MIDI notes)...and so on. So even for the best of them there's a lot of manual adjusting on score. The problems arise because of the above mentioned controller data not transferring (or indeed interfering with interpretation of the Standard MIDI File)
Actually, this recent course was a bit of a shock to me (I've written orchestral music and for TV but not for film (yet!)). Traditionally, I compose orchestral music on paper, and then manually enter into Sibelius. I had hoped to shortly acquire some Vienna Libraries in the hope that once Sibelius scores were complete, these could be read by or linked to the Vienna Library so that all phrasing and articulations would automatically sound - and hence the MIDI mockup (ie - I was thinking the opposite to the way the current trend is). But alas this is not the case so it doesn't look like the industry is working towards virtual sample library performances of completed Sibelius scores.
So for your issues of converting MIDI to Score, the best you can do is tidy up the OASYS MIDI songs (quantize...) and save the OASYS file as a standard midi file, then import it into a scoring package and then manually adjust it.
Personally, I do this with just piano score. I improvise at a digital piano (or the OASYS) and save the improvisations to SMF. I find that Apple Logic is far better than Sibelius at interpreting the SMF and of course Logic can produce quite OK scores. Note however that because I was improvising and usually without a click, that the bar lines do not match up. But at least Logic seems to put MIDI tracks onto staves quite OK, whereas Sibelius usually gets the 'register' completely wrong and will place even a quite simple MIDI track in the wrong register and so with masses of ledger lines. Sibelius is also lousy at interpreting rhythm so it often will fill even single rest beats with ridiculous numbers of 32nd note or even 64th note rests.
Note that there's an amazing online service called "the Ravel Virtual Studio" who do top end mockups using the best orchestral libraries, so if you ever wanted any of your songs orchestrated, they'd probably do it for you. They work for top professionals, educators and students alike (and I haven't used them) but my email dealings with them seemed to suggest they are flexible.
You can find them at:
http://ww.ravel-vs.com/
Note also that if you'd like to improve youyr music composition skills there's an absolutely amazing computer based course called "The Secret Composer" which is very inexpensive, installs on your computer and takes you through theory rudiments, harmony, orchestration and composition. Its accesed through your browser (but is all on you hard disk) and the entire course is live with musical examples and dynamic scores. It even has two sections called "Quick Tricks" and "Compositional Moods" which show precisely how to compose and orchestrate about 30 - 40 emotions/moods for orchestra. Details are at:
http://www.secretcomposer.com/
Note I've no affiliation with either of the two products mentioned above - I just through them worth flagging to you given your amazing music and stated desire to have actual scores produced.
Cheers,
Kevin.
PS - go easy on yourself - if what you have is writers block then God bless the rest of us!! YOU've put out such an awesome amount of high quality music that you are entitled to writers block. Enjoy the break and rest assurred your creativity is alive and kicking and just recharging its batterys...
-
Akos Janca
- Platinum Member
- Posts: 1157
- Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Budapest, Hungary
- Contact:
Greg and Kevin, thank you for the info and useful tips.
I think the writer's block is temporary - and yours is good for us: you have more time to write here. Budapest is very nice these days except the rare and short but very heavy rainings.
Nowadays I don't make scores for others, and for myself using pencil and paper is still the best because it's fast, doesn't stop me "when inspiration strikes" and I can use my own non-standard marks, abbreviations and notes.
To create professional print-ready scores I would use Finale. I don't have experience with Sibelius. I like and tried Kevin's idea (tidy up and quantize songs, import and adjust) but maybe it's faster and simpler to directly enter the notes one by one with the mouse - just like the way we write. Anyway, there is no easy solution...
Best regards,
Akos
I think the writer's block is temporary - and yours is good for us: you have more time to write here.
Budapest is very nice these days except the rare and short but very heavy rainings.Nowadays I don't make scores for others, and for myself using pencil and paper is still the best because it's fast, doesn't stop me "when inspiration strikes"
and I can use my own non-standard marks, abbreviations and notes.To create professional print-ready scores I would use Finale. I don't have experience with Sibelius. I like and tried Kevin's idea (tidy up and quantize songs, import and adjust) but maybe it's faster and simpler to directly enter the notes one by one with the mouse - just like the way we write. Anyway, there is no easy solution...
Best regards,
Akos