Doubling bassoons and celli is also common. Upper strings are often combined with any woods or upper brass. But the key to doubling is only to do it when you have a reason to and don't overdo it - too many colours is beige. A related point is not to use everything all the time - save contrast for where it's most effective. For interlocking, refer to Rimsky for a pretty definitive rundown.
Good suggestions here! Thanks. 8:02 - Here, and in all of this, it’s critical to remember that your notation program (Sibelius, Dorico, Finale, etc., or even your DAW to some extent), is very good at lying to you! For example, the low register of the flute is probably sampled at a volume appropriate for flute-solo repertoire, but within an orchestral setting, lower-register flutes are rather quiet! In Sibelius, it will sound gloriously rich and beautiful, but in a real orchestra, it will sound gloriously … “missing”!
Great video Alex and the VO team! If I could leave a suggestion, maybe we could have a sequel to this video focusing on how to orchestrate percussion? I think orchestration tutorials like this are invaluable and focusing on how to support the orchestra with percussion would be a great topic to discuss. Thank you for your work!
Thank you, Harriet! I agree, Percussion is generally a bit overlooked, and has been on this channel too so far, but we’re trying to get the best video together for it 👍🏻
This is extremely helpful! Thank you! Currently working on an orchestral arrangement of Super Mario Sunshine and I’ve been looking for ways to make it my own.
Repeating some of the comments below. It is not only the content and of course, your organization but also your enthusiasm. from the other side of the pond, Spot on!
Just incredible video ! Maybe it will be not too polite from my side , but i really would love to see more of this kind of tips here , and im really count on it ! Fantastic job @Virtual Orchestration Thank You!
Cool topics! Interesting to see how some of these tricks might also help real life players in an orchestra play together (the dovetailing for example). If you'd ever have a score that you want recorded by an actual orchestra, let me know!
Cool to see there are proper terms for things I've tried by accident. My orchestration efforts so far have been with ensemble libraries which kind of do the overlapping for you I guess, but I certainly don't have the control needed for the interlocking or enclosing. And the other tips are super useful too. I've tried doubling but sometimes want a little more, the texture hack #3 feels like it'll come in very useful for this. Great, thanks!
Thanks for another great video! A lot of the compositions shown in this video i'm really digging and I wanted to listen to similar music/composers with similar styles but i am struggling to find any online... Any sugguestions where I can start to get the same vibe?
For the time being I can only suggest my own music 😅 I’ll give it some thought though. I’d probably recommend Alexandre Desplat and Thomas Newman’s scores off the top of my head based on the style of some these.
@@emanuel_soundtrack it’s really an overtone thing with the oboes. Even if two players are in tune, they won’t sound as good as one oboe if they’re on the same part. The same does apply to the other winds, but doesn’t have the same level of detriment to the character of the sound. Good players will not have to worry too much about intonation issues - so it’s just a question of what sound you want. If it’s meant to be a melody on flute, it may not need two on the part. If it’s part of a thicker texture it may be a great sound to have more than one instrument. And in the case of doubling different instruments together, well that’s creating new sounds, that’s orchestration. Worrying about intonation should just be considering the difficulty of the part in the registers of each instrument, or how easy it is to produce the sound you need and still be together with other instruments. Avoiding doubling for the sake of intonation is timid, and not giving players enough respect!
I would Love to learn learn more about interlocking. "I think" I have done this in the past without realizing that is what I am doing in pieces that I have written. However, I'd love to get a better understanding. What would be a good resource (Video, Book, etc...) that I could gain effective knowledge from? Thank you kindly in advance.
Kent Kennan's book, "The Technique of Orchestration" has a chapter (Chapter 10) that touches on Interlocking, Enclosure, Overlapping, and Juxtaposition, as it relates to each section of the orchestra. I'm sure Adler's text also talks about the subject.
Sadly Logic's notation view leaves a lot to be desired! Especially with projects with this many tracks. It would be cool to have notation alongside the MIDI, but hopefully the lessons aren't lost without it!
no one of these tips mention counterpoint. I could not understand how this could be the best, since most of the (best) orchestral music is full of counterpoint, this is the "default"
@@alexlamymusic makes no sense, because the composer orchestrates the counterpoint and the harmony. These rule the art of orchestration, among other parameters. To make decisions about harmony and counterpoint is the core aspects of orchestration and define the core challenges to overtake. It is reasonable that the "best" techniques can handle these aspects
@@LearnCompositionOnline If you have harmony and counterpoint that you want to orchestrate, then sure. But this video isn’t about harmony or counterpoint. It’s about a few distinct ideas for orchestrating music. You can choose to use them in any way around your harmony or counterpoint. A video on ‘how to orchestrate your counterpoint’ could be cool, but also potentially endless - and they wouldn’t be tips, they’d just be choices, the same tonal/timbral choices you could make on any area of your music.
@@alexlamymusic so this is a new method by Berklee . The masters of orchestration teached in another way, considering harmony and counterpoint carefully, among other things. Rarely something is "by default" in art. It is a good video, but i also did not understand the "best". Best for what? I also don´t care so much for the answer, but maybe another student should ask this question
@@LearnCompositionOnline ‘The 5 best hacks’ is meant to be funny - not serious. At the end of the the 5th hack video I do mention something about this, that there is no such thing as an ‘orchestration hack’ really. As for Berklee, you would have to ask a professor there for exactly what they cover in their orchestration curriculum (I wasn’t a student there). For what it’s worth, these orchestration ideas are some of my favourites, and ones that I chose because they’re some of the most fundamental ideas. They’re all well covered in every orchestration book I’ve looked at, but we wanted to put them into practice with some virtual instruments - which is what this channel is mostly about. I’m not sure what you mean by things being default, though?
Yea, that "click here" only works if the "click here" link shows up, which it does not for me. I would not recommend any links that aren't superfluous be linked like that (on screen) since those links often don't show up for everyone. In this case it was particularly irritating.
It depends a bit on the medium you're watching RU-vid on. There is an info-field when Alex says it and it is one of the Videos that are also linked at the end of the videos, in the "watch more" field.
@@alexlamymusic nope. I got halfway thru and could not stomach it anymore. which, considering that I very rarely click away, even on videos which feature serialism, says something in itself.
What a refreshing video! I haven't seen any good practical videos on this even though I have learned about these voicing techniques. My favourite is definitely bassoon and horns! It's like magic! Thank you!
"level up your orchestration with these HACKS", and then we proceed to showcase some very common orchestration techniques. I mean isn't it required to have the basics of orchestration down before starting to "level them up" with "hacks"? Disappointed. I do appreciate the chapter markers, though. That way I didn't have to spend my precious, unique life watching through the whole video to come to my conclusions. Also kudos for at least abstaining from "hack number 5 is INSANE and WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE and/or SURPRISE YOU!"
I'm going to assume you didn't watch the 5th 'hack' video where we go on to say that there are "no such thing as hacks, just good techniques and good orchestration". :)
this is a PHENOMENAL beginning orchestration video. this puts all the overwhelming information about orchestration on the internet into a concise, digestible location for reference. i really really wish i would’ve seen this when i first starting out. thank you for what you do for our community!
Thanks, Carson! That’s our real hope with this channel, that each video can be a resource people can go back an reference - a modern version of some chapters in an orchestration book!
@@RektorGleichgueltigjahr it’s not in this video, but I make this point at the end of the secret video. There’s no substitute for diving into scores and music yourself, and that’s also how you learn what you like and what you want to do. 🔥
I've watched every "Virtual Orchestration" video you've presented since the start of this series, and this is to me the most practical one to date. Your points were clearly explained and demonstrated with informative examples. You have a real talent for breaking things down into understandable nuggets. Thanks! I have a quick question: is there any effects processing applied to your examples? ...or is what we're hearing basically "straight out of the box"?
Thanks, Kevin! There’s a bit of reverb and gain on things. They’re mixed in the way I would normally work too, so if I hear something I want to EQ then it’s a safe bet to assume I’ve done that, but it would all be fairly subtle if so.
@@alexlamymusic Ok, thx Alex. The reason I asked is that everything sounds wonderfully clear, distinct, and balanced. Using effects on orchestral instruments is tricky -- I'd love it if you could do a session on that subject ... tasty use of effects, achieving good balance, basic orchestral mixing, etc. Cheers!
I think eventually we will do a mixing episode, but I already know the first point I’ll make it’s that 90% or more of the mix is done in the choice of sound and the programming. Programming things with the right balance, volume, dynamics, choice of mic mix, automation etc. is honestly most of the work and the way you get things to sound clear. For example, if a mid strings line isn’t coming through enough, it’s not a mix problem, it’s either a dynamics problem or the wrong sounding samples for what you’re doing. For me, I use Oxford Inflator on solo instruments instead of compression, but will compress peaks of dodgy legato lines sometimes (not in these examples though). Eq’ing is usually about removing resonance, which can be especially obvious if you put reverb on something. Reverb choice is also important, and I usually have a convolution of a scoring stage or hall, and an algo reverb like a lexicon hall which will have a longer, more pleasing tail. I’m a fan of pultec style EQ’s, doing small top and bottom boosts where needed. A bit of sub on percussion, a bit of air on strings, but nothing over the top. And master bus really depends on how big the sound needs to be. Usually a slow, low ratio bus compressor just knocking a 1-2db off on louder segments is enough to get things together. More complicated tracks need more complicated mixes, but I don’t really have a one-size-fits-all approach other than trying to do as much as I can on busses of the same groups of instruments/sounds, rather than on every track.
Wow, the content quality of this and the secret video is right up there with the articulation vids with Clara. I'll be revisiting this one a few times, with my composing Moleskine notebook and a pencil in hand!
interesting video- thanks I've subscribed, but to my taste you have recorded your voice to high. If your voice was slightly quieter compared to the music I think the video would be better
the material is presented beautifully, concisely and very intelligibly! Thanks! By the way, almost all examples are echoes of classical traditions. I would like to advise beginners to get acquainted with the books on orchestration - there are a lot of amazing things waiting for you there.
Can we expect a tutorial on scoring music from pc or laptop for movie about what we should need with limited equipment and showing what are the possible ways to make it possible , this will help for bedroom producers like me
We have a video on basic gear needed for starting out, if that helps? Otherwise I don't think you need to limit any creativity because of limited equipment these days - and hopefully the other videos we make will also help give you some good ideas 🙂
@@alexlamymusic there was bit doubt fo movie i want to extract audio at what format and how much hz needed for our score later on to get 5.1 mix or something Dolby or etc things and I'm using FL studio in future hope some one will do on that also And what a way of narrating lessons very impressive and glad u r channel explained many things I want to know ❤️ thanks alot
Great video and 4 tips. I would probably enjoy the 5th tip as well, but I so dislike this clickbaiting strategy that I refuse to participate in it, even if I’m depriving myself with essentially no impact to this channel.
Hey Jeff, not sure why you feel like that, it's not really click-baiting, it's really just avoiding a 25min video. The 5th tip is really cool, and it's linked in the description of this video as well as the 'Music Writing + Screen Scoring' playlist on the channel. I hope you watch it one day (and other videos too!). I think it's my favourite video we've made, actually! (Not to bait you!)
@@alexlamymusic “Level up your orchestration skills with these *five* hacks” - Shows *four* hacks and says you have to click another video to get the fifth one- Yep. Whether that’s technically clickbaiting or some other shady practice that doesn’t have a handy nickname, it’s misleading and (in my opinion) done as a way to get a viewer to click on more than one of your videos so RU-vid says “oh he must like these”, and starts recommending more of them.
@@jeffmansfield914 in my experience the RU-vid algorithm does that anyway 🤷🏻♂️ (and not just with our videos) If this stops you watching any of our other videos then sorry about that. Im glad you liked this video anyhow.
@@alexlamymusic I’m sure my commenting and engaging here is likely going to increase the odds of recs, too, but we’ll see. It just felt like a dishonest tactic, to me. I totally understand that it’s free content that I can watch and gain benefit from, and that you’re under no obligation to provide any hacks, whatsoever. But, if you’re going to promise something with a video title, then I think the integrity move is to deliver on that promise. If you say “here are five hacks”, then give five hacks instead of giving four and stringing the viewer along by telling them they only get five if they’ll click more videos. I think it just seemed out of place because it was a quality video on a topic that is more academic and intelligent in nature. If the video was “Five Karens do the walk of shame after getting ToTaLlY oWnEd🤡🤡🤡”, then I probably wouldn’t have expected any better.
