Writing For A String Quartet 

I know nothing about music. Not sure how I got here! Watched the whole thing & loved it! Fascinating.

Great to see all the thinking behind it in real time. I imagine writing the melody and bass line on the piano could be one way to start writing for quartet and then add the middle parts.

This quartet library sounds really great here! I like how this has a more "unified" string quartet placed sound, rather than the typical solo string library sound.

Great video Oliver thanks for taking the time to share your process with us...

Thanks Oliver, great piece, really informative and this library sounds so well!

This is incredible! Thank you! Your work here is a doorway into learning more about counter point so thank you!

Brilliant arrangement, harmony and counterpoint !!!

Very tastefully arranged, Oliver.

Thanks Oliver, this is really useful. This kind of thing is very new to me and I'd not considered studying sheet music before composition!

Thank you for sharing this with us and explaining it so well...

Damn Oliver, this is so brilliant.

🙏 🙏 thank you so much! please do more like this

I am a violinist and an aspiring composer. This video was incredibly helpful. Thank you!

Gracias, Oliver... this is quite helpful as I'm slowly delving into quartet writing. All of the counterpoint movement keeps this sophisticated despite the simple progression(s)... and simple is always better, imho. After reading through the comments, I had no idea how many armchair composers there were on YT! Or maybe just an armada fresh off the boat, lol. Sounds great Oliver.

Thanks for the video, Spitfire and Oliver! I’d love to see a series dedicated to you guys’ desk setups and what brought you to build out and acquire the gear you use.

I need to write a string quartet, thanks for this, it was very beneficial

Great job delivering what was asked of you...thx for the vid post.

Inglorious B***ards. Tea party environment. Love the cheerful mood of the music. Love the sound of Sacconi, that's going on my wishlist for a purchase later in the year. I've not heard a better sample library quartet in all the years I've been looking for the realistic sounds.

Thanks for creating this video. I'm curious if you have written for a cello quartet before and have any thoughts regarding that textural landscape for composing? I'm at the early stages of experimenting with potential themes for a short film on King Arthur and was thinking of having a traditional quartet sound, but now am leaning towards a cello quartet.

Majestic

Nice mic. I use the origin daily. Thanks for the video!

Hello Oliver, I am curious how you have connected the channels. I see that you have ensemble on top and the different strings on the following channels. I also see that all instruments have midi channel 1? On the channel info for each channel it says "all" on the midi ch. Do all channels have a separate Kontakt started up? My biggest question here is; How to make the setup you are using? I also wanna be able to use spiccato, long and pizzicato artikulations on separate channels. Help, please! Regards, Jerry

What is the rack holding his analog gear above his electric piano in the background! I want it!!!!

03:57 Don't know why but this part is sooooo awesome

Great!

Nice to see a score make an appearance. Is there anyway you can rewire a notation program to logic so we can see the dots on the lines. I find looking at a piano roll view difficult to really read what is going on in the relationship between notes. The piece sounded fine and keeps within the brief you were given - good work. Thanks for the tutorial.

I'm curious to know why the producer of the scene wanted you to compose something that sounded like Haydn instead of actually using a Haydn string quartet? Mechanical licensing? Budget? Preference? These things always confuse me about the film scoring industry.

Woaah wow wow wow this is nice

lovely Haydn

What do you aim for with the Limiter ? Do you often try to bump it up to around -14 lufs?

LOL, Hilarious reading all the snarky comments. what a bunch of snobs and trolls. You go Oliver. I really enjoyed what you did here. I hope you get paid well for this. Poetic justice...

How do you come up with the composition? Do you sketch it out and then orchestrate it or do you do the whole orchestration at once. Also how do you come up with the melodies and the chords to use? I never understood this.

This is a great tool to sketch then once this is ready, have real players play it and this piece will sound great.

Great work, Oliver - and thanks for the analysis and explication. My question is very basic: Does each of the tracks represent an individual instance of the Sacconi library, and Kontakt? Or is each track a separate output in a multi-output setup of a single instance of Kontakt? Sorry for my ignorance. Thanks again, and send more :-)

i love this ! i hear a lot of potiential there. We have to bring back the old era. Its just a challange to compose (influenced by old music) like this. I also compose filmmusic but this is for me kinda the music i want to compose and bring somehow back in classic. Pls do more of composing in classical, romantic etc. style !

This is Amazing! What MIDI Controller did you use?

I notice a lot of midi notes overlap? Is that something to do with patches you used? Or general working with strings.

nice video thanks 😄

We all should definitely write this kind of music with theory in mind! I am doing lots if exercises in voicing and I hear that in this particular piece the melody and variations and counter melodies are fine, but the bass line may be more complex, more inversions of t, s, sii, d7, tvi, harmonic major

I notice you overlap your notes. I used to do this with Logic samples, would you advise this universally or is there a reason to do it for this piece or library in particular? Thanks.

Do you do the lead melody first or later

My problem with string quartets is understanding the role of each instrument. I come from a rock/metal guitarist background. So when writing music I've always seen it as "rhythm guitar" melody, "lead guitar" for harmony, "bass guitar" for foundational support. The hook being sometimes on rhythm and sometimes on lead. (I know I'm simplifying it, but I just think of them that way in broad strokes, I mean I didn't even mention lead guitar solos) So when I try writing for string quartet, I wind up treating the two violins like rhythm and lead guitar, one focused on melody, the other on harmony. And I treat cello like a bass guitar, providing the foundation. But I never know what to do with the viola. All I can think is switching the melody to the viola and having both violins on harmony. Kinda like an Iron Maiden style dueling leads.

Would you ever be able to show us how you eq the instruments for mixing? Independent, instruments eq, groups eq, etc...

Nice work! But why you've not used the Spitfire Solo Strings?

Can anybody tell me what is that fader thing in his left hand ?

great

you can make a video showing how to go from the score to the daw already transformed into midi ,,, and the articulation changes, for a string quartet ... how do you work this ... thanks in advance

7:40 is that called the secondary dominant?

I love ya dude, but...parallel octaves. Parallel. Octaves.

What is the difference between solo strings and this?

I'd like you to copy that across to the solo strings and compare them, it's a far more modern library

Great effort , slightly plastic ?

Nice Piece! Regarding the pre-ending harmony problem: I'd suggest to change the Eb to an E natural on the second beat in bar 32... I get your point of using the Eb there, but I think it's just not enough time for the ear to change to the key of F afterwards.The E natural would create some sort of Bb Lydian Sound which feels already kinda "F majorish" = easier to get "home" (Bb Lyd. - C7 - F maj) Would love to hear how you changed it though :)

2:00 that's a whole tone man :)

I think truing to use a lot of theory to justify your composition is making it be so strained/tense.

7:26 when you don't have a clue about music theory and you just nod because it sounds good hahahah

Hello Oliver, how much does Spitfire pay you annually?

Pain is the key

Nice try! But I think it is your first time you attempt to write a quartet in this style:) The sound of the quartet was not nice balanced (nothing to do with your composition). The live session will sound a lot better. One question... is Dorico involved in this project ?

Spitfire looks complicated.

Strings sound fake, the music style isn't understood and there are some mistakes in the Haydn score shown at the beginning. Seriously what's the point ?

literally sounds nothing like a string quartet

Thanks for posting, it's a good introduction to creating a demo. However, it is somewhat disappointing how unexpressive and strident those strings samples sound.

Really?

nice try, just being classically educated string player i hear A LOT of basic voice leading errors. i guess too much education in nowadays is a curse :D

honestly, it sounds really fake to my ears....

Even with all that great work. .. It still doesn't sound like a real quartet... I think it's impossible to get the real thing without musicians. Especially the violin. Always has that noticeably fake rendition :(

hes smiling he knows he cant write like Haydn Beethoven with spitfire libraries lol hahaha

Sorry man but the writing makes no sense at all.

That was the most idiotic "Classical" string quartet I've ever heard