Lance Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 I love seeing interviews with film and tv composers that show their setups. Zimmer uses Cubase and Pro Tools, Blake Neely uses Logic Pro along with Pro Tools and Ableton. John Williams still does everything by hand. And I'm sure there are some composers/arrangers who still do a big chunk of their work using notation software like Sibelius, Notion, etc. Curious if anybody knows what setups DCI brass and percussion arrangers use for their workflow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwillis35 Posted November 16, 2022 Share Posted November 16, 2022 I think I saw something a number of years ago where the Blue Devils worked with Spitfire Audio or some company like that on a brass and percussion library of sampled sounds that would work in any DAW supporting VST. I imagine some percussion writers may be using that library with some others. Believe it or not, MuseScore -- which is a free notation program with some decent money investment -- has a nice marching percussion library of sounds that you can download as an add-on to the main program. The other one that is really pretty good is Concert Band/Marching Band ver 2 by Garritan. Most of the library is kind of cheap, but some of the sounds are solid and the marching percussion is really good. https://www.garritan.com/products/ Not really sure about other marching percussion libraries. I doubt any of the DCI/BOA/WGI arrangers are doing their own sampling but some could be doing that. There are great orchestral, band, and jazz libraries out there. Cinesamples, East-West, Spitfire, Audio Imperia, Vienna Symphonic Library, Red Room Audio, Sonu Score, Miroslav and many more. Then you have libraries that combine multiple plugins featuring different genres and styles of sounds like Kontakt and their Komplete packages. They all have great percussion samples but most of those would be for pop, rock, jazz, orchestra, etc. As for DAWs and who uses what. My guess is most of them begin their work on a notation program like Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, Notion, MuseScore, etc. Dorico gives you the best of both worlds. It has some of the strongest and most advanced notation features but also lets you use piano-roll MIDI edit style and seamlessly works with VST plugs, an advanced mixer, and better bouncing of audio files -- much like a DAW. I would imagine it would be easier for them to work from a notation program first because of the complexity of percussion writing (especially from a rhythmical perspective). Starting the project in a DAW and then porting to the notation program would be a major pain when it comes to cleaning-up the notes and rhythms. But you never know. Some of them may have a good system for this. Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, and a few others do offer SMPTE time code and time stamping so if they are writing a cue for a specific number of beats, or for a specific number of minutes or seconds they can do that. They can then export the MIDI file from the notation editor to the DAW and there they can add their best VST Plugins, mix, master, and bound a better mock-up of the music. When it comes to DAWs I used to use MOTU's Performer (late 80s, 90s) and then Digital Perform. I then moved to Cubase in the early 2000s. I now mostly use REAPER and FL STUDIO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lance Posted November 17, 2022 Author Share Posted November 17, 2022 interesting, thanks jwillis. i use the garritan cfx piano, but never looked at their other libraries. i'll check it out. i really am very curious about the sample libraries dci folks use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mingusmonk Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 You're not going to see a lot of professional composers using Musescore, or at least copping to it. Musescore's sheet music portal is a denizen for copyright theft and legitimate composers are well aware of it. Fans of DCI/Marching Band-friendly composers will recognize a few names in this facebook thread here. Longtime DCP users might also recognize the name that goes to bat for Musescore as well. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158997255676254&set=a.10151295122211254 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karuna Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 2 hours ago, mingusmonk said: You're not going to see a lot of professional composers using Musescore, or at least copping to it. Musescore's sheet music portal is a denizen for copyright theft and legitimate composers are well aware of it. Fans of DCI/Marching Band-friendly composers will recognize a few names in this facebook thread here. Longtime DCP users might also recognize the name that goes to bat for Musescore as well. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158997255676254&set=a.10151295122211254 ha. ha - ha. hahahahaha. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha thanks for that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lance Posted November 17, 2022 Author Share Posted November 17, 2022 4 hours ago, mingusmonk said: You're not going to see a lot of professional composers using Musescore, or at least copping to it. Musescore's sheet music portal is a denizen for copyright theft and legitimate composers are well aware of it. Fans of DCI/Marching Band-friendly composers will recognize a few names in this facebook thread here. Longtime DCP users might also recognize the name that goes to bat for Musescore as well. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158997255676254&set=a.10151295122211254 Yeah, I've known about that site for awhile. Didn't know that person worked there, though. And didn't know that it had become a subscription service, wow. Orchestrating and arranging is just a hobby for me, but a fulfilling one. Part of the fun for me is doing a lot by ear. The site's notation software is fine, but not one that I would use. And I don't blame those composers for being PO'd about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbass598 Posted November 19, 2022 Share Posted November 19, 2022 On 11/16/2022 at 5:07 PM, jwillis35 said: I think I saw something a number of years ago where the Blue Devils worked with Spitfire Audio or some company like that on a brass and percussion library of sampled sounds that would work in any DAW supporting VST. I imagine some percussion writers may be using that library with some others. Believe it or not, MuseScore -- which is a free notation program with some decent money investment -- has a nice marching percussion library of sounds that you can download as an add-on to the main program. The other one that is really pretty good is Concert Band/Marching Band ver 2 by Garritan. Most of the library is kind of cheap, but some of the sounds are solid and the marching percussion is really good. https://www.garritan.com/products/ Not really sure about other marching percussion libraries. I doubt any of the DCI/BOA/WGI arrangers are doing their own sampling but some could be doing that. There are great orchestral, band, and jazz libraries out there. Cinesamples, East-West, Spitfire, Audio Imperia, Vienna Symphonic Library, Red Room Audio, Sonu Score, Miroslav and many more. Then you have libraries that combine multiple plugins featuring different genres and styles of sounds like Kontakt and their Komplete packages. They all have great percussion samples but most of those would be for pop, rock, jazz, orchestra, etc. As for DAWs and who uses what. My guess is most of them begin their work on a notation program like Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, Notion, MuseScore, etc. Dorico gives you the best of both worlds. It has some of the strongest and most advanced notation features but also lets you use piano-roll MIDI edit style and seamlessly works with VST plugs, an advanced mixer, and better bouncing of audio files -- much like a DAW. I would imagine it would be easier for them to work from a notation program first because of the complexity of percussion writing (especially from a rhythmical perspective). Starting the project in a DAW and then porting to the notation program would be a major pain when it comes to cleaning-up the notes and rhythms. But you never know. Some of them may have a good system for this. Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, and a few others do offer SMPTE time code and time stamping so if they are writing a cue for a specific number of beats, or for a specific number of minutes or seconds they can do that. They can then export the MIDI file from the notation editor to the DAW and there they can add their best VST Plugins, mix, master, and bound a better mock-up of the music. When it comes to DAWs I used to use MOTU's Performer (late 80s, 90s) and then Digital Perform. I then moved to Cubase in the early 2000s. I now mostly use REAPER and FL STUDIO. Virtual Drumline was and still is the standard for marching percussion sound libraries using sounds from the 2004 SCV percussion section. The program isn't been updated in years but still an effective tool for battery and front ensemble sounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted November 19, 2022 Share Posted November 19, 2022 (edited) On 11/17/2022 at 11:53 AM, karuna said: ha. ha - ha. hahahahaha. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha thanks for that Wow first the excuse is “well tell us and we will remove the music”. Then after all the “why are we doing your job” it’s basically “just because a composer tells us there is a copyright issue doesn’t really mean there is one”. 🤦♂️ Edited November 19, 2022 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.