# Tools and their place in our workflow



## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

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## midphase (Dec 30, 2008)

Ok...I'll bite.

With all due respect, I have to ask....why do you care? Seriously....why do you care how other composers (or Reason jockeys) achieve their music? I think everyone has their own path to follow, and I have absolutely no problem if Joe3246 wants to use loops and phrases from GarageBand completely unaltered to score a film. I think it's his prerogative to do what he sees fit to achieve his vision, and I don't think it's my right to judge if my way is better than his way.

If there is someone I should maybe be bothered by, is the film director who can't tell the difference....but that's a different discussion better left for another thread.

The phenomenon that you cite is hardly new, and I bet if we were to speak to some old-timer big band arrangers, they would tell you that there were devices that they would use in a "plug and play" way which is probably the '40s equivalent to using a phrase sample. 

I think that if Eric and gang spend all that time to come up with some loops that sound great right out of the box, by wanting to change them for the sake of change seems to spit in the face of their own efforts. Same with the SAM guys....they spent all that time recording orchestral risers and effects and now (after shelling out $1500) I'm supposed to feel guilty for using them?

You seem to equate using something out of the box as a form of musical cheating....but is that any different than working on a film and having your editor take stems and re-edit them into new cues? Or re-using the string section recording from one cue and slugging it into another with the same tempo and key but different arrangement? I think not, they're all shortcuts that the technology makes available to us, and for a good reason....because the people who give us this "power" want us to use it!

If you have a beef with a composer who uses a Stylus loop as-is...then you should also have a beef with Eric at Spectrasonics who gave that composer that very option to begin with. 

I think it's great that you "changed notes, eliminated notes, re-quantized the parts, changed the FX. and played additional parts on sounds form RMX and various drum V.I.s to augment them. Then of course, I added lots of other sounds to the percussion."

Good for you, but doing that does not inherently make you any better than the guys who didn't do any of those things and simply dragged and dropped the loop as-is into their cue. And by the same token, there are guys who look at what you did and would argue that it's not enough! The guys who don't use loops, but make everything from scratch....are these guys better composers than you are? 

To conclude...enjoy what you do, and enjoy that your clients come back to you because they appreciate what you do, but I don't think you should concern yourself with how others choose to craft their music, their validity as composers should not IMHO be judged by how many or few shortcuts they use in their work.

(all of the above was spoken with love)


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

midphase @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> Ok...I'll bite.
> 
> With all due respect, I have to ask....why do you care? Seriously....why do you care how other composers (or Reason jockeys) achieve their music? I think everyone has their own path to follow, and I have absolutely no problem if Joe3246 wants to use loops and phrases from GarageBand completely unaltered to score a film. I think it's his prerogative to do what he sees fit to achieve his vision, and I don't think it's my right to judge if my way is better than his way.
> 
> ...



Kays, I really appreciate the thoughtful tone and measured reason of your response.

Why do I care? Because I have great love and respect for the craft of film scoring and for better or worse, I am emotionally invested in its future.

In all likelihood, yes, I AM better as a craftsman at least than the guys than "who didn't do any of those things and simply dragged and dropped the loop as-is into their cue." 

Just as a composer like a John Williams who can compose, orchestrate, and conduct is IMHO better as a craftsman at least than the guys who cannot. The other guys who cannot may get a perfectly acceptable result for the client and audience with the help of talented orchestrators and conductors but we here should be striving for a higher standard.

Henry Mancini, in his now sadly out of print book "Did They Mention the Music?" talked about working with "hummers" and the general disdain for them within the composer community. It bothers me that the hummers are now considered equal to the craftsmen as long as they achieve a commercially satisfactory result.

What about the craft? Does it truly not matter anymore?

And no, we cannot blame the guys like Eric who make the tools that others misuse. Eric is a fine musician and I guarantee you if he did a score, he would not just drag and drop.

In the end, what I hope we will be discussing here are not the standards others hold us to, but the standards we hold OURSELVES to.


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## midphase (Dec 30, 2008)

"In the end, what I hope we will be discussing here are not the standards others hold us to, but the standards we hold OURSELVES to."

But that's my whole point....standards are subjective. I think that to someone like Mozart (or even Debussy) John Williams is a hack. I think the older generation always look at the newer one as a bunch of lazy hacks (for the most part). My methodology compared to the methodology of John Williams is a hack.

I think the beauty of art is that it keeps evolving, in unpredictable ways. If you think of Beethoven as art, then it's fair to also think of Run DMC as art. Just like Rembrant and Basquiat are equivalent painters.

The problem is not with "them", it is with us, we are the ones who don't understand their methodology and hence we dismiss it as a cheat, but it's not necessarily so.

When John Williams sits down to compose, (from what I hear) he has a piano and a small score where he writes out his melody and main instrument lines. He doesn't deal with choosing which VI plugins to use, or what reverb IR he'll pick, or EQ or altering the release of a sample in Kontakt.

Let's use as an analogy a bucket which represents a finite quantity of composing craftmanship. You can choose to fill your bucket with just orchestration and composition skills, and that's fine. But what if you choose to add some technology in there? Now you have to remove some of your other skills to make room for the fact that you're wearing other hats. Do you see where I'm going with this? It might seem as if some more modern composers are taking shortcuts, but in truth they're responsible for a lot more than the previous generation of composers had been, and hence something has to give.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

midphase @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> "In the end, what I hope we will be discussing here are not the standards others hold us to, but the standards we hold OURSELVES to."
> 
> But that's my whole point....standards are subjective. I think that to someone like Mozart (or even Debussy) John Williams is a hack. I think the older generation always look at the newer one as a bunch of lazy hacks (for the most part). My methodology compared to the methodology of John Williams is a hack.
> 
> ...



Interesting response and some good points.

It is not valid IMHO to compare film composers to the likes of Mozart, Debussy, etc. Their goal was to create concert hall music for the ages. Film scorers are trying to enhance the emotional impact of the picture. It is more about craft than art.

Some standards are subjective and some are objective. Just as a carpenter can examine a table and tell you if it is made from good quality wood and structurally sound, so can music be evaluated. Now some will still prefer the poorly crafted table because of the way it looks, but that does not mean that as craftsmen, the carpenter is obligated to see it as a good table. 

You are correct that today's scorers need to have more technological knowledge than previous generations but I do not believe the bucket is finite. We have a number of working composers today who are equally at home with an orchestra and technology. They never stop learning and growing.

It is a balancing act for sure. What worries me is that disproportionately more energy is directed to searching for ever more realistic samples and manipulating them in the unobtainable goal of making it just like a real orchestra and throwing loops of real instruments onto a DAW in pursuit of the same goal at the expense of s of learning what the real players do, what the tools are capable of in their own right, and using the tools as instruments in their own right, not just a pale imitation of the real thing. 

Does it really matter, i.e., if Violin section of Sample Library A sounds 15% more like a real violin section than Sample Library B's, if Sample Libraries B's produces an emotional reaction that inspires you to write a better sounding cue that heightens the impact of what is on the screen? If the sound is less òµU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ±µU   ± µU   ±!µU   ±"µU   ±#µU   ±$µU   ±%µU   ±&µU   ±'µU   ±(µU   ±)µU   ±*µU   ±+µU   ±,µU   ±-µU   ±.µU   ±/µU   ±0µU   ±1µU   ±2µU   ±3µU   ±4µU   ±5µU   ±6µU   ±7µU   ±8µU   ±9µU   ±:µ


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnG @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> Ashermusic @ 30th December 2008 said:
> 
> 
> > What about the craft? Does it truly not matter anymore?
> ...



Thanks or joining in, John, and you make some good points. Am I really "shrill" rather than blunt? If so, I need to work on that.

I am constitutionally unable to do any less than my best on bad movies/TV shows than on good ones. Which is perhaps not always a good thing

I don't think the standards we set for ourselves should be less just because the client demands less of us. Surely, we owe it to ourselves and to whatever God or nature given talent we have to strive to be the best we can, don't we? (And I am not so much focused on individuality as I am in serving the picture in a craftsman-like way. There are great film/TV composers who have a very strong, individual style and then there are "Swiss Army knife" composers, which I consider myself one of.)

I think if I ever got to the point where I felt that how sincerely I approached the project did not matter. I would have to seek something else to do. It would be just too depressing.

I am constantly energized by the fact that I am constantly learning more and my goal is always to be doing that.


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## JohnG (Dec 30, 2008)

I hear you, Jay. I have a hard time throttling back too. And I also don't like the idea of going with the flow if the flow is mediocre.

"Shrill" may be a bad term; maybe just a little too much religious fervor now and then, at least for my taste. I share your concern / fear that tolerating carelessness or laziness poisons the well from which all of us drink, but I guess I'd find you more persuasive now and then if the intensity were dialed down a little.

Because I basically agree with you.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnG @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> I hear you, Jay. I have a hard time throttling back too. And I also don't like the idea of going with the flow if the flow is mediocre.
> 
> "Shrill" may be a bad term; maybe just a little too much religious fervor now and then, at least for my taste. I share your concern / fear that tolerating carelessness or laziness poisons the well from which all of us drink, but I guess I'd find you more persuasive now and then if the intensity were dialed down a little.
> 
> Because I basically agree with you.



Point taken, I will try to dial it back. I am getting old and cranky I guess


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## Hannes_F (Dec 30, 2008)

Jay,

thank you for bringing this topic up, I can relate to much what you write. However I also find good arguments in Kays posting.

Some conclusions that I have been coming to from a more distant point of view:

- Technology will always give new possibilities but it will also erase jobs. In this case it will erase or at least reduce YOUR jobs as composers. 

This will come inescapably because it is just a question of time when all-in-one softwares will show up that have a limited amout of parameters (one for drama, one for action, one for suspense, one for humour, love, etc.). Under the hood there will be samples, synths, a pattern and a melody generator. With that the direcor or the editor can create almost any mood combination within minutes, or the intern does it between preparing the next coffee pot. There are already some of these programs on the market and their quality will improve. And I know a multimedia company where the intern part is already true today.

Of course most of what these programs can do will not be as good as what you can do with samples but hey, it will be good enough. Just in the same way like most of TV music of today is good enough although it is not any more recorded by a bunch of top notch and well paid session musicians but by a lonely guy and his samples. You took the jobs of the TV session players, the diddling intern will take yours.

- If you don't believe that look to the music that is my homeland: Playing acoustical live music at events (I am not talking about sponsored orchestras here). Hundred years ago every party had to book three to five musicians, today you need one DJ or bring your own CDs. These are jobs that are inevitably gone, period, and the same will happen with media composers.

- On the way to there there are always some rays of light of course. For example we all enjoy the ability to record a clarinet at three o'clock in the night for low money. What an achievement.

On the other hand this ability leads to exactly this situation coming true: we are recording clarinets at three o'clock in the night for low money. I see a new sort of musical proletariat emerging among composers. And as Karl Marx correctly stated (no matter what you think about his other ideas) the emerging of a proletariat is connected to the enstrangement from original and natural work. 

- Now, on the other hand I still have work as a live musician. Often I feel like being the last of my kind which is strange. Why does it work for me but not for others? 

Because I can go to a birthday party, anniversary or whatever with just my violin and can make the people laugh and cry by playing music in their face. No electronics, no great acoustic room, no band or playback behind me. Just me and my instrument (and maybe one accordeon player). This keeps me alive in a musical and financial way, and without any cultural sponsoring. Because I can make people immediately appreciate what I can do because they understand they will never get there, not even in their dreams.

Plus two more ingredients: I am expensive, I perform in exclusive restaurants, I have a good marketing. With other words I avoid anything that says "cheap", "discount", "free". 

The other ingredient is that I embrace technology and can make people dance as a party DJ until they walk on their knees.

But guess which part makes my clients feel that I am unique and well worth the lot of money they pay ... the live violin part with fingers moving faster than they can look, and they have tears in their eyes anyways ... or the beatmatched transitions of my DJing (which are also an art)?

If the analogy of my story is of any worth to composers then it would mean: Use every technology that helps you but try to be world class, and I really mean world class, in at least one aspect of the traditional side of your craft - and be sure your clients notice that.

- Kays has nailed it by this sentence: "If there is someone I should maybe be bothered by, is the film director who can't tell the difference....but that's a different discussion better left for another thread."

Excuse me but for me this exactly the core of this discussion. In the end is all about the appreciation of your craft and art.

I have often read the sentence in these forums "due to budget limits" or "economic restraints" etc. Pardon if I say this but I feel many of these budget limits are self-made by the composer's branch because they let it do. 

Everybody gets used very fast to falling prices if offered, so why should production companies be an exception? And they will have more experience in negotiating than a one-man composer. So if technology gives room for reduction of costs who will benefit from that? Of course there may be exceptions but as a general rule this is what happens: The companies have to face increasing costs because of increasing cost of supplies and intern personnel expenses (note that everybody there is getting more money after time, not less) - so they will always try to reduce the costs for extern work. With other words, the budget for YOU, the composer.

Now in former times when they met a composer he would play his music on the piano (which they probably cannot). Then he or his team would notate and orchestrate including instrument knowledge, reading different keys etc. (which for sure they cannot). And probably they would see the same guy conduct his music to picture (which they could not even if their lives depended on it).

Today they come to your studio and see a guy pressing one key on a keyboard and there is coming a huge sound out of the monitors.

How can you expect to be appreciated?


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## synthetic (Dec 30, 2008)

I went out of my way to NOT buy Stylus RMX because it's just too tempting to use their stuff and sound like everyone else. I hesitated for a long time on Omnisphere for the same reason, although I decided that it would be less recognizable as long as you stay away from the one-finger score and process the sounds somehow. Instead of Stylus, I learned how to process drum loops until they're unrecognizable. 

As far as striving for realism, few of us on this forum have the luxury of hearing a live orchestra play everything we write. It's one thing if you're "temping" an orchestra that will be re-recorded later, but for many of us the sampled score is the final mix. Everyone has heard enough fake strings to look for realism. Otherwise just buy a Roland synth module and call it a night.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

synthetic @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> As far as striving for realism, few of us on this forum have the luxury of hearing a live orchestra play everything we write. It's one thing if you're "temping" an orchestra that will be re-recorded later, but for many of us the sampled score is the final mix. Everyone has heard enough fake strings to look for realism. Otherwise just buy a Roland synth module and call it a night.



They are ALL "fake strings" with some only marginally better than others IMHO. And I have frequently heard better sounding stuff done with Roland 2080s than with VSL or EWQLSO.

By all means, one should use the sample libraries one like, but instead of always looking for the next one to be more realistic, learn to make the ones you have sound good.

And do not kid yourself (not you, personally, but you generically) that it sounds almost like the real thing. It does not. Not even close. Not if I do it. Not if you do it. Not if TJ does it.

It is the difference between between J-Lo and a J-Lo blow-up doll. Pardon me for being crude but while you could I guess do some of the same things with both, it is hardly the same experience.


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## midphase (Dec 30, 2008)

"You are correct that today's scorers need to have more technological knowledge than previous generations but I do not believe the bucket is finite. We have a number of working composers today who are equally at home with an orchestra and technology. They never stop learning and growing. "

Oh but the bucket is indeed finite....if nothing else because it is constrained by time. If I have a week to write 10 minutes of music I can devote my full time to that....but if I have a week to write 10 minutes of music, pick the instruments and play each part one by one with the correct articulations, add fx and eq, mix, master and output that does indeed limit how much time I have for the actual composition.

You can argue that from a spiritual sense, the human being is truly infinite, but from a physical sense. we are finite. Most of us can only cram so much knowledge into our brains, we can't be expected to have the same orchestration knowhow as Max Steiner while having all of the technical knowhow as Ben Burt...there is a limit (that is not to say there aren't exceptions, but let's all agree that they are exceptions and not the norm).


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

midphase @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> "You are correct that today's scorers need to have more technological knowledge than previous generations but I do not believe the bucket is finite. We have a number of working composers today who are equally at home with an orchestra and technology. They never stop learning and growing. "
> 
> Oh but the bucket is indeed finite....if nothing else because it is constrained by time. If I have a week to write 10 minutes of music I can devote my full time to that....but if I have a week to write 10 minutes of music, pick the instruments and play each part one by one with the correct articulations, add fx and eq, mix, master and output that does indeed limit how much time I have for the actual composition.
> 
> You can argue that from a spiritual sense, the human being is truly infinite, but from a physical sense. we are finite. Most of us can only cram so much knowledge into our brains, we can't be expected to have the same orchestration knowhow as Max Steiner while having all of the technical knowhow as Ben Burt...there is a limit (that is not to say there aren't exceptions, but let's all agree that they are exceptions and not the norm).



Clearly true, so then it becomes a matter of where you slice the salami. Can we agree that there is a wide swath between guys like Sean Callery, Michael Giacchino, and dare I say it, you and me, who are reasonably comfortable because of our hard work and study with both a real orchestra and technology, and some guy who is scoring a show just throwing a bunch of Garageband loops at it? 

And is it not fair to also say that guys like us are continuing working at increasing our knowledge of both orchestras and technology and not just developing skills at trying to make sample libraries more "realistic" by CC automation and Kontakt scripts because we have decided that is the only profitable path?


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## Hannes_F (Dec 30, 2008)

midphase @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> Oh but the bucket is indeed finite....if nothing else because it is constrained by time. If I have a week to write 10 minutes of music I can devote my full time to that....but if I have a week to write 10 minutes of music, pick the instruments and play each part one by one with the correct articulations, add fx and eq, mix, master and output that does indeed limit how much time I have for the actual composition.



You are right but the question is: Why is the industry not willing to pay you three times your fee so you can keep two other guys busy with everything except composing? 

I really think it is all about appreciation and not about using samples or not or this or that tool.

This is what I like about HZ, they show the world that they are doing something extraordinary and make a buzz about that. People get a sense for that IT is happening there, and then they are willing to pay for IT, no matter what tools are used (the newer the better anyway). 

For IT they are willing to spend money, and the more money is spent for music, the better for everybody in the business. That is a question that we always need to ask ourselves individually - am I getting more money into the music biz or do I help to dry it out?

Now, is that "IT" dependent on the use of samples or not? I don't think so.
Is it related to having an own voice? Maybe more.

Do midi loops and pre-recorded risers help to develop the own voice? Well, if somebody studies them as an example then maybe. If the art and craft of composing ends in one-finger doodling then probably not.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

Hannes_F @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> midphase @ Wed Dec 31 said:
> 
> 
> > Oh but the bucket is indeed finite....if nothing else because it is constrained by time. If I have a week to write 10 minutes of music I can devote my full time to that....but if I have a week to write 10 minutes of music, pick the instruments and play each part one by one with the correct articulations, add fx and eq, mix, master and output that does indeed limit how much time I have for the actual composition.
> ...



Great post, now wtf is HZ?  Hans Zimmer?


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## Hannes_F (Dec 30, 2008)

Jay,

sorry, I meant Hans Zimmer.

You could take any composer that is able to make the other trades appreciate music.


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## rJames (Dec 30, 2008)

Luddite!


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

Hannes_F @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> Jay,
> 
> sorry, I meant Hans Zimmer.
> 
> You could take any composer that is able to make the other trades appreciate music.



OK, you are of course, correct, that the ability to create demand for yourself is key to being able to get guys to help you do the things you cannot or choose not or do for yourself.

Hans was, to the best of my understanding, a synth programmer whose abilities allowed him to get into the film scoring world, where he functions as much as a project manager as a composer in the traditional sense. Similarly, Danny Elfman was a rock star which allowed him his entry into this world.

So while I doubt that either of these guys can be a realistic paradigm for any of us here and while we may or not admire them as composers, it is certainly relevant to the question of whether and how we strive to be the best and most complete craftsman we can be, or wheher that goal is now obsolete and we need not strive for it.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 30, 2008)

rJames @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> Luddite!



Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?

The author of "Going Pro With Logic Pro 8?" :lol:


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## rJames (Dec 30, 2008)

Naw, that was our deal wasn't it? I set you up for a plug and you send me $5.

Fine, I just never have anything intelligent to say but this thread intrigues me.

I had a couple of paragraphs composed and then thought, who cares what I have to say?

You are not too strident in my view. Although, it took quite a while for you to admit that Kontakt and Logic were causing a delay that can be annoying if not outright frustrating. But you finally saw the light.

I might even vote you "most helpful at VI" but that may be straining it a bit. (I'm pretty sure that is why you share your opinions here)

I see your point BUT (and I don't use loops cause I wanna be different) the loops, the orchestra in a box, the Omnisphere's give an opportunity to some who may be talented but would never have the opportunity to make professional sounding music.


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## midphase (Dec 30, 2008)

"Can we agree that there is a wide swath between guys like Sean Callery, Michael Giacchino, and dare I say it, you and me, who are reasonably comfortable because of our hard work and study with both a real orchestra and technology, and some guy who is scoring a show just throwing a bunch of Garageband loops at it? "


I 'spose we could (although they probably will not...and hence back to the subjective angle). You could also counter-argue that what some might lack in tweaking and sheer musical skills, they make up for in salesmanship (back to the bucket analogy) since we're seeing quite a few of those types of guys end up with gigs we would kill for.

This is a good thread no doubt...but ultimately it's a series of opinions slanted by the fact that a good chunk of what makes up VI Control are musically literate guys who value our particular type of approach. I suspect that posting the same thread on KVR or Sonikmatter would yield a pretty different response.

I once got into a wee teeny tiny bit of discussion with an "old school" arranger and composer. The guy played me a beautiful arrangement of a traditional song, with some of the most interesting and complex harmonies you've ever heard...really a nice piece. Keep in mind the guy had not written the song, merely arranged it for this vocal artist. I had the bawls (and it did indeed take bawls...but you know me) to draw a comparison between this guy's work and a remixer....essentially making the comment that remixers are nothing more than an evolution of arrangers. Oh boy....let me just say that I was lucky to walk out of there with my bawls in one piece (technically two). I still stand by my statement and I think the guy was simply looking at my comparison from the narrowest viewpoint that his age and knowledge allowed, but really and truly I have heard remixes who have been so creative and painstakingly time consuming to create that hour-for-hour, skill-for-skill, are every bit as genius as that kick ass arrangement (whose title I wish I could remember and I swear if you held a gun to my bawls right now....I still couldn't remember it...but enough about my bawls!).


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## billval3 (Dec 30, 2008)

I think the matter of time constraints should be a separate topic. If you put that issue aside, you still have the basic questions that are being asked here.

I don't think a loop should only be looked at as a shortcut. Why can't it be viewed as an instrument in its own right? Say I take a drum loop that someone else has created...let's assume they've done it in a way that I wouldn't have thought of. What's wrong with me incorporating that into my own body of work? Is there something inherently wrong with collaboration? Isn't that also a part of making art? Or are we only looking at art from an individualistic point of view?

To me, the problem with a loop comes where I, as an artist, imagine something different that I want it to be able to do. Maybe because I discover it doesn't quite fit with some other part of the composition I am imagining. That's where I have to have the tools and technical know-how to make those alterations happen.

Jay, I don't think we should have to change something just so that we can say we changed it. Know what I mean? I think the motive should be a desire to make it more like what we are in the process of conceiving.



rJames @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> I see your point BUT (and I don't use loops cause I wanna be different) the loops, the orchestra in a box, the Omnisphere's give an opportunity to some who may be talented but would never have the opportunity to make professional sounding music.



This rings true for me, personally. I'm not sure exactly why, but up until a few years ago, I don't think I ever quite imagined I could write the kind of music I am learning to write today. It was only because I became familiar with what technology could do that I was inspired to learn more about writing for orchestra, etc.


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## billval3 (Dec 30, 2008)

P.S. I just thought of a personal example concerning Jay's bucket analogy. I am interested in including electronic elements in my music. I do not, however, feel the need to learn all about synthesis in order to do so. I would like to be able to incorporate these elements in a musical way without doing too much "under the hood" work, so to speak. That's my choice for my bucket because I know I'd rather spend my educational time learning more about "traditional" composition and orchestration techniques.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

billval3 @ Tue Dec 30 said:


> I think the matter of time constraints should be a separate topic. If you put that issue aside, you still have the basic questions that are being asked here.
> 
> I don't think a loop should only be looked at as a shortcut. Why can't it be viewed as an instrument in its own right? Say I take a drum loop that someone else has created...let's assume they've done it in a way that I wouldn't have thought of. What's wrong with me incorporating that into my own body of work? Is there something inherently wrong with collaboration? Isn't that also a part of making art? Or are we only looking at art from an individualistic point of view?
> 
> ...



I am not talking about art, I am talking about craft because in the professional commercial world of film/TV, etc. that is mostly what it is. I am all for collaboration if the collaborator gets credit and shares the royalties but if you are using royalty-free loops, clearly that is not the case.

I guess this is probably about as far as we can go with this. For some here, the only thing that matters is if the job gets completed to the client's satisfaction. If towards that end they use unaltered loops, work like crazy to get samples to sound exactly like the real thing and delude themselves that they are doing so because the client and the audience does not know the difference, then fine, that is the reality.

For some, perhaps most here, that is not their preference but a necessity of budget and time management. I get that. It has been 5 years since I had a real orchestra. 

But I do what I can. I use as many real players as I can. If I use loops, I work with them to make them my own. If I use orchestral samples, I do my best to make them sound good, but I do not worry about their realism because it is illusory. It is the difference between making love to a beautiful woman and a blow-up doll.

I do all this because I was taught that composing music for picture is a craft that takes years of hard work to master and I neither expect nor want the software to change that.

To a guy of my generation who looked up to the great composers who created great film scores with orchestras, and now admires the ones who still can and yet integrate electronic elements and loops and create a great sounding score, that is a higher level of craft that I respect more and would encourage younger composers to aspire to. 

Hopefully, this has helped me get this out of my system so I can stop tormenting guys like poor Ned with what they consider ephemeral issues. 

But it will be hard for me to not type when I see people spending all this energy arguing over whether sample library A's strings sound more realistic than sample library B's strings do, and whether I need to use 4 different reverbs on each section to try to emulate what happens naturally in a good concert hall/scoring stage. And meanwhile, frequently the actual composition is not so hot because they were so busy focusing on the other stuff, it got lost in the shuffle.

Ah well, as I said, I guess I am getting old and cranky.


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## dcoscina (Dec 31, 2008)

Jay, I agree with what you're saying. The art and craft of film scoring has, IMO, suffered because of the advent of technology just as general filmmaking has. Directors these days would not know parallel cutting or montage if Sergei Eisenstein crawled up their ass with an avid. 

It is a problem that is two-fold. One, we're just not seeing the same level of musicianship in the film scoring community. Two, directors are perpetuating this by hiring these people because they also lack the breadth of education in filmmaking technique, that includes understanding music (at least on some level). 

Frank Shaffner who was Goldsmith's primary collaborator, had a healthy understanding of music and so when Jerry threw in a Strauss-like Waltz he reinforced that.


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## JohnG (Dec 31, 2008)

Ashermusic @ 31st December 2008 said:


> I am all for collaboration if the collaborator gets credit and shares the royalties but if you are using royalty-free loops, clearly that is not the case.



Jay, I think these strictures may be too black and white to accommodate reality, either today or in the Golden Age of Scoring or whenever.

Grey Areas Everywhere

The issue of credit is very tricky. Does one pay a guitar player royalties if he plays a solo for a few bars based on chords you give him? What about if he plays around with a melody you've written? What about when you write in drum part(s) "techno feel" or "straight rock feel" in a score so that there is some level of direction but it's still the drummer's beat?

I don't, generally, (though I did one time in an unusual situation).

And how does one judge the fact that many well-known composers, whose craft is not open to question, have people who create custom synth sounds and loops for them because they are creating a score in a few weeks and don't want to be using loops that are available to all? And what about orchestrators who get chord symbols, a tune and bass line and not much else for a few bars or even a whole cue?

I hesitate to condemn such practises because, whether it's Stylus or the loop-guy you hired, the composer is still making the key decisions about tempo, instrumentation, pitches/tunes, intensity, fit with picture (or with the song lyrics perhaps). In my view, these decisions represent the vast majority of the "composer's share" of the creative process, making it one's own composition, not whether there is some loop in there. Many guys alter the loops or add to them anyway, but even if they don't, the choice of that one, particular loop is still a musical decision, just as Henry Mancini might have written "bossa nova feel" in a rhythm section part.

With cartoon music we used to write for the trombones "Drunk" above the part, a squiggly line and diamond-shaped note-heads to indicate for how long the player should do his thing -- that's invention and collaboration, of course, but it never occurred to me or anyone to add that player's name to the cue sheet.

Another, occasionally tougher question about credit is raised by an orchestrator being asked to put together a cue from several other bits of a score. Sometimes it's just _come sopra_, which is not troubling, but sometimes the orchestrator has to make quite a few other decisions on tempo or voicing or adding a tutti crescendo, or filling in an extra bar here or there. The more of this there is, the more squishy the question of credit becomes. 

Less tough (here I think we agree 100%) is the Garage-band question -- _musique concrete_ assembled from elements made by others. While arguably this is as valid as some kind of musical "happening" in which sounds made by the audience are claimed as part of the piece, I do think it's feeble.

So What?
 
So maybe this topic raises the question about "credit" broadly, both in some kind of moral sense or with regard to cue sheets. I think it's a matter of degree, whereas your posts seem to suggest that using any unchanged loop or similar element is naòµÆ   ÉPµÆ   ÉQµÆ   ÉRµÆ   ÉSµÆ   ÉTµÆ   ÉUµÆ   ÉVµÆ   ÉWµÆ   ÉXµÆ   ÉYµÆ   ÉZµÆ   É[µÆ   É\µÆ   É]µÆ   É^µÆ   É_µÆ   É`µÆ   ÉaµÆ   ÉbµÆ   ÉcµÆ   ÉdµÆ   ÉeµÆ   ÉfµÆ   ÉgµÆ   ÉhµÆ   ÉiµÆ   ÉjµÆ   ÉkµÆ   ÉlµÆ   ÉmµÆ   ÉnµÆ   ÉoµÆ   ÉpµÆ   ÉqµÆ   ÉrµÆ   ÉsµÆ   ÉtµÆ   ÉuµÆ   ÉvµÆ   ÉwµÆ   ÉxµÆ   ÉyµÆ   ÉzµÆ   É{µÆ   É|µÆ   É}µÆ   É~µÆ   ÉµÆ   É€µÆ   ÉµÆ   É‚µÆ   ÉƒµÆ   É„µÆ   É…µÆ   É†µÆ   É‡µÆ   ÉˆµÆ   É‰µÆ   ÉŠµÆ   É‹µÆ   ÉŒµÆ   ÉµÆ   ÉŽµÆ   ÉµÆ   ÉµÆ   É‘µÆ   É’µÆ   É“µÆ   É”µÆ   É•µÆ   É–µÆ   É—µÆ   É˜


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## synthetic (Dec 31, 2008)

Jay, are you implying that getting your strings to sound real and getting them to sound good are mutually exclusive? Because they go hand in hand for me. I can't think of anything I could do to make it more real and worse, aside from adding coughs and chair squeaks. Or letting my Giga computer take a 20-min break every 2 hours.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

JohnG @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> Ashermusic @ 31st December 2008 said:
> 
> 
> > I am all for collaboration if the collaborator gets credit and shares the royalties but if you are using royalty-free loops, clearly that is not the case.
> ...



Great points, John, and well made. And you have give me somethings to re-think, which is always good,

Re: credit, it depends on where yo slice the salami. I think in our gut, we pretty much know what is right and what is wrong. And no. I do not think using unchanged loops is "naughty," I think it is lazy composing. And yes, I do think that is worse.

I do not reject the short cuts. My problem is when they become an end in themselves and a substitute for learning.

While what you say about my frustration may indeed play a role, my bigger frustration in this forum is what I perceive as too much focus on the wrong things.

But once again, you have given me and others, I hope, some things to re-think.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

synthetic @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> Jay, are you implying that getting your strings to sound real and getting them to sound good are mutually exclusive? Because they go hand in hand for me. I can't think of anything I could do to make it more real and worse, aside from adding coughs and chair squeaks. Or letting my Giga computer take a 20-min break every 2 hours.



Ah, that is the crux of it. No, they are not mutually exclusive but they certainly do not go hand in hand for me.

I come back to my"cello-ish" example. I am working on a cue and using my favorite cello section samples. Let's say I do everything I can to make it sound "real.". Now I double it with another sound, maybe a Moog. It now sounds considerably less like a real cello section, but to my ears it sounds warmer, more emotional, and therefore better.

Do I go with that? In the immortal words of Sarah Palin, "You betcha!"

Preserving the illusion (and that is all it is) of reality should not be a paramount concern, only a secondary one. 

And if one thinks that always "the more real it sounds, the better it sounds," well, IMHO that person lacks imagination.

One's significant other may look more "real" without makeup, so is she less attractive with makeup?

Your natural "real" odor comes through without deodorant, so do we smell better without it?

When you use the bathroom, well, that is real, but most of us prefer to light a match.

Obviously, this is reductio ad absurdum but my point is, that reality is over-rated.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

billval3 @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> Ashermusic @ Wed Dec 31 said:
> 
> 
> > I am not talking about art, I am talking about craft because in the professional commercial world of film/TV, etc. that is mostly what it is. I am all for collaboration if the collaborator gets credit and shares the royalties but if you are using royalty-free loops, clearly that is not the case.
> ...



Yes, we "ought" to, not only because it is morally right but because the music will be better.

No matter how good the samples, no matter how skilled you are at using them, no matter how well you think you know the instruments, a great player brings a dimension to it that you cannot.

And yes, I do look for samples that sound good to me right out of the box, because it inspires me to write. And once again, how real it is doesn't matter much to me if I like the sound.

I still miss the clarinet sound I had in my Kurzweil 1000 PX. It had a woody quality that inspired me far more than any clarinet I have played from today's expensive libraries.

Great stuff, guys!


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## schatzus (Dec 31, 2008)

I recently had a similar conversation on another composers board.

While I do not use loops, I do use Symphobia. Another composer said that the use of loops made one a "hack". I asked about the use of Symphobia and his answer was, "But, you didn't write those clusters!" Actually, I did. I just didn't have a slick way of 'realizing' those clusters before. This composer in question is a heavy user of VSL and both PC and MAC technologies. Where is the line drawn?

I agree with midphase,



> Same with the SAM guys....they spent all that time recording orchestral risers and effects and now (after shelling out $1500) I'm supposed to feel guilty for using them?



No at all; I can write clusters until the cows come home...But as a VI composer, how do I get those realizations out to the client on a tight budget without using something like Symphobia?

I am personally not crazy about using unaltered loops..but where do you draw the line? It is subjective.

Sometimes I feel like...if the director is happy and you get more work for quick delivery, all options should be open. 

Would Mozart, if he was a product of today and technology, be a Logic user?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 31, 2008)

Wonderful thread - best of the year, for me. Thanks Jay. 8)


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

schatzus @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> I recently had a similar conversation on another composers board.
> 
> While I do not use loops, I do use Symphobia. Another composer said that the use of loops made one a "hack". I asked about the use of Symphobia and his answer was, "But, you didn't write those clusters!" Actually, I did. I just didn't have a slick way of 'realizing' those clusters before. This composer in question is a heavy user of VSL and both PC and MAC technologies. Where is the line drawn?
> 
> ...



No at all; I can write clusters until the cows come home...But as a VI composer, how do I get those realizations out to the client on a tight budget without using something like Symphobia?

I am personally not crazy about using unaltered loops..but where do you draw the line? It is subjective.

Sometimes I feel like...if the director òµò   Ò$µò   Ò%µò   Ò&µò   Ò'µò   Ò(µó   Ò)µó   Ò*µó   Ò+µó   Ò,µó   Ò-µó   Ò.µó   Ò/µó   Ò0µó   Ò1µó   Ò2µó   Ò3µó   Ò4µó   Ò5µó   Ò6µó   Ò7µó   Ò8µõ   Ò9µõ   Ò:µõ   Ò×µõ   ÒØµõ   ÒÙµõ   ÒÚµõ   ÒÛµõ   ÒÜµõ   ÒÝµõ   ÒÞµõ   Òßµõ   Òàµõ   Òáµõ   Òâµõ   Òãµõ   Òäµõ   Òåµõ   Òæµõ   Òçµõ   Òèµõ   Òéµõ   Òêµõ   Òëµõ   Òìµõ   Òíµõ   Òîµõ   Òïµõ   Òðµõ   Òñµõ   Òòµõ   Òóµõ   Òôµõ   Òõµõ   Òöµõ   Ò÷µõ   Òøµõ   Òùµõ   Òúµõ   Òûµõ   Òüµõ   Òýµõ   Òþµõ   Òÿµõ   Ó µõ   Óµõ   Óµõ   Óµõ   Óµõ   Óµõ


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## synthetic (Dec 31, 2008)

> I come back to my"cello-ish" example. I am working on a cue and using my favorite cello section samples. Let's say I do everything I can to make it sound "real.". Now I double it with another sound, maybe a Moog. It now sounds considerably less like a real cello section, but to my ears it sounds warmer, more emotional, and therefore better.



That's a weird example, a synth double is just that. When I think of making parts "more real," I think of legato and round robin samples, CC11 rides to add phrasing, panning and processing to put them in the right space.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

synthetic @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> > I come back to my"cello-ish" example. I am working on a cue and using my favorite cello section samples. Let's say I do everything I can to make it sound "real.". Now I double it with another sound, maybe a Moog. It now sounds considerably less like a real cello section, but to my ears it sounds warmer, more emotional, and therefore better.
> 
> 
> 
> That's a weird example, a synth double is just that. When I think of making parts "more real," I think of legato and round robin samples, CC11 rides to add phrasing, panning and processing to put them in the right space.



I am talking about the actual sonics, without all that stuff, the samples and sounds themselves, as expressed in numerous threads that say "that library doesn't sound real enough to me," or "library A sounds more real than library B", or my favorite, "yes, library B sounds better out of the box than library A, but if you spend a lot of time you can make library A sound more real."

It is illusory. None of it sounds real.


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## artsoundz (Dec 31, 2008)

that's true of Kirk Hunter and much less for EW and VSL and etc etc....


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## KingIdiot (Dec 31, 2008)

Ashermusic @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> I am talking about the actual sonics, without all that stuff, the samples and sounds themselves, as expressed in numerous threads that say "that library doesn't sound real enough to me," or "library A sounds more real than library B", or my favorite, "yes, library B sounds better out of the box than library A, but if you spend a lot of time you can make library A sound more real."
> 
> It is illusory. None of it sounds real.



I call Bullshit. on that last bit.

more "real", maybe the word in the cases you're describing should be "realistic". Of course its not going to sound real because its NOT real, but you can get more a more realistic sound with different libraries depending on how they're sampled or programmed or both. and yah, some libraries work ou of the box better for one particular type of recorded sound, but maybe another lib is more flexible and can sound just as "realistic" with a different overall character.

oh and YAHOO!!!

I'm not saying that full realism should be the goal, BTW. What I want is samples that have flexibility in performance and can inspire me to play and write outside the limits of current sampling techniques. Hence the reason I spend so much time tweaking my libraries to play differently. It inspires me more because I dont feel like it sounds "lame" when I try to sequence out whats in my head. Mostly because I dont have access to a real orchestra, but I want to write parts that current samples just dont like...

but I'm also not writing on a deadline currently, so I can fiddle alot... I'm also BROKE AS HELL  I guess thats a bit of the balance in my arena


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

KingIdiot @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> Ashermusic @ Wed Dec 31 said:
> 
> 
> > I am talking about the actual sonics, without all that stuff, the samples and sounds themselves, as expressed in numerous threads that say "that library doesn't sound real enough to me," or "library A sounds more real than library B", or my favorite, "yes, library B sounds better out of the box than library A, but if you spend a lot of time you can make library A sound more real."
> ...



You're a funny guy, King, I always enjoy your posts. And you are far from an idiot.

I do think you essentially contradicted yourself about 5 times in this post however 

But you are on to something. Go for what inspires you.


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## KingIdiot (Dec 31, 2008)

i like u 2 jay, hugs!


maybe inspire is the wrong word too for me to have used...howabout its not as defeating to have better samples.


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## synthetic (Dec 31, 2008)

> None of it sounds real.



Some of it sounds real. Remember, these are all recording of real people. So a high pedal in violins is going to sound the same sampled versus recorded, because it is a recording of dudes playing violins. Of course a bunch of people in a room are going to play off each other and turn notes into music.


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## schatzus (Dec 31, 2008)

> Sorry if I piled on you -- that's no fun! But I am also glad to see your clarification, which certainly the curse off the sentiment I thought you were advancing.



It's all good. I really enjoy these types of discussions. It is why I try to check in everyday.



> To address your interesting question regarding "for me" composing and "for them" composing, I think I write better when it's "for them," honestly. And it really helps when I get extra time I'm not expecting (something that never used to happen but seems to more than before).



Again, having time is the key...

Happy New Year!!!


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

synthetic @ Wed Dec 31 said:


> > None of it sounds real.
> 
> 
> 
> Some of it sounds real. Remember, these are all recording of real people. So a high pedal in violins is going to sound the same sampled versus recorded, because it is a recording of dudes playing violins. Of course a bunch of people in a room are going to play off each other and turn notes into music.



No, because the interaction is static and real players do not interact statically.

I guarantee you any piece of music you do with any combo sample libraries and no matter how much work you put into it and record, if I then print out the parts and record it with real players and then play the two mixes back, it would be as obvious as the difference between standing next to Alexandra Jolie and a photo of Alexandra Jolie.

We may just have to disagree here because I have conducted enough great players here in L.A. that based on those experiences you will never convince me.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 31, 2008)

This was a great way to finish off the year. I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year, even the slackers (well maybe little less prosperous for the slackers


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## midphase (Dec 31, 2008)

Who is Alexandra Jolie? Is she related to Jon Voight?


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## JB78 (Jan 1, 2009)

midphase @ Thu Jan 01 said:


> Who is Alexandra Jolie? Is she related to Jon Voight?



More importantly...does she also have a blow-up version?
:mrgreen:


Happy new year!
o-[][]-o


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## JohnG (Jan 1, 2009)

No, but she does have an 8 core Intel Mac that allows her to have a template with a gazillion tracks.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 1, 2009)

Good lord, Jay, ANGELINA, not Alexandra.

Note to myself: double up on the ginko biloba.


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## lee (Jan 1, 2009)

Jay: I´ve read about what you believe in: It´s more important that the music/samples sounds good than real/realistic. And I I agree! But since real players/ensembles can really sound good/expressive/alive, is it so strange that people tend to seek the best way to try and emulate this with technology, even if it´s miles away and always will be?

Live music, composed by a skilful composer, played by competent people trigger amazing emotions in the listener. Doesnt writing for samples try to do the same, although limited to sample technology? Trying to imitate the real live orchestra or the sound of a processed sounddtrack is IMO a logical development.

Sorry if I´ve misunderstood you. 

/Johnny


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## Ashermusic (Jan 1, 2009)

lee @ Thu Jan 01 said:


> Jay: I´ve read about what you believe in: It´s more important that the music/samples sounds good than real/realistic. And I I agree! But since real players/ensembles can really sound good/expressive/alive, is it so strange that people tend to seek the best way to try and emulate this with technology, even if it´s miles away and always will be?
> 
> Live music, composed by a skilful composer, played by competent people trigger amazing emotions in the listener. Doesnt writing for samples try to do the same, although limited to sample technology? Trying to imitate the real live orchestra or the sound of a processed sounddtrack is IMO a logical development.
> 
> ...



No you understand perfectly. It is a matter of degree as to what the relationship between good and realistic and that is is where I diverge from many here. I don't think their evaluations of what is possible or even desirable are, err.... realistic


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## synthetic (Jan 1, 2009)

I think one of the goals for me on this site is learning how to make my orchestral mockups sound more realistic. Even if you're making a mockup for a producer and director, stuff that will be replaced later by live musicians, you still have to sell it. 

If you disagree, RI-control is down the hall.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 1, 2009)

synthetic @ Thu Jan 01 said:


> I think one of the goals for me on this site is learning how to make my orchestral mockups sound more realistic. Even if you're making a mockup for a producer and director, stuff that will be replaced later by live musicians, you still have to sell it.
> 
> If you disagree, RI-control is down the hall.



You send him/her one that you deem sounds "realistic." I will send him one that sounds what I deem good. Assuming it is a blind test, I bet you I will beat you 4 out of 5 :lol: 

Seriously though, I have never lost a job AFAIK because of that issue. But it is my policy not to do full mockups for producer/directors, only semi-realized. But then again if one were to tell me in an interview he is looking for a sample based score that sounds just like a real orchestra (and no one ever has) I would tell him/her:

1. It is not possible, but I will give you a great sounding orchestral-style score.

2.If you believe it IS possible, I am not your guy.

3. Give me the budget for an orchestra.


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## billval3 (Jan 1, 2009)

Ashermusic @ Thu Jan 01 said:


> synthetic @ Thu Jan 01 said:
> 
> 
> > I think one of the goals for me on this site is learning how to make my orchestral mockups sound more realistic. Even if you're making a mockup for a producer and director, stuff that will be replaced later by live musicians, you still have to sell it.
> ...



I really appreciate this conversation. What you're saying makes a lot of sense, Jay. are you talking about mock-ups you've done that will eventually be played by live players. If so, how do the directors tend to react when they eventually hear the final product? Do the differences throw them off? If so, in what way?

I appreciate anything I can learn about this topic.


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## gsilbers (Jan 1, 2009)

very interesting to read you'all posts on the matter. makes me understand more of each persons background and history..

i used to think similar.. well i had double/contradicting thoughts on when i used samples/loops vs not using a sample. 

as someone already mentioned.. where is the line drawn.. i seen electronic bands that swear that they never use loops, and using loops is the worst offense.. then .. why then u use a sample one hit from a comercial library? oh thats diferent eh? how diferent.. ? on a computer.. which who built? 
(dont just jump to the conclusion is beause a loop is someone elses composition) think about it.. is a 4 bar loop an extreme diference than a one hit sample from a 909? even more.. is programming a beat in a 909 make it YOUR beat? then why then would u hire a drummer or sessio gutarist. yes you tell them to play a chord progresion but usualy you want their performance. any difrent from a loop? really? think about it.. not just jump again screaming against it. times a chaingin.. 
im good at programming beats and presets but i know there is a 17 year old swedish kid that doesnt do anything else besides making beats and presets in those long as winters.. so his beats are probalbly better than mine. i can also play drums but im going to hire a drummer to play in my song. and thats ok? 
but i do use loops in a creative way and dont like using loops w/o procesing, just feels wierd. so there is my contradicting thoughts. 
as for orchestras samples , yes the LSO is going to sound better than my miroslav 10 year old sample libray.. doest it really matter? 

most of the time no.. 


why not? 


and im leaving a little space to make the point i originally was going to make.. 



i work in post, mixing tv shows and films.. do you know how little music matters to EVERYONE? oh you can say its important cuase it creates the fealing and enhances the music blabla.. yes its your point.. but in the overall aspect of it is that as long as it works thats it. 
so when i read posts around this forum describing details in composing and technique and such im so intrigued, its interesting to read the posts and the next day the producer of a tv show couldt care less about the melody of a cue being cut short, or 
lowering the cue so low you couldnt hear nothing except the hihat. or moving the cue a few second later to fit a new pictire change and thus missing the dramatic hit point. 
for them its about making it work.. that means if there is an action scene they want a fast tempo thing. that thing can be 2 garage band loops and a synth arp from a one finger preset from reason synths. sadly, that works. we know better and hopefully we will rise to a better level someday but i think some around here would agree about those type of directors/producers. 


for me it really sucks cause i know a composer made an amazing score. 
oh and i said mostly, cause i know there are directors who do know and care. but in TV and most mid/low level budget film if you start talking about the melody with a choir .. the only thought in a director/producer mind is "how much" ? 
i mixed the ME for a movie scored by klaus badelt and the score was amazing.. but the director only cared and was pissed that he didnt deliver in time, when there where tons of pix changes. and some cues where just repeated somewhere else cause the director felt the scene needed something with no regard of timing. all this w/o klaus around of course. he was pissed on how much they asked from him w such little pay. 
and it goes down the line to video editors, producers, agents, executives and even the audience. 
im in the side that we should care but in todays world, music to be good or that matters to the masses 
has to be sold like a coke behind a hot big boobed blonde.. (in general of course)

my coments has to do more related to the non big budget films. those big budget movies are about 15% of all the overall market. the rest is mid-low level films and tv shows for which im talking about.


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## gsilbers (Jan 1, 2009)

shitte that was a long post i put up there.. 

ill sumarize.. 

you are over thinking it.. as long as it works use whatever tools/loops/sample etc. 


also, 


what got me into film music was that there is way more creativity and new things coming out in music than in any other genre. everything sounds fresh, and thats composers like you caring to sound diferent which is cool. 

also, loops can open up a whole lot of posibilities not able to do w/o them, not even if u program them. hence, how great ableton live is for composing electrnic music by sample mangling.


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## midphase (Jan 2, 2009)

Seems to me like there are two pretty different thoughts being presented in this thread....

Does using ready-made-loops make one a lesser composer than someone who customizes them.

and

Is achieving ultra-realism with samples a necessary or even possible achievement?

Seems to me perhaps these two questions should be split up into two different threads.


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## Waywyn (Jan 2, 2009)

Refering to the first post, I think it all cames back to you sooner or later.
I mean in "our" current stage we are not really famous or oscar winners. We are people doing our work but might hit that stage sooner or later 
So if you do game backing tracks, the budget is low and the schedule is tight, then there might be no problem to drop in a loop here and there (although I also try to make them sound different, slice them up in a way so it doesn't sound like the original).

Anyway, I just had that situation come to my mind, that someone asks composer x in an interview after winning an award:
"How did you do those fantastic percussion parts?" ...
"Well, I just dragged over an RMX/Evolve/SD1 loop" 

Am I wrong when I say, that I can't believe something like this might happen?

I mean noone would sit there during an interview and would tell a story about recording 50 taiko drummers etc. ... if it's clear that it was just a library patch.

What I am trying to say that if you reach a certain level you have to care about what you do, how you sound, what you use. Even if directors or developers don't know anything about RMX, Evolve etc. ... I think somehow it will be reflected in the music.
Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong by using loops and prerecorded stuff, but it is a matter of HOW to use it (layering, editing, slicing, processing etc.)

You could also see it like using chops, licks and patters of famous guitar players. You have to makre sure how you use it, develop it a bit more, bringing in your own sound and style ... then you are just inspired by it and simply copy or using something from someone else.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 2, 2009)

midphase @ Fri Jan 02 said:


> Seems to me like there are two pretty different thoughts being presented in this thread....
> 
> Does using ready-made-loops make one a lesser composer than someone who customizes them.
> 
> ...



Actually,what I was trying to get to is I think a third and perhaps more important issue that those are both part of. If you have the work and you are able to please the client, is that enough or do you have standards of craft that you aspire to and work towards? I maintain that I do and it is important to have them. 

So now, what is important to the composer within that? For me, when incorporating technology, part of that is when I use loops and stuff is to make them my own. Just as I would not use whole orchestral sections of Stravinsky unaltered in orchestral work, as a rule I don't do that. The former is of course legal and the latter not, but the former also just does not meet my personal standards of craft.

Clearly, others feel differently and I may indeed be out of step with a lot of contemporary standards, but I am OK with that.

Perhaps conversely, I am not willing to go to the enormous lengths of time and effort some here are wiling to go to to try to make sampled orchestral instruments sound like the real thing because for me, it takes valuable time that is spent better in other ways to make the music sound better and work better with the picture, and also because at the end of the day their efforts still don't make it sound real, and the composition itself frequently is not so hotsy-totsy IMHO. 

But I could well understand that in that case, they would feel I am not coming up to THEIR standards of craft. 

In the end, everyone will I guess decide where on the continuum they reside. Still, these issues have certainly ben worth discussing and maybe now I will not feel the need to jump on someone every time he/she ( are there any "she"s here?) starts raving about how "real" some new sample library-V.I. sounds, or how "un-real" another sounds.

Instead, I will head to my bathroom and quietly vomit


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## billval3 (Jan 2, 2009)

gsilbers @ Fri Jan 02 said:


> i work in post, mixing tv shows and films.. do you know how little music matters to EVERYONE? oh you can say its important cuase it creates the fealing and enhances the music blabla.. yes its your point.. but in the overall aspect of it is that as long as it works thats it.
> so when i read posts around this forum describing details in composing and technique and such im so intrigued, its interesting to read the posts and the next day the producer of a tv show couldt care less about the melody of a cue being cut short, or
> lowering the cue so low you couldnt hear nothing except the hihat. or moving the cue a few second later to fit a new pictire change and thus missing the dramatic hit point.
> for them its about making it work.. that means if there is an action scene they want a fast tempo thing. that thing can be 2 garage band loops and a synth arp from a one finger preset from reason synths. sadly, that works. we know better and hopefully we will rise to a better level someday but i think some around here would agree about those type of directors/producers.



If I'm not mistaken, part of the problem is the educational process that directors go through. They are not taught to work with music and they don't spend much time thinking/debating about the impact that music can have.

Putting that aside, I would be willing to bet that the composer is not the only person who ever feels neglected in the process of making a film. What about the scriptwriter who's lines get carelessly changed by the improvising actor? What about set pieces or props that were lovingly made, but don't even make it into the shot?

What I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of little details that go into making a film. I want to believe that when directors/producers honor all of those little details they add up to a greater whole, if you will. When they don't it's only to their detriment.

I understand what you're saying, gsilbers, but I disagree with your conclusion. Just because composers are under-appreciated doesn't mean we should care less about the nuances of our work. I'm afraid that kind of attitude will only make matters worse. If a director sees that his composer has a flip attitude about what they're producing won't that make them place even less value on the originality and craft of the music?


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## jeffc (Jan 2, 2009)

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## Ashermusic (Jan 2, 2009)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Fri Jan 02 said:


> It's not always easy to do your best though.
> 
> Not all the gigs are super inspiring, and I find that I often have to kick myself in the butt to put in the extra hours. A lot of it for me is self-motivation. I have to please myself first, you guys second :wink: . But again, it often feels wasted on material that is poor (directing, acting, script).
> 
> Are these excuses? Perhaps. There's also the old reliable bag of tricks, which I've fallen back to often due to lazyness, and plain old tiredness. You know in sports, when it's the final quarter or 3rd period, some of the players start to look groggy? I feel like that at the end of a gig, with the deadline looming. It's hard then, at say 4 am, after weeks of 7x14hrs, to want to push the boundaries. Again, while I agree with many of the posts here, in practice, daily practice, there are good days and bad days, but the music gets used anyways, especially for tv, where wall-to-wall is the norm.



Jeff is talking, and I am talking, about ideals and standards. Obviously, we will all fall short of them at times for reasons like what you are describing, Ned, and that is understandable.

But that is not an argument, and I trust you are not making an argument, for not having them.


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## jeffc (Jan 2, 2009)

I hear what you're saying for sure Ned. Trust me, I have those days as well. While in my head I like to think I'm doing my best, there are times that everything just sounds like absolute crap and I think of going to get an application at Starbucks.

I firmly believe that there's a certain level of insanity required to do this job. Because many of the decisions and choices that we make do really not have a sane logic at all. It's this blind determination, work-a-holicism, many times to the detriment of our personal relationships, that are I think necessary to do this job as opposed to say an accountant or salesman who punch the clock and go home to a normal life. I mean, I've had a pretty good run the past few years, and just recently took a film that paid really really low, but I am just as insanely passionate and enthusiastic about it as if I was paid 10 times as much. It really doesn't enter into my thought process - which goes back to the insanity gene. I've taken 80% of my budget on a few DVD films to record in Prague when nobody from the project a) showed up for the sessions b) cared that I did it but for me, when I listen to those scores now, I feel like I created something worth creating and listening to a few years later, where if the were RMX loops and QLSO, while they would have been fine in the film, I don't think I would ever listen to the cues for the rest of my life.

Anyway, I kind of got away from the original tools discussion, but it's all kind of related in the end. Tools vs motivation vs creativity = well I don't really know. A lot of interesting discussions I guess....


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## JohnG (Jan 2, 2009)

Jeff, your posts sound like me talking to myself.

So of course, they are astute, balanced, intelligent, and insightful.

I got one of my best gigs from a score to a movie that may never get a release, because I spent nearly all the budget on live players to make it sound great. It was ok with just synths but with the live playing it became a completely different animal.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 2, 2009)

JohnG @ Fri Jan 02 said:


> I got one of my best gigs from a score to a movie that may never get a release, because I spent nearly all the budget on live players to make it sound great. It was ok with just synths but with the live playing it became a completely different animal.



Been there, done that


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## John DeBorde (Jan 2, 2009)

jeffc @ Fri Jan 02 said:


> I hear what you're saying for sure Ned. Trust me, I have those days as well. While in my head I like to think I'm doing my best, there are times that everything just sounds like absolute crap and I think of going to get an application at Starbucks.
> 
> I firmly believe that there's a certain level of insanity required to do this job. Because many of the decisions and choices that we make do really not have a sane logic at all. It's this blind determination, work-a-holicism, many times to the detriment of our personal relationships, that are I think necessary to do this job as opposed to say an accountant or salesman who punch the clock and go home to a normal life. I mean, I've had a pretty good run the past few years, and just recently took a film that paid really really low, but I am just as insanely passionate and enthusiastic about it as if I was paid 10 times as much. It really doesn't enter into my thought process - which goes back to the insanity gene. I've taken 80% of my budget on a few DVD films to record in Prague when nobody from the project a) showed up for the sessions b) cared that I did it but for me, when I listen to those scores now, I feel like I created something worth creating and listening to a few years later, where if the were RMX loops and QLSO, while they would have been fine in the film, I don't think I would ever listen to the cues for the rest of my life.
> 
> Anyway, I kind of got away from the original tools discussion, but it's all kind of related in the end. Tools vs motivation vs creativity = well I don't really know. A lot of interesting discussions I guess....



Boy can I relate to that. The scores that I've really invested myself in are the ones that make me beam with pride when I hear them today, and the few where I just punched the clock leave me with the distaste of mediocrity.

I always try to remember when I'm working on something now, that I'm doing this for me, and that I have to live with the results of my efforts down the road, long after the score is forgotten by everyone else. And that can be a tough edict to stick to.

john


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## midphase (Jan 2, 2009)

To Jeff and John who have (at times) spent most or all of their budget on live players...

...would you have done that if it meant not being able to pay rent? Or not being able to buy your kid a birthday present?

I heard a story about about Michael Gioacchino offering to self-finance the end credits track to Cloverfield just because he wanted to be attached to a monster movie, but I keep wondering if he would have done that if he wasn't pulling in a few $mil a year? (J.J. Abrahams ended up picking up the check anyway).

Same goes with some of the other big names that have been mentioned in this thread. Most of the time, these composers hire other guys to create cool loops and sound design elements. I don't picture someone like J.N. Howard sitting in front of Ultra-Beat spending a few hours on just getting the kick right (maybe I'm wrong...but not from what I heard).

My point is that it's all relative, and you can't go around judging others without knowing their specific situation.

And for what it's worth....if the shoe (or loop) fits, then why force yourself to fix what isn't broken just for the sake of it? I swear that 9 times out of 10 where I try and alter a loop in some way, it sounds worse than in the original form. 

I keep going back to the idea that it's all very subjective and recognizing a SD loop on some cue that I hear, doesn't necessarily mean that the composer was lazy.

If YOU think that what YOU are doing makes you a better composer....more power to YOU! Your success might or might not prove your point, there really is no way to be 100% certain. But to assert than anyone else who doesn't work like you do is somehow not earning their stripes as a composer is IMHO going too far.


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## billval3 (Jan 2, 2009)

midphase @ Fri Jan 02 said:


> And for what it's worth....if the shoe (or loop) fits, then why force yourself to fix what isn't broken just for the sake of it? I swear that 9 times out of 10 where I try and alter a loop in some way, it sounds worse than in the original form.



Thank you for that comment! This is along the lines of something I tried to say. Why change something just for the sake of changing it? If it's just because of some psychological, but non-musical, need then I think it's pointless (besides soothing your ego). Loops should be changed because we want them to do something different, even if the difference is subtle.


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## JohnG (Jan 2, 2009)

Kays, I don't think Jeff is judging; I'm not judging. I don't have a big issue with loops or samples etc. -- when I hire percussionists I give them a guideline but frequently they take it somewhere better. I don't see such a big diff, morally, between the two -- loop versus player's improvisations (as my very long earlier post in this thread might have indicated).

And besides, I am in the process of licensing some of that music elsewhere, so my ulterior motives on making it sound great included commercial, not just aesthetic goals. Some jobs earn a lot, some not so much. I am not in this just for love, but if the love weren't there, we all know there are more predictable ways to make money.



Not to digress too much but there are some jobs in which at the last minute the producers will cough up money that they hadn't previously been able to find in order to supply extra players.

[edit: and of course if one needs money for rent, one needs money for rent]
[edit II - the sequel: Maybe what I wrote wasn't clear. The score on which I spent the money was not "one of my best gigs," but the quality of that score, on that movie, was what led to the Really Good Gig. The way I wrote it, one might mistakenly think they were the same job.]


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## rgames (Jan 2, 2009)

Do you guys ever feel like you're driven away from creative writing? i.e. "Make it sound like XYZ"

Maybe it's because my gigs so far have been very low budget with very cautious directors, but I find that when I try to do something out of the norm, it gets rejected. (Related issue: demo reels. I always include what the directors really liked, not necessarily my favorites).

So sure, as a composer I'd love to throw away the loops and just write. But my reality is that the director wants something that sounds like a collection of loops or a derivative of some other score.

But that's why we have concert music, right? Maybe I'm an oddball here but I rarely listen to film music for pleasure. I enjoy it in association with a film, but there are not many soundtracks that I listen to because I enjoy the music by itself.

The general public seems to have a musical chronometer that stops at the end of the romantic era and picks up again with contemporary pop music. So I think film music has to consider that fact in order to be effective. Sure, I can write a score based on tone rows or microtonals, but nobody will like it... It's been done, but who listens to those soundtracks besides film music buffs?

None of that means that film composers aren't skilled craftsmen, though. I think of it like the difference between science and engineering: scientists are like the concert music composers searching for new ideas and engineers take the ideas that work and apply them to practical problems, much like the film composers take musical ideas from concert composers and apply them to films. Engineers face the same problems: they constantly have ideas for better designs but if the current design is good enough, well, that's what they go with because cost and schedule are king. 

Writing music for film, IMHO, is very similar in that regard.

rgames


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## midphase (Jan 2, 2009)

A friend of mine told me stories about a certain british composer no longer with us who used to say frequently "Will this do?" as his way of asking if his (apparent) bare minimum was going to be sufficient for his employers. Of course you could argue that his bare minimum was still quite impressive....but stories do abound about him and it sounds like if he was burning the candle at both ends, it wasn't necessarily because of the time he put into his compositions.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 2, 2009)

My problem with loops is that my brain just isn't pattern-oriented. I've used RMX for what's-happening-now drum sounds and am a big fan of it. But when I want to loop something else I almost always copy and paste it in the sequencer.

What happens is that I get caught in the headlights by loops when I put them in the sequencer. Invariably I want them to do something different from what they're doing, but they refuse to listen to me.

I think it comes from being yelled at by more than one teacher at Berklee for using ://: marks excessively. My training was that if you repeat something more than three times you have to ask yourself if that's really what you want to do.

Of course loops are a different vibe, but I have to admit that I only programmed a drum machine one time - in 1985. I found it really frustrating. After that I actually built an A/B switch for my single-input hardware sequencer so I could play the parts in from my drum machine.

So for me it's not a moral question but a matter of constitution.


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## synthetic (Jan 2, 2009)

The repeat sign is the reason I write better on paper than I do into a sequencer. When I write on paper, the tendency is to change things around every 4 bars. Playing into a sequencer is the opposite, it's easier to copy and paste. 

My loop programming these days is to drop an Apple loop into some Audio Damage plug-in like Replicant, Kombinant, Dr Device or all of the above. Then change it 16 bars later. 

I hear ya that sampled instruments is nothing like the real thing, I really get it. I like the idea about blending in some live instruments. Hopefully I'll get a film with a budget that doesn't fall through sometime soon.


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## ThomasL (Jan 3, 2009)

Nice thread, good points from "all" sides.

I usually don't respond to threads like this one simply because I feel I can't contribute in anyway.

With this one, I feel I can.

Regarding the "old craft" and today's "newbies" slapping loop after loop in a track and calling it music. It's something weird called "evolution".

Take the web for instance. When I started working with webdesign (I'm not a full time composer) back in the late 90's I had much work. Why? Nobody knew how to do it and I did. A few years later EVERY company just used their aunts cousin's niece's new boyfriend's little brother to do it.

That have changed, big time! Now it's back in the hands of those who "know" how good interface design, databases, scripting and backside apps work together. .

The same thing has started to happen the last few years with photography. Before, you went to a professional photographer to take great pictures. Today you can get away with a simple click with a cellphone. I say, just wait. When people are getting fed up with washed out pictures taken with a wrong angle in the wrong lighting and pimped in photoshop. Ad agencies buy their own digital cameras to do product shots inhouse. It's going to change. At least I hope so.

And, it just struck me. The same thing happened in the "desktop-revolution" back in the late eighties as well. EVERYONE could just "DTP" everything. That changed as well.

As someone once said: "Everyone loves progress, but nobody likes change".

I say, bring it on!

Now, I'm not saying that all the "old" ways are better (or the new ones for that matter), they are just a starting ground for this thing called "evolution". It will spin in a few different ways but it will eventually get back to the true "essence" of the matter. In this case, good composing.

At least, I hope so.

Again, great thread!

/Thomas


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## Hannes_F (Jan 3, 2009)

ThomasL @ Sat Jan 03 said:


> Take the web for instance. When I started working with webdesign (I'm not a full time composer) back in the late 90's I had much work. Why? Nobody knew how to do it and I did. A few years later EVERY company just used their aunts cousin's niece's new boyfriend's little brother to do it.
> 
> That have changed, big time! Now it's back in the hands of those who "know" how good interface design, databases, scripting and backside apps work together. .



It is funny that you mention it because just yesterday I remembered a CEO that I heard saying some ten years ago something like: Coreldraw and Photoshop now allow us to easily create something ourselves that, if our former designer had offered it, we would have stuck where the sun don't shine.


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## ThomasL (Jan 3, 2009)

Hannes_F @ 2009-01-03 said:


> ThomasL @ Sat Jan 03 said:
> 
> 
> > Take the web for instance. When I started working with webdesign (I'm not a full time composer) back in the late 90's I had much work. Why? Nobody knew how to do it and I did. A few years later EVERY company just used their aunts cousin's niece's new boyfriend's little brother to do it.
> ...


Hehe, the keyword here is "CEO" I believe :D 

As the thread title says, it's only tools...

When ignorant people start talking bs in that way I usually say "Well, if you ever need brain surgery gimme a call. I already have a scalpel and latex gloves I can always buy!" 8) 


/Thomas


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