# Hats off to Andy Blaney -- Kraken



## JohnG (Sep 30, 2016)

If you haven't heard this -- it's fun!


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## Paul T McGraw (Sep 30, 2016)

JohnG said:


> If you haven't heard this -- it's fun!




Thanks for posting the track. Sounds great to me, and the writing is excellent.


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## higgs (Sep 30, 2016)

Man, there sure is some luv for Andy here on VI - & deservedly so. He's like a ninja Picasso.


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## Rctec (Sep 30, 2016)

... He's slowly turning into one of my favorite composer out there. And I'm no slouch at programming - but he's in a league of his own! If you ever think that samples aren't capable of expressing musical agility or even nuance, listen to Andy...

-Hz-


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## doctornine (Sep 30, 2016)

I'll get me coat....


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## dcoscina (Sep 30, 2016)

I've been an ardent fan of Andy's ever since I heard his music years ago. His compositions are terrific and transcend the label of "sample library demo". Each one is a fantastic piece of music regardless of what it's performed on. But yeah, he makes Spitfire samples sing.


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## jononotbono (Oct 1, 2016)

Absolutely outrageous. Good job I find this inspiring rather than depressing because my god, I have so much to learn.


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## SymphonicSamples (Oct 1, 2016)

The Spitfire orchestral stage sounds superb, and indeed fabulous writing bringing their large collection of samples to life. Thanks for the share John.


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## dgburns (Oct 1, 2016)

jononotbono said:


> Absolutely outrageous. Good job I find this inspiring rather than depressing because my god, I have so much to learn.



You know, we are all learning as we go.


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## Silence-is-Golden (Oct 1, 2016)

Rctec said:


> If you ever think that samples aren't capable of expressing musical agility or even nuance, listen to Andy...
> 
> -Hz-


Forgive me for using your statement for this purpose, but I know of a few members that chalange anyone who dares to suggest this blasphemy. I doubt if they dare to oppose you stating this! 

Addition: Even though every musician who plays acoustical instruments as well as plays with vi's experiences that there is a limitation that all current to date vi's bring with them.
Recently I had the audacity to mock-up Ravel's Pavane pour une infante defunte ( if my french is up to scratch) and I referenced it to Daniel Barenboim's interpretation.
Probably with every current string library out there it is virtually impossible to create the feel and silkiness of those con sordino strings, not even speaking of the nuances of individual players and their collective sound.

Nevertheless, I also believe the overall gist of an musical piece can be very well emulated by virtual instruments, as indeed Andy Blaney demonstrates again and again.
I do not necesarrily like all of his music, but some time ago I had a listen to all of his 'demo's on Spitfire Audio's site and there are some real beautiful compositions in there! Musical pieces that far exceed the place of 'demo's as far as I am concerned.
And his mastery of these ( virtual) instruments is incredible.


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## tack (Oct 1, 2016)

What I wouldn't give to get my hands on the project files for this or any other Andy B mockup. I can only begin to imagine the things I would learn about sample programming. (Not to mention solid orchestration that actually works with VIs.)


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## Christof (Oct 2, 2016)

tack said:


> What I wouldn't give to get my hands on the project files for this or any other Andy B mockup. I can only begin to imagine the things I would learn about sample programming. (Not to mention solid orchestration that actually works with VIs.)


Why not ask him to share something here?


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## higgs (Oct 2, 2016)

Christof said:


> Why not ask him to share something here?


This is a fun proposal.

A few months back I got project files for a Chris Lord Alge mix through Steven Slate's site, and it was (and continues to be) very valuable - well worth the price of admission. I've no intent to emulate his style or techniques, but his ideas & creative approach to mixing opened up a whole new way of thinking about my own mixes.

Mr. Blaney, would you ever consider making a project available for study? Slate has a nice delivery platform for something like this, or perhaps the Spitfire guys could host? 

I hope this request doesn't offend - apologies if it's uncouth.


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## devonmyles (Oct 2, 2016)

Composing and Programming at it's best. I have just checked out some of his other stuff at the Spitfire Audio Soundcloud page. A real inspiration.
Thank's for the post.


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## Ashermusic (Oct 2, 2016)

Excellent. Andy is masterful.


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## sinkd (Oct 2, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> Forgive me for using your statement for this purpose, but I know of a few members that chalange anyone who dares to suggest this blasphemy. I doubt if they dare to oppose you stating this!



I believe that for the members here to which you refer, their ultimate intrenchment is _realism. _I don't believe they would choose to die on the hills of either nuance or agility. But we are both putting words in others' mouths.

And, wow. Fantastic writing. I am finding my template slowly migrating in the Spitfire direction with every development.


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## Ashermusic (Oct 2, 2016)

sinkd said:


> And, wow. Fantastic writing. I am finding my template slowly migrating in the Spitfire direction with every development.



While that is a valid decision, I think Andy would make great sounding music with an Emu Proteus 2 Orchestral module.


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## Walid F. (Oct 2, 2016)

What ARE those strings!? They are insane. Andy is a fantastic composer with some magic fingers, indeed.  Superb brass as well. 

W.


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## ClefferNotes (Oct 2, 2016)

Walid F. said:


> What ARE those strings!? They are insane. Andy is a fantastic composer with some magic fingers, indeed.  Superb brass as well.
> 
> W.


They are indeed, the strings I am guessing is Sable (Spitfire Chamber Strings) or Spitfire BML Mural. Andy is so good at programming and using samples it's beyond scary at times!


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## Rctec (Oct 2, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> Forgive me for using your statement for this purpose, but I know of a few members that chalange anyone who dares to suggest this blasphemy. I doubt if they dare to oppose you stating this!
> 
> Addition: Even though every musician who plays acoustical instruments as well as plays with vi's experiences that there is a limitation that all current to date vi's bring with them.
> Recently I had the audacity to mock-up Ravel's Pavane pour une infante defunte ( if my french is up to scratch) and I referenced it to Daniel Barenboim's interpretation.
> ...


Actually, I of course agree with you. You can't truly replicate the beauty and nuance of great musicians. But you certainly can express your ideas with samples. And very often, I find playing the samples to the real orchestra actually helps to illuminate the intention of a piece to them. We can only get better!
-Hz-


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## dcoscina (Oct 2, 2016)

Something we can forget is while it's nice to have a real orchestra, we all use the yard stick of *professiona*l orchestras as the benchmark. For those of us who don't have huge budgets or want to get a very real sense of a concert piece, often good samples like Spitfire or Orchestral Tools or whatever you use can be as expressive and better intoned than a semi pro or amateur group. I've heard friends' pieces just destroyed by poor performances and preferred their MIDI sketches because I could hear their intentions much better. 

Andy shows how expressive the Spitfire samples can be when properly programmed. And he's a bloody genius at it. I just re-did a brassy march and spent hours and hours on it with SF samples almost entirely. The end product is nowhere near Andy's expertise. But i can tell you that the SF samples sound way better than if I threw the chart in front of a local group- not to mention they don't have the size of orchestral choirs I needed for this piece.


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## Tanuj Tiku (Oct 2, 2016)

Andy Blaney is a genius!

It is truly fantastic that we have samples to express ourselves. I know, it would be very difficult for me to write otherwise. 

But, as I am working more and more with live musicians and writing for smaller ensembles and soon a much a larger one, there are many things to keep in mind. 

For a recent project, I was asked to let go of the programming details because everything will be replaced by an orchestra and it has been a liberating experience. I tried to focus less on the capabilities of the samples and focused more on the writing. 

I realised in the process (sort of knew it) that very quickly I need to make choices if I am not writing for live musicians, to make something sound good or really write what I want to. 

Samples are not there yet or sometimes take too much time and in the process it affects the writing. 

Of course, there is no way to replace real musicians and in my experience programming leads to over writing whereas with an actual orchestra, a lot of things would sound much better with less. Of course, one has to know what they are doing and I am constantly learning about this process. 

Samples are both a blessing and a pain to work with. But always working with samples is also boring!


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## dgburns (Oct 2, 2016)

Tanuj Tiku said:


> Andy Blaney is a genius!
> 
> It is truly fantastic that we have samples to express ourselves. I know, it would be very difficult for me to write otherwise.
> 
> ...



nice post


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