# Beginner Composer - NEED ADVICE



## Vehrka (Nov 12, 2016)

Hey guys, I want to start producing orchestral music on a more serious level than I have been. I've been doing it as a hobby for a couple years now but I really want to start taking it seriously. Up till now I've been using a Macbook Pro with 16 GBs of RAM. However I always find myself struggling with bigger projects. I find myself in need of a new computer and some new software.

Firstly, I want to buy either an iMac or a Surface Studio with 32 GBs of RAM. Is 32 GBs of RAM enough for a beginner composer or should I try and build a custom PC with more RAM? If I am to build a custom PC, how would I do that?

Secondly, I've been looking at buying samples from Spitfire, East West's Hollywood Series, CineSamples, or Orchestral Tools. I've been looking at these because they offer the entire orchestral range and I would like to start off buying all my strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion from a single company and I was wondering out of the 4 companies' collections, which one would offer the best sound for a more classical orchestral type of track?

My final question is what plugins for mastering and mixing you guys think are absolutely necessary for the beginner composer? I have Cubase and I've always just used the ones included but I know there are lots of plugins out there which are a must have for producing a good orchestral track.

Thank you all for your help and for reading this long post


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 12, 2016)

My take: an iMac with 32Gbs is fine, along with a couple of SSD. Also, Spitfire is an excellent choice, they have a superb sound! What is your budget? 

Don't be too concerned about mastering plugins at this point in your career, as it should be all about learning to balance through orchestration, working on natural dynamics through the writing.


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## Rodney Money (Nov 12, 2016)

Vehrka said:


> which one would offer the best sound for a more classical orchestral type of track?


If I had to pick for that sound for me it would be Orchestral Tools' libraries (woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings) mixed with Spitfire's string libraies.


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## Zhao Shen (Nov 12, 2016)

Vehrka said:


> Secondly, I've been looking at buying samples from Spitfire, East West's Hollywood Series, CineSamples, or Orchestral Tools. I've been looking at these because they offer the entire orchestral range and I would like to start off buying all my strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion from a single company and I was wondering out of the 4 companies' collections, which one would offer the best sound for a more classical orchestral type of track?



Depends on your budget. If you don't care how much you need to spend, go for Orchestral Tools - their libraries are pricey but very high-quality.

Otherwise, I would go for one of three other options. 

1) Hollywood Orchestra. Absolutely insane bang for your buck. PLAY 5 has also made using it more convenient.

2) Spitfire Orchestra. They've been re-bundling their BML series into a few main volumes. My own template isn't quite so reliant on Spitfire, but I've heard plenty of praise for every one of their libraries.

3) Wait some more time, then go for the Cinematic Studio Series. Currently only Cinematic Studio Strings has been released, but it's due to be followed by the rest of the series in the next few months. For my personal uses, CSS is currently the very best library that money can buy, and surprisingly it's very affordable. If the rest of the orchestra is able to live up to the strings, I have no doubt that it will be the standard in orchestral sampling realism for the next generation of products.


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## Vehrka (Nov 12, 2016)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> My take: an iMac with 32Gbs is fine, along with a couple of SSD. Also, Spitfire is an excellent choice, they have a superb sound! What is your budget?
> 
> Don't be too concerned about mastering plugins at this point in your career, as it should be all about learning to balance through orchestration, working on natural dynamics through the writing.


I have a budget of about $10,000 right now for the computer and sample libraries and such. Beyond that I'll probably won't buy much except the occasional library or plugin every few months.


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## Vehrka (Nov 12, 2016)

Zhao Shen said:


> Depends on your budget. If you don't care how much you need to spend, go for Orchestral Tools - their libraries are pricey but very high-quality.
> 
> Otherwise, I would go for one of three other options.
> 
> ...


I've heard a lot of good things about Cinematic Studio strings. I'll look into that one. Would you say the strings are better than Spitfire's strings?


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## ZeroZero (Nov 13, 2016)

The question about 'either a mac or a surface' is an important one, because its going to determine how your system develops. Personally I have never had a Mac so I am prejudice take that into account. I am wondering why not a tower? I would not like to be peaking into a small GUI here, and sooner or later your going to need to upgrade something and laptops are not so good for this. Also the better Motherboards support up to 128 gig of RAM (maybe more with the latest?). You get much more bang for buck with PC's, the days of them being flakey for Audio are well over (once established). I have mine hooked into two cheap 49" Tv's and the screen acreage is great - about 6ft by 2 ft 5". It sure makes things great for working I can have manuals, projects, mixers, Vsts all on show at once. 
Personally I would also go for Cubase - 9 should be around in weeks. It has expression maps which make things easy for changing articulations on a staff, and all in all (IMO) it's the most powerful DAW in many ways. I am using it without Vienna Pro Ensemble and the disabling tracks and visibility feature means that I can load several hundred tracks with no impact on RAM or Viewing, until I actually need them. Personally I would not like working on a lap top day to day.


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## Hafer (Nov 13, 2016)

ZeroZero said:


> and sooner or later your going to need to upgrade something and laptops are not so good for this


Want to underscore that as you might learn (after buying sample libraries) that disc space definitely never is sufficient whatever you already have. Then again, buying external SSD/HDD spoils the point of being mobile.


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 13, 2016)

Get East West Composer Cloud, plenty of terrific orchestral instruments (*plus*) for a really cheap price. I've been using them on the majority of my projects for six years now, and I get paid for what I do (orchestral, film, opera, and Rock music). CC is a no brainer imo, under 30 bucks US a month for instruments both I and a lot of my composer friends still consider a standard in anyone's orchestral library.

A really good alternative is the Albion bundle, but...well, even this time of year you'd better be committed to this as a vocation (or have a good commission) to actually want to hand out all that money this early in your writing.


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## synthpunk (Nov 13, 2016)

Imac is best bang for the buck and a beautiful screen IMHO. The Vader helmet Mac Pro will give you more power and can be made portable. The Blackmagic Mutidock with SSD's for storage. You could get a older tower but no thunderbolt and much higher power consumption.

Some of the bigger E/W libraries may not play as nice on mac. The new version of Play is very nice though. I'm not a big fan of subscription. Musicians have lean months and to rely on, then not have access to your tools at times would bum me out.

Spitfire Albion One is also a nice place to start.

It will be interesting to see what Cinematic Studio Series brings next. I'm anxiously awaiting there Solo strings. CSS is beautiful.

I will also toss in the recommendation of a good VST synth like Omnisphere2 or Zebra2 or even some of the very good freebies out there. (http://vi-control.net/community/threads/free-synth-v-i-plugins.56778/#post-4013529)

Universal Audio UAD is a very good investment for audio. The Apollo's offer much I/O features and the UAD plugins are top notch for tone and vibe.


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## InLight-Tone (Nov 13, 2016)

You can build a Windows tower for half the price of a Mac with similar specs. Cubase seems to run better on Windows machines as well. I wouldn't go with the Surface as nice as that new one is because of lack of expandability but later get a Surface pro for sketching and as a laptop replacement...


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## dcoscina (Nov 13, 2016)

Parsifal666 said:


> Get East West Composer Cloud, plenty of terrific orchestral instruments (*plus*) for a really cheap price. I've been using them on the majority of my projects for six years now, and I get paid for what I do (orchestral, film, opera, and Rock music). CC is a no brainer imo, under 30 bucks US a month for instruments both I and a lot of my composer friends still consider a standard in anyone's orchestral library.
> 
> A really good alternative is the Albion bundle, but...well, even this time of year you'd better be committed to this as a vocation (or have a good commission) to actually want to hand out all that money this early in your writing.


I agree. EW offers the most instruments for the money. I'd stay away from ensemble based libraries to start if you want to learn tradition orchestra- using solo and ensemble instruments for a piece. Looks like you have a healthy budget but OT full libraries will eat up a lot of that money- so will Spitfire but both both those company's stuff sounds bloody amazing and real.


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## Zhao Shen (Nov 13, 2016)

Vehrka said:


> I've heard a lot of good things about Cinematic Studio strings. I'll look into that one. Would you say the strings are better than Spitfire's strings?


I'd say that if you are looking for a comprehensive array of articulations, go with Spitfire. But IMO what CSS is capable of, it does better than any library out there, so make your decision based on your needs.


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## Vin (Nov 13, 2016)

With your budget, I'd get a super powerful PC that can be built for ~$2000 and get either EW Hollywood Orchestra, Orchestral Tools Orchestra or Spitfire and learn them inside out. Here's an example of what you can get for around $2k in PC world:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/7MhgLD

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Xx3tJV

Also, as mentioned few posts before, Cubase runs a bit better on Windows.

You can add solo instruments, synths and more specialized libraries later. If you want plugins from a single company too, UAD is definitely your safe bet.

However, if you are a complete beginner, I'd advise using only your bundled Cubase plugins and learn them properly and then move on to more advanced stuff such as UAD or FabFilter. What Cubase doesn't have is a decent reverb, so 2CAudio B2, EW Spaces, ValhallaRoom, Altiverb, Lexicon PCM, Exponential Nimbus...all great choices. Pick one and learn it.


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## Vehrka (Nov 13, 2016)

Thank you all very much for all the advice. I think I'll probably end up creating a custom PC as it seems to be the best option. I've looked at other threads and I think I have a good idea of how to build it for music production. Really great advice on what libraries to buy as well, I think right now to save money I'll end up going for East West Composer Cloud and maybe Albion I & III. I just wanted to say again, thank you for all the really good advice


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## Vehrka (Nov 13, 2016)

Vin said:


> With your budget, I'd get a super powerful PC that can be built for ~$2000 and get either EW Hollywood Orchestra, Orchestral Tools Orchestra or Spitfire and learn them inside out. Here's an example of what you can get for around $2k in PC world:
> 
> http://pcpartpicker.com/list/7MhgLD
> 
> ...


Ah yes, reverbs are one of the things I find to be most difficult to decide on. A lot of people say it's a preference thing but which would you say is the best all around reverb for an orchestral template. The ones I've heard the most about are EW Spaces (obviously) and Altiverb. Are they easy to master with practice? And I've also heard a lot about plug-ins like Ircam Spat & VirtualSoundStage for positioning instruments. Would these be better to invest in later one with a better understanding of reverb? Or would they be something I'd want to get right away if at all?


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 14, 2016)

Vehrka said:


> Thank you all very much for all the advice. I think I'll probably end up creating a custom PC as it seems to be the best option. I've looked at other threads and I think I have a good idea of how to build it for music production. Really great advice on what libraries to buy as well, I think right now to save money I'll end up going for East West Composer Cloud and maybe Albion I & III. I just wanted to say again, thank you for all the really good advice



That's a great way to start, my friend!


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## synthpunk (Nov 14, 2016)

You just might be happy with Vahalla Room and Vintageverb, $50 ea.



Vehrka said:


> Ah yes, reverbs are one of the things I find to be most difficult to decide on. A lot of people say it's a preference thing but which would you say is the best all around reverb for an orchestral template. The ones I've heard the most about are EW Spaces (obviously) and Altiverb. Are they easy to master with practice? And I've also heard a lot about plug-ins like Ircam Spat & VirtualSoundStage for positioning instruments. Would these be better to invest in later one with a better understanding of reverb? Or would they be something I'd want to get right away if at all?


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 14, 2016)

synthpunk said:


> You just might be happy with Vahalla Room and Vintageverb, $50 ea.



I LOVE Vintage Verb, and have used it so often (at the expense of even the MAJOR BIGGIES that I own, fill in the blanks) that I've actually astonished people. It is a fantastic deal for a tool that is seriously useable, in a variety of contexts imo.


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## passsacaglia (Nov 14, 2016)

ps. if you go mac and logic pro you'll love it and their convolution reverb Space designer ! Sharp knife in your workstation. Altho the 2C b2 looks really cool! Heard good about it  and the interface looks appealing. Good luck with your build mate.


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## ZeroZero (Nov 14, 2016)

When you buy the mobo make sure you get a good one. This is the last product to be exchanged. You should try for USB 3.1 (twice as fast as USB 3), and a mobo that supports at least 128 gig of RAM. Asus and Gigabyte are amongst the top, Asus boards are top quality, but Asus support is not the best. I have used Asus for decades with no issues, except bios updating being arcane and difficult - but possible. Some mobos won't load larger sticks. This may seem crazy but it will future proof your machine (you could start with loading only 2 only slots.) It may be there are mobos that support 8 x32 gb sticks, but check the mobo. The 32 gig sticks have only just hit the market and are pricey. M2 PCIe express slots can be used for superfast SSD sample or operating system drives. SSD M2s vary enormously in speed, but the top pick is the samsung 960s which are _blisteringly _fast, knocking the ball out of the stadium - seven times as fast as Joe Average SSD. it's a lot of money but comes in up to 2tb. The best systems use one drive for Win 10, one for the daw, and another for samples. The SSD for the Daw does not need to be large. Samsung 850s are top of the tree performance and durability wise right now, you can pick up a 128gig for under 70 UK. I just did (Maplins).
As for Daws, I will probably get flamed, but I do notice a lot of people switching to Cubase 8.5 (with 9 out soon). Some features are killer features - expression maps, and Disabling tracks (huge RAM savings) would be my top two. I just love Cubase, and would never switch. IMO, on a single machine set up, you don't need Vienna Ensemble Pro with Cubase 8.5 (just use disable) and this keeps your template within the DAW. When Dorico matures and integrates, its going to get even better (but the current integrated notation package bundled can handle a large sohpisticated score)
Such a system would be so fast it would definitely break the sound barrier, and handle almost anything.

Zero

Z


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## khollister (Nov 14, 2016)

verhka -

It sounds like you are on the right path with a DIY PC, Cubase and CC subscription, but I'll add some thoughts (mostly in support of that)

While I have been a lifelong Mac user, as well as Logic, I am in the process of making the switch to Windows and Cubase for several reasons myself. The "bang for the buck" on the hardware side and a few Cubase-unique features relevant to orchestral composers are the deciding factors as well as Apple's apparent shift in focus would keep me from going down the Mac/Logic route at this point.
The CC subscription route is both an inexpensive way to get a robust library and a great "try before you buy" opportunity to see if the libraries and workflow of EW are a fit for you. All of us, pro and non-pro alike, have spent considerable money on things we no longer use largely because of no trial/demo opportunities with most libraries. You may find the sound or workflow on EW stuff to not be to your liking, but at least you will have spent minimal money to rule one major option out.
I would second getting one of the Valhalla reverbs to start with before spending any more money on something else. They are very high quality and inexpensive.


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## wpc982 (Nov 14, 2016)

ZeroZero said:


> the samsung 960s which are _blisteringly _fast, knocking the ball out of the stadium - seven times as fast as Joe Average SSD.
> Z



Are you sure about that figure? 7 times as fast as other SSDs? I have 4 SSDs, the fastest is a Samsung 850 PRO, but it's only a little faster than the others (according to Crystalmark, on a total 500000 system, the 512 GB Pro is 499 MB/S sequential read, 477 512K random read). 7 times that would be 3500 MB/sec?


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## Living Fossil (Nov 14, 2016)

Parsifal666 said:


> I LOVE Vintage Verb, and have used it so often (at the expense of even the MAJOR BIGGIES that I own, fill in the blanks) that I've actually astonished people. It is a fantastic deal for a tool that is seriously useable, in a variety of contexts imo.



This may be the wrong place for this question, however, here it is:
Could you name some of the Vintage Verb settings that you find suitable for orchestral contexts?
I sometimes use it on E-Guitars and synths, but as often i try it in more orchestral textures, I can't get results with it that come near R2, Nimbus/Phoenix or Convolution Verbs (or IK-Multimedias CSR-Hall and Metric Halo's Haloverb).
Since i hear so many praise about Vintage Verb, i ask myself what i'm doing wrong with it...


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 14, 2016)

Living Fossil said:


> This may be the wrong place for this question, however, here it is:
> Could you name some of the Vintage Verb settings that you find suitable for orchestral contexts?
> I sometimes use it on E-Guitars and synths, but as often i try it in more orchestral textures, I can't get results with it that come near R2, Nimbus/Phoenix or Convolution Verbs (or IK-Multimedias CSR-Hall and Metric Halo's Haloverb).
> Since i hear so many praise about Vintage Verb, i ask myself what i'm doing wrong with it...



Yow, that's not typically what I use VVV for. For that (when I'm not using the sainted UAD stuff) I often just go with QL spaces. I would go as far to say that QL Spaces might be _exactly_ what you want. Phoenix's presets are more often than not extremely useful imo.


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## Living Fossil (Nov 14, 2016)

@Parsifal666 :
Thanks. Don't get me wrong, i'm perfectly fine with the results that my Exponential Audio reverbs give me and for sure have no need for another one  (however, it's usually rather R2 and sometimes Nimbus than Phoenix, combined with convolution ERs. Phoenix and Altiverb get a lot of use in the surround mixes, but i don't do them myself....)
I just wondered if i do anything wrong with VVV because the results i get with it can't hold up to the praise i often hear.


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 14, 2016)

Living Fossil said:


> @Parsifal666 :
> Thanks. Don't get me wrong, i'm perfectly fine with the results that my Exponential Audio reverbs give me and for sure have no need for another one  (however, it's usually rather R2 and sometimes Nimbus than Phoenix, combined with convolution ERs. Phoenix and Altiverb get a lot of use in the surround mixes, but i don't do them myself....)
> I just wondered if i do anything wrong with VVV because the results i get with it can't hold up to the praise i often hear.



Well, if you're using it for traditional, symphonic orchestration...there's no way that would be my first choice. However, for synths, vocals, to a lesser degree guitar...I use it regularly.

But hey, you might be looking for a different sound, hope you find it! All respect.


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## Living Fossil (Nov 14, 2016)

Parsifal666 said:


> But hey, you might be looking for a different sound, hope you find it!



As written, i'm not looking for a different sound or any sound, i just try to figure out which settings let VVV shine.
I always feel bad about tools that i own but rarely use.


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## Elephant (Nov 15, 2016)

ZeroZero said:


> When you buy the mobo make sure you get a good one. This is the last product to be exchanged. You should try for USB 3.1 (twice as fast as USB 3), and a mobo that supports at least 128 gig of RAM. Asus and Gigabyte are amongst the top, Asus boards are top quality, but Asus support is not the best. I have used Asus for decades with no issues, except bios updating being arcane and difficult - but possible. Some mobos won't load larger sticks. This may seem crazy but it will future proof your machine (you could start with loading only 2 only slots.) It may be there are mobos that support 8 x32 gb sticks, but check the mobo. The 32 gig sticks have only just hit the market and are pricey. M2 PCIe express slots can be used for superfast SSD sample or operating system drives. SSD M2s vary enormously in speed, but the top pick is the samsung 960s which are _blisteringly _fast, knocking the ball out of the stadium - seven times as fast as Joe Average SSD. it's a lot of money but comes in up to 2tb. The best systems use one drive for Win 10, one for the daw, and another for samples. The SSD for the Daw does not need to be large. Samsung 850s are top of the tree performance and durability wise right now, you can pick up a 128gig for under 70 UK. I just did (Maplins).
> .................................
> 
> Zero
> ...



Also look for a board with Thunderbolt3 compatibility natively or via an add-in board - this will mean you can then use a UA interface for example. Good luck !


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## URL (Nov 20, 2016)

InLight-Tone said:


> You can build a Windows tower for half the price of a Mac with similar specs. Cubase seems to run better on Windows machines as well. I wouldn't go with the Surface as nice as that new one is because of lack of expandability but later get a Surface pro for sketching and as a laptop replacement...



I'm curious about what is better in win than osx when you say Cubase runs better in win over osx?


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