"Go Big or Go Home"

[ghostnote]

Frankly, I never understood the concept of huge templates and slaves. Many of you, I'm sure, are good musicians - unlike me - who can score the basics of a scene with piano, pen and paper. Yet you all seem to need the newest libraries and plugins... over and over again... I know you guys have to work fast and stay competitive and no library is perfect, but in the end it's all just samples (...ow, how can he say this? Blasphemy!), they'll never sound perfect. How old is Symphobia? Most of it still sounds very nice in comparison with newer stuff!

Here's the deal: The second you open up a new kontakt instance opens up a million of new possibilities. Isn't that much more fun than having everything loaded at once and knowing that you'll use this library just for the trills even if it maybe has a patch that sounds very interesting in a different context? Templates and big setups are great to stay on the safe side, but sometimes you need a void project or a smaller template to come up with something new.

 

[Ashermusic]

Frankly, I never understood the concept of huge templates and slaves. Many of you, I'm sure, are good musicians - unlike me - who can score the basics of a scene with piano, pen and paper. Yet you all seem to need the newest libraries and plugins... over and over again... I know you guys have to work fast and stay competitive and no library is perfect, but in the end it's all just samples (...ow, how can he say this? Blasphemy!), they'll never sound perfect. How old is Symphobia? Most of it still sounds very nice in comparison with newer stuff!

Here's the deal: The second you open up a new kontakt instance opens up a million of new possibilities. Isn't that much more fun than having everything loaded at once and knowing that you'll use this library just for the trills even if it maybe has a patch that sound very interesting in a different context? Templates and big setups are great to stay on the safe side, but sometimes you need a void project or a smaller template to come up with something new.

Which is why some of us create project specific templates. There is no limit, it's just hard drive space and hard drives are cheap.

I recently did the music for the BluRay release of "Love And Mercy", two featurettes. I had to do Beach Boys type tracks, so my orchestral templates of various sizes were useless. So I created a VE Pro template with all my favorite sampled guitars, bases, keyboards, drums and male vox and a corresponding Logic Pro X template to connect to it, and I was good to go.

Now, if another similar project comes my way, I am good to go again as I have the templates.

 

[JohnG]

Having a large template doesn't rule out novelty; it's not one or the other. The whole point of extra computer resources is that you don't have to compromise -- you can have a big template and still go "off road."

 

[kitekrazy]

Yes you can write songs, score, or do arrangement with maybe 1 or 2 keyboards. BUT pretty soon everything starts sounding the same. It is like a graphic artist, do you want to paint with only 16 colors, or would you like to use Millions of Colors. Every Keyboard, Sample Library has things they are better at. So myself I like having lots of Audio Colors to use. But I agree never skimp on paying for a good attorney if you are signing paperwork.

I don't know if Eddie Van Halen got or missed that message. Great artists have what is called a signature sound and many people like to duplicate it.

 

[kitekrazy]

Hi all,

I recently wrote on this forum, regarding a PC computer build, "go big or go home" which, after I thought about it, might have sounded a bit peremptory. That said, I do have a belief behind it, which I put as a question to myself:

"Why would you devote so much time and, indirectly, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in school fees, lost earnings, and so on, and then drive yourself crazy working around the shortcomings of your hardware?"

Many here, including me, have spent years learning to play an instrument, studying scores, taking lessons of one sort or another. Some have mastered an instrument, some have poured their time into other musical pursuits.

Whether or not they are making a lot of money at it today, most who are trying to wrestle major libraries down are certainly trying to do something at a professional standard.

So, when I see someone trying to save $100, or even $1,000 on hardware or a sample library or something else, I think -- why? Why not get whatever you can possibly afford / borrow / reuse from pals to make your composing faster and better? Why postpone the fun (and hopefully profit) another day?

So, whenever I think "oh, that's expensive," I also think, "not as expensive as waiting another six months / years / decades to get where I want to be."

I would prefer to reach something called contentment which is very hard to do. I seem to have that down with real instruments but not the virtual ones.

 

[dgburns]

Throwing the kitchen sink into every production don't make the muzak better.

too many choices can be a bad thing.there was a study that concluded that the optimal amount of choice was between three to five selections.Any more and people got frustrated,any less then three,and people found no satisfaction.Check out the restaurant menus,choice limited for a reason.

reduce your options and it's easier to get creative.unless you're a slave to the sample library rat race.no happiness to be found there.But by all means buy what you need,for sure.

creating a vast template,and you tend to fall victim to your own cleverness.(i must use this patch because i went through the trouble to include it in my "template").Better still if you're clever enough to hype it to the director,who'll raise his left ,or was that right eyebrow,as he thinks to himself,"ouch,I gotta get back to the video edit suite real fast,this muso is talking that martian talk again"

 

[higgs]

there was a study that concluded that the optimal amount of choice was between three to five selections.Any more and people got frustrated,any less then three,and people found no satisfaction.Check out the restaurant menus,choice limited for a reason.

Errmmm, uhhh... You're speaking of the "Paradox of Choice," which resonates with me to a great degree. But that was more of a study done in service of fast food and grocery stores to make sense of how many hot sauces or types of cereal they should offer to optimize profits. There was an issue for a while that these stores ran into where if they offered too few choices no one would buy, or if they offered too many choices then no one would buy. So, how many hot sauces should you offer to sell hot sauce? Yep, it's three to five. While I agree that too many choices can be a bad thing, I mostly agree with that when it comes to making mundane choices, like "which hot sauce should I buy?" Or "which of these 25 omelets will make my day the least terrible?"

If I need a really playable flute with a sweet tone and convincing legato, I'm not going to lean into Era II's flutes and expect it to deliver all that, but I also wouldn't take Passion Flute and put it into a medieval thing that required a flute to back off from the spotlight. Maybe not the best and most objective/widely applicable example but the point is hopefully there. I'm happy that I have those options, and I'm happy that I know when, where, and how those things wil shine. Without those options, and more importantly the knowledge of how those options apply to address real world requests, I might not be able to write a piece that calls for that...one flute... You get it, I'm sure.

You do have to know a lot about your options and how to best exploit them in order to make a choice with a large selection. That's something I'm just not as likely to take the time to figure out when it comes to large selections of hot sauce - who has the time? And it gets all over the keys..?!

 

[jononotbono]

The only limit is imagination. Having a template isn't limiting. It gives freedom. Unless technology gets in the way... And then you upgrade so tech doesn't hinder freedom or Creativity.

The thought, for example, of having to set up the entirety of 8Dio Adagio Strings, with VSS2 for panning and then the correct Reverbs every single time I want to write some String parts is limiting. I don't want to spend all my time setting stuff up. Whether you create a huge template, or a modular type of template with VEPro, you can add or subtract anything you want, when you want.

I just wrote a piece that I'm hope will go into a library and I wrote it in a template of 800+ tracks. I didn't use ANY of those tracks and just wrote from scratch. All the template is foldered in Cubase so if I don't want to use it, I won't. But I know that Adagio is ready to go anytime I want, if I want.

Isn't that much more fun than having everything loaded at once and knowing that you'll use this library just for the trills

Sometimes I love having instant access to Trills and sending them through Sound Toys Plugins (just as an example) and making those trills sound nothing like trills. The less time setting stuff up and the more time creating Music is what works for me!

 

[dgburns]

Errmmm, uhhh... You're speaking of the "Paradox of Choice," which resonates with me to a great degree. But that was more of a study done in service of fast food and grocery stores to make sense of how many hot sauces or types of cereal they should offer to optimize profits. There was an issue for a while that these stores ran into where if they offered too few choices no one would buy, or if they offered too many choices then no one would buy. So, how many hot sauces should you offer to sell hot sauce? Yep, it's three to five. While I agree that too many choices can be a bad thing, I mostly agree with that when it comes to making mundane choices, like "which hot sauce should I buy?" Or "which of these 25 omelets will make my day the least terrible?"

If I need a really playable flute with a sweet tone and convincing legato, I'm not going to lean into Era II's flutes and expect it to deliver all that, but I also wouldn't take Passion Flute and put it into a medieval thing that required a flute to back off from the spotlight. Maybe not the best and most objective/widely applicable example but the point is hopefully there. I'm happy that I have those options, and I'm happy that I know when, where, and how those things wil shine. Without those options, and more importantly the knowledge of how those options apply to address real world requests, I might not be able to write a piece that calls for that...one flute... You get it, I'm sure.

You do have to know a lot about your options and how to best exploit them in order to make a choice with a large selection. That's something I'm just not as likely to take the time to figure out when it comes to large selections of hot sauce - who has the time? And it gets all over the keys..?!

yeah,but you're smart,and you just destroyed the "go big or go home" thing anyway.right on with the whole flute thing( which is why I bought a whack of flutes btw)..I'm just a bit anti "big template" these days cause it's bandied about like some kind of trophy.

Just read Gerhard's post about falling down with Cubase and his 500 + tracks of misery on win10.

 

[higgs]

yeah,but you're smart,and you just destroyed the "go big or go home" thing anyway.

Not exactly sure how to interpret that. I'm an advocate for the go-big approach. I've only recently embraced that level of setup - only 'recently' because I didn't know that it could be done, or how to do it before I joined VI. I'm still setting up a template and honing it as I go, constantly making lighter Kontakt patches so I can have more instrument options and squeeze as much as possible out of my available RAM. I've learned a heap from the process already, and I'm better for it.

read Gerhard's post about falling down with Cubase and his 500 + tracks of misery on win10.

I don't need to read it - seems like the Cliff Notes are in the title. For me, the misery would start and end with me staring down the barrel of Windows. We never got along after XP... '98 really. The forum is better off without me using Windows - well, I'd get banned (for incessant whining), so the forum being "better off" is open to interpretation.

Pastor higgs, out.

 

[higgs]

Actually, one more thing: I'm advocate for creative processes. Whatever it takes to get more music out there is okay by me.

 

[NYC Composer]

the sound you want when writing short string notes to accompany a gentle scene with a child by a lake in summer is of course radically different from a scene of Impending Doom

Personally, I think gentle scenes of children by the lake should be scored by Charlie Clouser's more terrifying work from the Saw series, but I'm oppositional by nature.

 

[Prockamanisc]

So, whenever I think "oh, that's expensive," I also think, "not as expensive as waiting another six months / years / decades to get where I want to be."

I figure this: Let's say something costs $10,000, and it costs you 3 years to earn $10,000. You can either A) wait 3 years and save up money and buy it, or B) buy it when it's on sale for 20% off (saving $2,000), and pay it off over 3 years, and paying something in interest (probably less than $2000). In the case of B, YOU ACTUALLY OWN THE THING FOR 3 MORE YEARS, and you get to play with it and learn how to use it.

 

[Prockamanisc]

The less time setting stuff up and the more time creating Music is what works for me!

That sums it up for me. Ironically I spent about 8 months building and setting up a computer so that I could "save time". But now I'm set up with a 875 track template and I have everything I need at my fingertips, I don't have to set anything up from here on out.

But once I set up my slave at my studio I missed having that kind of power at my home setup, so I built a much smaller slave for it. So that should solve this dispute, I went big and went home.

 

[Ashermusic]

Yes, spending time on the front end saves time on the back end when maybe you are looking at a hard deadline.

 

[kitekrazy]

Throwing the kitchen sink into every production don't make the muzak better.

too many choices can be a bad thing.there was a study that concluded that the optimal amount of choice was between three to five selections.Any more and people got frustrated,any less then three,and people found no satisfaction.Check out the restaurant menus,choice limited for a reason.

reduce your options and it's easier to get creative.unless you're a slave to the sample library rat race.no happiness to be found there.But by all means buy what you need,for sure.

creating a vast template,and you tend to fall victim to your own cleverness.(i must use this patch because i went through the trouble to include it in my "template").Better still if you're clever enough to hype it to the director,who'll raise his left ,or was that right eyebrow,as he thinks to himself,"ouch,I gotta get back to the video edit suite real fast,this muso is talking that martian talk again"

Sometimes that's what I admire about Reason but then again....it doesn't take long to miss Kontakt or other obvious things in most DAWs.

 

[dgburns]

Love how they kept developing Reason,I've been absent from it for a few years.Pleasant surprise when I fired it up.But it'll always be a side show to my daw for sure.

@JohnG ,not sure what exactly you're driving at with your argument.Are you advocating setting up a monster rig in the hopes of getting better gigs?

I view my relationship with my gear as a personal one.Gear is in my room if I have a personal connection to it,or if it brings me something I deem of value-or it simply makes me happy.If something isn't used in 6 months,it gets put away.In a few years,and it goes away.I'll always be connected to how the industry wants me to work,if that means Protools and whatever else,fine.The rest is all up to you.
Sure,I like my "hunting and gathering" adventures as much as the next guy.I do find a certain enjoyment in seeking out and staying up to date on what's new and out there.I like my mini excursions to the music stores(there should be a cruise ship for this sort of thing).
I'm constantly trying to decide if something is a must have or whatever.It's a big part of this whole making music thing.And it's fun.I still get a certain guilty feeling coming over me when I buy stuff,just because I've bought so much crap over the years.(what is it with cables,I've got more than I need,but they are all busted when I pull one out,boxes of cables that go on forever)

 

[Ashermusic]

To me they are all just tools, not emotionally involved with any of them, although I like the ones I regularly use. Take them all away and give me some time with others and I would be fine.

 

[AllanH]

I'm DONE buying cheap stuff that looks like it's "good enough". There is nothing more frustrating that having a PC that's too slow or has insufficient specs, or instrument without all the microphones or articulations. My time has value, too, and frustration of having a sub-par setup is not worth the "savings". When I look at what I don't use, it's almost entirely the inexpensive stuff, which in the end was of low value, too.

These days where e.g. EW Hollywood Orchestra/Diamond can be had for $600, it's easy to get started with quality.

 

[dgburns]

I'm DONE buying cheap stuff that looks like it's "good enough". There is nothing more frustrating that having a PC that's too slow or has insufficient specs, or instrument without all the microphones or articulations. My time has value, too, and frustration of having a sub-par setup is not worth the "savings". When I look at what I don't use, it's almost entirely the inexpensive stuff, which in the end was of low value, too.

These days where e.g. EW Hollywood Orchestra/Diamond can be had for $600, it's easy to get started with quality.

Sorry,when I said I've bought a lot of crap over the years,I mean stuff,as in quality stuff,just alot if it.Enough to buy a house or so,a good one.Thankfully I bought one of those too. (I went big and went home)