why are songs judged by sounding real orchestra?

[the muse]

i have a question that keeps me busy..

i hear many great songs on this forum and what strikes me is that many people starts saying that the orchestration is not real enough. Is that sooo important then? Can a piece of music composed with "software" not just sound great when it does ! without saying "it misses woodwinds, there its no real string section , double it etc"

if it would sound real then i think Nick Phoenix would use it for Two Steps from hell instead of a real orchestra
and hans zimmer would put a half a million dollars more in his pocket.

Just my two cents...

love to hear your thoughts

sorry for my english

[MichaelJM]

This is actually a great question, in my opinion. A question I've asked myself. :) I think it doesn't matter whether or not the piece sounds like it could be played by real instruments. If it sounds great, then it sounds great.

I think there are two issues at play though, when some discuss a certain piece having elements that don't sound realistic, and why that's a problem:

One, the attributes of instruments that don't sound real, might not sound pleasing to the ear. For example, if you have a staccato line with repeating pitches, where each note sounds exactly the same. This sounds bad to the ear, not necessarily because the instrument isn't real, but because it's not pleasing to hear the same sound repeated, when it's exactly the same. People like variation, and real instruments with real players provides that.

Two, if the instrument in a piece is intended to sound like a cello, and it doesn't, then it can bother the listener for two reasons. Either the composer has settled for something where it would sound better if it was real (obviously lacking a certain potential quality), or the listener expects a cello to sound a certain way, and anything else doesn't sound good. The latter being the reason why completely electronic sounds don't bother people in the least. People have no prior expectations, and therefore don't hold a certain type of sound to a certain caliber.

In conclusion, though, I think if the piece sounds great, then instruments being synth, real, or live, matters not. If a piece could be improved by adding certain characteristics expected of real, live performances, then the fact that it doesn't sound 'real' is a problem, even if that is a generalization of the true problems at play.

Of course, I'd be curious to hear anyone else's take on it as well. ;)

[interpolate]

I think people just want people to think it's real until they know it's synthetic. Afterall nobody would be that impressed if you recorded a real orchestra and tried to make it sound computerised would they?

[nikolas]

Because most of the time this is what the rendered pieces are trying to achieve! Right or wrong, this is what the creators want. It's very very rare that I'll hear something made with samples that will be obviously worthy of what it is and not for what it's trying to be!

[mezzoforte]

I second Michael's take on it: the answer is in the listeners' expectations.
Oddly enough (or maybe not), in serious daily matters, they may fail to notice obvious shameless bulshit; but when it comes to entertainment and art, they become kind of keen and fussy and expect to be lied to convincingly, on their own terms.

[PaulR]

.... that many people starts saying that the orchestration is not real enough. Is that sooo important then?

It depends on how old you are.

If you're aged between 9 and 12 years of age and brought up on Hans Zimmer's view of what orchestral music sounds like - then it doesn't matter at all.

If you think that you're going to sound like a real orchestra made up of good pro players ( as opposed to amateur hacks) - then you can forget that straight out.

If you are making a '''''sound''''' with a sampled library and it sounds good in it's own right then there's no problem with that - HOWEVER - why are you using orchestral samples in that case? Presumably to sound like a real orchestra.

Most cinematic orchestral scores today sound like they've been done on a computer and either remained in the sample world - or indeed been transcribed over to the real orchestral world.

If the music is bad in the first place the only difference will be this. If it stays in the sampled domain it will sound bad anyway - if it goes to a good pro orchestra it will merely become good sounding bad music.

If it's good music and goes to a good pro orchestra it will sound 10 times better than any sampled sound could ever be and that's a fact of life that cannot be disputed.

[chest]

I, too, agree re listeners' expectations.

In my experience, once something gives the impression of striving for a particular result, it will be judged on whether that result is achieved.

Mundane examples are close matches of colours/textures - eg in clothing or interior decorating - if colours look like they were intended to match exactly, but don't, they'll look like a failed match.

IMHO it's the same with VIs - if a VI was used in an obviously "unrealistic" way (just for its sound), I expect that would be enough to prevent any expectations of realism, and hence any criticisims of how realistic it sounds. But if, for instance, a wind instrument VI sounds reasonably realistic in a piece, but there are no spaces for breathing, it'll sound like a flawed attempt at imitating a real instrument.

So, I'd say the onus is on the creator of the audio to make the overall sound fall into the right camp. - If it's not to be criticised as a flawed imitation of real instruments, it must sound like it wasn't meant to be an imitation. That, of course, must be done with an awareness of the particular expectations of the target audience.

---

A related example. I was once pleased to get a vaguely piano-like sound out of a synthesiser, because it gave a good enough impression. Later I got an Emu (hardware box) MIDI piano module, which, of course, sounded enormously better, but I was more critical of its deficiencies, (almost paradoxically) BECAUSE it sounded more like a piano. As VI pianos have become better and better, I find that I judge them by more and more stringent criteria - they are "trying hard" to sound like a real piano, so they tend to get assessed against the better sound of a real piano rather than the worse sound of an older VI.

[peter5992]

i hear many great songs on this forum and what strikes me is that many people starts saying that the orchestration is not real enough. Is that sooo important then? Can a piece of music composed with "software" not just sound great when it does ! without saying "it misses woodwinds, there its no real string section , double it etc"



Well, the point for me (and many if not most others I daresay) is to make the orchestral music I create with computers and samples, sound as real as possible - such that most people, or the casual listener, won't know it is not really performed by a live orchestra. I am always trying to get it to sound better and better, using all the technology that is available. That is also what music supervisors, production libraries and film directors want to hear, by the way, so that has to be my reference. If I want to make a living from my music I better be at least as good as all the other guys out there!

That is different from comments such as "misses woodwinds", or "double that voicing" et cetera - those comments go to orchestration. Those comments could be made even with respect to a piece performed by a live orchestra.

[nikolas]

I spent 30 minutes searching for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10

The Uncanny valey! Something striving to be ultra realistic WILL be compared eventually with the real thing. Since this is the EW home we are already talking about 95% of realistic samples! It's not hard to imagine people feeling weird about something REALLY REALLY REALLY close to the real thing, but not there yet.

[peter5992]

Excellent video Nikolas - by coincidence, yesterday I just read about the uncanny valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley). The theory behind this is not 100% clear, but it seems to work on many different levels.

Filmmakers call it the 'willful suspension of disbelief' - we all know James Bond / Superman / Spiderman / The Hulk don't exist, and that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are fantasies, and yet we allow ourselves to be swept away by the story and accept it as real as if it happened to ourselves. Large part of the credit goes to the story line - the underlying stories behind all great epic movies are chock full of 'big themes' that have a deep emotional appeal to most humans (good vs. evil, the willingness to scacrifice oneself for a greater good, betrayal, love and hate, and so on and so forth). (Well maybe most Bond movies aren't so deep but they work on a different level - the plots are always very similar but you know what you're going to get (evil villain who plans to destroy the world, Bond gets beaten up but in the end vindicates, along with lots of beautiful girls and fast cars and gadgets; and they deliver on those expectations).

Guess it's the same with music - on the left side of the uncanny valley curve are those instruments that clearly do not sound human but have an appeal of their own (think of great sounding (vintage) synthesizers or sound effects), on the right side of the curve are the virtual symphonic orchestras by EW and others that clearly try to creep as close to the real thing as possible - and when well done are accepted as such by most people.

[Xplora]

The Uncanny Valley is actually really interesting. I had a read and a watch, and yeah; good on Mori for enunciating the theory, and for being a pioneer voice of science from the Asian community (they don't get a look in most of the time).

[pmortise]

Great thread! My journey's taken me though the uncanny valley a couple of times. I turned right on Volume when I should've went straight on Expression. :eek: