The “C-Ville Weekly“, a Charlottesville News and Arts Magazine, wrote an article about “The Receipt”. The following is a quote from their coverage, check out the whole thing through the link below:

As promised a few days ago, here’s a link to the NBC 29 coverage of “The Receipt”… they use a *.wmv stream, so the file quality is pretty bad. Plus, they won’t let you watch it on Firefox (again, stupid, I know). But, if you’re willing to deal with it, here’s the video clip.

Also, here’s a screen capture of the news story they ran. It’s essentially a transcript of the report they ran on air. Enjoy!

As I started working on the score for “The Receipt”, I came to realize that assembling an orchestra large enough to cover all the parts I wanted to write for would be an impossibility. Rehearsal time was limited, booking a room is expensive, finding large numbers of quality volunteer musicians is difficult, etc. Given these limitations, I began exploring music production techniques other than live recording. Midi was absolutely unacceptable, not to mention just plain painful to work with. Thankfully, I stumbled upon the world of “Virtual Orchestras”.

A virtual orchestra is essentially a large library of instrumental recordings that are assembled into a cohesive piece. As you can imagine, to create a realistic sounding mix, one needs access to thousands of samples for each instrument that is to make an appearance. At their simplest, these samples represent every possible note playable on a given instrument. However, there is far more to a musical instrument than just notes. Each of these notes is performed across a wide range of styles (legato, staccato, detache, sustain, etc). Plus, each of these samples is recorded multiple times to simulate the fact that a live musician will never play the exact same thing twice. (Think “da-da-da-duh” from Beethoven’s 5th Symphony… every “da” should be slightly different from every other.) The points I’ve addressed thus far barely begin to scratch the surface of the complexities involved in quality virtual orchestras. If you’d like to read more about this subject, this Wikipedia article is a good place to start.

While there are several high-quality virtual orchestra libraries available, none come close to touching the size, quality, and attention to detail as the “Vienna Symphonic Library” (VSL). You can read a bit about this amazing tool’s history here. Currently, the complete Vienna Symphonic Library consists of over one-million individual samples and covers all mainstream strings, woodwinds, brass, keyboards, percussion along with a number of more exotic instrumental varieties. I really can’t say enough about just how amazing the VSL is, the best way for you to truly grasp the passion that these people have for music is to explore their website.

Vienna Instruments provided me with the means to create a fully orchestrated musical score with the same emotional inflection as a live ensemble. Not only that, but the closed ecosystem allowed for the creation of a professional-quality “recording” that is leaps and bounds ahead of anything that would have been possible short of securing a full recording stage. I was skeptical at the start, afraid that this virtual orchestra would be nothing more than a glorified midi… I couldn’t have have been more wrong. The following two music files are an excerpt from the piece “In Any Way I Can” (track 17 of The Receipt soundtrack). The first is a rendered midi file… identical to what I was hearing as I composed the piece. The second is the final Vienna Symphonic Library mix of the exact same clip.

 In Any Way I Can - MIDI
 In Any Way I Can - VSL

I can’t speak for you, but I was blown away by just how realistic my compositions could sound without needing to hire physical musicians to perform my work. Herein lies the power of virtual instruments (and VSL in particular)… I, as an individual interested in composition but with very limited resources, will likely never have a live orchestra at my disposal. Despite this, I can still enjoy a lifelike performance with very little overhead. Virtual orchestras will never replace the real thing… live music is a irreproducible art and must never fade into the annals of history. But now the tools of orchestral power are attainable by more than just the greatest of composers.

Now that you know a few facts about the Vienna Symphonic Library, I want to show you just how powerful it truly is. Just below this paragraph, you’ll find two pieces of music. Each has been “recorded” by both a professional orchestra as well as the VSL. Listen to takes A & B and see if you can determine which is the live recording and which is built by a virtual orchestra. Just hover your mouse over the appropriate “mouseover” link to see if you were correct. I bet you’ll be amazed at just how realistic the music that the VSL generates is.

 A: Holberg Suite - Praelude

 B: Holberg Suite - Praelude

Mouseover hereA: United States Marine Band
B: Vienna Symphonic Library for the performers of this Holberg piece.

 A: Fanfare for the Common Man

 B: Fanfare for the Comman Man

Mouseover hereA: St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra
B: Vienna Symphonic Library for the performers of this Copland piece.

Want to hear more examples of the Vienna Symphonic Library at work? Visit their demo zone here. Want to see what kinds of projects the VSL is used in? The short list is kept here, with many more that choose to not publicize their use of a virtual orchestra (ie: music cues in various Hollywood films & numerous television shows).

As a reference to anyone who might be interested in a project similar to mine, I completed “The Receipt” soundtrack with the VSL Special Edition. I utilized Finale 2008 to compose all of the score (sheet music will be freely available online shortly). Finally, since VSL is essentially a VST plugin, I used Cubase Studio 4 as my sequencer and mixer. If you have any specific questions, I’d love to discuss these topics further, just leave a comment on this post.

“The Receipt - Soundtrack to the Original Motion Picture” is officially live online. You can check it out with the icon link posted below. Next stop, iTunes!

Here’s a page grab from the local NBC station here in Charlottesville. As you can see, the movie will be a featured story tomorrow (April 15th)… I’ll be sure to TiVo the airing and post a copy of the coverage sometime tomorrow.

The following audio clip was played on both 106.1 FM and 1070 AM the morning of the premier. Additionally, one other radio station read the film’s press release on air.

We’ll be doing an interview with NBC 29 tomorrow morning, more on that once it airs (Monday evening).

 Radio Interview

“The Receipt” is making headlines around Charlottesville! These are some screenshots I grabbed off of the UVA website, www.Virginia.edu. I’ll post more press as it’s published.

I am quite proud to say that my entire website is now W3C validated. For those of you who may not know, this means that all of my code is valid according the W3.org standards. It also says that my site should appear the same on any standards compliant web browser.

As many of you know, I’ve been working on an original score for an independent film. I’m very happy with the way it’s turning out and have now moved to case / disc art. I recently purchased a few packs of CD jewel case inserts from Staples (item #501797) and was saddened to find that no template exists in the Nero CoverDesigner software for these particular paper products. So, I made my own.

If anyone else out there has purchased these Staples inserts and wants the *.dat files I’ve used, they’re available for download here. I hope at least a few people find them useful!

Nero CoverDesigner Template for Staples Item #501797

PS: Just extract the *.dat file from the above *.zip file and import it with the “File” -> “Paper Stock” tool.