<pony><original><orchestral>Theme for Nightmare Night

[WavesOfParadox]

[vladnuke]

Oh boy, twelve-tone/some other non-standard key. Idk enough about that to say anything about it, but I guess it works as a theme for nightmare night, around the time Luna pops out with a hockey mask and starts chopping up Ponyville.

[WavesOfParadox]

What key?

[vladnuke]

Either every key, or no key.

[Dr_Dissonance]

Your clarinet suffers from the 'machine gun effect', where repeated notes are repeated samples as well, which results in it sounding fake. Main part which did that was at 0.51.

Overall, this is a pretty interesting piece. Very good use of range. I think my main gripe with it is the fact that the piano rarely, if ever, uses any chords. Even in twelve-tone/atonal pieces where there is a very strict process, chords are used. I think more chords should be used, especially ones which utilise the range of the piano as well as you did with your single notes.

The other thing is dynamic range. There is none.
You stick to one dynamic the whole way through. The clarinet only sounds louder at some points because it's higher up in pitch and it naturally gets louder. I suggest really thinking about dynamics more if you want to write like this, as dynamics were put through similar processes.

Too short, but pretty nice!

[WavesOfParadox]

Hmm, how do I fix the machine gun effect? Do you have any general tips on production with Kontakt?

[Dr_Dissonance]

If you don't have any instruments with any round robin, you can create repeating notes by playing the note you want and then the note a semitone lower than what you want, but pitchbent up a semitone. That way, it'll be a different sample, but the same pitch. Repeat with higher/lower notes until you have about 4-8 different ones. Don't stray too far from the original as pitchbending too far will make it sound gross.

[WavesOfParadox]

What's round robin? And that solution sounds complicated.

[Dr_Dissonance]

Round robin is when you have a virtual instrument that uses multiple samples per note. So for example, my Hollywood Strings has 8X Round Robin for Staccato-on-the-bow, which is when the bow is not taken off the string. This means that if I play the same note 8 times, it'll play sample 1, then sample 2, then sample 3 and so on. This makes it sound more realistic because those small nuances that make up real playing are present.
Without different samples, there's no small nuances, so it sounds robotic.
And yeah, that is a complicated method, but one which will work. Your alternative is to buy more expensive vsts.

[WavesOfParadox]

So how do I tell Kontakt to pitch bend each individual note I want it to when I want?

[Dr_Dissonance]

Well, it'll be from the pitchbend wheel. I can't remember what MIDI command it is off the top of my head, but if you have that little keyboard at the bottom of Kontakt that you click, it's one of the wheels on the left.

[WavesOfParadox]

What library would you recommend as an upgrade? I believe I've heard good things about Spitfire's Albion, and they have an education discount.

[Dr_Dissonance]

You could try Albion, Eastwest's Hollywood Series, LASS, Symphobia, 8Dio's Adagio Series (which is still in development, only Violins are released) and many more! Just look around and see what you like.

[WavesOfParadox]

I suppose I just need to learn with what I have right now; I just wish I could find a tutorial on making Kontakt realistic...