Julius Dobos

Although the technical difference between them is significant, what really sets sampled orchestral music and electro-orchestral music apart is the idea behind the composition, and the type of sonic character and musical expressions the composer prefers to communicate these different ideas with. Let’s take a look at these two approaches to music composition, which can result in very diverse types of music.

Basics of a Sampled Orchestra

A sampled orchestra is a close imitation of a real one, or rather, the special-purpose recording and triggered playback of the sounds of individual orchestral instruments (or section of instruments). The playback of the sounds is accomplished by a new musical performance on a keyboard or another type of midi / digital controller. The way the samples are made ready for a composer’s use – the sound sourcing process – is fairly simple and standard:

First, high-quality recordings of individual notes played by various instruments are made, one by one across their entire musical range, capturing each note performed with different expressions and techniques, possibly using different microphone setups and even various spaces (concert hall, performance stage, studio, etc.).

Secondly, the combination of the hundreds of recorded samples are organized in a digital sample player (hardware or software) in order for the appropriate notes (samples) be played back when striking the keys across a keyboard (or other midi controller) with various strength. For instance, when one hits a middle C softly on the controller keyboard, the “soft middle C piano” sample (a short recording of the instrument’s softly played middle C note) will be played back by the sampler, sounding until the key is held. Once the key is released, the “middle C string soft damping with hammer action noise” sample is played back, imitating the noise of the real piano key’s release. The keys of the controller keyboard act like playback start buttons, each triggering the playback of the appropriate combination of recordings.

The performance can be quite convincing, especially to the untrained ears. The majority of the orchestral scores of movies and tv films made in the past 10-12 years were produced with this technique. The goal is to create an orchestral recording, which gives the impression of a real orchestra’s performance – without the logistics and serious expense of hiring an orchestra, support staff, renting a soundstage or concert hall, etc.  Sample libraries produced by several companies specializing in sample-set production can be purchased – you can put together an imitation orchestra sample library for as little as $500 (or for serious work as much as $50,000). However, the challenge isn’t so much in achieving a great sound quality (today’s samples are usually pretty high quality recordings), but in making the performance believable.

With sampled orchestral setups, the challenge isn

The character and expressive playability of real instruments come in large part from their design – the way they are designed to be played. In general, we know not only the sound character of an instrument, in case of a violin, the timbre of the violin, but we know the sound of the violin when played by a violinist. After we transfer the various sound samples into a sampler, we will be playing every instrument using a keyboard. Without a bow, without strings, and without the techniques acquired and perfected by years of violin practice, we will not be able to use the pure sound of a violin with the same expression as a violin player can.

Of course, technology tries to have an answer for everything – in this case mostly by imitation of reality (though never a perfect copy – which would defeat the purpose anyway). Sample manipulation, software programming and audio mixing tricks, as well as the use of various performance controllers on keyboards (buttons, levers, pots, sliders, ribbons, etc.) can add more life and expression to the sound by changing certain characters of it (i.e. certain parameters of the samples). Moreover, some less traditional midi controllers have emerged in the past decade, with the promise of a more varied, sometimes more natural performance communication between the player and the sample playback device or software. While some of them are played by blowing and striking, other controllers use buttons, digital valves, touch-pads and laser, infrared or ultrasonic beams. Although with all these controllers we can add a wide range of expressions to the sound, or smoothly switch from one playing technique / sample to another during the performance, something is missing. It is the human touch what makes a real performance come alive; the imperfections, noises, and the fact that on real instruments, the same notes never sound the exact same, and they rarely sound perfect.

A popular technique called sweetening is often used to help this issue; by adding a few real musicians’ performance on real instruments to the mix of the digitally-created orchestral parts, imperfections, noises and subtle variations in performance can be introduced. The intention is to “humanizeâ€� the piece and mask the overly polished sound of the sampled orchestra at the same time. Although this masking doesn’t make ones and zeros become organic material, the difference between a real orchestral performance and a well-produced sampled orchestra can be unrecognizable by most listeners. (Some exceptionally well-produced compositions can give a hard time even to professional composers and orchestrators when trying to guess whether they are listening to sampled & sweetened or an entirely orchestral performance).

Sampled orchestras tend to work better for large symphonic pieces, than for solos and chamber setups, where the digital nature of the sampler performance is harder to hide. Of course, knowing the attributes and limitations of all traditional instruments, their performance techniques and tricks, as well as being experienced at orchestral work is a major advantage for composers who venture into performing sampled orchestral music. Many make the mistake of feeling like an instant “orchestral composer” by simply playing a keyboard and switching between various orchestral samples. The affordability and convenience of technology has falsely empowered many, often only to result in embarrassingly fake-sounding recordings (even in “professional circles” – let’s not mention the A-list examples here).

Sounds of the electro-orchestral music

Since electro-orchestral music isn’t really orchestral music as far as the instruments concerned, we approach it with a healthy absence of preconceived notions or expectations. In the above example of the violin, we all know what this traditional instrument sounds like, what sound to expect to come out of it. But we usually don’t know what an electronic musical instrument sounds like before we hear it. Synthesizers and other electronic instruments sound the way we make them sound. Not only there is no “perfect soundâ€� to match, nor centuries-old standards and performance techniques to imitate, often the more original or unique character they produce, the better. As the phrase “electro-orchestralâ€� suggests, the music is usually composed on and produced with electronic instruments, and the sound itself is electronic in nature… but then what makes electro-orchestral orchestral?

If a piece of music sounds “kind of like orchestral� but it’s not, the chances are it was simply poorly produced; it might be trying to sound like orchestral, but the quality of samples, or more often, the sub-standard performance gives it away. Many who don’t have the access to high quality samples or the knowledge and experience to write orchestral music for an orchestra, make the mistake of trying to sound like one, using a common rompler plugin, cheap samples or a digital synth or workstation. It is not what electro-orchestral music is.

Electro-orchestral music is one that sounds “almost like an orchestral piece� because of the overall grand feel of the sonic experience and the structure/arrangement of the music, but it does not intend to sound like an orchestra at all. The various sections of an orchestra, like strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, can be represented by electronic sounds with similar general character to their related orchestral instruments/sections, but with no intention to imitate the traditional orchestra’s sound. Their place in the overall sonic palette of the music and their role in the arrangement and orchestration (electro-orchestration would be a better phrase) can be very similar, however. For example a violin-like sound playing a melody line in the higher octaves, a bright brass-like sound playing a mid-range counter-melody that the horns would play in an orchestra, or a flue-like sound playing small micro-melodies in the style of a typical woodwinds section. However, these sounds are not created by traditional instruments nor by their samples, but by various electronic components found in hardware instruments, mainly synthesizers or by software algorithms.

Sounds created by electronic instruments can introduce the new element of sonic texture to the musical environment, a dimension relatively limited in pure orchestral music. This new element can strongly influences the feel the music carries or creates, and ultimately effects the entire ideology behind the composition and the compositional process.

In addition, sounds not even remotely reminiscent of traditional instruments can be used, often adding important flavors to the electro-orchestral piece. An arpeggiated bass, a randomly changing lfo-d filter, a glitch-y percussion part, a sweeping pad, an ethnic instrument’s solo or some manipulated environmental noise can complement the more standard parts of the orchestration structure well. In a sampled orchestral piece, they might work against the goal of imitating an acoustic instrumentation, but in electro-orchestral music, they can add original character, a unique feel and various expressiveness to the piece. At the end, a deliberately electronic instrumentation, giving the overall feel (but not the sound)  of an orchestral-size performance will carry the composer’s message to the listener.

Differences beyond technicalities

The type and purpose of music the composer desires to create determines the approach, tools and techniques (s)he uses to achieve the best results. For example, to score an emotional cue in a romantic movie, a composer might use real strings, woodwinds and piano, but without the budget (mostly the case) or time to record live players, a good alternative is to imitate them by a sampled-orchestral performance. This gives the composer the flexibility to easily re-write and re-arrange parts later as well. The goal is still to sound as close to the real soaring strings of an orchestra as possible.

A completely different purpose and style might inspire the composer to turn to the electro-orchestral approach. Sounds created by electronic instruments can introduce the new element of sonic texture to the musical environment, a dimension relatively limited in pure orchestral (real or sampled) music. This new element can strongly influences the feel the music carries or creates, and ultimately effects the entire ideology behind the composition and the compositional process. An example of this would be a score for a futuristic movie, that requires the music cues typically used in such movies (action, romance, surprise, mystical, etc.) to support the plot and characters, however, carries the futuristic environment in every bit of the sound. Think of Blade Runner – an orchestral score could have worked fine, but the electro-orchestral approach doubled the impact and unique feel that the score created. While sounding somewhat traditional, the score was entirely produced with synthesizers.

(A challenge for composers: let’s switch up the instrumentations and genres in the last two examples. Writing an orchestral score for a sci-fi movie is the easy part – can be done routinely, have been done many times. But how would you approach scoring a real-life story’s romantic scene with electronic instruments? This forces you to think about sounds, textures beyond the traditional musical terms, and be more original, doesn’t it?)

While movie scores are the most representative examples, the same is true for musical works. We often don’t realize, that the reason behind the largish feel and “full�, “well-though-out� and “complete� sound of a track is its orchestral-like arrangement- and instrumentation structure, but it being performed with non-traditional sounds doesn’t make the similarity obvious. This is even true for many mainstream songs today. It is interesting to note, that some typical sounds and sound categories of early (and actually, even many of today’s) synthesizers are named mirroring their orchestral “inspirations�; some of the most known (and now classic) synth patches are the likes of “Jupiter-6 strings�, “CS-80 brass� or “DX-7 piano�. Although at more than one point in the history of electronic music (see “Ambient vs. New-Age�) these instruments did try to imitate their real counterparts, they remained far-from perfect impressions of them, but with a unique character of their own, responsible for great successes of some excellent non-orchestral composers. (They eventually became classic electronic sounds themselves, subject of imitation and sampling by newer electronic instruments and software – more about this later in another post, until then listen to some here).

Tradition and Progression

Personally, I have a great respect for the traditional instruments of the symphonic orchestra, and have used them quite a lot (from large real orchestras to cutting-edge sampled orchestral setups). But I have an even bigger appreciation for the electronic instruments; when using them, we don’t imitate, rather create sounds (and even new imaginative instruments). We create more than just a melody, a theme, a piece, a mood, we create a feel that even a single note can carry! Why limit ourselves to the 35-40 traditional symphonic instruments when writing music with complex or grandiose feel, if we can have the luxury of using thousands of traditional and non-traditional ethnic instruments (or their samples) and an unlimited number of electronic sounds as well?

I believe that the electro-orchestral (and various electronic, ambient, etc.) music opens up the boundaries and greatly expands the limits of the (otherwise fairly versatile) traditional instruments. It must have been super exciting to first explore these possibilities in the 60’s and 70’s with the first synthesizers, however with today’s music technology industry on one side, and the challenge to create truly original sounds and new musical instruments on the other side, it is still a never-ending adventure. Many of us have first-time memories of a feel or a sonic experience created by some non-traditional sounds in a movie, a film trailer, or even just a song on the radio. And while some of yours might be electronic in nature, it’s interesting to realize that their role in the music might have been the same as a traditional instruments role in the most known classical pieces a few hundred years ago.

Same structure or not, the new dimension of sonic textures might just be what gives us the amazing feeling of discovering new musical landscapes today.

I want to clear up a misconception / misuse of two words. Many people think (even some composers and those in the music business), that the musical styles “Ambient” and “New Age” are the same and these two expressions are interchangeable.  Especially in the US, people tend to pigeonhole both into some simple, mellow, uninteresting, cheesy (yet not even existing) style of “mood music” or “elevator music”. And they could not be any more wrong. Although these days they can be partially right. More about this later. In Europe, as electronic and various contemporary instrumental musical styles are much more popular, the mix-up is less of an issue, however the differences are often just guessed and not clearly understood.

First let’s look at what these wonderful musical genres are not. Although the categories “elevator music” and “mood music” do exist, these phrases reference rather the use, than the genre of such music. Especially elevator music – which has become a somewhat cynical phrase in English to describe an uninteresting wall of background music – is not descriptive of a musical genre; I have heard classical, contemporary orchestral, country, big band, electronic, new age, jazz, and even rock music in elevators. There are “mood music” or “atmospheric music” CDs available as well, some not even containing music but sound effects, some featuring classical music. Therefore, these aren’t musical styles, rather modern-day expressions describing the use, or (sometimes rightfully) suggesting the lack of diversity and musical depth of a track.

Let’s go back to the question of Ambient vs. New Age music. In their “lighter”, commercialized form, well known since the ’80s, these can be some gently flowing, predictable pieces of music, often using only a few basic chords, inspiring melodies and simple, most likely synth – based instrumentation, with frequent use of piano and strings (or string-like synth pads). However, in the late ’60s, pioneers of electronic music were already working on a compositionally and aesthetically much deeper level to create Ambient pieces (and New Age music later in the ’70s).

While Ambient music in the ’60s and through the ’70s usually referred to new experimental music, noise- and sound-inspired music (such as music concrete) – contemporary electronic music with no- or very limited commercial intentions, – early New Age (and a handful of Ambient) compositions were popularized by the great modern composers of instrumental – electronic music, such as Vangelis, Eno (who first started using the phrase “ambient music”), Jarre, Oldfield, Schulze, Clarke, etc.  Of course, I do not blame these wonderful creators for the commercialization of the style – that was the (unavoidable?) side effect of the popularization of their work itself! Also, thank to them, electronic music in general gained a much wider acceptance then apprecition… without which only a few of you would be reading my lines now, or, maybe electronic music would mean something entirely different today (an interesting topic for another time).

In the '90s, the music industry was squeezing all it could out of New Age music, eventually making it into atmospheric relaxation cheese.

In a way, New Age helped to make electronic music accessible and enjoyable for the quality-demanding audiences, especially in Europe where electronic and rock instrumentations were kept more separate than in the U.S. However, the process in which New Age music got diluted into some atmospheric relaxation nonsense (and yes, typical elevator music), is another, rather unfortunate matter. I won’t mention the names of the performers with pretty smiles, long hair and white pianos here, as they were only messengers with a bad taste and too much hunger for fame. Not bringing up the listening standards of the masses to the already popularized electronic/new age music, but dumbing down a style to create assembly-line type of products that appealed mostly to an overly romantic segment of the audience was an unforgivable yet familiar mistake of the music industry! It is their greed that has made New Age into what it is today.

While New Age often intended to express traditional (romantic, classical) ideas by replacing orchestral instruments with synthesized sounds, Ambient music has always contained a certain level of experimentation and sonic risk. Although the philosophy and driving force behind the evolution of the New Age and Ambient styles have been different from the beginning, there are countless examples for their marriage, often blurring the line between the two genres – especially in the early ’80s (think of Vangelis or Eno).

With the explosion of digital technologies and their application in music production, the two styles’ deviation accelerated in the early to mid-90s, thank to the better mass-appeal (marketability) of New Age, and as a consequence of these new technologies’ effect on electronic music production, serving up the two genres’ differing fundamental ideology in different ways. While it became even easier and a fairly challenge-less task to produce New Age records, with every record farther diluting the already over-digested writing- production- and listening experience, Ambient music stayed true to its origin and took the harder road: the challenge of originality. Although not yet in a widely published way (not that it has ever been widely published), Ambient music started truly benefiting from the advances in digital audio- and music production, especially sample manipulation, new synthesis methods and new electronic instruments and controllers.

Digital technologies opened up new dimensions for Ambient music. From sample manipulation to new synthesis methods and processing techniques, ambient music has now unlimited territories to explore on all levels of sonics. At least unlimited as long as the entertainment industry stays away.

By the end of the ’90s, the focus shifted from interesting chords and edited real-life sound effects to produced-from-scratch soundscapes, and sounds constructed and modified in new and original ways. The decade-long influence of popular electronic music (mainly techno, then trance and drum&bass around the turn of the millennium) breathed new life into Ambient. The 2000s brought the rediscovery of integrating acoustic instruments and new performance techniques to electronic music, which further shaped Ambient music into what some refer to as “the classical music of the digital age”.

I feel that these days “New Age” has a less flattering connotation than ever before, while “Ambient” has expanded from the textural and very loosely structured compositions into various electronic and electro-acoustic directions, which make it appealing for a wider audience than before, yet its philosophy and complexity keep it “niche enough” to prevent its dangerous commercialization (like it happened to New Age). In 1981, I would have gladly announced myself as someone working in either genres, however, today I rather introduce myself as a composer of ambient electronic music, to avoid any preconceived ideas.

Of course, all these expressions, sub-genres of electronic music, transformations and influences aside, what matters is the music itself, not what we call it.

Click here for a followup post on this article.

These days, the first thing that comes into the mind of most of us when hearing the word “hero� is the main character of some unrealistic tv-series or movie, or the over-exaggerated way the word is used for youngsters who save the family cat from the neighbor’s dog. In our time, true heroes are very scarce – the feel that surrounds the word makes it easier to associate with a fairytale, than with someone in the reality of the weekdays. I’m not talking about the heroes that the media fabricates to make a nice story sound larger to boost their audience therefore advertising rates, either. What we have been witnessing since March the 11^th, 2011, is an eye-opening experience of true, real-life heroism in the word’s meaning as classic and rightful as ever.

I don’t want to repeat the story of the extraordinarily selfless men and women, who decided to give their health, and risk their lives for those in the area of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors, to protect the people of their country and beyond, working in randomly fluctuating levels of radiation, doing so voluntarily, knowing that the sacrifice might be the last one they make – although not their personal details, but their story has been well documented in the media and online.

But how do you document what it feels like to be fighting against a silent, invisible  enemy? How do you document what it feels like having to focus on an extremely important job and put your thoughts about your family in danger aside? How do you document what it feels like to be a faceless, nameless hero, yet the hope of your country?

Music can express far more than words… which is why the idea of writing a hymn to the Fukushima 50 to show my respect and admiration didn’t take much thinking – in fact, I don’t even remember making the choice. My first recollection of the process is when I was getting ready in the morning, taking a shower and constantly thinking about the TEPCO employees who stayed at the reactors, and realizing how easily and quickly I could loose the luxury of such a seemingly simple thing as the hot shower, if I was one of them. I knew that I wanted to do something more than just sending some money –  I wanted to praise the Fukushima workers for making the choice they made. I wanted everyone to pay attention to them and to ask the same question that I was asking myself: would I do it?

The various angles

Seeing the photos and news footage of the thousands of lives ruined by the tsunami made many of us feel helpless humans at the mercy of nature. We wish we could do something to help, but we can’t reverse time. What we can do, besides helping the relief efforts, is to offer support and inspiration. Inspiration via words, events, ideas, art… whatever form of communication we can reach the farthest with. Music being my life and profession, I naturally chose this most universal language to communicate my thoughts, and to support the efforts of those less fortunate to move on and rebuild.

Now three weeks into the crisis, it’s sad to think about that with all the technology we have, it’s still people who have to make huge sacrifices to turn things back to normal. People like you and me, with families; wives and husbands, sons and daughters, parents, jobs and houses, friends and future plans. Of course, it’s not the investors, owners and management who end up fixing things – it’s the employees. Things are so reversed.

It’s not a secret that my grandmother passed away shortly after Chernobyl – my family has seen the effects of radiation from way too close. She was the most loving, selfless and patient grandma you can imagine. She loved her family and her flowers and she had many plans. While writing the Fukushima 50 Hymn, my sadness was magnified by my memories of her.

In contrast with her tragedy, in a weird, almost shameless way, I have been always fascinated by nuclear reactors, particle accelerators and the like – most likely due to my curiosity about everything related to nature. While learning about the science and technology behind the machines and processes, and thinking about the mystery and danger of the yet undiscovered surprises, I often found myself in thoughts about the “big questions� [the why, when and where… the focus of my current musical direction and upcoming works]. I wanted to make radioactivity audible. Not with the sound of Geiger counters, but with musical sounds that express mystery, danger, and concentrated energy. As these elements are playing a major role in the events at the Fukushima reactors, I wanted to give a musical character to uranium, gamma radiation and the alpha particles.

The expression of sadness, the mystique & danger of nuclear energy, the recognition of heroism and the inspiration to fight and celebrate the brave – all these aspects are included in the Hymn, but I chose to focus primarily on the two most positive ones: recognition and inspiration.

Before anyone starts using the Fukushima crisis as a fuel for the nuclear energy debate worldwide, first the F50 has a battle to win. It isn’t a battle against nature; what the Fukushima 50 are cleaning up is the filth of greed and bi-product of science, the latter making the convenience of modern life, that we enjoy daily, possible for all of us. Therefore all of us should salute to those who are still fighting the battles as I’m writing this.

We should show them that we care, that we have the deepest respect and appreciation for their dedication, whatever the final outcome may be. And we must share our views with others around us, help them notice the heroes among us.

Our first steps

The Hym to the Fukushima 50 music and video has been doing quite well on YouTube. Besides receiving some media coverage, we received over 10,000 views in the first week, and now after two weeks we are getting close to 30,000. It being an original piece, as opposed to just shocking news footage or celebrity egocast, these are very respectable numbers. More importantly, we have been inspiring thoughts and donations: I’ve been getting requests after requests for the music (free with any donation to Japan through any charity organization – see the news item here). Many emails point out that it was the Hymn that inspired the viewer to donate. Based on the emails, our guesstimate puts the amount of “inspired donations� around $10,000 so far – put this in the perspective of the couple of hours it took me to compose and arrange the music, and one short night that it took us to research and produce the video. Obviously, it was more than worth it.

To those who asked why I don’t sell the music for income or donations, or direct viewers to the iTunes page of my latest album, Transitions (whose digital release date was coincidentally just a few days after I had written the F50 Hymn – I actually forgot about my album release:), I can answer simply: because you don’t sell bandages to the wounded. Besides, as a composer, I have already made popular success a memory of my past; I’m not here to sell; my mission is only to express feelings and share thoughts with original music that’s uninfluenced by trends, money or the industry.

I sincerely thank to everyone who has watched, and especially to those who spread the word about the video, commented, or donated and messaged me for the music. Let’s not stop here, let’s keep sharing the idea and keep making a difference, so that even after the media replaces the headlines with another attention-drawer, we’ll be witnessing the heroism and supporting the Fukushima 50.

I wish each and every one of them strength for now, happiness and health for the future.

What an unconventional week for an album release. Not the typical schedule, like in-store promotions or cd signing sessions, nor live interviews about the new release. Instead, an awful experience with Malev airlines, getting stuck at the Frankfurt airport, a horrible experience with the airport staff and their non-existing customer service, coming down with a cold during the long flight back to the US, followed by the last days of the year mostly spent with coughing and headache.

However, this makes sense for an album release with a non-typical agenda behind it. I’m not crazy for choosing a release date right after Christmas – I wanted to make a point. Transitions is not about selling platinum, nor about meeting the expectations of a director or producer. This one is about focusing on the most important part: original music with zero influence by anything and anyone.

This focus was often forced into the backseat in the past 8 years of my career (which is why there is the word “industry” in the phrases “film industry” and “music industry”). No, I’m not blaming anyone for creating music for order for the past decade, but I can’t express how good it feels to create music for pleasure (or in case of Transitions, compile music that was created for pleasure). I can honestly say, I don’t care if it sells or not – what I care about is being able to share it with you, the listener, for your enjoyment, the way I intended the tracks to be, without having to deal with revisions, changes and any influence by current trends and temp tracks. Like in the naively innocent days of Mountain Flying.

For long I’ve missed this freedom, and never really became a mercenary of the entertainment industry. Between two scores, I always found some time and personal focus to compose from the heart and not from the brain. Compiling these moments of musical escapes into an album before coming out with a new, completely original (and if that’s possible, an even more influence-free) concept work (maybe in 2011) made sense. Calling it Transitions also made perfect sense – it is a 19-track story of my own musical and personal transition, that bridges over a decade of composition, and shows the metamorphoses from Mountain Flying into my recent music and sounds (without giving away the stylistic direction of the next concept album, though!).

To get to this point, your emails from around the world asking for a new album greatly helped as well. I won’t disappoint. While I’m not turning my back to the industry, I will make sure that the priorities first work for you and me. I am thankful for the tremendous experience I gained from working on movies, tv shows and advertising, and now I will shamelessly utilize it for my own, selfish purposes. Don’t expect another Mountain Flying, but a different flight into the world of emotions and new sonics, an adventure you haven’t heard before.

But for now, here is Transitions. It might take a couple of listens to find the coherence between these widely diverse tracks (I will follow up with some “stories behind the tracks” on these pages to help).  If you’re not familiar with Mountain Flying, it’ll be a new kind of adventure to my old and recent musical world. If you are, thank you for joining me in the journey again after 11 years.

I’m back.

The Comeback (preview) — from Transitions