Paul Battersby

When I saw the title of the thread, I thought you were posting about this video: http://youtu.be/RV5WqRnFejI

Of course. I just mentioned one thing that is easy to over look.

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles Mellow Yellow - Donovan "Blind Lemon" > Yellow > Yellow Submarine (or can I only associate with the song title?) I wonder when the songs will loop back on themselves? After 274 pages of this, a song must have appeared twice in here somewhere. All we need is for someone to use "Tracks of my Tears - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles" again and we'll have a 274 page infinite loop.

Audience perspective vs drummer perspective. Yes. I've wondered about that myself. It seems to be down to personal preference although I keep trying to remember to listen closely to radio songs to see how the drums are panned. Besides a good midi guitar sound, maybe you already know this, but it's also important to know what notes would actually be played by a guitarist strumming a chord (unless the guitar plugin takes care of that). For example, on a keyboard, to play an E, I might think to play the following 6 notes (since a guitar has 6 strings) E G# B E G# B but a guitarist would not, and probably could not, do that. It would be (if playing an open chord): E B E G# B E

Somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight - Rezillos Original version by Fleetwood Mac apparently

I can never remember if that was Neil Young or Bob Dylan. I often get them confused but I was thinking about exactly that as I was reading Danidog's post.

I certainly don't have any such expectation. I'm well aware that some of the effort I make towards realism will only ever be known to me. I still derive satisfaction from meeting the challenge of keeping things as real as I can. Yes. That is a good question and I think that line will always be on the move and will certainly vary from one genre to the next. Unless you showed up to hear acoustic folk music and you see them setting up a huge wall of Marshal amps

After thinking about this for a while, I have the answer for me. Realism probably doesn't matter to the masses, most wouldn't have a clue, and to be honest, if I hear a violin note that is too high for an actual violin, I won't notice either. I'm aware of the limits as I'm recording because limits are imposed by the sound library I use (for which I'm grateful - although I would have looked up the instrument ranges myself otherwise), but I still like to imagine real players playing what I've created. I like to imagine my music written out as an orchestral score. I find it inspires me and offers an interesting extra challenge even if no one but me would ever know the difference.

Rudi, TapperMike, you both bring up another interesting dilemma which has to do with honesty in the recording. Do I want what I record to be an honest representation of my skill with whatever instrument I'm playing or do I want it to sound better than that (I want both but not always possible). But, I was reading a book about classic composers and many of them would compose piano or violin parts (if they played the violin) that they themselves could not actually perform and they required a virtuoso performer to play it (in one case, he'd compose it but his wife had to perform it). I have not yet resorted to recording the left and right hand parts of a piano or organ part separately. I still want the performance to be at least mostly me so I haven't quite given up practicing yet but the more time I spent composing, the less time I actually spend practicing an instrument.

Tunesmith, thanks for the link to your blog post where you discuss a simliar/related topic. It gave me something to think about. I can definitely see both sides of this. I see the practicality of not being overly concerned by the few people who would notice the difference but at the same time, should we cater to the lowest common denominator or should we strive for better? How much effort can be justified for what could amount to a very small difference or is this a slippery slope to ending up with a hit song in the distant future that is little more than a sine wave and a click track? I agree with Hobosage that there is a certain satisfaction in meeting the challenge of keeping things realistic. I also ensure my drummer only has 2 hands but would a song with a 3 handed drummer sound better to most people than a song with a 2 handed drummer? Eventually will a song that strives to sound realistic, also seem inferior to a song that exceeds realism? I think this already happens in movie soundtracks where it's likely impossible to recreate the fullness of the sound without studio processing to make orchestra sections seem bigger than they actually are.

As I compose orchestral accompaniment, I strive for realism. I want it to be plausible that what you hear, could be played by live performers. The sound library I use, already restricts the range of notes to what can actually be played by the instrument being simulated. Likewise, sustained notes, on wind and brass instruments, do not sustain indefinitely because a real player would run out of breath. But I'm wondering. We all know what we're hearing is not a recording of live musicians. So should we stop pretending? If I want a violin note to go beyond the end of the instrument, should I do it? If I want a flute note to sustain for an unreal length of time or for brass and woodwind sections, should I avoid too many sustained notes in a row since it would not give a brass player a chance to breathe? Would most people even notice? This occurred to me as I was writing a part for pan flute. I had a couple of fast notes (easily played by a regular flute) and I wondered if a pan flute player would be able to play those notes that fast since he/she'd have to physically move from one pipe to the next to play the notes or if I should adjust the part to be certain it was playable (I decided to take a chance that a good pan flute player could play the notes). So far, I do my best to recognize and to work within the limitations of the actual instruments but will there be a point where no one even tries anymore and we embrace the fact that we can exceed the performance of live musicians especially if a live musician will never need to play the part? Will such music be better?

borjacobs, I've been in a few bands in my time and I know what you mean about people not able to make the same level of commitment. This is something you probably have to establish before joining or starting a band. Not only do you need to know what everyone wants from being in the band but also what the musical direction will be. Might as well get that figured out from the beginning rather than joining or starting a band that is destined to break up eventually due to musical differences. As for contributing to songs but not starting and finishing songs, that pretty much describes me too but I've found plenty to keep be busy by collaborating on songs started by other people. If you were to search all of the music I've posted here, I'm never the songwriter, but a contributor to other's songs. I feel better able to do that, than to write my own songs. That may change some day, but for now, I'm doing what works best for me so perhaps, like me, you need to partner with a songwriter, but that's no reason to stop trying to write your own songs. Good luck.