john

Hey Linir I agree you would need good sound, but if you are not providing the finished soundtrack it does not need to be the absolute top of the line. So yes, improve what you have. Evolve your sound forwards in a way that you can make use of what you have but in a way that also gives you loads of room to grow. Cheers John

A very nice sound, though if you look at the amount of controller info that is required to get that sound it is a lot of work... unless they also provide some controller patterns for specific sounds? Other than that there are many, many synths and samplers. Emberton is just one. What I would say is that what you described seemed to be more focused on doing songwriter demos to present to other artists, not to be the artist yourself. Therefore I would question the need, and the expense, of such accurate emulation of real instruments. Unless of course, there is a hidden artist in there screaming to get out? I agree with comments about fingerprint sounds (as I mentioned them earlier too), it yet again comes down to what is important. I tend towards creating finished tracks myself because I am happy being the artist, and if not they still make good demos to present to other artists. In other words I play the odds, knowing I am happy either way really. I do know that I have heard quick demo versions of my own songs and hated them instantly, hearing only flaws and imperfections instead of something glorious. In terms of Emberton again... it seems to have a decent expression engine for solo strings... have you checked it out for all the other food groups? Brass, woodwind, percussion, guitar & bass (electric and acoustic)... or are you essentially buying a solo violin synth?

Agreed, although it does depend just how poor lol

I'm quite happy that we will ave enough attendees to warrant arranging a few songwriting workshops. We can use them to test the waters, get some feedback and adjust for future workshops

There should be no issue with spoken works, although if you replicate cadence and meter they may well try to make something of it. The bigger problem would be if there ARE melodic bits, and you replicate those, then we are definitely back in infringement territory, especially if you match meter and cadence of the spoken section too. With differences in the melodic bits I would think it hard for them to prove, but I am not a lawyer and what I say is personal opinion and doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Lol

Without hearing the melody it i impossible to say, but as you are the writer,if you say it is close then I will take it as a court would find it violates the copyright.... That being the case you would be in trouble. It isn't as simple as using it and giving them credit. That's like using someone's car (who you don't know) and leaving a "thank you" post it in the car. If you want to avoid issues you will need to contact the publisher and ask permission to use the melody AND to write new words for it. This is the case whether it becomes a hit or not. Some artists think that if they give their music away for free that that means they will not be pursued. Not true. Publishers and copyright owners do not need to go to court to take action. They can easily contact your OMDs or your web hosting company, or even Google, YouTube etc and issue a take down notice. That can result in not only the removal of your song, but of all your songs! No court action needed.