The soundtrack to BBC's Torchwood series in essence is a string orchestra with occasional electronic sounds, yet Ben Foster and Murray Gold manage it to sound amazing each time. As I try to recreate the style, i realise that although they have the option of using a real ensemble, the compositional values remain consistant. The writing style is genrally a melody closely followed by the accompaniment and makes use with alot of part writing and voice leading techniques creating a very expressive sound which is very difficult to create when working with synthesized instruments.
When playing sampled strings, the sound is limited to long pads as opposed to leading lines making it sound 'unreal'.I propose that the most effective method of making the sound sound authentic is to painstakingly sequence each voice and altering dynamics, frequencies (slightyly, enough to make it sound like 2 voices as opposed to just 1) all the while editing the tempo to allow it to sound free and more expressive. This issue is basically brought up due to the lack of a conductor and actual performers who individually produce sounds with different timbres and vibrato.
Below is my first attempt at composing and sequencing in a similar style. In this track, I simply added a strings sound to my piano and recording the actual audio of the piano. I also automated volume swells to give the effect of an actual string ensemble.
For the next attempt, I have thought about voice leading. New music is written out in notation below.
And here's the sampled version using Vienna instruments. Here I have sorted out each of the piano parts into separate tracks and edited each line carefully so there are no gaps where i have used the pedal in my playing. I think the effect is very effective compared to the previous track.
Next, here's the same track as above, but with the autofilter's wet/dry signal automated to increase expressivity. A small change, but it can make all the difference.
And finally, here's the same track but with a small level of pitch shift (a few cents on low volume) on each of the tracks as well as alot of reverb. This is to make the ensemble sound larger - Un-fretted string instruments are often slightly out of tune with one another, I am exploiting this to create a larger sound.
Thanks for reading my post, more stuff to come.
Iyad
