I have always dreamed about having my own orchestra. You know, a bunch of professional musicians I could wave my hands at and brilliant music would come forth sounding exactly as it does in my head (because not only are they part of an orchestra but they'd also be telepathic right?). Sadly, this will probably never happen...BUT - technology is a wonderful enabler and sometimes when you ignore it for about 20 years, you can get what you've always dreamed of (but with much less expense!). So, now, I am well on the way toward building my very own digital orchestra and home studio for mixing, composing, and recording.
Now seems like a great time to write about it, because it's all coming together. I promise not to write in music nerd speak or geek out on gear every post, but I'm too excited not to let you all know about my new virtual instruments (and a few other goodies.) Let me mention real quick, for anyone else interested in getting started with music or a home studio, E-Home Recording Studio, is a good starting point. I've used it a number of times in making my equipment selections, and I have been really happy with the results so far. But let's talk about the music - the above track from my SoundCloud account is a quick demo I did using my new Native Instruments Ultimate 11 sound library (check it out and listen to some of the sounds and cool demos here if you're interested). Basically these are virtual instruments that have been sampled (recorded) from the real thing, ie a group of real cellos and violins playing and then recorded in such a way I can play them back on the specific note I press on my digital MIDI keyboard. And I think you can hear that they sound pretty convincing - even when used by someone of my modest mixing & mastering ability. If you've ever heard badly digitized version of brass and strings in particular, you know how cool this is to play a keyboard and get real sounding orchestra sounds out of your speakers! I'll share more of my upcoming tracks and other new toys future posts - in the mean time, please subscribe, like the Facebook page, and if you're feeling super awesome - download my first single, Sunset Overdrive over on my new website. It will mean the world to me, and you'll be supporting new songs when you do! Soli Deo Gloria, Jesse PS - Uber nerd side note - see that cool picture I used for my track? It's a real NASA image of our sun and the best part is, you are free to use NASA images as well - no licensing and no $ needed!