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History of the Orchestra Sample

ZosterX

ZosterX

Member
Hi everyone !

For my thesis, i'm looking for some informations of the history of the sample (basically, all the virtual orchestral instruments).

I wanna know how the first ones were conceived etc

If you can help me, I would gladly appreciate :)

Also I will have some question on how you guys work with orchestral samples on DAW ? How do you proceed exactly (despite the basics, I want to know mostly how will you manage to make your sample sounds the more realistic as possible)

Thanks a lot guys !
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Since my subject of my thesis is about the programmation of the orchestral VSTi, i don't know if I can talk a lot about other formats ? Maybe a short point but not so much I guess.
 
Not to split hairs, but if you only want to focus on orchestral VSTi and are willing to exclude everything that isn't delivered in VSTi format, are you still gonna list individual Kontakt libraries? Strictly speaking no Kontakt library is a VSTi after all, only Kontakt itself is. Arguably the Kontakt factory library could be counted as part of the Kontakt VSTi, but imho not the other Kontakt libraries.
To me that feels like a rather arbitrary and pointless distinction. I wouldn't get so hung up on plugin formats.
 
ZosterX said:
Did any of the formats you told me use some orchestral instrument ?
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Yes of course, they are just plugin formats. Kontakt for example is available in multiple formats, not just VSTi. ProTools doesn't even support VST/VSTi so any instruments it uses have to be in AAX format.
 
d.healey said:
Yes of course, they are just plugin formats. Kontakt for example is available in multiple formats, not just VSTi. ProTools doesn't even support VST/VSTi so any instruments it uses have to be in AAX format.
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Alright so in that case, most of the famous orchestral library use the VST format anyway right ? Like Kontakt is based on VSTi ?
Does Play from EW use VST aswell ? Or the Spitfire Player ?

Since my thesis is mostly about programming an orchestral instrument, I don't really want to loose myself into the severals formats existing
 
Royosho said:
Is the thesis about the history of sampling? Digital sampling?
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If so, I’d basically ignore ultimately irrelevant stuff like VST and zoom in on the actual sounds, id est: the journey from 8 bit orchestra hits in the Fairlight, to the first commercially viable mainstream hardware samplers like the Mirage, through to the first Emulator (nomen est omen!), Akai s1000 and Roland S760s (at one point I bet true orchestral sample pioneer, mister Zimmer @Rctec, had at least dozens of those in order to achieve what we now can do in Kontakt...)

That, imho, is the real story of (orchestral) sampling. I’d even argue that without people like Vangelis and before him Wendy Carlos (Switching On Bach) the whole notion of using electronic devices in order to play back recordings of “orchestral sounds” would not have taken off like it has.

To be totally honest, just now we mentioned mellotrons and theatre organs in jest, but in the 1920s companies like Wurlitzer were commissioned by the large Hollywood studios to build organs that were capable of two things: 1) mimicking an orchestra for film (under)scoring and 2) sounddesign and foley (police car sirens, bird noises and what not). These organs ultimately served the same purpose as a lot of the current sample libraries are designed for.

Whether the actual tools use a software standard like VST for use in DAWs or are plastic keyboards with their own proprietary Akai, E-mu or Roland file formats is not really important. The “bigger” journey is way more interesting historically if you ask me.
 
Heizenhaus said:
or does "programming an orchestral instrument" mean creating a sample library with with a sampler, containing round robins, dynamic layers, scripting, etc.?
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Or does it mean: “the process, whatever the technology it is based on, to compose with and record orchestral sounds, without actually recording a real orchestra”... ?
 
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