I am a primarily a filmmaker,but im also a musician too.
Whilst i know a lot about computers for editing , im pretty clueless in regards to music.
I would like to do my own scores but dont really understand how i can use sampled strings etc on a PC.

I have tried programs like fruity loops but its not really what i want. I would rather perform the samples on a keyboard, rather than having some midi sound, i have to articulate in a grid.

I just watched the music doco on T2 DVD, and it had the composer talking about sampling sounds, such as violins using a fairlight and then performing the music onm the keyboard.

Would you play these samples and output them to waves in a program like acid or pro tools? or is it differentfrom that.
Do i actually need a keboard. Where do u get these samples?

If someone could shed some light on this process and talk about software id be most appreciative.

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

Get a MIDI keyboard and hook it up to your computer. Then you should be able to play/record MIDI notes with your strings samples in programs like Fruity Loops. Check the help on FruityLoops as I know it's possible to use a MIDI keyboard with that software.



mg

There are literally hundreds of sample CDs available from many different companies that contain real instrument samples recorded professionally. You may also want to look into Reason as an all around low budget but excellent music creation software.

You should check out Reason. It come with a pretty good Orchestra sample set. There's also an app that let's you use Reason to score to Quicktime movies. I think it's called Revision.

Reason also runs in conjunction with most major audio software. You could sequence and mix in Protools(or whatever) and use Reason as a soundbank. This is what I do most of the time. I run it in rewire mode with Digital Performer or Cubase.

You don't have to have a MIDI keyboard, but it's a lot more fun to play the music than to draw in notes.

The musician who did the soundtrack to my (and Dylan's) Lady X episode 13 did it all using a keyboard and sampled instruments.

http://www.ladyxfilms.com/theater/e13/episode_13.shtml

His website:
fidgital.com

<<<-- Originally posted by Ben Gurvich :

I have tried programs like fruity loops but its not really what i want. I would rather perform the samples on a keyboard, rather than having some midi sound, i have to articulate in a grid.

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich -->>>

Which version of fruity loops are you using.. I use FLStudio (v. 4)... and It' s much more than midi and grids.
There´s actually a lot of improvement from version 3 which I had before.
And you can perform and record live from a keyboard ... on top of your loops or the whole song.
(I actually use my PC Keyboard as I don´t own a real one)

FL gives you the posibility of approaching your composition in many different ways. And I find it very powerfull. On the other hand.. the learning curve is steep, and a lot of it´s power is hidden in the many knobs and buttons.

Most of the music in my works (see my webpage video and audio sections) has been done with Fruity Loops and a couple of live guitars.
There´s a link on my site to a whole Experiment Album of my band. It was done in Floops 3, except guitars and voices and final mix done in Cubase.

With the string sample Cd's would gthey be Wav files?
I want real sounds not midi
Also i want some more detailed info on playing samples from a keyboard,

i want it to sound as good as the music in T2, which is done in thsi waty, not musak!

MIDI has no sound. It is just performance data. The sound is determined by your samples that are mapped to a keyboard and triggered by MIDI notes.