The 50th anniversary of mankind’s first visit to the Moon, on July 20, 1969, inspired this week’s video.
About 9 years ago, I submitted the music to an on-line music forum thread called the “Great Orchestral Sampler Shootout.” All entries used the theme song from “Star Trek the Motion Picture” in MIDI format. The beauty of this experiment was that a person compared and contrasted every version based solely on the Orchestra music software, and thus heard how each program sounded before he or she bought it. Truth be told, it also highlighted a musician’s mixing, editing, and producing skills. I was very happy how my version turned out — edgier than a normal orchestra sound, jauntier, bouncy, fun.
The key to creating a good orchestra sound via computer, I believe, is to make it as realistic as possible. That means knowledge of how each section sounds, how every instrument fits into the orchestra sound, and not going too far beyond the natural sound of any instrument.
The video shows an orchestra. They are called the Rossmoor Orchestra, or something like that; it was some time ago. I like that they had a nice mix of young folk and older folk playing together. All of the musical components of a orchestra are represented — brass, woodwinds, strings, etc. However, they were not actually playing the Trek music! I just wanted to show a typical orchestration. But I regress… on with the show!