Introduction
The music on these pages is created using a technology called sampling which is just another word for recording the sound of an instrument digitally and making it available to computer programs or music keyboards. Each note that a particular instrument can play is sampled in its various forms or articulations, then packaged as a software product to provide the composer with the tools to not only write for various instruments, but to play back a musical performance that closely resembles how real instruments would sound playing those notes.
With the technology available today, nearly all of the expressions and nuances of a particular instrument can be duplicated on the computer. There have been huge libraries constructed containing a wide variety of instruments sounds and playing techniques. Owning these libraries can not only cost several thousand dollars, but can take up dozens of gigabytes of disk space and require powerful PCs to run effectively; not to mention a fairly steep learning curve to manage and make use of those libraries.
String sampling pioneer Gary Garritan has developed a product for the rest of us. The Garritan Personal Orchestra has a price tag of less than $200 and comes complete with every instrument in a standard orchestra plus keyboards such as a Steinway Grand Piano, harpsichord, celeste, and pipe organ. This marks a revolution in the industry for price/performance ratios of this type of library. The package includes a reverb plug-in as well as basic notation and sequencing software. A rather modern computer is required, however, and 1 Gigabyte of RAM is highly recommended as all sounds that you use are held in memory.
The Process
The sequencer product I use is Cubase; a professional quality program that can record digital audio as well as MIDI sequencing and notation output. For an orchestral composition, I choose a stored template that loads all the GPO instruments into 21 MIDI tracks which are assigned to 16 MIDI channels. The extra five tracks trigger the Key Switched sounds for the five string parts. These tracks can either play pizzicato, tremolo, or trills based on which out of range note is played.
The instrument tracks are arranged as you would see them on an orchestral score with the woodwinds being at the top followed by the brass, percussion, and string sections. With this setup, I merely have to select a track to hear that instrument played on the keyboard.