Emulating human performance in orchestral software?

Question

I recently bought *Garritan Personal Orchestra* and find it a great tool to get professional-sounding orchestral renders of my scores. However, I feel a certain lack of "human" playing in it, i.e., chord changes sound a bit "robotic" at times and longer notes are perfectly sustained for long periods of time (they do not decay), which makes the performance sound a bit too computer-generated.I understand professional musicians and film score makers use such software on a regular basis, yet they obtain much more human sounding results. Is there a trick to making the score sound less "computer-generated"? What can I do to make the results appear closer to human performance?

Answer 1

There are a few things you can do.

1) do not play strings and such as you would pads. Play each note individually as if you are the section. If you are a good enough player, don't quantize if possible. Everyone plays their part with subtle nuance and dynamics differences

2) use your mod wheel on your controller to add swells and decays and subtle volume changes within your sections or parts

3) I've used Garitan before. It's an ok entry level software but for really good sounding orchestral instruments a better library with a multitude of articulations will serve you better if you can afford it

4) make sure you have a thorough understanding of the orchestra and how each instrument interacts with others

Follow a few of these and you should see an improvement in your mock ups

Answer 2

There are two ways to approach this.

1. Play every note in by hand, even at a slower tempo, and edit as needed for accuracy, while keeping the human-sounding performance character.
2. Use a different sample library containing a variety of performance articulations -- articulations are perhaps the most important aspect of a human performance. For example, the Vienna Sample Library (VSL) contains symphonic performances by solo instruments and ensembles of various articulations. This is an expensive collection, but you can start by getting a basic set of instruments, and add from there as your budget allows.

If you can do both, playing in by hand, and using a better library, you'll have even better results!

Good luck to you, and feel free to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

-Howard