Realistic Midi Orchestra

lightingguy1

Active Member
Hi Everyone,

I am looking for software that can playback midi files in real time for productions(With realistic sounding instruments). This would include a live conductor for live, on stage choral members.

We're Mac and Windows friendly.


Thanks!
 
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If you're doing an MTI musical, OrchExtra as suggested above does work decently.

Notion (NOTION Music - Notion version 4 - Redefinind Music Notation Software) is like OrchExtra, but let's you voice your own compositions, as opposed to a pre-made library. When I used it we had a MIDI keyboard that let our operator tap-tempo for the entire Notion orchestra. It is fairly common for low-tier broadway shows to go out with either a QLab rig of recordings of the missing orchestra parts, cued in tempo by a conductor, or to go out with a Notion rig where the conductor can conduct in tempo, and an operator on the Notion computer can tap tempo, vamp if there are issues on stage, and leave the vamp like any good band member. It's not perfect, but it doesn't sound nearly as poor as poorly voiced MIDI synthesizers, and if things happen on stage it is better than any redundant Q-lab system can be.
 
What I do us open FL Studio Demo, get Edirol Orchestral HQ, import the midi file you want to use, make sure edirol didn't transpose the track down a half step because it can sometimes, create the track or change instruments to your needs, export as wav or mp3, and you're done. If you're doing an MTI show, I can tell you how to rip the midis off of the rehearsal cd if you got one like we had. They gave us this cd with a fancy midi player on it that we had to install. After fiddeling around in the installation folder, I found all the midis, and made them into MP3s to put on my phone for our rehearsal. After reading the liscense that came with the cd, we did not violate any of the terms. Good luck on your show!
 
One of the secrets to getting midi orchestral instruments to sound even half realistic in my experience is to use well chosen reverbs (and possibly delays too) to create a sense of space. Using more than one reverb, and panning them a bit can help too. Varying the depth of the reverb for different instruments also can be helpful.
 
Hey everyone,

Well I purchased the Notion software that was mentioned beforehand, and now I need to find the music!..But in a midi file?

This is where I get I lost...Or hire someone to do the job.
 
I've used OrchEXTRA before and it worked great for us. You can turn off/on any instrument you like. All you need is a single operator. It comes with a small piano keyboard that has been "modified". It also comes with a computer and everything you need (save for the soundboard, actors, director). OrchEXTRA also allows you to adjust the tempo and a few other aspects of the music. Just a friendly note or two: when I used it two years ago it would crash every now and again when we tried to open it. Once it was open it was fine. Just be make sure to cue it up more than 5 minutes before curtain open (thankfully this happened before hell week). Also, it gives off a good amount of interference so keep it separate from everything else.
 

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