From Piano To Orchestra in 8 Minutes - How To Write Orchestral Music

Here's another example of how to go from a Piano Sketch to a Full Orchestration in Under 10 Minutes. In FL Studio 20.
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⏫ PRIVATE LESSONS: Coming soon...
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🎻 LIBRARIES & SOFTWARE:
(For each module, the libraries are sorted based on how much I like them).
- STRINGS: Metropolis Ark 1 & 3, Nucleus, Cinematic Studio Strings, Fluid Shorts, Cinematic Strings 2, Jaeger
- BRASS: Metropolis Ark 1 & 3, JXL Brass, Nucleus, Twelve Horn Ensemble, CineBrass CORE, Century Brass, Jaeger, Angry Brass
- CHOIR: Oceania, Metropolis Ark 1, Stormchoir 2
- WOODWINDS: CineWinds CORE, Nucleus, Metropolis Ark 1 & 3
- HYBRID PERCS & LOOPS: Damage, PercX, Decimator Drums, Cerberus
- BIG CINEMATIC PERCS: Los Angeles Modern Percussion, New Epic Toms Ensemble, New Epic Dhol Ensemble, CinePerc
- ORCHESTRAL PERCS: CinePerc, Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion, Kontakt Factory Library
- PIANO: The Giant, Woodchester Piano, Spitfire LABS Soft Piano
- HARPS & OTHERS: CineHarp, Kontakt Factory Library
- SYNTHS: Juggernaut, Serum, Harmor, Jaeger, Evolution Atlantica,
- ORCHESTRAL SFX: Metropolis Ark 3, Palette Orchestral FX
- SOLO STRINGS: Tina Guo Solo Cello, Solos of the Sea, Cinematic Studio Strings Solo
- SOLO VOCALS: Jaeger, Vocalisa
- GUITARS: Basic Live Guitars & Bass routed into Waves GTR / Guitar Rig, Metropolis Ark 1, Heavyocity Atlantica
- TRAILER SFX: Custom / Private Samples, AVA Instinct, Cinematic Trailers Designed, Epic Sound Effects Quantum, Scenes From The Multiverse Vol.1, Juggernaut, Jaeger, Evolution Atlantica, AizerX Classic Trailers Toolkit, AizerX Trailer SFX Tools
- REVERB: ValhallaRoom, ValhallaShimmer
- MIXING & MASTERING: iZotope Ozone 9 Advanced, iZotope Neutron, FabFilter Pro-Q3, FL Studio Plugins
- DAW: FL Studio 20
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💻 HARDWARE & PC SPECS:
- Desktop PC: 3.7 GHz Intel Core i7 8700k / 32GB DDR4 RAM / 2TB Samsung Evo860 M.2 SSD
- Laptop PC: Asus ROG GLW752 (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ / 16GB DDR4 RAM / 1TB Samsung Evo860 M.2 SSD)
- Audio Interface: M-Audio M-Track Plus
- MIDI Keyboard: M-Audio Keystation 49 MkIII

[AlexMoukala]

For those who feel this tutorial is too fast, 40 minutes "slow" version of it here:

[DacianGradaMusic]

my man dropping actual *quality* content on april fools’! the madlad did it again

[GusWMusic]

The violins’ run in 4:20 is actually quite an easy figure to play on a real string instrument - so no worries, and the “if it sounds good, it is good” philosophy is totally legitimate! 🙂🎻

[heldeus]

"I'm not Mozart"
*Proceeds to write an award winning score, good enough to amaze Vivaldi*

[AlexMoukala]

The hardcore followers of this channel might have a deja-vu with this tutorial.
The reason for it is that I already made an analysis of this track last year. However, I decided to make a shorter version of it.
I'm thinking of doing that for other tracks I made in the past as well to make the channel easier to browse and digest. What do you think of this new format?

[jeduardolopezo]

I would just like to add my grain of salt to this community and state the difference between Adaptation, Orchestration, and Arrangement, which I think the term "orchestration" is used freely and frequently without much thought in what it really implies.

Adaptation: Is taking the original idea, and passing it to the orchestra as loyal as it can be to the original composer´s intention, no doublings, no extra lines or counter-melodies, no change of key, etc... (like most of the work Hollywood Orchestrators do in the business today!).

Orchestration: Is when you actually "translate" the piano nuances to the orchestra, for example, very fast arpeggios easily played on the piano would not work exactly in the same way in the orchestra in the strings, or the pedal of the piano will have to be "emulated" by sustained notes in the orchestra passed by several instruments, well balanced and in the same timbre. You might change the "key" of the piece to another one to be better suited for the character and register of the instruments of the piece. Doublings, fillers and slight extra lines might be permissible if the music and the character of the written score call for it (very important to be able to read a score and notation to understand what the composer wanted in terms of character and dynamics, which is written in the score, like a "piano", "mezzo-forte", "espressivo", "dolente", all this will AFFECT the shape, colour and instrument choice of the orchestration!).

Arrangement: Is when you take most of the original composer material, but you re-arrange it, add melodies that did not exist before, counter-melodies, re-harmonizations, voicings, intros, transitions, development. Like a lot of today´s arrangements of live video game music or film concerts. (I really recommend you guys search for the work of Jonne Valtonen, he is in my opinion, one of today´s most impressive/creative/talented orchestral arrangers for Video Games!).

The most important thing to take from this is, there are NO shortcuts or CHEATS for this, a GOOD adaptation, orchestration or arrangement is very hard to do, takes decades or more to be able to be good at this, takes a LOT of study, musical intuition and knowledge (which is gained by listening to a lot of music, learning a lot, reading a lot and playing a lot!). Every single piece of music is different, not all the same voicings and instruments can be used the same way every time, it´s very important to understand the music first, the character and the overall story of the piece as well as the technical pros and cons of every single instrument of the orchestra!

Being able to read, write and do copying is not an option for an arranger or orchestrator, it´s called being professional, you have to do a fully orchestrated written score, parts, proofread and print all the music ready to be placed on the musicians stands to be played or recorded since you cant send the orchestra or conductor a midi file...

This does not mean I am a really good arranger or orchestrator in any way, or saying Alex isn´t (loved his version of Sonic), I´m just sharing what I´ve learned and experienced in the professional world!

Hope it helped anyone! :)

[kaelinjoel]

Never been to this channel before. 3 minutes in and I'm pretty blown away by how simple and precise this guy is. Subscribed.

[SenorEuphoria]

Fantastic! Now I just need about $10, 000 for those plugins.

[Invert_Scrub]

Quick thing, many of the runs you refer to as "arpeggios" but they are not. An arpeggio outlines the members of a chord, (root, 3rd, 5th etc.), and you have created step-wise runs, or scalar runs.

Excellent video regardless, you clearly know what you're doing.

[Lunsterful]

This video is art, you're a true craftsman. Never hit a subscribe button so hard.

[brodiemarshall]

'I'm not Mozart, I'm not doing anything crazy'


Hmm, i think you might be !


Awesome content, as usual, nice to see the return of this track. It was one of my favourites for sure :)

[ComposingGloves]

IDK about strings since I don't play strings, but I know for sure the flute runs are possible. It was sometimes all my part was. Dang freaking runs lol. Great content!

[but]

Violinist here, I would say the run at 4:19 isn’t impossible, difficult like you said, definitely not sight readable. Doable, yes.

[TomHawkComposer]

Love this, quick and straight to the point. Keep up the great work Alex! 👌🏼

[rgferreira]

As a pianist since many many years, I am into this kind of processes very recently, and going through the exact hurdles and solutions. Thank you very much for your effort and this informative video.

[EndesCot]

There is a lot to be learnt from this Sonic track you made, I have seen it in numerous tutorials and it is the only Composing from Scratch I've seen from begging to end. For anyone interested, I really encourage you to become a Patreon supporter and see it for yourself. For me, it really taught me to experiment. And experimenting during composition and orchestration has to be one of the most important aspects of production as it makes your track stand out way more.

[OJBABY]

This guy was ahead of his time by a year and 4 months. If you had ads on the video and was making profit from it you would be able to now with the 8 minute limit videos

[chrollox]

man when i started to follow your videos i just wanna make simple trap beats and no more but now i really appreciate all aspects of the music and i want always more thank you

"I'm not doing anything crazy" - Alex Moukala

[MattiMattiMatti]

This is the best tutorial I've seen on FL. Great work!