Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5, Op. 67: IV. Allegro

So that you're not left hanging after the conclusion of the third movement, here's the finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, programmed in SONAR with the Miroslav Philharmonk library.

• play
• pause
• min volume
• max volume

posted by NemesisVex (4 comments total)

I've often wanted to do this, but never had the stickability or the access to a good enough sample library. This sounds really good -- a musician probably wouldn't mistake it for a real orchestra but it could definitely fool a passer-by.

I have a couple of technical questions about this. When you are programming, do you shift the notes at all to account for slow attacks on certain instruments? For example, when I am programming pop strings using a legato sample, I often have to trigger them early because otherwise they reach the peak of their amplitude envelope too late, and sound slow.

The most problematic parts seem to be the fast sections where you have rolls and long sixteenth and 32nd note runs. (Mostly on the previous movement around the 2'-3' mark). I wonder if you added any humanizing slop, or worked on accentuating certain notes within those fast runs? I know from programming drums that getting a roll to sound like a real drummer is largely a matter of placing accents correctly, respecting which hands the drummer is using for each note and so on.

It's incredibly fiddly to do on a single part... the idea of doing it on a full orchestra is mind-boggling.
posted by unSane at 8:13 AM on July 20, 2010

PS the samples are lovely.
posted by unSane at 8:13 AM on July 20, 2010

No, I didn't shift any notes, which is why I'm not really satisfied with the brass parts. The articulations aren't fast enough for the tempo of this movement, and the brass really dominate certain portions of it. I didn't have to worry about the strings because Miroslav Philharmonk includes a number of articulations from which to choose.

My hope with this movement is that all the other parts would drown out the timpani rolls, so I didn't think them through as thoroughly. Probably would have.
posted by NemesisVex at 11:13 AM on July 20, 2010

Wow. What a great exercise. It dips into the uncanny valley several times.
posted by umbú at 2:36 PM on July 20, 2010