Orchestras (previously "Favorite orchestras")

I hate it when they unnecessarily throw in synths and electronics into what could be a nice orchestral score!

Ha, check this out! I can't believe some of those quotes. I mean, the orchestra's not bad, but some of those quotes make them out to be much greater than they really are, IMO.

Nice!

Cool article and video! It's nice to see them in action.

Yep. Who knows, maybe with Star Wars, they'll finally get some real recognition, which, if they continue to work hard and get better, may lead to some pretty nice scores for them to record.

Both of them are heavily derivative of Hollywood movies like Batman, Spiderman etc actually, and the fight scenes are clearly Matrix-styled, but it's worth a watch. The score, though it somewhat lifts from some scores like Lion King and Batman, is worth a listen though. Some tracks are gorgeous!

Welcome!

As long as a professional orchestra has the right mix of conductor, orchestrations, time, money and recording artists, then it's a pretty safe bet that the resulting sound will be quite impressive. When doing these compilations and rerecordings, I think it's a lack of some of these things, but it's mostly in the orchestrations... the really complex stuff they've recorded has had some dire orchestrations.

Well a lot of factors influence an orchestra's sound and you should always have this in mind when comparing:

1) musician members, musical background and training; age; also musical upbringing and national influences. Are there any studio musicians in the orchestra? if yes, how's the balance between them and the other musicians?

2) the conductor, his experience in the specific field and years of conducting, his studies, his other music works (i.e. if his was / is a performer, an arranger, an orchestrator or a composer himself), his primal musical instrument

3) the specific composition to be performed: how good is it, how hard is it to play, how good are the arrangements and the balance between the instrument teams of the orchestra, if the composer is alive (i.e. a contemporary work) and is able to work with the orchestra, explain things to them and even conduct and if he does that, how experienced he is in conducting or not and how much attention are they going to pay to him, if it's a classical composition or modern / film / contemporary music

4) the repertoire, the kind of music; does the orchestra have previous knowledge in the specific musical genre and style?

5) have they played the said piece / musical work / concert / score / etc before?

6) have they recorded before? have they released recordings (studio or live or both) before? what's their preferred repertoire, have they toured live before?

7) place of rehearsals and live performances; it always helps if the orchestra have their own stable place of rehearsals / auditorium

8) are most members permanent or do they come and go? What's the relationship between them like? how many years in the orchestra?

9) knowledge and experience of extra personnel, sound technicians, how well they collaborate with the orchestra? how well they bring out the orchestra's sound both in a recording and also live (when electronic sound reproduction or reinforcement is required)

10) do the musicians actually LIKE the said piece they're recording? how well have they rehearsed it and under what conditions? what purpose is the performance for?

11) Conditions of work, salaries, orchestra budget etc

etc etc

I suspect it's a lack of money, more cash = more time to get things right.

If you're the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra, then not many times at all.

A universal fact. Well known through interviews from composers, performers and all manner or people in the film scoring biz. I think other orchestras are quite well adept at performing pieces 'off the cuff' too, like the LSO, but the HSO is pretty well renowned for their quick professionalism in an increasingly fast moving business.

They're all extremely talented, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are 'comprised of some of the world's greatest musicians'. They just happen to be able to work as a team extremely well and are used to scoring films and working within time limits. Their profession is scoring films, and they do that very well. Not everyone who is a talented musician necessarily understands the scoring process as well as these guys do, that's the significance.

But of course any orchestra that is able to perform the pieces that the HSO perform would have to be an extremely talented bunch of people. My point is there are different kinds of musicianship.

Can't really answer that with any confidence, Dan Goldwasser's your man to ask for these kinds of questions. They are certainly used quite frequently for mainstream Hollywood films, so there must be some kind of budgetary reason, i.e. within close proximity of a production, the facilities are all there, and of course the fact that they are adept at their job as a qualitative reason.

I think I read once that it's actually cheaper to hire the LSO in certain situations? Again, Dan and probably Erik are your guys to go to.

They are film music specific and have enormous experience on film music. So yes, when it comes to film music, they're one of the (if not THE) best orchestras to have. Working absolutely perfectly, like a Swedish thousand dollar clock.