I have been playing with the idea of writing out some custom music for my game, but I was wondering how would the production be done. I've already had some skills in music composition(it might not be great, but it will get the job done for what i need), but I have never done it in a professional manor where real people play it. I've simply used programs such as Finale that simulate playing. Any ideas on how I would get a real recording of my piece?

Short of paying an orchestra, I think software that plays your score is the only way. I personally like using Reason, the software program.

I was more wondering, if i decided to pay an orchestra how much would that cost. Like thousands or hundreds?

I would assume thousands. But I guess its all Dependant on the orchestra size and prestige.

Most definitely thousands for a pro orchestra. Unless you're willing to go with a college orchestra somewhere it might be very hard for you to get a professional recording of your composition. Sure, some college orchestras will perform young composer's pieces but these are usually written for live performance. Video game music is usually shorter and loop-able, and this means there is less incentive from the orchestral conductor's stance to choose to do you music. The conductor usually only wants to spend time in rehearsals learning pieces that will work well in the orchestra's concerts and CD recordings (if they do them). Unless you're a famous composer- or write music of incredible quality, many conductors may simply ignore you and keep to their own agendas. After all, recording a soundtrack takes a lot of time, money, space and energy. Another con to hiring college orchestras is that some of them are not so great. So the recording you'll get may have mistakes or tuning problems here and there. Also consider that you'll probably be required to not only pay the orchestra, but you'll have to pay for the recording engineer's time as well. This can get pretty expensive. To pay for a pro orchestra would be MUCH more expensive as well.

There are some options though: I've heard of several companies in Europe that will record your piece for you. This is typically about $1500 per piece of music. I also think this may be too expensive for most small projects. The best bet for you since you already have some music chops and Finale is to get some high quality software. I'd recommend East West. You can purchase their Complete Composer's Collection for around $1,000. Sure that isn't cheap- but it will give you over 130 GIGs of samples to work with and then you can create as many pieces as you'd like. The samples are (for the most part) excellent and can definitely get the job done!

Look into it!

Thanks,

Nathan

Orchestra for Hire, good luck!


PS: I also do orchestra programming for hire, if you think my productions are convincing enough. I recently programmed choirs for composer Richard Jacques on the upcoming Highlander: The Game.

My site is down, but there are examples of orchestral pieces on there. If you're not ready to make the leap to an orchestra, and aren't sure about putting together your own system, feel free to drop me an email.

Good points Nathan. In addition to buying some great orchestral libraries, once your score is complete and moving in to the production stage, you could hire a small ensemble of live players to provide a layer of "human-ness" to your score. If you don't have money, I would go to the closest music school to you and post flyers for any musician willing to work for free on a video game score. Have them come in to record and mult like hec!