On 8/28/2017 at 4:23 PM, G Leoni said:

A good option is to go to the nearest music school. Normally the music schools of any town (even small town) or city, have a small local orchestra. You could ask them and they sure could do you a favor.

:] 

On 9/10/2017 at 2:06 AM, jkuehlin said:

That's a good idea. Sometimes you can find people in local church orchestras too (if you can stomach that crowd), that will take an interest just because they think your project is cool. 

If the project is commercial / for profit / will generate revenue, I'll advise creating some form of contract to determine what happens in the eventuallity of making profits.

The local orchestra may do you a favour if it thinks your project is cool, but if you end up making loads of money they'll definitely sue for a chunk of that money.

But obviously if you put up some form of contract in advance, then likely they won't just do it "as a favour" either.

I like and am thrilled at the idea of using small local orchestras, but if you make money and they don't see a penny they will righteously feel ripped off.

2 hours ago, Matias Goldberg said:

 

If the project is commercial / for profit / will generate revenue, I'll advise creating some form of contract to determine what happens in the eventuallity of making profits.

Agreed. But this should happen regardless, right? Always have contracts and release forms in place. 

2 hours ago, Matias Goldberg said:

The local orchestra may do you a favour if it thinks your project is cool, but if you end up making loads of money they'll definitely sue for a chunk of that money.

I would highly advise asking something as large as an orchestra to do ANYTHING as a favor. I think perhaps some wires have been crossed. The way I understood it (or read it) was that you could hire a local school ensemble to record your piece at a cheaper rate than a professional orchestra. It would still be a massive undertaking however to record such a large ensemble. And then you'll also be dealing with nonprofessional musicians with varying degrees of talent and ability. 

This is why I think the idea of hiring a few key musicians and layering in those real tracks with virtual ones is a better way to go. Easier to set up and manage and easier to control the final outcome. 

2 hours ago, Matias Goldberg said:

I like and am thrilled at the idea of using small local orchestras, but if you make money and they don't see a penny they will righteously feel ripped off.

It all comes down to good communication. If all of the terms are laid out clearly, accepted by all parties and followed to the T - nobody should feel ripped off regardless of the amounts of money made once the game/product ships. 

If you are composing the music yourself, I would recommend you to just make demos with Synths or whatever you currently have, and then sending the midi file to a fairly experienced composer for arrangement and production. This is not a hard thing to do and some people can do it for a fairly reasonable price.