SOUND ON SOUND
Dave Stewart is an English keyboardist, composer, producer and author who started his career as a band member in the early 1970s. Since 1981 he has made 'pop music for grown-ups' with singer Barbara Gaskin, releasing seven albums on the duo's own Broken Records label and performing live in Japan, USA and the UK. He has also written TV & film music and created string and choir arrangements for various artists.
Dave is the author of two music books: The Musician's Guide To Reading & Writing Music (Backbeat 1992) and Inside The Music (Backbeat 1999). He has written for Sound On Sound (while resting between engagements) longer than any of us care to remember.
Dave Stewart concludes his January 2000 investigation into the world of orchestral sampling with a roundup of over 40 orchestral sample CDs.
Rating: **** 4/6 Stars
STRINGS
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Rating: **** 4/6 Stars
ACOUSTIC STRINGS
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Rating: ****** 6/6 Stars
Disc 1: Loud Violins
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These days, any decent synth or sampler offers plausable orchestral sounds — but there's much more to creating believable arrangements for orchestra than realistic samples. Keyboardist/composer Dave Stewart offers some guidance, passes on some advice from pros, and explains how orchestral samples were used to create an arrangement for the latest Geri Halliwell single.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Dirk Campbell is a successful TV music writer who refuses to toe the corporate line and never watches television. Dave Stewart about the complexities of an industry that offers substantial reward to those strong-minded enough to take on its challenges and contradictions.
Guitarist/composer Michael 'Jakko' Jakszyk has enjoyed an unpredictable musical career, comprising near-bankruptcy, fame and fortune with Level 42, and some disastrous but entertaining skirmishes with record companies. Here, he talks to Dave Stewart about the making of his unique autobiographical CD The Road To Ballina.
A large, painstakingly assembled sample library is of little use if it's so badly organised that you can't separate your tablas from your trumpets. Dave Stewart gives some tips to help you make your library a model of accessibility.