Help with not having classical instrument samples sound like a computer???

What are some of the most useful 'methods' or techniques for not having classical instrument samples sound like they are being performed (i.e. played) by a computer? Where would I start?

Thanks.

1. Play your parts. All of them. Live.

2. Don't quantize. If the timing is a little sloppy but close enough - leave it.

3. Play each line solo. That is, if you got a three voice chordal part played by strings, don't play it in one pass like the music entertainer on a cruise ship would do. Play each single line separately and put yourself in place of that particular part's player. A player in an orchestra has only his single part with no indication what his neighbours will play, and it is his notes that he performes with all he has to give. By this, you shift your focus from the vertical context of the chords to the horizontal context of the separate lines which then make up these chords.

4. Refine every one of those single lines with separate tracks for cc11 Expression and/or cc2 Breath Control to bring it to life. Choose a patch that reacts to these controllers with loudness and timbre changes, this is absolutely essential when doing string and wind swells.

5. Don't use volume automation. If a part is too loud, play it softer.

6. Compose playable parts. That includes not writing notes outside the range of the instrument and putting in rests to breathe for wind instruments.

7. Learn which instruments traditionally work well together and which couldn't share a flat if their life depends on it.

8. Work with fluid tempo ramps which support the emotional statement. This is tricky to do but does wonderful things when you get it just right.

9. Be careful with percussion. In orchestral music, percussion is not meant for rhythm. It is meant for accentuation.

10. Place your instruments in the stereo field with great care and use proper (and usually much) reverb according to their position in a concert hall. Listen to a classical recording and notice how far back and drenched in room reverb a glockenspiel really is.

Sometimes, the sins are very obvious – such as a "flute part" played by a player who, magically, never has to breathe. Or, a "string part" that doesn't stop to consider the arrangement of actual strings and thus what notes would be easily within-reach versus impossible.

Many of the orchestral patches in Logic have variations that can be reached through MIDI manipulation – sometimes, it's as simple as "velocity" – but these are not always well-documented.

I'm not sure how far this will take me, but for the next weeks/months/years (uhm...) I have some plans trying to recreate small sections of real orchestras. For that, I have been searching for recorded stems and found quite some links in this thread:

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/orchestral-stems-to-practice-mixing.54489/

Some of them even have their scores incliuded, which is immensely helpful as you can see how notes transform into music and as there's a lot of bleed on the individual tracks, sometimes so much the played lines aren't 100% obvious.

As said, I have no idea about my patience and hence how far it'll take me, but so far I think these stems could help a ton.

I'm not sure how far this will take me, but for the next weeks/months/years (uhm...) I have some plans trying to recreate small sections of real orchestras.

Just be aware that it is far more difficult to emulate small sections, like a string quartet, than making it big. You can always double and triple up to cheat for bigness and to hide where or what one library lacks, but the smaller the section, the harder it gets to get convincing results.

Just be aware that it is far more difficult to emulate small sections, like a string quartet, than making it big. You can always double and triple up to cheat for bigness and to hide where or what one library lacks, but the smaller the section, the harder it gets to get convincing results.

Defenitely. But I might as well just start on something smaller. I actually just found quite some stems of smaller sections on the web.

Fwiw, I have no serious plans to actually arrange some classical (or even just pseudo-classical) stuff, so I also won't be purchasing any extra libraries or whatever (I still have the old Vitius Mini and full AKAI CDs converted for the EXS, but the options are rather limited, maybe I'll try to mix them with Logics stuff, but that's as far as I plan to go). I'm really just after enhancing some pop-ish stuff. In case there's ever gonna be something worthwhile (which I highly doubt), I would take it to some more experienced dudes that I know anyway.

In a nutshell, this is more or less for my personal pleasure and education.