Why Use Ravel?

If you compose orchestral music, you’re used to having only a few performance options, all with serious drawbacks: live orchestras, MIDI playback or sample libraries. Ravel Virtual Studios now offers you a better solution. Read on to learn more, or watch our introduction movie.

Live Orchestras

Hiring a live, professional orchestra is still undoubtedly the best way to hear a performance of your piece. However, without the necessary funds and contacts, hiring an orchestra remains an unattainable dream for the vast majority of composers.

MIDI Playback

At the other extreme, it’s easy, fast and inexpensive to use digital music equipment to render a piece using your computer’s built-in MIDI instruments. However, MIDI sound quality and realism are typically very poor. Even though better MIDI instruments are available, the end results are still mechanical, unmusical and inferior.

(If you’re unfamiliar with MIDI, listen to some examples in our demos section. Then listen to what we can do.)

Sample Libraries

Audio engineers tried to develop a solution that would be the happy medium—inexpensive like MIDI playback, but with the high quality of live musicians. They developed sample libraries. Engineers record live musicians playing in almost every possible way and then use these “sampled” sounds to render music.

While many companies have succeeded in creating extremely high quality sample libraries, the best libraries remain quite expensive and difficult to use. Even a user with the proper training and motivation requires weeks and tens of thousands of dollars invested in professional audio equipment—including the sample library itself—to render just one piece.

Our Solution

Sample libraries have the potential to perform music at a quality that rivals live orchestras, yet are terribly frustrating to use. Composer Ronald K.W. Artinian experienced that combination first-hand, leading him to co-found Ravel Virtual Studios.

We offer a service that’s the best of all worlds: We quickly produce high quality, sample-based performances of your orchestral music at accessible prices. You don’t have to spend a fortune or settle for synthetic instruments anymore.

Let Us Do All The Hard Work

With Ravel Virtual Studios, your part in the process couldn’t be easier. Simply send us your properly formatted score via our client website and we will send you a superb recording of your piece. That’s basically it.

Of course, we encourage you to communicate with us throughout the recording process—you’re in control. You can even request revisions if necessary. But you don’t need to spend hours learning about audio engineering or a cent on expensive equipment to get a professional performance from us.

Your work will be scrutinized by music professionals who are thoroughly acquainted with instrumental and performance nuances, as well as the art of composition itself. We have the knowledge and tools to render your work better than if you tried to use samples yourself and more quickly than if you had a live reading with an orchestra.

Let us do all the hard work required to make a convincing performance with sample libraries: proper instrument balancing, audio mixing and breathing life into the whole performance process. This way, you can focus on the most important thing: composing.

To get started now, sign up for a free account at our client website.