Here’s an introduction to a free resource we have created for you: The Universal Orchestral Template for Divisimate.
Setting up the Project File According to Your DAW
When it comes to virtual instruments, there are a lot of choices out there. Each one has specific pros and cons, special features, ranges, articulations, and so on, and everyone likes something different. One of the strengths of Divisimate is that you can use it with any virtual instrument out there. You are not limited to a specific selection of sounds or products from one developer, but anything that can receive MIDI can technically be used to orchestrate with Divisimate.
That’s why we wanted to give everyone a general starting point for orchestrating with Divisimate that you can then customize to fit the instruments of your choice. It features a full symphonic orchestra, with a 12-player Woodwind section, 13-player brass, 5-part string section, timpani, and harp.
The Universal Orchestral Template is available as a free download here and there are instructions for each available DAW to get started quickly. Make sure to check these out to catch any potential special requirements your DAW may have.
As you download the template for the sequencer of your choice, you’ll find two kinds of files in the downloaded folder: the DAW project file, and Divisimate Performance files.
Every DAW is a bit different in the details, but in general, here’s how it works:
When you open up the project file, you’ll be greeted with a really simple project. You’ll see 32 instrument tracks that are named after different orchestral instruments. Top to bottom, these are in the order they would appear on an orchestral score. If you take a closer look at these tracks, you’ll see that they each have a specific Divisimate Port selected as an input.
All the input routing is already done, so all you need to do is load your instruments of choice into those instrument tracks. Follow the naming of the tracks to insert the correct instruments on each track and make sure that for woodwinds and brass you are using Solo instruments and not ensemble patches. One important thing to note is that the template was created to be used with instruments that sound at the pitch that is played on your keyboard. If you want to use instruments that sound an octave higher or lower than played, you may need to adjust some of the presets or apply transposition to the instrument itself to correct the playable range.
Once you have loaded all your instruments, you can now adjust the balance to your liking, do stuff to the output routing, add groups or a master reverb, and more. All that counts for Divisimate is that the right instruments are connected to the right Ports. So feel free to customize it however works best for your instruments of choice.
And that’s already it. Record enable all the tracks and head over to Divisimate.
Using the Universal Template Core Performance in Divisimate
In Divisimate, go to the Perform Page and open the Performance Manager. Import the performance layout prepared specifically for this template. To do that, click on “Import”, navigate to the folder with the downloaded template data and select the Universal Template Core Performance.
This process will import all the presets included in this performance, place them in your preset folder and make the whole layout of the performance immediately accessible to you. If the DAW project is prepared correctly, you can start playing any of these orchestrations right away. This performance includes 100 simple playable orchestrations, both large and small.
The first two pages focus exclusively on the woodwinds, the third page includes different Brass instrumentations, page 4 focuses on strings, and finally, on page 5 you’ll find a bunch of mixed colors and tutti orchestrations.
In the woodwinds, for example, you have simple stacked sections and basic octave unisons but also different color combinations and voicings. We recommend downloading the template and exploring all the presets for yourself. When you load a preset, you can just look at the voice indicators and the keyboard display to see how many voices and which Divisimode are active.
The Brass presets are mostly set up in Fill Voices mode to allow you to go between section unisons and spread out chords seamlessly. These presets are all very simple orchestrations — always one single color per preset. This way you can get as intricate as you want and record in multiple passes to create your arrangement in both broad strokes and close detail. This template is a good resource to get started and even to simply learn about the sound of different instrument combinations.
This was a quick overview of the Universal Orchestral Template for Divisimate. If you want to stay up to date about new features and tutorials, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
