For the third year, sound designer Gary Garritan has released a free collection of Christmas songs recorded by musicians who use his software instruments. This edition features arrangers and composers from as far away as Iceland, Italy, and Slovenia. And interestingly, it showcases Garritan's new big-band instruments as well as his earlier orchestral ones.
In a friendly touch, there's even a downloadable cover, CD label, and liner notes. I snagged the lot with DownThemAll, imported them into iTunes, applied the JPEG cover image, and streamed them to my living room over my twitchy AirPort Express—instant holiday ambience. I don't think my family even suspected the sounds were from software instruments; we simply enjoyed the music.
For more on Garritan, see our interview "Gary Garritan: A Personal Orchestra for Everyone" and "Public Domain Scores Again," my blog about his free online orchestration course.
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Comments (2)
Read More Entries by David Battino.
Thanks, Wheat. In fact, I copied the notes for each into the Lyrics field in iTunes. It was interesting to learn where some of the more expressive lines, like the cello in “Ave Maria,” came from.
Did you download the liner notes for the album? They contain information about all 18 songs, all 18 composers, and the software and hardware each one used to make their recording.
http://www.garritan.com/xmas/GarritanCommunityChristmas2006.pdf