You guys are hypocritical or not listening. You say hire someone then you say thats not impossible blah blah. none of you have done it yet you weigh in on it with conjecture . When i' knoow more already. Why do i ask?
I was trained as an orchestral musician at a top conservatoire and then played in professional symphony orchestras for several years before turning to composing music for film, recording and/or producing music and then to audio post. Therefore, not only have I been involved in recording symphony orchestras as a member of the orchestra but subsequently as an engineer. Furthermore, when I was learning MIDI programming, one of the exercises I did was to recreate a section of a symphony using sample. So I'm basing what I'm saying on personal, professional experience of classical music, symphony orchestras, orchestral recordings and of creating/recreating scores using samples. How then have you arrived at the conclusion that "none of us have done it", that I'm "weighing in with conjecture" and that you know more? I suggest it's you who is not listening and that maybe you know so little that you can't even recognise who does or does not know more!
What I said was impossible is not someone re-creating a recording of a symphony with samples/MIDI but trying to re-create a recording by playing all of the actual orchestral instruments.
Yes, an orchestral score (Beethoven's 9th for example) could be created/re-created in ProTools using samples. In big budget features, many orchestral scores are created this way initially, for approval and then a real orchestra is recorded. It's not unusual for the final mix used in the film to be a mix of both the real orchestra and the synthesised/sampled one. The top people, with the best orchestral sample libraries, equipment and skills can produce orchestral recordings (from samples alone) which are virtually indistinguishable to the average person from a real orchestra. Even at the lo/no budget levels, I've heard some aspiring composers create quite convincing orchestral recordings (with samples only), and having spent many years working with symphony orchestras I'm well qualified to judge what is convincing. So, no, at the lo/no budget level for an orchestral piece you do NOT need "at least a small symphony" orchestra, you just need someone with orchestra samples, a DAW and some skill.
i was looking for a simple yes or no regarding the amount of years and so on . period
The simple "yes" or "no" has been given to you several times at the beginning of the thread, it's generally "no", period! Since then, we've moved on to potential solutions to this problem.
G