Why I think live orchestras in dance music don't work

The latest fad to hit the dance music scene for the last few years is the incorporation of live orchestras into DJ sets or performances at festivals/events. Most noticeably at the Tomorrowland 2019 music festival , the organizers incorporated a 60 piece orchestra in celebration of the 25th anniversary , the act was titled ‘Symphony of Unity’ . I’m sure by now you have all seen short clips of the orchestra’s performance online as they have gone viral . Among these there have been DJ’s such as Paul Van Dyke , Pete Tong , DJ Snake and more , who have performed with an live orchestra

This trend had only ‘truly’ gone viral after the 2019 Tomorrowland festival. Clearly as this festival is one of the biggest , if not THE biggest dance music festival in the world . With such a huge following, growing support and a large loyal fan base , with each video been shared and viewed million of times online , its no wonder this has gone viral. The concept behind the idea sounds good on paper. Combining ‘old school’ classical music with modern EDM music, pleasing music fans of both ends of the spectrum . But after having seen so many different types of these videos , for the past year , I cant help but think that it simply doesn’t work and that it shouldn’t be done anymore .

Allow me to elaborate ..

Incorporating classical music into dance music is nothing new (in terms of production). There are hundreds and thousands of EDM/house tracks that have live orchestras featured or live ‘strings’ in these tracks.

The first time I ever saw this concept of house meets classical music was when the Studio Apartment House band performed with Marc Evans . Now , here the concept of classical meets dance music works fantastically , why you may ask ? Because the song was produced with live strings , the majority of the instrumentation of the track was recorded live , so if they were to perform the track live with an orchestra , the concept works . The song has been composed , produced and recorded with live instruments. The translation from studio to live performance is seamless and it sounds great and when you have a listen to the live performance everything sounds amazing , take note the opening minute of the orchestra’s intro .

Another great example of incorporating an live orchestra is from Miss Money Penny’s Prom . Again the same applies to these songs as they had a great form of musical composition , the translation is again here comes out fantastically.

Majority of disco tracks , or disco/soulful inspired tracks have some form of musical composition or recording of live elements , which again makes the translation from studio track to live orchestral performance seamless and sounding great .

BUT when it comes to tracks that have no such live instrumentation or recording (or very minimal) , this is where my problem starts with this concept. Majority of EDM/house tracks that are being performed by live orchestras are taken from tracks that have simple chord progressions performed on a synth or taking an recording of an arpeggiator . When this translates into live performance by an orchestra , the effect is rather boring and bland , because there simply isn’t enough music that has been written or composed . A 60 piece orchestra playing a simple C# chord doesn’t have the same effect and seems as if the orchestra is being totally underutilized . Another problem I have is that some sounds used in creating the original synth sounds just don’t translate well to ‘orchestral’ sounds and sound a little off putting . Said track was made popular because of its great sounding synth . This synth sound , in most , cases cannot be converted into live instrumentation as it doesn’t ‘sound right’ . When it also comes to translating dance music sounds into live orchestral interpretation, producers use reverb according to how they like it in that specific track. Live orchestras have their own reverb which can tend be more ‘wet’ than dry’ so when you take , for example , a popular melody from a familiar track for example, sounds fantastic as a ‘dry’ synth and then if you had to translate this into an live orchestral interpretation it can sound messy and overbearing . Also to mention , because allot of these songs performed by live orchestras are translated from EDM tracks , the original EDM tracks have hard hitting and thumping kick drums . But during the performance an orchestral drum is used which in turn makes the entire performance sound ‘flat’ and we all know that when it comes to dance music the kick drum and bass are two of the most important driving factors of any song .

Live orchestral translation of EDM/house tracks can work , but only on certain songs . Songs that have at the very least some form of musical composition and not just simple chord progression, but obviously would translate much better with songs that have live ‘elements’ and/or recordings of live strings in them , such in the case of the Studio Apartment performance. I don’t like this trend , an live performance of an orchestra playing a 90’s trance track doesn’t sound good at all (after having heard it) . It has been translated badly , you cannot simply take any popular EDM track and say ‘ You know what ? that would sound great if an live orchestra played the whole thing using nothing but classical instruments’ . Only certain songs can be performed using live orchestras, and unfortunately majority of these songs are not as popular as other EDM tracks.