Due to the development of high capacity samplers, the recording of large instrumental sample libraries, and the capabilities of modern sequencers, simulating traditional orchestra performances has become quite sophisticated.
Although the process of developing a particular score requires great skill and sensitivity, and can take a long time, the method is more economical than using a full complement of acoustic musicians.
While the definition has expanded to include creative and research activity in a broader aesthetic range beyond traditional orchestral simulations, the ability to interact with the sonic and behavioral elements in real time via human performance has remained one the requisite attributes of a virtual orchestra.
There have been multiple union pickets at performances that used or intended to use this technology, such as the 2003 Broadway musicians strike, that began as a dispute over pit minimums, and rapidly escalated into a referendum on virtual orchestras.
In the words of Herbert Eimert: The aesthetic foundation of electronic music began to propagate from the post-World War II studios of Europe.
The trajectory set in motion by the Europeans would split and divide into a myriad of paths, facilitated by transistors, integrated circuits, computers, networks, satellites and the Internet.
The criticism suggested that it was unimaginative to set the Virtual Orchestra's sights on a target of simulation when its potential could be better served by allowing it to function idiomatically while moving the art form forward along the original trajectory of experimentalism.
While the experimentalists intended to move the art forward by leaps, and emphasize the aesthetic and technical disconnect between composers, works, studios, and strategies, supporters of the virtual orchestra set out to establish the connection and evolutionary continuity of the technology.
The philosophy of the virtual orchestra rests on the assumption that while the exact simulation of acoustic instruments may be unattainable, some degree of understanding and implementation of the process is crucial to the evolutionary development of the technology.
The Russian music critic, Boris de Schloezer, in reaction to the Theremin, was one of the first to articulate this argument and to discuss the imbalance between an acoustic and an electronic instrument.
[3] The noted Russian composer and theorist, Joseph Schillinger, understood the proliferation of electricity to be "the most important evolutionary step in the entire span of history".
The amount of concurrent decision-making and simultaneous physical activity required to play an instrument with these extended capabilities exceeds human abilities.
The downbeats of Balme's baton were synchronized through a modified Roland SBX80 to the sequencer driving a fully loaded Kurzweil K250 that had been enhanced with some extra proprietary orchestral sounds.
Their 1995 production of Hansel and Gretel with the Kentucky Opera generated significant publicity, utilizing a multi-speaker immersive field along with interactive performance controls.