orchestral composing tips

Thanks for sharing! Great new site.

I can recommend this lession: (http://evenant.com/articles/more-realistic-string-mockups)

Lack of proper chord voicing is something I see in a lot of beginner compositions and string mockups. The harmony might be jumping all over the place with all chords played in root position, for example.

Make your chords go the shortest way to the next chord, and avoid leaps if possible [...] This can be done by using chord inversions.

Exactly what Synfire does with Auto-Chords by default. However, I'd not recommend Auto-Chords for anything but the most basic draft. As the lesson demonstrates, spreading chords across different instruments and pitch ranges is the way to go. With Synfire, you can do so by drawing melodic segments (experiment with different symbol types) and transpose and shift them against each other for the different instrument groups. 

I'd not use tempo automation either, because it's much easier to use the Shift parameter for a smooth steal-time effect (rubato).