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  4. hollywood blockbuster film sound?

  • hollywood blockbuster film sound?

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    What are the tricks of the trade to make your orchestra sound alot bigger than it is? in particular i cant get the strings on vsl to sound much thicker than they are.How big is the orchestra on a filmscore production? eg.vsl is 14 violinists,is howard shore using bigger string sections?
    Do they use eq tricks? or fx tricks ? does anybody know?
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    Definitely they are bigger. My Qualm and many others' qualm with the VSl is there are NO 2nd Violins. It is necessary when doing tutti without phasing.

    There are MANY tricks to becoming an excellent orchestrator. You must work very hard to learn it. Few do even then. You must WANT it.

    I can help if you'd like. I even teach master classes in such should you wish to go right to the mastery of it.

    But it can be done. Take a listen to my AMERICAN ALMANACS theme here. I think if I remember right I adhered to Hollywood orchestration. But I do like to add and break the rules here and there for spice. So it might not be flawless Hollywood Orchestration., You tell me. it was First Edition no performance legato.

    Evan Evans
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    Isn't it possible to "cheat" when it comes to use of 1st and 2nd violins with vsl? When gigapulse arrives this will be easier...

    How many violins is used in huge orchestral scores... 28, 40?

    I wish you were in Norway Evan so you could teach me stuff...
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    Hello Audun,

    we could do some stuff over iChat AV if you like. It would still be very effective.

    between 32 and 38 Violins total. But as an orchestrator you have to watch out to not make it sound too creamy. You must work at odds with the rules as ensemble sizes get bigger, otherwise it will sound too glossy.

    As far as "cheating" goes, you could pitch-shift (timbre-shift) all the notes a half step higher and save as another patch. But this becomes a pain in the you know what when you have to do it for Legato P and F and the different instruments.

    You would still get phasing with a convolution process, because the phase lock is what the problem is, and convolution affects time over frequency, which in one way could be considered rephasing, but you will hear too many artifiacts and will likely stil get nasty comb filtering. My vote is for a Violins 20 patch to total 34 Violins in all. make the Violins 14 the 2nds.

    Evan Evans
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    "we could do some stuff over iChat AV if you like. It would still be very effective."

    iChat AV? Explain [:D]
    What is that?
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    @evanevans said:

    My vote is for a Violins 20 patch to total 34 Violins in all. Make the Violins 14 the 2nds. Evan Evans


    Boy is that a good idea.

    Dave Connor
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    @evanevans said:

    My vote is for a Violins 20 patch to total 34 Violins in all. Make the Violins 14 the 2nds. Evan Evans


    Boy is that a good idea.

    Dave Connor
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    @evanevans said:

    My vote is for a Violins 20 patch to total 34 Violins in all. Make the Violins 14 the 2nds. Evan Evans


    Boy is that a good idea.

    Dave Connor

    Agreed - very good idea!!!! (symphonic cube)


    Rob
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    You guys gotta let Herb and Co. know because for some reason they are sick of my "great ideas". But honestly all my criticisms of the library have been in hopes that they listened to me and understood that my points were really quite good and deserving of implementation or at least experimentation. I have done this for a living since I was 9 years old. i ought ot know something. And I am genetically predisposed to musical mastery against my own will!

    [[:|]]

    Evan Evans
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    Just to mention a few methods, you can do any or a combination of all of the following... Lightly layer a solo violin with the section strings for the first violins... use a slight amount of EQ and/or filtering on either the first or second violins (you can do a great deal of experimentation with this in order to come up with a sound that you like)... Use different reverbs or room simulation IR's on the different sections and also bus more reverb signal to the second violins in order to set them back a bit more in the mix. The more Impulse Response programs, such as having both Altiverb and Space Designer, plus having a large assortment of IR's to choose from in your pallet to work with, the more creative you can become. Some of the very best third party IR's to consider for orchestral, classical, film, and all acoustic music genres in general are the Pure Space IR's from Numerical Sound.. www.numericalsound.com Here is a link to a piano, acoustic bass, acoustic archtop jazz guitar, and drums, jazz demo that I produced using one of the Numerical Sound "Pure Space" IR's, which also features Bardstown Audio sampled instruments as well.. http://www.bardstownaudio.com/mp3/friends.mp3

    I recommend having both Space Designer and Altiverb for Logic, because the same IR's in both of these programs do sound different. Altiverb has a slightly darker and thicker coloration of sound, while Space Designer is more transparent. This is not to say that one is better than the other. It is very useful to have as many of these quality Room Simulation programs as possible in order to provide different sounding options, in addition to having a quality assortment of IR's to load into these Room Simulation plugins.

    Logic's Channel EQ is an excellent EQ/filter plugin to work with. The Sony Oxford EQ's are excellent as well... www.sonyplugins.com Channel EQ and the Sony Oxford EQ's are both transparent and with a very musical character. There again it is good to have both of these EQ/filter plugins as well, in order to give you more options to work with. Also, the Sony Oxford Inflator plugin for a "tube warming effect" is very useful for acoustic instrument tracks as well. You definitely want to use Inflator in moderation because a slight amount of this "tube warming effect" will go a long ways. Too much of this effect would not be desirable.

    With the various tools and methods mentioned above, you can go a very long ways in order to achieve the variety of sounds you are wanting.

    Kip McGinnis
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    I hope Herb and Co. listen to Evan and us on this one. The reason is that a composer thinks and writes in terms of 2nd vlns. Not as an extension of the 1st but almost as an entirely different instrument such as violas.

    It just is this big pyscological barrier that, "I don't have any VSL 2nd vlns."

    I know there are work-arounds. It just seems like a fundamental thing that has to be addressed.

    Dave Connor
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    @dpcon said:

    I hope Herb and Co. listen to Evan and us on this one. The reason is that a composer thinks and writes in terms of 2nd vlns. Not as an extension of the 1st but almost as an entirely different instrument such as violas. ...It just is this big pyscological barrier that, "I don't have any VSL 2nd vlns."
    right. Well pointed out. It is like the 5th string section we don't have.

    Evan Evans
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    I agree, I miss them too.
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    I really think MIR and GigaPulse and similar technology will really help here. The big sound you want relies very heavily on the recording techniques and a good room. The ambience is a big part of it. The VSL guys are on to something with the MIR technology. I think getting some good hall ambiences and from different spots on the stage will sound great with this library. Thats another key, is the various spots on stage being impulsed. You get that three dimensional front to back spacing with this that is often missing with samples. At the very least, I have heard a couple of demos using a close & far setting on alt-verb that do improve things alot. Anyway, working with the ambience will be the key in my opinion. The room is half the instrument.
    Its getting to the point that these sample libraries sound cleaner and better than some live sessions. If the orchestra is not top rate and the engineering not top rate, it actually sounds better to use samples! I would rather use sample libraries (VSL and QLSO exclusively for me) than record a small live orchestra in a small room with an average engineer.
    Cheers
    Dave
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    "The room is half the instrument."

    That sure is true, and what a great way of putting it.
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    The room is a very small part of the Hollywood sound. I mean it is true that there is a Hollywood "room". But it ain't gonna sound like Hollywood if the orchestration isn't right.

    Evan Evans
  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on