Sounds great! Were you using all Horizon products or was this a Pro and Epic Horns combo?
Chris

@dragonwind said:

Sounds great! Were you using all Horizon products or was this a Pro and Epic Horns combo?
Chris

Hi Chris,

This was PE, Chamber Strings (particularily the short staccs), and Epic Ho.

Hope that helps.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Excellent stuff. Congratulations.

Any chance of sharing some of your secrets round i) the composition approach you took, ii) the time it took do complete and also iii) the mixing/mastering approach inc. the reverbs you used etc.

Cheers

Tim

@timkiel said:

Hi Rob,

Excellent stuff. Congratulations.

Any chance of sharing some of your secrets round i) the composition approach you took, ii) the time it took do complete and also iii) the mixing/mastering approach inc. the reverbs you used etc.

Cheers

Tim

Sure Time - I don't think they are 'secrets' - I am sure many here have their way to approach projects. This is one person's way

i) For me, I watch the entire project a few times. Then I'll very simply follow along improvising various themes - you know when you hit the 'right one' - for that scene (usually on the piano - but sometimes using one of the terrific VSL legato WW patches). I usually start with the 'most important scene - whatever that is. If I can capture the emotional content of that scene everything else seems to work out better.

On this project the Fight Scene (Fight of your Life) actually took me a couple of days to get right. The visuals were up and down - fighting and not fighting (ebb and flow) - it was at first difficult for me to get this 'interplay' right. The Director had some 'sacred' SOUND DESIGN stuff he wanted to be - at times - in the forefront [:'(] It's all good though - we both ended happy with the cue when it was done.

ii) On this project, I was given 2.5 weeks to write and mix (about 20 minutes of music). It was a little stressful at times (2 days the HOST PC decided to get cranky), plus I just don't write exceptionally fast. Having said that it was a good 'exercise' to test myself. Has given me some confidence to perhaps tackle othe projects that other board members here do day in and day out.

iii) Wish I had more time here - oh well. Really didn't mess around alot with EQ (some shelving of 2-4K on some of the strings - dug some mud out of the low brass (300 K). Used a couple of instances of Giga pulse (narrowed the stereo field to 35%). Had a limiter on the master buss to pick up some of the heavier percussive hits and that's about all.

Hope this helps.

Rob

Nice Stuff Rob!

Very clean, sounds like it worked great for the movie. Would love to see it sometime.

Thanks Rob

@Craig Sharmat said:

Nice Stuff Rob!

Very clean, sounds like it worked great for the movie. Would love to see it sometime.

Really wish I could have gone down to the LA area for the festival (could have stop by your place in the valley [:)] )

Sorry I missed you when you were up here (I was the 'final stretch' of this project).

Rob

Rob--

Congrats on your accomplishment. Recognition is not something to be taken for granted. Bravo!! Great score!!

Sounds really nice! [:)] Where are the other instruments from? Piano? Vocal pads? Synths? Thanks for sharing your methods with us.

Thanks for your nice comments - I appreciate it.


Janila - Aside from VSL... Piano is Kip's 24 bit Bosen, all synth stuff was Atmosphere, RMX, and a little of outboard Roland JV 1080 synth. Hope this helps.


Rob

Rob, your work is wonderfully done. You deserve the recognition. Kudos. I am inspired to try a little harder, dig a little deeper. Thank you for sharing your music, your work methods and your sucesses with us on the forum.

Just one question. Did you utilize Kai's articulation tool? How did you manage all the articulation changes? (Ok, that's two questions, but same topic.)

jim milne

@taatsiaq said:

Rob, your work is wonderfully done. You deserve the recognition. Kudos. I am inspired to try a little harder, dig a little deeper. Thank you for sharing your music, your work methods and your sucesses with us on the forum.

Just one question. Did you utilize Kai's articulation tool? How did you manage all the articulation changes? (Ok, that's two questions, but same topic.)

jim milne

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your nice comments. I am not familiar with "Kai's tool" - maybe I should know more about it [:D]

With VSL (before VI) - I just created numerous tracks per instrument to get the final set of articulations (really looking forward to the new VI).

Rob

Congrats Rod! This is inspiring news for the rest of us investing our time, efforts and money into VSL. Of course I'm sure your talent was a key part also...

Do you think I had anything to do with it? [:D]

Rob wrote:
I am not familiar with "Kai's tool" - maybe I should know more about it

Rob,

You can get a free copy at http://www.qualitystudio.net/fileman

It is a very useful tool for handling articulation changes by changing midi channels before signal is sent to a channel splitter in the enviornment in Logic. Places up to 16 articulations on one track with no keyswitch notes in your score. If you are using Logic then it is very handy. I didn't notice which platform you are running.

jim

Guy - [:D]

Jim - that explains the ignorance - I work in SX (PC). Sounds cool though.


Rob

Rob, great stuff.

Question.

I seem to have a lot of trouble getting VSL to do short bows as short as the ones you have going in that second cue. Even the V14 short bows have a little bit of a swell to them and when playing fast, they are always lagging and it's a pain in the rear.

Can you comment on how you did those, or if you did something special to get them to respond so quickly?

Thanks, and again, really neat mix of modern and orchestral genres. Very cool.

Tom H

Hi Tom,

No problem. It comes from the Chamber Strings (VSL's best string library by far). I used the short Staccs - 1+2.

Now if we can just get those "Epic expressive strings" - we would be home free [:D]


Rob

And if Iam not mistaken SC will have short stacs for VI-14

Nice music Rob - congrats

Really well done Rob! Mind me asking if the 'repeated" lines were done manually with fades or with a delay FX? There very smooth... Hope K2 and CS is working out for you. Best, Rich

Hi there,

Thanks Christian and Rich for your nice comments. Rich, I tried to get a 'repeated' echo on the short string part (through velocity and volume sculpting) but ended up just using a delay [:)]

This Director's temp score was really an awful 'synth only' score. I had a little horse trading to do to get him to consider samples. In the end, he was very pleased though.

Thanks again guys.


Rob