To me, the arrangement is so impressive that I hardly notice the mix. I suppose i's just mixed so well that I don't notice it, which is a big compliment. 

Thanks again for your mix tips. You've inspired me to start recording again, it's been a few months. Back to work. :)  

Go to the root level of his website, watch the infomercial ;) then click on to his music. The Forbidden Warrior tracks are live musicians and very impressive. The Batman film is amazing, not sure if that's sampled or live.

I like his idea of using multiple impulses, instead of the same room for every section. It seems like you might get a strange buildup doing it that way, where multiple impulses even themselves out. Then again my G5 Dual 1.8 chokes on even one instance of Altiverb 6 in Logic 8, so I need to get a faster machine to test all of this out. :( 

Here's the Forest Battle cue he hated the sound of. I wish my cues sounded this "bad." 

http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/9554.aspx?PageIndex=1

I guess once you're spolied by live players there's no pleasing you. 

Until you guys mentioned it a couple of days ago, I had no idea the Todd-AO IR had been released.  So I broke down my template, and started over.

I got out some of my live recording Pro Tools sessions, and just A/B'd with my virtual setup, matching as best as I could.  

It's going to take a few more days of tweaking, but here's a sneak preview (sorry for the sloppy playing...)

[url=http://www.mikeverta.com/Posts/TAO_Test.mp3]Todd-AO Test[/url]

Mike...

Are the examples on http://www.mikeverta.com/ > Music

all orchestral recordings, or where some made with samples?

.

Heightened low end of orchestral movie soundtracks compared to conventional symphonic recodings:

What do you think is the cause for the big low end which resonates in the scoring stage recordings. Is it the resonance of the stage picked up by the main system in conjunction with closed micing of the deep instruments; choice of microphones... or what is it?

Are those low frequencies which are very apparent, for example when a gran cassa is hit but are actually always present, further enhanced in the mix e.g. with artifical reverberation, or does the "natural" recording already have this low resonating, respectively the mixer doesn't enhance much or nothing?

.

Those near-infrasonic bass frequencies occur naturally - not just for the GC but also especially for the basses, but only a few engineers have techniques to bring them out without using artificial enhancement.  My engineer, Shawn Murphy, is one of them.  I asked him that very question directly during one of our first sessions, because it was a signature thing on his recordings, and he told me they were in there, you just have to know how to pull them out.

_Mike

Shawn Murphy's your engineer? Where's the head-exploding-with-envy emoticon???? 

Martin (who has clearly already reached his deadly sin ration limit for the day)

P.S. - Nice work btw... 

I've seen the DBX bass synthesizer in many scoring stages, 120A is the latest model. They often add this effect to the bass drum and low strings. Waves has a plug-in version as does Apple.

Most DEFINITELY.  Seen that a ton.

_Mike

 As far as I know copyright law forbids publishing (even this way) this kind of work without permission. It is a pity, the arreangement is so marvellous.

I sketch my scores by hand on Judy Green score pads with a custom layout (36-stave).  If I'm REALLY in the crunch and it has to be a mock-up, then I may go directly into Performer, using the pad just for basic orchestration "blocks."

I've owned Finale since 1.0; rarely use it.  My orchestrators - who really act more like proofreaders - bring stuff into their program of choice for that stuff.

Speed-wise, I knew very young that was going to be important.  It's a skill like any other.  Between projects, I constantly do speed exercises, where I have a given number of hours to produce a given number of minutes of music, and I treat it like it's a real job.  I must finish, and it must be as good as possible.  25 years of doing this all the time has helped me learn to get to "it," quickly, but I still have to practice constantly, to avoid falling back on the same harmonic habits piece after piece.  Also, when I do my sketches, I do them in pen, so I'm not allowed to correct or erase - this forces my internal musical ear to be sure about its choices, because I only get one chance. I always make mistakes - there are mistakes in the Star Trek piece, for sure - but my feeling is that if I can get it 90% right the first time, quickly, then on a real schedule, I will have ample time to review and get things the way I really want.  It usually works out that way.  In fact, if I take too much time writing, I begin to hate my own work and it kills the momentum.  As it is, I have learned to let go of a finished piece very quickly, because within an hour, I despise almost everything I write, and will change or destroy it otherwise.  

Also for speed, one other thing I learned to do was go for 3 or more days without sleep and little food.  I began training for that in 1990, and for the last 15 years, I regularly only sleep 4-5 nights a week, tops.  This has saved my ass on more than a few occasions, where I was asked to do something that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, and a great many jobs where I'm called in at the 11th hour to rescue a project, and without being able to go constantly for days, it would be logistically impossible to finish.  It also allows me - when things are working - to just stay with it as long as possible, but I also steal the trick of stopping while I still have an idea, so I can begin with that fresh the next cycle.  I think of the score to Gone With the Wind - which was 3 hours of orchestral music written in 4 weeks. Amazing... unfair and ridiculous, but this business often is. I got a couple of early breaks just becuase I could finish when other guys couldn't.  It cost me a marriage and gave me kidney stones until I figured out how to adjust my diet, but my work is more important to me than those things.  On non-project cycles, I use the extra hours to train, both musically and physically.  I have to be at the gym every day and stay in shape or my body can't handle the stress.  As it is, when I sleep, I sleep like a baby :)  

I have a ton of other things which I do regularly as part of the discipline, but they're not directly related to speed. If you don't have to cultivate this skill, why do so?  Enjoy the time writing, and let it flow how it flows!  If you want to learn to get faster, just start setting time limits for yourself - say, 2 minutes a week, and force yourself to hit it.  One thing I did, in the beginning, was make myself perform my speed pieces for others, so that I could feel the humiliation of an incomplete work.  You'd be surprised how effective negative reinforcement can be! :)  Anyway, those are a couple ideas for you.

Best,

_Mike

I knew I wanted to write for films at age 5 and began studying at a conservatory.  I began serious compositional exercises (which is what I was referring to) at 10, yes, and started working professionally at 15.

As for the sleep - you'll notice I'm not a small child :)

_Mike

Great writing discipline, Mike. Inspiring.

I'm not "strictly" a film and television composer, it's just what I love best, and what I do most. Like most concert composers, I do private commissions, etc., but I've yet to pen a symphony.  Just haven't had time  If I'm not working on a project, then I'm writing as part of my training regimen, so one way or another, pencil goes to paper every day.

_Mike

Mike:

Loved your mock-up and intend to use it a reference. 

@mverta said:

I have a ton of other things which I do regularly as part of the discipline, but they're not directly related to speed.

I would love to know what other things you do as part of your discipline. I am a composer/arranger/orchestrator and work almost exclusively with live situations. Also, no film/TV experience/knowledge at all. Mostly Musical Theatre, Stage Shows and "Art" music. Am always looking for more ways to study, practice, train, etc.

Thanks in advance for any info you chooose to share.

Be Well,

Poppa

I have many "routines."  Here's one: If I'm not on a project, one thing I will do is wake up, select a minute or two of random music (today's was Janacek's Sinfonietta: II) on my ipod, and listen to it over and over for an hour during cardio at the gym. Then after I get back, I'll attempt to notate it from memory.  I don't have absolute/perfect pitch, so I allow myself a starting note, but I try not to use the piano for guidance as much as is possible.  I'll usually spend an hour-and-a-half to two hours on this, and then check it against the actual score.  Because of anomalies in recordings, I don't think it's possible to ever truly get 100%, but the closer the better.  This has many advantages: ear training, orchestration, familiarity with the lexicon, penmanship, speed, and discovery of my own ear's biases (the way I "mishear" things in my own mind).  I do this in pencil, and watch myself make the corrections on my score to match the original.  Then I usually do an hour or two of speed sightreading exercises to keep sharp - all clefs, transpositions, so I can think in real-time no matter what instrument I'm dealing with.  Then usually I pick a movie to watch, and turn off the sound, but turn on the subtitles. I make a cue sheet for it, guessing what the entrances/exits will be, and notations for my first instincts as to the drama. Then I watch it down again with sound to compare.  No matter which director's work you're talking about, Western films have alarmingly predictable edit structure, and this helps me hone my sense for overall flow and presence of music, by-and-large.  After that, it's usually a few hours of just free-form writing, but one thing I always do is finish whatever I start.  Sometimes it's just a simple quartet piece, or a reworking of a familiar song (on the 4th of July, I did a thing around our national anthem, for example).  Between that stuff, shower and meals, etc., it's usually an 17-20 hour day, and then I do a different set of things the next day.

The training isn't really in the method - it's in the approach.  I look for weaknesses and work them.  I have many weaknesses :)

_Mike