Hans Zimmer - Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow

[JBacal]

Here is my performance of Hans Zimmer’s “Jack Sparrow” cue from the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean.” As I worked on this piece I began to think of it as a pirate-flavored cinematic cello concerto. 😊 The solo cello in the opening perfectly depicts the drunken swagger of Johnny Depp’s pirate captain character.

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow - mp3

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow - YouTube video

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow - Cubase Project

This mock-up turned out to be one of my wife's favorites. She described the experience of listening to it as a "fun rollercoaster ride." My only reply was "I guess Hans Zimmer kinda knows what he's doing!" 😁

For the solo cello I used the cello 1 from the Solo Strings plus MIR Pro for placement. The Solo Strings may be one of the older VSL libraries but it remains one of their absolute best! I use it on almost every piece I do.

The percussion was indeed a challenge here, but I did my best to capture the spirit. Processing drums in not one of my strengths, so I approached the sound more from an orchestrator's perspective than an audio engineer. To give certain hits more power I layered different drums together-- for example adding taiko for low end boom and snare for snap.

I used the following VSL libraries:

Synchron Woodwinds
Synchron Brass
Synchron Percussion
Synchron Duality Strings - Regular
Synchron Elite Strings
VI Series Jazz Drums
SYNCHRON-ized Vienna Choir
Synchron Basso Profundo Choir
SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings

As always, please feel free to post a comment or ask a question.

--Jay

[Retni]

@JBacal said:

Here is my performance of Hans Zimmer’s “Jack Sparrow” cue from the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean.” As I worked on this piece I began to think of it as a pirate-flavored cinematic cello concerto. 😊 The solo cello in the opening perfectly depicts the drunken swagger of Johnny Depp’s pirate captain character.

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow - mp3

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow - YouTube video

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow - Cubase Project

This mock-up turned out to be one of my wife's favorites. She described the experience of listening to it as a "fun rollercoaster ride." My only reply was "I guess Hans Zimmer kinda knows what he's doing!" 😁

For the solo cello I used the cello 1 from the Solo Strings plus MIR Pro for placement. The Solo Strings may be one of the older VSL libraries but it remains one of their absolute best! I use it on almost every piece I do.

The percussion was indeed a challenge here, but I did my best to capture the spirit. Processing drums in not one of my strengths, so I approached the sound more from an orchestrator's perspective than an audio engineer. To give certain hits more power I layered different drums together-- for example adding taiko for low end boom and snare for snap.

I used the following VSL libraries:

Synchron Woodwinds
Synchron Brass
Synchron Percussion
Synchron Duality Strings - Regular
Synchron Elite Strings
VI Series Jazz Drums
SYNCHRON-ized Vienna Choir
Synchron Basso Profundo Choir
SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings

As always, please feel free to post a comment or ask a question.

--Jay

[Retni]

Hi JBacal.

Listening to that solo cello, it seems like listening to the "bad" player of the entire orchestration, according to my conception in listening to classical music and soundtracks, the "bad" player has always been OBOE... Not having that VSL preset library , I took the Tina Guo cello plugin off the counter to replace it...

I take this opportunity to ask you, if you will have the opportunity to publish some Howard Shore Lord of the Rings Mockups in the future? There are two chapters that, every time I listen to them, give me goosebumps..
Stone foundations and prophecy. it's a mix of emotions between choirs and orchestra!

[JBacal]

Hi Retni,

Thank you for listening and commenting.

I would love to do a Howard Shore Lord of the Rings piece if I can ever get my hands on an accurate score.

As for the solo cello being a "bad" player, my conception was that the solo cello was attempting to portray a drunk pirate and not a virtuoso cellist. 😄

Best wishes,

Jay

@Retni said:

Hi JBacal.

Listening to that solo cello, it seems like listening to the "bad" player of the entire orchestration, according to my conception in listening to classical music and soundtracks, the "bad" player has always been OBOE... Not having that VSL preset library , I took the Tina Guo cello plugin off the counter to replace it...

I take this opportunity to ask you, if you will have the opportunity to publish some Howard Shore Lord of the Rings Mockups in the future? There are two chapters that, every time I listen to them, give me goosebumps..
Stone foundations and prophecy. it's a mix of emotions between choirs and orchestra!

[LGeist110]

@JBacal said:

Hi Retni,

Thank you for listening and commenting.

I would love to do a Howard Shore Lord of the Rings piece if I can ever get my hands on an accurate score.

As for the solo cello being a "bad" player, my conception was that the solo cello was attempting to portray a drunk pirate and not a virtuoso cellist. 😄

Best wishes,

Jay

@Retni said:

Hi JBacal.

Listening to that solo cello, it seems like listening to the "bad" player of the entire orchestration, according to my conception in listening to classical music and soundtracks, the "bad" player has always been OBOE... Not having that VSL preset library , I took the Tina Guo cello plugin off the counter to replace it...

I take this opportunity to ask you, if you will have the opportunity to publish some Howard Shore Lord of the Rings Mockups in the future? There are two chapters that, every time I listen to them, give me goosebumps..
Stone foundations and prophecy. it's a mix of emotions between choirs and orchestra!

Jay, here you go: all scores I have from The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps that helps.
<Moderator Edit>Removed the link in this and subsequent posts<Moderator Edit>

[JBacal]

@LGeist110 said:

@JBacal said:

Hi Retni,

Thank you for listening and commenting.

I would love to do a Howard Shore Lord of the Rings piece if I can ever get my hands on an accurate score.

As for the solo cello being a "bad" player, my conception was that the solo cello was attempting to portray a drunk pirate and not a virtuoso cellist. 😄

Best wishes,

Jay

@Retni said:

Hi JBacal.

Listening to that solo cello, it seems like listening to the "bad" player of the entire orchestration, according to my conception in listening to classical music and soundtracks, the "bad" player has always been OBOE... Not having that VSL preset library , I took the Tina Guo cello plugin off the counter to replace it...

I take this opportunity to ask you, if you will have the opportunity to publish some Howard Shore Lord of the Rings Mockups in the future? There are two chapters that, every time I listen to them, give me goosebumps..
Stone foundations and prophecy. it's a mix of emotions between choirs and orchestra!

Jay, here you go: all scores I have from The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps that helps.

Cool! Thank you very much!

[LGeist110]

@JBacal said:

@LGeist110 said:

@JBacal said:

Hi Retni,

Thank you for listening and commenting.

I would love to do a Howard Shore Lord of the Rings piece if I can ever get my hands on an accurate score.

As for the solo cello being a "bad" player, my conception was that the solo cello was attempting to portray a drunk pirate and not a virtuoso cellist. 😄

Best wishes,

Jay

@Retni said:

Hi JBacal.

Listening to that solo cello, it seems like listening to the "bad" player of the entire orchestration, according to my conception in listening to classical music and soundtracks, the "bad" player has always been OBOE... Not having that VSL preset library , I took the Tina Guo cello plugin off the counter to replace it...

I take this opportunity to ask you, if you will have the opportunity to publish some Howard Shore Lord of the Rings Mockups in the future? There are two chapters that, every time I listen to them, give me goosebumps..
Stone foundations and prophecy. it's a mix of emotions between choirs and orchestra!

Jay, here you go: all scores I have from The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps that helps.

Cool! Thank you very much!

You‘re welcome!

[William]

Perhaps the grinding mediocrity of Hans Zimmer music repels me in general, but also - this cello performance sounds very mechanical. It seems to instantly state "samples." The overall timbre is harsh and artificial and the MIDI obviously quantized. Sheet music converted to samples. With a few tweaks. And bad sheet music at that.

In the future, Hans Zimmer will be known as the only composer of film music. This will of course be after the zombie apocalypse in which all musicians have had their brains evacuated and eaten. By the Zimmerites. The new zombies of music. But congratulations Jay ! You did a VSL Accepted/Stamped and Approved Performance of Zimmer the God, the Greatest Composer of All Film Music of All Time! Is there anything better in film music today?

[Andreas8420]

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

[William]

This post is deleted!

[William]

@William said:

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

@Andreas8420 said:

We'd be thrilled to hear mock-up renditions of this piece from you and others in the community, @William! 🙂 Everyone is welcome to post here in our forum!

[William]

Andreas,

Unfortunately, it is a complete insult to any self-respecting musician to perform "music" of Hans Zimmer, the worst film composer of modern times, in fact, a "composer" so bad he does not even rate the name. He creates "musical noise." If you wanted to pay me to perform this hack's music, you would have to go to around 6 figures, to begin with. Then I might consider lowering my standards but would be disgusted with the job. Zimmer is a hack, and he is making vast amounts of money creating garbage scores, that destroy the films they score. He knows nothing of music or film scoring. The films he scores are almost unbearable to watch because of his garbage "music."

The fact that previously, the most financially successful film composer was John Williams - a brilliant composer and melodist, a master of many styles, supremely knowledgeable of music, a great conductor - the fact that he was the most paid, the most wealthy and the most famous film composer of them all but is now replaced by Zimmer - a HACK who knows NOTHING of orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, music history, music style, complex harmony, modernistic styles, anything that composers nowadays rate as normal knowledge - it is sickening, alienating and a true indication of the low level that music, film composing, and culture in general has sunk to.

Andreas - do you have any questions about what I think concerning this? Let me know.

[Frankenstein]

Even if all of what you say above would be true, what I hear from your words is lots of frustration and pessimism.

And overall, Hans is more known than you, he is more successful than you, and most likely he is also richer than you.

Congrats and well done, Hans!

P.S. I am not Andreas, but I would doubt that there are more questions. Enough said.

[Andreas8420]

@Frankenstein

Well put. Everyone should be allowed to express their thoughts here on this community forum - but not at the expense of other people's creative efforts and joy. The score does an amazing job of transporting the emotion and action of the movie - and @JBacal, again, came up with a fabulous & enjoyable mock-up. Thanks, Jay! 😊

PS: Others suggested a well-deserved 1-2 months "vacation" for Wiliam, but I think we will leave it at that.

[William]

I had meant to apologize to Andreas for my snarky irritating tone. Sorry about that. Also, I do think Jay Bacal is very talented. And of course the VSL company is fantastic, amazingly innovative and to me the best of all orchestral sample libraries. However the subject of Hans Zimmer is extremely disturbing. I get too involved with these things and overdo the responses. Anyway, no need to suggest a vacation as I will avoid any further participation here.

[William]

@William said:

I had meant to apologize to Andreas for my snarky irritating tone. Sorry about that. Also, I do think Jay Bacal is very talented. And of course the VSL company is fantastic, amazingly innovative and to me the best of all orchestral sample libraries. However the subject of Hans Zimmer is extremely disturbing. I get too involved with these things and overdo the responses. Anyway, no need to suggest a vacation as I will avoid any further participation here.

I have to say one more thing after being IGNORED by VSL - your paycheck, Andreas, was probably provided by some of my demos. Also - your deliberate suggesting that I am another non-entity of the public writing in, who can do any stupid worthless MIDI performance he wants to, was noted by me - and disgusting. I was working with VSL and doing many demos for them probably when you started here, if not before. I am offended by you and this website, and completely withdrawing from it - but you need to understand you are not my "superior" chastising me. You are not even known to me beyond this Forum. What do you do? What is your expertise? Just go ahead and DELETE ALL OF MY DEMOS of VSL. Go ahead - no problem with me! See what VSL thinks about that. I am so gone from this Forum... good riddance! I am resigning from this Forum and delete my account immediately.

[LAJ]

Hi Jay,

well done. Thank you for your Inspiration. And Great that you like the Master Hans Zimmer, who not only creates the most innovative music but also is responsible for some great VSTs outthere. I also read that he invested in the BBC Studios … for 10 Mio. !! WOW.

BTW: VSL … I appreciate and use the Ignore-function too 😊 … thanks Ben!

[William]

Sorry to Andreas and VSL for going nuts - I will definitely avoid this sort of thing...

[William]

I have to explain a little further - though Jay Bacal does a great job and I don't mean to insult anyone from VSL, which is a group of brilliant musicians and engineers I truly admire - whenever the topic of Hans Zimmer is brought up I start twitching, frothing, going into seizure. This is partly because he gets millions of dollars to do the WORST FILM MUSIC IN HISTORY. The music Zimmer has done is so bad that it cannot really be called music - it is a musical noise. It is profoundly disturbing how somebody who makes millions creating this crap is now the highest paid film composer. There used to be geniuses of music - like John Williams who is an erudite, supremely accomplished composer and conductor, Bernard Herrmann, who was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century in any medium, Erich Korngold who as a child was a prodigy who could kick Zimmer's miserable ass off the map - but none of this matters, because film music is now the province of moronic, tasteless producers who know nothing about actual musical values, and yet are given total respect and credence because why? THEY HAVE MONEY. That is why Zimmer is the god of film music now. He makes lots of money - as that person who wrote into this thread stated. Yeah right - Zimmer makes more money than I do. Producing garbage. I am glad to be poor. I am not a part of your world.

[LGeist110]

Guys, guys, guys, just relax! There's no need to aggressively discuss musical tastes and supposedly bad MIDI production and attack each other. I also find the music of Hans Zimmer and his team working in the background rather mediocre, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go off on a tangent against others who like his music. About the mock-up: it was probably not even initially made because of anyone's taste, but because of the big name.

By the way, to call it an "insult" to any musician if he/she even dares to perform Zimmer's music, I find, and excuse my wording, pathetic.

Let's live in peace and let everyone have their own taste in music!