# Are scoring stages really that "wet"?



## PaulWood (Nov 1, 2008)

Hi guys,

From someone who has never actually seen the inside of a real orchestral scoring stage... I always imagined them to be pretty acoustically dry. Having been playing around with a couple of the scoring stages in Altiverb, they seem pretty wet (3.something seconds for Todd AO).

Is that right?

Cheers!

Paul


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## JohnG (Nov 1, 2008)

Todd AO, Eastwood scoring at Warners, Sony, even Paramount are / were huge. They have to be to accommodate 110 players, including 6-8 percussionists with all their stuff.

Even though you didn't mention libraries, that's why I like EWQLSO. It sounds like that to me.


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## José Herring (Nov 1, 2008)

Todd AO was pretty live sounding. Bright and reverberant. Sony is darker sounding with adjustable reflections from pretty dry to about 2 secs. Sony sounds more like a concert hall when set to 2 sec. Fox stage is pretty neutral in color. Very dry imo. Maybe not so dry as really huge and lacking in reflections. Universal has a scoring stage that's not really used any more. It's much like Fox's scoring stage. Kind of old school 70's. Paramount is a little smaller than the big stages. It's got a really clean sound. Reflections depend on how the room is set up, but tend to be around 1 to 2 secs if I recall.

They're all different.

best,

Jose


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## PaulWood (Nov 1, 2008)

Thanks guys! I always just assumed everything was recorded pretty dry and ambience added in post...

Every day's a school day! 

Todd AO is currently my IR of choice (having spent a couple of hours with all the AltiVerb scoring stage impulses this afternoon) because it has 2 mic positions, each with 3 "seating" positions.

Shame none of them are cardioid mics though...

Paul


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## JohnG (Nov 1, 2008)

Jose, you are right of course that they are all different, and some people feel passionately about the differences. Perhaps I was too cavalier if I kind of paved over them in my response.

But to address the initial post's question about 3 seconds' decay for Todd AO, I guess I'd say the raw size of all the biggest halls (and you're right that Paramount is not as big) accounts for the Altiverb setting having a long decay.

Either way, when mixing I imagine that I have all that air space around the players and that kind of leads me.


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## PaulWood (Nov 1, 2008)

Do you know if composers compose with a certain stage in mind?


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## Thonex (Nov 1, 2008)

"wet"?? -- no.


Scoring "studios or stages" like Warner, Fox, Abbey Road etc... do not have as much "reverb" as you'd think. It's not at all the same sound as an orchestral concert hall. However, you generally get more control of the sound not to mention isolation for quiet recordings.

I've recorded in some pretty big "scoring" studios in LA and Nashville (over 30 foot ceilings etc), and I can tell you it's a LOT dryer than one might think. Of course, if you put some mics high up and far away you'll get a more distant/ambient sound... but not the kind of sound as being in the 30th row of (say) Symphony Hall in Boston (which is more of a "hall" sound). I've always had to add my own juice.

In my estimation, the verb you're hearing in movie scores is a combination of the "stage sound" of the studio and a reverb unit "hall" sound.

Here are some pics... when packed... they are less reverberant and "wet" than you'd think. 

http://wbpostproduction.warnerbros.com/PHOTOS/images/scoring_orch.jpg (Eastwood at Warner)

SONY

TODD AO


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## Hal (Nov 1, 2008)

what a weird seating at Eastwood


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## choc0thrax (Nov 1, 2008)

If you're scoring stages aren't wet, you're doing something wrong.


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## kid-surf (Nov 1, 2008)

Ditto... some of them are very dry in comparison to Altiverb. Which is the sound that sounds good to me (e.g. Fox).These 'symphony hall' mixes, that some composers do, they don't sound right to me. Often missing the presence and timber. I prefer the film mixes done by guys who've also mixed rock music...that way, they know they can break any rule (seating or otherwise) they want, so long as it sounds good.


Then again I prefer smaller 'films', too.  

*By small I mean...below 100 Mil, above 20.


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## Thonex (Nov 1, 2008)

choc0thrax @ Sat Nov 01 said:


> If you're scoring stages aren't wet, you're doing something wrong.


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## JohnG (Nov 1, 2008)

If you are talking about a room big enough for a 100 piece orchestra, there is an ocean of air moving around in there. Just check out the overhead shot of the orchestra at Warner Bros. to see how high the ceiling is -- how physically large the space is. Sure, it's not "wet" the way perhaps people mean (blurry, unfocused, far-away sounding) but there is a lot of space around the sound.

You can hear, when sitting in the room with the orchestra, that there is plenty of reverberation going on, even with just a soloist playing.

Wet, of course, is a subjective term. While certainly plenty of guys use reverb while scoring, there's a lot of room around the sound before it ever gets to the board.

It's that air / room / scale that I think is important to bear in mind when trying to emulate a large orchestra with a smaller group of players and samples, which I assume is what Paul is trying to do. Reverb or not, all that air is built into the sound when you have an orchestra playing in a room that size.

Whether you like that sound or not is another thing altogether!


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## Thonex (Nov 1, 2008)

JohnG @ Sat Nov 01 said:


> Sure, it's not "wet" the way perhaps people mean (blurry, unfocused, far-away sounding) but there is a lot of space around the sound.
> 
> You can hear, when sitting in the room with the orchestra, that there is plenty of reverberation going on, even with just a soloist playing.



I'm in agreement with what you're saying. Air is vital for good orchestral recordings. 

I think a lot of people think that the sound you get on these big Hollywood movies is close to the sound you get on the scoring stage... and more often than not, it isn't (IMO).

First reflections and the "room sound" are not typically what people call wet. Then again... it is a totally subjective word.


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## synthetic (Nov 1, 2008)

I've listened in the booth during some of these sessions and it's pretty dry. Well, listen to some old Herrmann stuff like "The Ghost and Mrs Muir." Wouldn't that have been recorded in these same stages? Probably before they added diffusion even. And that stuff is dryer than a Taliban wake.


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## PaulWood (Nov 1, 2008)

perhaps my choice of word was wrong...

I was surprised by how *lively* (?) the AO impulse sounded.

I've been fiddling some more with it. One major problem I'm having is a phasing effect when the direct feed and the "altiverb'd" feeds are mixed together (there is a little direct feed coming through altiverb - which is what a mixer would get with 2 or more mic positions anyway).

That aside, AO is IMvHO the best scoring stage impulse in Altiverb. I think perhaps it needs brightening a little with the EQ or an exciter, but it sounds great!

Paul


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## José Herring (Nov 1, 2008)

PaulWood @ Sat Nov 01 said:


> perhaps my choice of word was wrong...
> 
> I was surprised by how *lively* (?) the AO impulse sounded.
> 
> ...



Yes. It's very lively with lots of early reflections. It's a bright vibrant stage.


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## PaulWood (Nov 1, 2008)

josejherring @ Sun Nov 02 said:


> Yes. It's very lively with lots of early reflections. It's a bright vibrant stage.



I haven't really noticed the brightness yet - I tend to get better results mixing in some direct feed. It seems to lose some definition otherwise.

P


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## Dr.Quest (Nov 1, 2008)

Something no one seems to address...the IRs are made in an empty room. You fill the room with 90 to 110 people with instruments, have mics over each section in stereo pairs then how does that equate to the empty room IR? This has to factor into how you use/mix the IR in with the music you are creating.


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## JohnG (Nov 1, 2008)

Well, there's "dry" like close-mic'd in an iso booth, and "dry" like with no extra reverb but played in a gigantic room, so maybe we're talking about two different ideas?

I'm really talking about the room around the sound, rather than reverb as such, but, either way, you definitely make an interesting point about the old scores sounding dryer. It's kind of odd, because when you sit in the room with the orchestra, it sounds -- roomy! Not wet at all but like it's in a big place with a lot of interaction in the sound. So, given that, something is different about those recordings.

Probably someone on the forum knows a lot more about the older methods than I do, but I've heard a few things from those better informed.

One thing that affects the old recordings and film soundtrack sound is the transfer process that they used in the olden days, which bled out a lot of ambient sound (and sound generally, come to that). The recording process was different too; sometimes mono, sometimes kind of haphazard, plus the fact that some of the older scores were recorded with more like 25 - 40 people rather than 90-110, sometimes in a smaller space, and often with the mics closer, on average, to the players so that less "blend" and interaction is going on. And of course some feature films transferred the music soundtrack in mono to the print, even if the picture was advertised as stereo.

So anyway, I guess the main emphasis I'm trying to make, ineptly enough, no doubt, is that samples need to be worked over if they are going to sound like they were recorded by the "stereo pair" above the conductor in a big room. Those mics are close to some players, but are 20-60 feet from many of the players, and there is a lot of air around the sound. Plus, you have all the sounds blending together in the room that big. I know that people use close mics, solo mics, and section mics too, but those have a different purpose, generally from what I'm talking about.

If you are going for a different sound -- great! But if you want Lord of the Rings, I think trying to create a big room to start with is a good thing to bear in mind.


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## José Herring (Nov 1, 2008)

PaulWood @ Sat Nov 01 said:


> josejherring @ Sun Nov 02 said:
> 
> 
> > Yes. It's very lively with lots of early reflections. It's a bright vibrant stage.
> ...



I'm talking about the stage. Not the IR. I've never heard the IR so I can't comment on that.

But Dr. Quest is right. It's an inherent problem with IR's in general. To add, the sign wave sweep done to create the IR also doesn't at all reflect the way real instruments react in a space. So what I've noticed about IR's is that they lack life and that they tend to get cloudy.

That's why I'm trying to move away from them and back to more traditional hardware verbs. I wish there was a good software algorhythmic verb but I haven't heard one just yet.

best,
Jose


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## KingIdiot (Nov 1, 2008)

josejherring @ Sat Nov 01 said:


> PaulWood @ Sat Nov 01 said:
> 
> 
> > josejherring @ Sun Nov 02 said:
> ...



I'm in total agreement with this. Its ben something I've ben complaining about with impulses/convolution when I first started playing with them in SForge/Acoustic Mirror.

They sound like a "real room" at first, but once you start mixing instruments in them, they jstart to require more and more work, and you end up with something cluttered in the low mids, and this wierd "spaciousness" in the uppers that really never goes anywhere. It feels dead, and awkward basically like playing through speakers in a room. That old trick works nice for drums when you compress the crap out of them, you get a "neat" sound. And works nice enough for solo instruments, but the natural sound of the impulse just has some inherent probs from the get go. Its not the same as a real room, s trying to mix into it as if you're instruments in a real room is probably, ultimately, the wrong approach (unless you can start to anticipate general masking that happens between instruments and do some EQing to mimic it)

I do however like the general Early Reflection sound from IRs better than more reverb units. Still in combination, I'm unsure if its "the best" approach to combine them as is.

I still like my ol Roland VS-1680 VSFX Reverb, when I listen back to some old stuff. I may start playing with Cakewalks Soundstage again. or look into whats been happening with voxengos impulse builder lately. Maybe they've put more "surface" options up. I wonder what kind of phasing you would introduce with crossfading between slightly shifting directional sources in that thing. Probably something MIR's been up to.

anywhoo... babbling mode off.

to your original statement Paul, I think Dr. Quest hit one of the major factors on the head, the other probably being that mics arent placed where the human ears are sometimes.


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## Ashermusic (Nov 2, 2008)

I am getting nice sounding results these days with a scoring stage IR in Alitverb combined with the UAD-2 Plate 140, which is the best sounding software plate I have ever heard.


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## PaulWood (Nov 2, 2008)

Having spent a few more hours with Altiverb, I'm actually beginning to prefer the Fox scoring stage IR. It seems cleaner and colours the sound less.

Next up, mixing different IRs for different instruments.

It's sad how much fun I'm having...

P


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 2, 2008)

"In my estimation, the verb you're hearing in movie scores is a combination of the "stage sound" of the studio and a reverb unit "hall" sound."

That's the key right there. If you want a big sound you need to add big reverb.

Another trick is to EQ the sends and get rid of some of the mud buildup below 300Hz. Or you can use multiple ER convolutions and feed them all to one or two tail-only programs.


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## PaulWood (Nov 3, 2008)

> Or you can use multiple ER convolutions and feed them all to one or two tail-only programs.



Hi Nick,

I agree that that does sound the "best" (to me, subjectively), but how does that work? Surely if you have 3 IR positions, you need the tails from each of those positions... Why does one only use one tail? Is the tail theò›Æ   ŠFÛ›Æ   ŠFÜ›Æ   ŠFÝ›Æ   ŠFÞ›Æ   ŠFß›Æ   ŠFà›Æ   ŠFá›Æ   ŠFâ›Æ   ŠFã›Æ   ŠFä›Æ   ŠFå›Æ   ŠFæ›Æ   ŠFç›Æ   ŠFè›Æ   ŠFé›Æ   ŠFê›Æ   ŠFë›Æ   ŠFì›Æ   ŠFí›Æ   ŠFî›Æ   ŠFï›Æ   ŠFð›Æ   ŠFñ›Æ   ŠFò›Æ   ŠFó›Æ   ŠFô›Æ   ŠFõ›Æ   ŠFö›Æ   ŠF÷›Æ   ŠFø›Æ   ŠFù›Æ   ŠFú›Æ   ŠFû›Æ   ŠFü›Æ


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## PaulWood (Nov 3, 2008)

Thank you! Yes, I decided a couple of days ago to hit the less scientific approach and not try to reproduce exactly what it would be in real life!

Who is "Mixing Audio" by?

I'll have a look at the pre-delay setting - it's not something I've ever touched!

I've been talking to someone by PM over on the VSL forum, and they use several different impulses for the various sections of the orchestra - it's something worth looking at I think. I'm becoming less and less happy with the Todd AO impulses, so I'll have a look at other ones.

Cheers,

Paul


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## bluejay (Nov 3, 2008)

Hi Paul,

The book is Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices and Tools by Roey Izhaki... I got a lot out of this.

For me, Todd AO works really well but then if you're not changing the pre-delay setting I guess it might sound really muddy. Just try setting it around 40-50ms for all of the reverbs (ER and tails) and see how that affects everything... My approach isn't much more scientific than that. If you want to lift something out of the mix a little then you can increase the pre-delay on the ERs.

Still I've heard people get wonderful results with all manner of different impulses (or even algorithmic reverbs).

cheers

James


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## KingIdiot (Nov 3, 2008)

I think learning to balance your levels between instruments and sections is more important than trying to get a "realistic space". Atleast at first. Anyone who I've admired when it came to orchestral stuff with samples (TJ, Simon, Maarten, Aaron, Craig, TOB, Soule, Brown, etc) the mix worked, but less so because they simulated a real space with impulses, but more so because they had the orchestral balanced between itself. Obviously the better reverbs they used, generally, the better the mix. But almost any composition I hear that uses alti solely, or as a focal point for "realistic space" I tend to find slightly sterile. Theres a tendency to focus so much on the space and depth, that it sounds less than lively overall. Even less "cohesive". Somewhat having a backwards effect.

This is just my opinion of course, but I think you'd do well to not overly focus on this Paul. This is coming from a guy who did (and still does alot of the time) what you are doing. trying desperately to find "that sound". Which... you might achieve,... but you're gonna spend way too much time on it, and you'll ultimately change your mind again 

one thing you might want to do is get a score out, and recreate it via samples, and work on making that sound balanced correctly volume wise with a more simple reverb and panning setup. This might give you a better starting point for fine tuning the mix by adding convolution and tighter positioning, without your over analyzing from the get go.

or if you've already started with positioning with alti, use a more simplified setup for starting out and mocking up an existing score. Then fine tune it with the more detailed approach you have in your head.

I think you'll be very surprised at how it will all sound together from the get go, and whats wrong with samples out of the gate.

With the approach you have right now, I believe you're gonna find you're gonna run out of resources and you're gonna fall into the trap of "I need more gear, to do what I want". (which will probably ALWAYS be the case, no matter what)

again, this isnt to shoot you down, its a lot of fun to get in there and tweak your sample positioning to death. I think everyone of us here has gone down this path at some point. Some of us never get out of it, and most of us return to it at some point, even when we're "happy" with our sound. Its part of the process of being a mock-up artist.

You're stuck in "engineer mode", which I am generally perpetually stuck in.... but dont let him run the whole session for you  

ask anyone here, I'm always in perpetual mix, edit, and TWEAK mode. I took some time away, and have been re-evaluating my priorities, and assessing what I need to have setup to compose more. As well as make better more inspired compositions.

I will still tweak samples to death, because its my nature, but I'm more focused on performance. Mixing is in my nature, I'll always get in there and tweak the mix, but if I start mixing from the get go, its all I'll ever do.

jsut a friendly post from another tweaker.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 3, 2008)

> I agree that that does sound the "best" (to me, subjectively), but how does that work? Surely if you have 3 IR positions, you need the tails from each of those positions... Why does one only use one tail? Is the tail the same whatever position in the room the impulse is recorded?



You can use individual tails, but the reason it makes no difference to the sound is that the early reflections - the first seven bounces (direct sound + bounces off the six surfaces of the cube you're in) - tell the brain way more about the space and the instruments than the tail. The tail comes long enough after that to be heard as a separate sound, and it's too much of a wash of echoes interacting with each other to matter whether each instrument's individual tail is only 99.999999999999% accurate rather than 100%.

It can be more expedient to use a separate tail for percussion and other things that can muddy up the reverb mix, though.




> I've also been playing with putting the tail on a) just the summed ER's, and b) the dry mix only. I'm not sure which would be more accurate, but I seem to get better results from creating the tail from the dry mix.



Then there's your answer. 

KI, I would argue that the impulses you're using are what makes the sound sterile, not the fact that you're using Altiverb. Convolution reverbs are garbage in/garbage out, good stuff in/good stuff out toys. Yeah you're not getting the Lexicon spin parameter, so it's a static picture, but I don't think that's it.


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## Peter Alexander (Nov 3, 2008)

Thonex and others echo my experience with both Mancini and Goldsmith. While every room is live to some degree or another, the magic happens when you walk into the control and hear the orchestra through $16,000 Lexicons.

Amazing.


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## KingIdiot (Nov 4, 2008)

You're right nick, I've always believed that the impulses themselves had a lot more to do with the overall sound than the convolution plug in being used. Not that they're all the same but, definitely the major difference in sound is the impulses

that said, I think it also has to do with the mixing approach. Alot of people tend to mix with a sense of that "depth" in the sound, and it just starts to sound way too distinct and unnatural to me.

It may also have to do with that whole "empty room" syndrome we were talking about earlier. This whole thread has me curious to try some ideas with impulses, with "shaping" them better.

It also has given me some neat ideas about trying to create impulses. So maybe I'll get around to them some time. Atleast they're ut up in my head now... along with all the other "hey, I wonder what would happen iff...?" ideas!


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## PaulWood (Nov 5, 2008)

Well I'm going to sit down tomorrow for a few hours and check out as many of the AV hardware impulses as I can to see what's what.

I've been doing some more testing with SISS and VSL through the Fox impulse, and - given that I want to use the VSL samples (symphonic strings and chamber strings) to give more "immediacy" to the SISS sound - have come to the conclusion that I really shouldn't waste that much time trying to get the release tails to match too perfectly... When everything is put through the positioning Altiverbs and the final (algorithmic) reverb, it "works" fine...

P


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