# How long does a convincing orchestral mock-up take?



## Buz (Mar 12, 2020)

I'm thinking ahead about getting help for MIDI projects later in the year. Just standard orchestra with existing scores.

On the one hand I could invest in orchestral libraries and do it myself. I'd enjoy it but with no experience the results will be limited, or at best the process will be time consuming.

It makes more sense to pay for someone's experience, but I'm not sure how much time/effort these things involve. If it's a month of work for a convincing 7-minute movement then I'd be wasting their time. But if someone can knock out something musical in a few days then it'd be a perfect arrangement. Above all I don't want to undervalue the process and end up getting something I could've just done myself.

Can anyone share insight about how much work these things involve? Does the majority of the time go into the solos or does everything generally need a lot of tweaking?


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## Maxtrixbass (Mar 13, 2020)

I have thought about that in case a composer friend asked me to do just that. My conclusion is that it is so time consuming to do it properly that I wouldn't even be interested in being hired. A month's worth of work for a 7 minute piece is not out of line with the time I spend.

Solos do take the most time, but pretty much everything is a slow go. Writing the stuff is the easy part. That is one hat. The next hat is playing the parts, the third recording, the fourth mixing (much more elaborate if realism is the goal), and finally a final mastering. I probably spend equal time writing and recording, 4x that for mixing, and 8 times that for the endless little tweeks of mastering. The timeline is pretty much the same for different approaches (ie midi based, playing the parts in via keyboard etc..)

Multiply the time you spend writing by 14 and that will give you a ballpark of the time required.

I would add I have worked as an audio engineer for 20 years and there is nothing more time consuming/difficult to deal with than sample based orchestral compositions. Its not just the complexity, its creating what live players would create on their own multiplied by every part...those little accents, crescendos, other subtle dynamics.... Recording a live orchestra is a breeze by comparison.

Right now I'm mixing a sample based sax concerto and have 3 tracks of the solo sax: 2 legato and another track of attack. Each attack gets mixed in when needed... I think I'm gonna get carpel tunnel by the time I'm done with it.

So yeah, insanely time consuming.


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## Glagoliath (Mar 13, 2020)

Buz said:


> I'm thinking ahead about getting help for MIDI projects later in the year. Just standard orchestra with existing scores.
> 
> On the one hand I could invest in orchestral libraries and do it myself.



That's the problem, because you can't do it blindly. Giving someone MIDI file is missing tons of information.
If you give to someone one MIDI 1/8 note. That note can be played by like 5 different articulations. Which one is it?






Accent (music) - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org






There's zero information how that note should be played.
That information which articulation you used is stored in samplers, where you are using different articulations and that's the difference between MIDI and note sheets.
In MIDI world I can slap staccatos and visually you see whole notes, like I played legato or sustains.

The difference is that people when using sound libraries they go by the feel and sometimes they will use spiccato instead of staccato or vise versa because it would sound more realistic or natural.


If you give me a whole note I don't have a clue should I use legato or sustains with fast attack.
I know that when I'm doing it, but I don't have a clue is that what you want or not.


If you give your MIDI file to 10 people who would use the same sound library, you'll have 10 different results, because there's no strict information how something should sound, it's missing, it's not there and 10 people will interpret things in 10 different ways, using their own feel to interpret the whole thing.


Then, you can come and hear 10 versions and say:
"OK, No1. did this good, but this part I don't like, it should sound different, No.5 did this good, but this part I don't like, No.3 did this good, but I don't like this part here....".

Even when it comes to velocities, people will correct them and make something louder, something quieter which of course you didn't do and you couldn't do by doing it blindly.

So, it's not just:"I give you MIDI file and you slap your orchestral library and that's it".
No, things are way, way, way, way more complicated than that.


I think that 80% of people here would rather die from hunger than to take your money and you go to fry their brains with 150 corrections because you'll go into mode "I paid you to do it, now do it how I want it to sound" and they'll go into mode:"Fuck you buddy, I did it, stop wasting my time and nitpicking about every note" which would happen because 80% of information is not supplied, it doesn't exist.

I mean, if you go and take some classical piano piece as a MIDI file, which was of course played by someone, if you load 5 pianos, it would sound different, not only because pianos sound different, but because of velocity layers and how pianos were sampled and some piano will sound louder, other one quieter and you would need to adjust velocities, for some piano to literally pull all velocities down and to go:"Ok, now it sounds better".


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Mar 13, 2020)

It just depends on the music and what's required. Mostly has to do with the number of articulations needed for each part. If you just have long strings, then that's quick to get sounding good. If you're constantly alternating between different articulations then that's a lot of moving midi around and getting articulations to play well with each other.

Something simple will be done in an hour. Something super complicated would take a couple of days. If you look at the Test Drive mockup on my website, I think that took about 3 days.


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## Maxtrixbass (Mar 13, 2020)

Glagoliath raises some good points albeit perhaps rather dramatically 

Most people here doing this have probably dealt with the lack of, umm, appreciation of how much work it takes to do these things. I give anyone credit for finishing something that works even if its a composition I don't particularly like just because I realize the effort that went into it. I've been doing this since the 80's and probably work faster than anyone I know and still find it absurdly time consuming.

That would also make me hesitant to try and "realize" anyone's midi files or scores for that matter. First I would be playing audio engineer, conductor and players which does lead to a large number of interpretations. Secondly I too would probably throw myself off a cliff if I turned in a final product only to have a gazillion little things, or perhaps large things, that "weren't right"....and that's with music brilliantly orchestrated. Again, as an audio engineer I wish I had a dime for every mix complaint that was really a problem of performance/arrangement. Trying to make a bad orchestration, or just composition/orchestration problems, work for a client would be a nightmare.

So yeah, I'd be in the 80% that would rather starve..


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## Maxtrixbass (Mar 13, 2020)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Something simple will be done in an hour. Something super complicated would take a couple of days. If you look at the Test Drive mockup on my website, I think that took about 3 days.



I listened to your samples..Great job. If you did Test Drive or the Star Wars in 3 days my hats off to you. If the OP wants to hire you I would really really hope the work is appreciated. If you finish a 7 minute piece from a midi file in less than 2 weeks I would call you a miracle worker.


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## jononotbono (Mar 13, 2020)

Maxtrixbass said:


> I've been doing this since the 80's and probably work faster than anyone I know and still find it absurdly time consuming.



Have you got a link to your music and any examples of your mockup skills? Would love to hear them! Thanks!


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## Maxtrixbass (Mar 13, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Have you got a link to your music and any examples of your mockup skills? Would love to hear them! Thanks!



I didn't say I was any good at it, only that I've been doing it since the 80s.. 

"The Clock Shop"


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## jononotbono (Mar 13, 2020)

Maxtrixbass said:


> I didn't say I was any good at it, only that I've been doing it since the 80s..
> 
> "The Clock Shop"




Thanks for sharing man. Interesting music. I always respect anyone that shares their music no matter what it is. There’s a lot of relentless posters that have never shared a bar so they could be Milk Men and Women for all I know 😂


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## Buz (Mar 14, 2020)

Thanks for the responses. I'm hearing bad experiences which are helpful to understand. 

I should've clarified these are well known scores so it's not blind work. But that's a great point about it essentially being a conducting role with all the corresponding nuance and intuition.

It sounds like when I do this I should lead with a few sections free of articulation trouble. Then I'll notice if I have totally unrealistic/arbitrary musical expectations without creating a stressful situation.


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## JacquesMathias (Mar 14, 2020)

Hey Buz and everyone, these mock-up projects are as stressful as it gets, particularly when you have only 3-4 days to come up with something that don't embarrass yourself as a professional. 14 hours a day easily, specially when you're supposed to do it without the score. These projects are good to people suffering from Messiah syndrome - it'll will humble you very quickly.

I once did a whole project, if anyone care to check out, there are a lot of known themes over there: (these were done with more time and kind of "old" already - from 2015-16 era...)

- Home Alone 
- Flying Theme
- Hedwig's Theme
- A Whole New World
- The Great Escape
- Pacific Rim 
- Gonna Fly Now
- Battle Without Honor or Humanity 
- Misirlou
- The Pink Phanter
- Indiana Jones






MOCK-UPS | jacquesmathias







www.jacquesmathias.com


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## Prockamanisc (Mar 14, 2020)

One of my composer friends was naively like "I'm gonna write some stuff and you can mock it up for me, right?" And I was like "hell no, it's a pain in the ass". He ended up dying the next year of cancer (at 27), and I always felt bad about it. That was back in 2012 or so.

Here is my strategy, though: First, you have to have an orchestral template in Cubase ready to go. Second, you compose the stuff in Dorico, Sibelius, etc. Then you export the MIDI, XML, or whatever you like, and import it into your template in Cubase. You're halfway done. 

Then you go section by section and mock it all up by instrument family. So if the first section is 1 minute, start with the strings, and start with Violin 1 and make sure it sounds realistic for the first minute. Then V2, Vla, Vcl, Bs. Then on to the Brass, etc. At the end of each family, make sure it sounds good together. And just do that for a few days and you'll be done, and it will sound good.


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## robgb (Mar 14, 2020)

It all depends on who you're trying to convince.


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## ryans (Mar 14, 2020)

robgb said:


> It all depends on who you're trying to convince.



^^Important^^ 

I did the following mockups pretty quick? by my standards.. about 3 hours total for Star Wars and 5 for Raiders, so around 4 hours per minute for fairly complex orchestral music...

They aren't the best mockups in the world but as far as mockups go I think they are _convincing_ 'enough' for most purposes... I feel like I could spend months more tweaking but it would be extremely diminishing returns...

Some may consider these good mockups... but to a trained ear, compared to the live recordings I used for reference.. these mockups are trash.. garbage.. not even music.. by comparison. The mockup is so far from the real thing that I have to question whether even 3 hours was worth it....

Ryan


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Mar 15, 2020)

Maxtrixbass said:


> I listened to your samples..Great job. If you did Test Drive or the Star Wars in 3 days my hats off to you. If the OP wants to hire you I would really really hope the work is appreciated. If you finish a 7 minute piece from a midi file in less than 2 weeks I would call you a miracle worker.


I believe the Star Wars was done on a single day as that was for a project with tight deadlines  You wouldn't believe the amount of Disney and Marvel that I mocked up in 2 weeks.


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## joebaggan (Mar 16, 2020)

I enjoy the technical side of doing mockups, but it's so tedious/time consuming and distracting from actually making music that I've gone back to using Noteperformer since I'm a notation based composer. I'm not a professional so doesn't matter much, but NP does a pretty good job with its algorithms to make musical decisions. I can't help but think in the future that this kind of AI approach will speed up the tedious tweaking that mockups currently require. I'd like to see the AI algorithms of Noteperformer integrated with high end VI's like Spitfire for example.


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## Emanuel Fróes (Feb 27, 2022)

Buz said:


> I'm thinking ahead about getting help for MIDI projects later in the year. Just standard orchestra with existing scores.
> 
> On the one hand I could invest in orchestral libraries and do it myself. I'd enjoy it but with no experience the results will be limited, or at best the process will be time consuming.
> 
> ...


it is interesting. As the other guy said it can take years adjusting nuances. But is also true that if your composition was made FOR these sounds, it should so easy as recording a pro orchestra. Composers are always somehow doing FOR.This is the essence of instrumentation and orchestration.

Now: serious orchestral pieces with a lot of *orchestral gestures *, voice, and solos, consume a lot of time in all stages of composition, and then you multiply this for 10 later in mixing/mastering/hearing/revising.

Regarding these gesture i struggle still. See: the way musicians react to balance and crescendos is such amazing complex phenomenon to translate into tracks, automation and faders, while still composing (not mixing). This is what i investigate now, for example.

If you hear Graham Plowman, you will get this feeling that the instruments are “hearing” reacting to each other, and that the orchestral gestures are convincing, however still nothing like “Un Bateau Sur Le Ocean”…!

So: it is absolutely possible to be closer of a Ravel and a JXl at the same time so to say: fine, but faster. Just have to learn well the requirements. And they are many…

But if you can’t, buy Symphobia, put part of the orchestra in the step sequencer , loop it, and call it a new symphony  All depends on the goals.

A last very decisive thing to consider is: if 1) your mock up is provisory 2) your muck up IS the music. I am in the two. For provisory things i would use a score.

And i will swear to you: from written score to concert it takes way more time, frustration, and harm to creativity today, unless you are already well networked, talented for aural writing, win contests, depending on the taste of the government, or doing good financially by your self.


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## ChrisSiuMusic (Feb 27, 2022)

Love this topic. Generally it'll take me between 15-20 hours total from initial idea to polished master. Of course it's different for everyone, and it really depends on what your goals are!


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