# SSO Mockup - "Leaving Hogwarts" from Harry Potter



## Karma (Jul 7, 2019)

Hello everyone, you may (or most likely may not) remember that last year I did a mockup of Williams' "Dartmoor, 1912" from War Horse. I recently decided to take a shot at another and this time went for one of my favourite cues from the first Harry Potter film. I had a lot of fun with this one and streamed a fair amount of the process over on Twitch. I'll be looking to do another from scratch in a few weeks so feel free to stop by!






All of the libraries used are Spitfire:

Symphonic Strings
Chamber Strings
Solo Strings (layered, not shown in DAWCast)
Symphonic Woodwinds
Symphonic Brass
Joby Burgess Percussion
Orchestral Grand
Skaila Kanga Harp

Thanks to Joël Dollie for the mix too. He'll be uploading a mix deconstruction in a few days over at his YouTube channel here.


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## BlackCoyote (Jul 7, 2019)

This sounds great luke, very impressive!


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## StevenMcDonald (Jul 7, 2019)

Sounds awesome. And in record time, too!


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## paularthur (Jul 7, 2019)

Love it! Wasn't the original also Air Lyndhurst?


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## Guffy (Jul 7, 2019)

Hello there Karma.

This is very well done. I think you nailed it.

Best,

G


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## Karma (Jul 7, 2019)

paularthur said:


> Love it! Wasn't the original also Air Lyndhurst?


Thanks a lot! I believe it was both AIR and Abbey Road, so I'm not sure about this cue in particular. I know that Simon Rhodes engineered though.


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## Farkle (Jul 7, 2019)

This is GOOD, KAHHHMA.. Nice work! 

Mike


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## CT (Jul 7, 2019)

Fantastic, as always! 

Could you talk a little about how you've balanced the different sections against each other? With the Studio series, I find myself usually dropping the strings by 1 or 2 DB, and the winds by as much as 8, leaving the brass at 0. I know some people prefer to automate that, rather than setting it at something static.


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## gussunkri (Jul 7, 2019)

Very impressive!


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## Karma (Jul 7, 2019)

miket said:


> Fantastic, as always!
> 
> Could you talk a little about how you've balanced the different sections against each other? With the Studio series, I find myself usually dropping the strings by 1 or 2 DB, and the winds by as much as 8, leaving the brass at 0. I know some people prefer to automate that, rather than setting it at something static.


Thanks a lot! Honestly there's no real secret other than trusting your ears. I prefer not to automate my levels through faders and generally try to get them close and only micro adjust using Expression (CC11). Mocking up an already existing piece really does help to get balance though!


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## JF (Jul 7, 2019)

Great work! How do you layer the strings together mic/volume wise?


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## novaburst (Jul 7, 2019)

Bang


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## Karma (Jul 8, 2019)

JF said:


> Great work! How do you layer the strings together mic/volume wise?


Thanks! It's mostly a matter of taste really, this is mainly Decca Tree and Outriggers with a little bit of close and Ambient where needed. As for layering, I bring the Solo Strings down until I feel like they would sit well in the section itself. They are in there, but ideally you don't want to hear it unless you really focus in on it. I didn't mess around with the mics on the Solo Strings, it's just the Decca


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## ricoderks (Jul 8, 2019)

Sounds impressive indeed! Great job! Power of using same dev libraries shines!


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## jamieboo (Jul 8, 2019)

Very nicely done!


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## Karma (Jul 8, 2019)

ricoderks said:


> Sounds impressive indeed! Great job! Power of using same dev libraries shines!


Ha, yes it certainly helps (and thanks!). I confirmed today that the original recording location was AIR as well, so that's a nice bonus


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## xaviduch (Jul 8, 2019)

Cool! Great job and very good balance with instruments position, clear and well defined! I love that score!


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## petec (Jul 11, 2019)

Beautiful. It's careful, considered and with fine attention to details. Loved it. Thank you.


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## Paul T McGraw (Jul 11, 2019)

@Karma great work on balancing the sections and individual instruments. I really enjoyed it.


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## dropsnorz (Jul 18, 2019)

Well done, this is very impressive !


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## proko (Nov 8, 2019)

Hi, I'm a music teacher in Paris (conservatoire) who conduct a student's orchestra. I'm writing a "Harry Potter's medley" for them and it's really hard and long ! I would like to finish with "Leaving Hogwarts" but it's really long to write the score (on Sibelius) . So my question is : is it possible to you to give me just the midi files of this wonderful score you've made ? It will really help me ! and save me lot of time ! I would give you the sibelius score after that if you have interest in ? I hope you will agree and will be sincerely grateful.


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## Karma (Nov 8, 2019)

Hi proko,

Unfortunately the MIDI wouldn't really represent the score very well here. I'm doing a lot of layering and moving things around, as well as that there's lots of different tracks featuring articulations that wouldn't be there in reality. I imagine it'd be a bit of a mess, especially when trying to write to score!


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## TGV (Nov 8, 2019)

Bloody impressive!


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## Architekton (Nov 10, 2019)

Outstanding, well done!


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## Cass Hansen (Nov 10, 2019)

Hey Karma

With all the talk here about how cohesive the sound is with BBCSO and how one also feels the depth of the sound-stage, I actually prefer your mockup for those exact reasons, proving that depth and cohesiveness can be done with older libraries like SSO. 

I recall you used primarily lots of outrigger and ambient mics in this and your mockup of War Horse.
To get this level of realism, did you use other plugins such as delay to create a Haas effect on various instruments and what reverb setting did you use to create this wonderful sonic spectrum. If you choose to share I’d be most grateful.

At any rate, this is the best rendered mockup I’ve heard here. Congrats………….


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## Andrew0568 (Nov 10, 2019)

This sounds incredible! Did you transcribe it by ear?


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## Karma (Nov 10, 2019)

Cass Hansen said:


> To get this level of realism, did you use other plugins such as delay to create a Haas effect on various instruments and what reverb setting did you use to create this wonderful sonic spectrum. If you choose to share I’d be most grateful.


Hey Cass, thanks a lot! The mix was actually a duo effort with my friend Joël Dollié, he does a full mix breakdown here.

As for mics, this one was actually more just Tree and Outriggers on most. A good mix does help, though I think the most important tip in getting VI's more convincing is focusing on phrasing as well as the balance between instruments, as once you get that things often start to fall into place. Having well recorded samples helps a ton too .

After listening again now there's definitely a few things I'd change, which is why I tend to avoid listening back


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## Markus Kohlprath (Nov 11, 2019)

proko said:


> Hi, I'm a music teacher in Paris (conservatoire) who conduct a student's orchestra. I'm writing a "Harry Potter's medley" for them and it's really hard and long ! I would like to finish with "Leaving Hogwarts" but it's really long to write the score (on Sibelius) . So my question is : is it possible to you to give me just the midi files of this wonderful score you've made ? It will really help me ! and save me lot of time ! I would give you the sibelius score after that if you have interest in ? I hope you will agree and will be sincerely grateful.


Just google John Williams Midi Files. You would be surprised what you can do with these.😉


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## Alatar (Nov 11, 2019)

Nice! I like it  Especially the ending.


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## Cass Hansen (Nov 11, 2019)

Yeah, I agree. Phrasing and balancing is really the key to great mockups, it's what turns instrument patches into music. And thanks for the link. Really appreciate it. Off to watch it now..............


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## Jos Wylin (Nov 11, 2019)

A fabulous piece of sound work! Beautiful recording, balans, mix, instrumental colors... Just wonderful!
Jos


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## Vladimir Bulaev (Nov 14, 2019)

Well done! What patches legato did you use for strings? *Performance Legato* or *Legato Performance*? I'm interested because patch *Performance Legato* is simplified and lacks speed control, but for some reason everyone praises him. When, as a patch, *Legato Performance* allows deeper control over articulation for legato.


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## Karma (Nov 15, 2019)

Vladimir Bulaev said:


> Well done! What patches legato did you use for strings? *Performance Legato* or *Legato Performance*? I'm interested because patch *Performance Legato* is simplified and lacks speed control, but for some reason everyone praises him. When, as a patch, *Legato Performance* allows deeper control over articulation for legato.


Thanks! These were actually the Performance Legato patches only, layered with Solo Strings to help mask the transitions some more. You're quite right though, for a piece like this I could have definitely benefited more from having access to the speed slider. I imagine it would have especially helped with some of the early exposed string lines.

If I could be bothered I'd go back and switch it all out, but once these things are done I tend to try not to revisit them


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## jbuhler (Nov 15, 2019)

Vladimir Bulaev said:


> Well done! What patches legato did you use for strings? *Performance Legato* or *Legato Performance*? I'm interested because patch *Performance Legato* is simplified and lacks speed control, but for some reason everyone praises him. When, as a patch, *Legato Performance* allows deeper control over articulation for legato.


People praise performance legato because it does so many things under the hood. You can use it more readily without thinking about it and the vast majority of time it works great. Of course there are times when it doesn’t and legato performance works better. And there are other times still when the underlying legato patches themselves work best.


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## Karma (Nov 15, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> People praise performance legato because it does so many things under the hood. You can use it more readily without thinking about it and the vast majority of time it works great. Of course there are times when it doesn’t and legato performance works better. And there are other times still when the underlying legato patches themselves work best.


Absolutely! For anything more agile I would probably always go for Performance Legato instead.


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## Jos Wylin (Nov 17, 2019)

Awesome job sound wise and balance!


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