# Spiral score album incoming...



## charlieclouser

Hey kids, some shameless self-promotion incoming.

Ever wonder what I do with my 7-stem, 768-instance, all-EXS24 template? Well now you can hear the results.

The album of my score for the ninth (!) movie in the SAW horror franchise is available for pre-order on Apple Music, and will hit all the major streaming sites in a week. The movie "Spiral : From The Book Of SAW", starring Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella, and Marisol Nichols, opens only in theaters tonight, May 14th 2021. 

But you can preview two of the cues right now, right here:









Listen to a Pair of ‘Spiral’ Tracks by Charlie Clouser from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Exclusive]


From an original Nine Inch Nails member who since turned composer.




bloody-disgusting.com


----------



## goalie composer

Congrats Charlie! Your work rocks!


----------



## sourcefor

I’m in


----------



## Nico

Beautiful tracks, great sounds and great mixing too. So much low end and yet so much control.


----------



## CGR

Wow - love the percussive elements in 'Boz' over the heavy strings & brass. Great textures.


----------



## MarcusD

Damn Charlie, you’re a beast. Tracks are killer... (no pun intended) and those mixes are real tasty!


----------



## charlieclouser

Thank you everyone for the kind compliments. Some notes on the sounds:

- It's all in-the-box of course, done in Logic v10.4.8 with 768 instances of EXS24 in my template (not the upgraded Logic Sampler), MOTU 112d and 1248 interfaces with 256 buffer on a 2013 Mac Pro cylinder 12-core 64gb RAM. Almost all of the sampled sounds are coming from EXS with a few Kontakt and Omnisphere instances here and there. Usually I had less than 30 audio tracks, either recorded directly into Logic or stuff that was manipulated in Ableton Live and then bounced into Logic. I do have a UAD Octo Satellite Thunderbolt with almost every UAD plugin, but I can't remember if or when I used them on this score. Maybe UAD Neve 1073 channel (the one with the fader on the UI which is way better than the others for me) or maybe AMS RMX reverb on a drum or something, but it's not a UAD mix by any means. I have VEPro available to run locally on the Logic machine but did not use it for this score.

- The low brass+strings stacks on BOZ are comprised of Tundra Brass Cresc-Dim, Symphobia Orch Low Sus, Metropolis Ark 1 strings cresc, Symphobia strings cresc, a cresc-dim from 8dio Black, my old faithful Kirk Hunter Strings Esp from the S-1000 era, and an EWQL french horns sus from the olden days. Later a bit of Symphobia sordino sus strings come in as well as some "coal" pads from one of the Spitfire libraries, and there's some brass swells from Arks, EWQLSO, and Symphobia as well. Lots of elements stacking up in different ways, each hiding some deficiency in the others. Everybody hiding behind somebody else.

- On WAXED the ostinato strings are a gigantic stack containing elements from 8dio Century Strings Ostinatos, Metropolis Ark 3 Strings Repetitions 16ths, and the original Action Strings (yes, I admit this). First I recorded manually-played staccatos to flesh out the parts, and then I dove into using those repetitions libraries to get a less-MIDI feel. Once I got all those elements marching in lock-step I added more manually-played elements on top from any strings library that had short attacks and good bite - mostly CS2, CineSamples, Spitfire Iceni, Sonic Implants, and the original ProSonus marcatos that I had manually sampled one note at a time into an Akai S-1000 from one of the first-ever orchestral sample libraries on audio CD in the 1990's. Still have 'em, still use 'em. There's also some Symphobia strings and strings+brass staccatos doing whomps on the downbeats to add accents. I used Waves Abbey Road Saturator to light a fire under the ostinato strings stem. I hate doing those kind of "normal" parts because it always sounds fake to me, so I just push it a little more into fake territory and disregard any semblance of realism. To me those ostinatos are the organic equivalent of metal chug guitars. Maybe next time I'll just use guitars instead - probably get 'em done in a day instead of three days of fiddling with Kontakt string libraries....

- On WAXED there is a ton of "gronkulated" elements done in Ableton Live, made from god knows what percussion and synth samples that have been granulated and tempo-stretched far beyond normal limits. I'd mess with the time-stretch modes and grain sizes to get them to produce pitched tones that fit with the track. Drums have a bit of Action Strikes (yes, I admit this) on the high percussion and ticky-tacks elements, as well as a mob of live drums I recorded at my place, quantized in Ableton, and then edited and re-pitched until I didn't hate them. Plus tons of single hits to get things to sound consistent.

- Pretty much all the reverb and delay is from the ol' faithful Space Designer 2.3s Piano Hall preset and Logic's Stereo Delay set to ping-pong on dotted eighths. Each stem has a front and a back instance of each which I access via sends from the individual channels. I never put individual reverbs or delays on individual tracks unless it's a special effect like a Black Hole on a piano or a Tape Delay with crazy feedback or something.

- Almost all the eq and compression is Logic's stock (not linear phase) EQ and stock compressor on Platinum Digital mode with 2:1 ratio, zero attack, auto-release, auto-makeup-gain at -12db, 0.3 knee, and 100% wet. No parallel compression here! I did deploy some special-purpose EQ and compression once in a while, but my default stock plugins are usually fine. There is generally a LOT of compression on individual elements, but with Logic's Platinum Digital mode it's mojo-free and doesn't really color things - it's just invisible level control. This makes it so much easier for me to mix since I don't have to do volume automation on every single thing. I use very little automation in general, mostly on things like Tape Delay feedback or other special effects.

- As usual I used Waves L3-LL MultiMaximizer as a per-stem limiter. On some stems it's taking a BIG bite out of the peaks, as much as 6-9db in places, and, yes, I realize that a multi-band limiter IS changing the tonal balance of each stem quite a bit as each band bites down independently, but since I'm always mixing THROUGH the L3 instances, and have them on and set from the get-go through the whole process of selecting sounds, building a template, composing and mixing, there's never a weird surprise like you'd get if you apply them at the end of the process and everything changes. I'm selecting, stacking, EQing, and compressing individual elements while hearing what L3 is doing to them down-stream, so for me this works - and my stems are held to exact peak values and the composite mix never clips, even though I have no processing at all on that composite mix - it's just a unity-gain sum of the stems.

- For delivery to the dub stage I printed seven stems in 5.1 (well, 4.1 actually since I leave the center channel empty). I did occasionally send some elements into the LFE channels but I did not remove them from any other channels - that was just a way to isolate a kick drum or whatever into its own channel so the dubbing mixers could hit the subs without sending a whole drum stem to them.

- For the album release I discarded the LFE and rear Ls+Rs channels (no down mix here) and just used the front pair from each stem. I imported my composite mix as well as the seven stereo pairs and if the composite mix sounded good I went with that for about a third of the cues, but on the bigger and more complex cues I went to the stems. On most of those I did a little bit of editing to remove spurious jump-scare sounds that only make sense against picture, add a little bit of per-stem volume automation to re-balance things here and there, and occasionally things like Abbey Road Saturator on one or two stems to spice them up a bit.

- Then the whole mix of those stems hit Ozone v9 with a brick wall high-pass at 20hz, a bit of the Exciter at amount around 5 and mix at 100% on the two highest bands ONLY, and of course the Maximizer on IRC IV mode, Character = 1.8, and Transient Emphasis at 100 (which is halfway up on the slider). I always automate the Maximizer Threshold to "chase" the level of the mix so that I can bring up quiet passages and then back off when things get loud. I'm shooting for no more than 3 db of gain reduction, most of the time it's 1db or so. Sometimes on the big industrial beat-down tracks I'll print two versions, one with no more than 3db of crush, and another with the threshold set 3db lower for around 6db of crush, and leave it up to the mastering engineer to pick one or go back to the un-Ozoned versions if all of mine are too stomped on. I always deliver the un-processed mix of the stems as well as the one or two Ozone'd versions just in case.

- Mastering was done by Dave Donnelly at DNA Mastering. He said he usually used my normal Ozone'd versions, but did cut in short sections of the super-crushed Ozone'd versions on a couple of cues. The super-crushed versions have the effect of pushing the drums down and bringing the metal guitars up, so sometimes that's better. In most cases he'd do a bit of corrective EQ, very slight boosts and cuts usually in the upper midrange, like no more than 1-2db. On a couple of cues he did add more very slight peak limiting using Weiss hardware I think, and he re-leveled the cues a bit to meet delivery standards for different formats because my Ozone'd mixes were all peaking at -0.5db. I don't know from LUFS or RMS or all that, I only speak peak. But in general my home mastering is what you hear. Ozone is a bad mofo for sure.

Sure can get a lot done in the box these days, eh?


----------



## wilifordmusic

Charlie, this stuff is the future. 
You've used the orchestral elements that everyone flails around with trying to make sound like a "real" orchestra and then melted them into the overtly electronic orchestra and created a new species.

While the movie that this music supports is not my cup of tea, I'll buy the soundtrack just to learn more about the future of music.

You really have done something special.
You should be very proud and should feel free to pat yourself on the back. 
I would do it if I were there.

Now I have to listen to those two tracks a couple dozen more times.

Steve

ps and thanks for the tutorial/inside look above.


----------



## charlieclouser

wilifordmusic said:


> Charlie, this stuff is the future.
> You've used the orchestral elements that everyone flails around with trying to make sound like a "real" orchestra and then melted them into the overtly electronic orchestra and created a new species.


Well, thanks! I don't think it's all _that_ special, since it's just an extension of what I've always done, whether on albums or on scores. I just want to capture that aspect of the vocal > synth crossfade in Pink Floyd's "Sheep" that blew my 12-year-old mind, or the organic/synthetic soup of the Byrne + Eno collaborations on Fear of Music, Remain In Light, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and The Catherine Wheel. Those records had familiar organic tonalities but things blended and merged into a totality where the sum was much greater than the parts.

I love to blend a french horn attack with a bowed metal sustain, or merge chugging strings with chugging guitars until you don't know quite what you're hearing. 

It all started (and continues) because no one sound is good enough - it can always be better. If a mournful cello is nice, and a spooky bowed metal texture is also nice, then the two blended together to play a single part would surely be even nicer, right? And there's only so many parts that can fit in a single piece of music without it becoming a flowery hailstorm of too much information. So, more sounds playing fewer parts is my goal.

Glad it's working... so far.


----------



## wilifordmusic

Yes, but you do it well. 
There are some elements of the new soundtrack that are a natural continuation of the music you've done in the past. Evolution. A good thing I think.

The hybrids you create are needed because you and some of us realize that virtual instruments on their own will always come up a little short compared to people hitting things or blowing through things at the same time in the same space.

As you said, no one sound is good enough.

Also, you are nice enough to share with us your methods and thought process, thanks.

Yeah, Animals is also on my frequent playlist even now.

Have a nice night, bedtime in my half of the states.


----------



## CGR

wilifordmusic said:


> Charlie, this stuff is the future.
> You've used the orchestral elements that everyone flails around with trying to make sound like a "real" orchestra and then melted them into the overtly electronic orchestra and created a new species.
> 
> While the movie that this music supports is not my cup of tea, I'll buy the soundtrack just to learn more about the future of music.
> 
> You really have done something special.
> You should be very proud and should feel free to pat yourself on the back.
> I would do it if I were there.
> 
> Now I have to listen to those two tracks a couple dozen more times.
> 
> Steve
> 
> ps and thanks for the tutorial/inside look above.


Yeah - just when I think I'm starting to get it together musically, I hear stuff like this and realise how much I've got to learn. Back to the woodshed . . .


----------



## charlieclouser

HA! Number one at the box office! Sorry Angelina.


----------



## imusic

_congratulations, Charlie !

Very gracious with your insights, you are a gentleman, sir ... 👌_


----------



## Nico




----------



## wilifordmusic

Charlie, I haven't had a chance to watch your video yet but here's a question in case it wasn't mentioned in the interview.- Saving the interview for my weekend (mon/tue) entertainment.

What music services are going to distribute/sell your score, and is it available with just your score and not the other musical/song elements?

thanks again. Steve


----------



## charlieclouser

wilifordmusic said:


> Charlie, I haven't had a chance to watch your video yet but here's a question in case it wasn't mentioned in the interview.- Saving the interview for my weekend (mon/tue) entertainment.
> 
> What music services are going to distribute/sell your score, and is it available with just your score and not the other musical/song elements?
> 
> thanks again. Steve


The score album is different from the EP by 21savage, which is the one with all the non-score songs on it. My album is only the best 72 minutes of the score, with most cues shortened a little bit, some cues omitted entirely, things like spurious jump-scare sounds taken out, and remixed a little bit from the stems.

My album is available for streaming / purchase on Spotify, Apple Music, probably Amazon Prime, who knows where else. Wherever Lakeshore Records pushes their releases to I guess. I just make the music, man, I dunno what happens to it after I throw it to Lakeshore!


----------



## LamaRose

Man, those are both effective and affective tracks... makes me want to watch my first SAW movie. Crazy amount of layering and "glazing" behind those sounds. Thanks for posting your thoughts/processes.

Yep... it's streaming on Apple.


----------



## charlieclouser

Welp, now it's official: Billion with a "B".









‘Spiral’ Pushes ‘Saw’ Franchise Past $1 Billion at Global Box Office


In a scary-good box office milestone, the stomach-churning “Saw” franchise has surpassed $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. “Spiral,” the lastest entry in the horror seri…




variety.com


----------



## LamaRose

charlieclouser said:


> Welp, now it's official: Billion with a "B".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘Spiral’ Pushes ‘Saw’ Franchise Past $1 Billion at Global Box Office
> 
> 
> In a scary-good box office milestone, the stomach-churning “Saw” franchise has surpassed $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. “Spiral,” the lastest entry in the horror seri…
> 
> 
> 
> 
> variety.com


Good thing you included that 1% box office take in your original contract.


----------



## charlieclouser

LamaRose said:


> Good thing you included that 1% box office take in your original contract.


Hahaha I wish! But because they are all "indie" films, financed by the producers and then licensed to Lionsgate for distribution, the producers and I do control 100% of the publishing and masters. This has proven to be.... beneficial.


----------



## Karl Feuerstake

Sounds great! Congrats on the successful release Charlie. The mixing is absolutely stellar, and those low drums make my blood run cold. I love a good horror score, and hopefully one day I can actually watch the film (not playing in Kingston, ON at the moment.)

I'm wondering if you're willing to share a bit about how you made a certain sound; the high-pitched 'clacky' percussion at 0:44s in Boz (the sound with the delay on it.) What the heck is that? It sounds so cool and suspenseful!


----------



## charlieclouser

Karl Feuerstake said:


> I'm wondering if you're willing to share a bit about how you made a certain sound; the high-pitched 'clacky' percussion at 0:44s in Boz (the sound with the delay on it.) What the heck is that? It sounds so cool and suspenseful!



That little clack-y thing used to be a tiny snare with a ton of reverb on it, and then I messed with the pitch, bandpass filtered it in Ableton using their stock AutoFilter plugin, and stuck some Logic Tape Delay on it. All of the drums on that cue are a shameless rip-off of JNH's score to Michael Clayton. Lots of stuff pitched down, bandpass or lowpass filtered, and plenty of Logic Tape Delay. The percussion on Michael Clayton is deceptive - it seems like it would take two minutes with a slowed-down hip-hop loop and some filtering, but it always winds up taking me two hours instead of two minutes!


----------



## Nate Johnson

I've followed your notes (novels?) on your rig for a while now - but how the HELL do you keep track of what you have at your disposal for sounds at any given moment? I know you're highly organized with every bit and bob you've ever had, but still man, HOW? 

I have a tiny little fraction of the samples you've got and I'm starting to forget 'super-cool-shit-I-could-have-used-on-this-track' here and there. 

Congrats on the release and continued success with the franchise - horror movies hitting $1 billion? Who'd of thought?!


----------



## Karl Feuerstake

charlieclouser said:


> That little clack-y thing used to be a tiny snare with a ton of reverb on it, and then I messed with the pitch, bandpass filtered it in Ableton using their stock AutoFilter plugin, and stuck some Logic Tape Delay on it. All of the drums on that cue are a shameless rip-off of JNH's score to Michael Clayton. Lots of stuff pitched down, bandpass or lowpass filtered, and plenty of Logic Tape Delay. The percussion on Michael Clayton is deceptive - it seems like it would take two minutes with a slowed-down hip-hop loop and some filtering, but it always winds up taking me two hours instead of two minutes!


Awesome, thanks for sharing! Sounds like quite a process, but I think it pays off


----------



## charlieclouser

Nate Johnson said:


> I've followed your notes (novels?) on your rig for a while now - but how the HELL do you keep track of what you have at your disposal for sounds at any given moment? I know you're highly organized with every bit and bob you've ever had, but still man, HOW?


In terms of separating the wheat from the chaff:

- If it's EXS Instruments we're talking about, they've already been culled to the point where everything in there is good, approved for use, and there simply IS no chaff. Plus, with EXS Instruments you can browse through them using the arrow keys and key commands on the Mac keyboard from within Logic - zero mouse movements or clicks required - and they load instantly (or in less than one second) so it's really fast to arrow-key your way to what you want.

- If those EXS Instruments were created by extracting WAVs from un-locked (non-Kontakt-Player) Kontakt libraries, or converting Kontakt v5 or earlier libraries using Chicken Systems Translator, then they've been SEVERELY culled during the export / import / conversion / editing process. My keep rate on extracted / converted Kontakt stuff is less than 5%, probably closer to 2%. So there's not all that much to weed through. It's all wheat, baby!

- If we're talking about Kontakt libraries that were either, A) too complex to convert to EXS in a practical manner, or B) a Kontakt v6 or Player library that can't be converted and won't export its WAVs, then I usually do the following:

1 - Right after purchasing and initial installation, while I'm still psyched to hear what I just bought, I duplicate the Instruments folder, and compress the original to a ZIP archive, so I have a safety of the Instruments, a zipped safety, and my "working copy". These are named "Instruments Original Names", "Instruments Original Names.zip", and "Instruments".

1b - If we're talking about a Kontakt library that uses a single Instrument and a zillion accompanying Snapshots to bring up individual sounds, then all of this talk about Instruments - duplicating, zipping, and renaming - applies to dealing with Snapshots.

2 - I go into the working copy of the Instruments folder, and get busy renaming them to conform to my preferred naming scheme. Then I compress THAT to a ZIP archive so now I have "Instruments Renamed.zip" as well. That's in case I delete something I want to get back, but I want to get back the version with the good names.

3 - Now I can start auditioning and deleting. I go into the working copy of the Instruments (or Snapshots) folder (the one with the good names) and start auditioning and RUTHLESSLY deleting, right then and there, no regrets. What I'm left with is the "greatest hits" that contains only the best of the best, the stuff I could actually see myself using. Of course I still have the ZIP of the full-sized, renamed Instruments, as well as the full-sized, un-renamed Instruments just in case.

4 - Now I can get into QuickLoad. I add everything from the culled and renamed Instruments folder into my QL database. Since it's already just the "greatest hits" this doesn't pollute my QL with tons of chaff. This also means that, for instance, that the QL Aliasies for all my Strings Shorts from all the different libraries will live together in a single folder, while their original Instruments still live in their original locations. Since they've all been renamed to conform to my scheme, they stack up and sort in the QL folders in organized fashion, with "strings-STACCATO-Orchestral Tools" right above "strings-STACCATO-Performance Samples" in the list. This makes navigating and finding which staccato Instrument I want to use a quick process, since I don't have to navigate up three folders, over five, and down three each time. Whenever I back up my Kontakt drives (which I do manually using Synchronize Pro X) I also copy the current state of my QL Database to my backup drives. Since the QL database is small this takes very little drive space.

I do all of this stuff while my enthusiasm and excitement for a new library is still fresh, rather than just sticking it on a drive and probably forgetting I ever bought it. Of course, there's still a LOT of stuff in my QL and the various Instruments folders, but when it's just the renamed + culled stuff, it's a somewhat manageable amount. With that amount, my memory can still function - for instance, I can remember that Orchestral Tools has some good "staccato repeats 16th notes" for instance, since not every library has that type of instrument.

There are still some gray areas, like NI's Thrill, which is a single NKI that can produce a trillion great sounds, so those special-case instruments get a special folder in the QL so I don't have to create / name / deal with a trillion snapshots. I just load it up and manually create what I need on the spot.

I take a similar approach to patches for Omnisphere, Zebra, Diva, etc. I create user library folders and ruthlessly cull any factory or downloaded preset libraries into those. Unlike with Kontakt stuff, I often don't bother to keep a zillion lame "Moog Bass 103" presets hanging around; I just keep the best and trash the rest.

Omnisphere is a bit of a special case, since many purchased libraries contain sample content, so just deleting / renaming the Patches doesn't reduce the size much, and I'd still have gigabytes of sample content that I might not want. But there is a way to reduce the size of Omnisphere libraries after culling. Here's what I do:

1 - Install the library as per instructions, open the Steam folder in list view, and size all your windows so you can see Omnisphere on the left and the Steam folder on the right.

2 - Go into Omnisphere's browser for Multis or Patches, and start auditioning, deleting everything that isn't amazing long the way. To delete a Multi or Preset, I flip over to the Finder and hit the command key to move that item to the trash, occaisionally hitting the Refresh button in Omnisphere to keep the lists in sync.

3 - Rename the culled results. My typical scheme results in names like "ARP - SH - Film Score Pulse", where "ARP" is the category, "SH" is an abbreviation for the library's developer (like SH = Sample Hero), and "Film Score Pulse" is my preferred name of the actual patch. This way, all the ARPs will be in a list, with all the Sample Hero patches next to each other, sorted by name. (I use a similar naming scheme for patches for Zebra, Diva, and other non-Kontakt "synth" instruments).

4 - Optionally, if the library seems to have tons of cool sample content, I might browse that stuff on its own inside an empty INIT patch, but I don't delete the stuff I don't want since some good patches may use that content even if it sounds lame on its own. So I use color-coding in the Finder to highlight the stuff I want to keep with a green tag, and/or creat dummy Presets that use the sample content that I'm not sure whether a good Preset is dependent on - this keeps them included in the process that follows.

So, now, here's how to compile and reduce the results of the culling:

1 - After eliminating the Multis / Presets that I don't want, I use the "Publish Library" function (option-click Omnisphere's Utiliy Menu to show this option) to export the culled results to a new " .omnisphere" file. This file will include only those Mulits and Presets that survived the culling, but most importantly, will include ONLY the sample content that they need in order to play. Any sample content that is not used by those culled Multis / Presets is NOT included in that " .omnisphere" file.

2 - Now I go into the Steam folder and delete the originally installed folders for Multis, Patches, and User Samples from the library in question.

3 - Now, re-import the " .omnisphere" file that I created.

4 - If I'm dealing with a library from, say, Sample Hero, but I already have some existing Sample Hero libraries that have been culled / published / re-imported, I always want them all to be in a single Sample Hero directory and not in a zillion separate library folders for each title. So in order to get that result, I go into the Steam folder and move the culled Multis + Patches (but not the User Samples) from the new Sample Hero folders into the pre-existing Sample Hero folders (effectively merging them), and then Publish THAT folder, which compiles all the Multis, Patches, AND User Samples used by BOTH the previous and new libraries into a single " .omnipshere" file. Then I repeat the process of deleting ALL of the Sample Hero folders from the Steam folder and importing the new " .omnisphere" file. Now I have a single set of folders in the Steam folder that contains ALL of the Multis / Patches / User Samples from ALL of the Sample Hero titles, culled, renamed, and organized - and much smaller than the originals.

It took me a while to figure this process out, but my Steam folder was getting out of hand and something needed to be done. Now, life is good and I can browse either by choosing individual library developers from the drop-down inside Omnisphere's browser, which will show the culled + merged results from all of the Sample Hero titles in one chunk, or just view all libraries at once and browse by category across all developers, and the browser will show all "ARP - SH" (Sample Hero) patches grouped together, and right below them in the list will be all the "ARP - UN" (The Unfinished) patches.

This is the way. I have spoken.


----------



## Simon Ravn

Amazing stuff, Charlie! And I know you really get your hands into the smallest details of sampling, resampling, manipulating sounds etc. I am always so impressed when someone can do this and have the PATIENCE to do this! And the thing is, the result might not always reveal all those little details that actually led to the result. Actually I would say, usually you have no clue when you hear it. But when you tell us about your process it all makes sense - and makes it even more impressive.


----------



## charlieclouser

Simon Ravn said:


> Amazing stuff, Charlie! And I know you really get your hands into the smallest details of sampling, resampling, manipulating sounds etc. I am always so impressed when someone can do this and have the PATIENCE to do this! And the thing is, the result might not always reveal all those little details that actually led to the result. Actually I would say, usually you have no clue when you hear it. But when you tell us about your process it all makes sense - and makes it even more impressive.


Well, since I came up in the all-hardware era, when you'd wait 45 seconds for 1.44mb of samples to load from a floppy disc into your Akai S-900, I learned that patience is required. Now that the tools are so much faster, that same amount of patience lets us produce exponentially greater results. So spending a half-hour to cull and organize a thousand Omnisphere Patches down into 65 good ones that I might actually use seems like a bargain, time-wise.

I do keep track of my speed on these processes, timing myself so that I can estimate whether the next big task will really be worth it. Dealing with Omnisphere / Diva / Zebra patches averages something like one second per incoming patch. I can tell within a second if the sound has potential or goes in the trash. Kontakt stuff obviously takes a little longer due to load times. So 500 Omnisphere Presets can be auditioned and reduced to 40 that I might actually use in around 15 minutes all told. Worth it.


----------



## doctoremmet

That requires a well trained ear, a lot of confidence and a decent amount of ruthlessness. Great practice. Great insight. Many thanks for sharing mister Clouser 🙏


----------



## jbuhler

doctoremmet said:


> That requires a well trained ear, a lot of confidence and a decent amount of ruthlessness. Great practice. Great insight. Many thanks for sharing mister Clouser 🙏


Or at some level it doesn't matter if excellent stuff goes into the reject pile because the key thing is reducing the number of options to a manageable level. The 1 second audition is a useful stage because then you know with confidence that all the patches that remain have passed the "immediately appealing" test. "Immediately appealing" in this sense would mean listening for how the sound will fit with your music, so I think you would have to have a very good sense of your own sound to use this method. And if you do have this sense of your music, then the culling wouldn't really feel that ruthless at all. I agree that this is such good insight from Charlie.


----------



## charlieclouser

jbuhler said:


> Or at some level it doesn't matter if excellent stuff goes into the reject pile because the key thing is reducing the number of options to a manageable level. The 1 second audition is a useful stage because then you know with confidence that all the patches that remain have passed the "immediately appealing" test. "Immediately appealing" in this sense would mean listening for how the sound will fit with your music, so I think you would have to have a very good sense of your own sound to use this method. And if you do have this sense of your music, then the culling wouldn't really feel that ruthless at all. I agree that this is such good insight from Charlie.


Yeah, I've had too many rounds of library reduction, where I've kept stuff that I was on the fence about "just in case", and then 10-20 years (and many backups) later realized, "Why the hell did I keep 200 one-sample MiniMoog bass Instruments? I've never used them because they're in mono, have only one sample spread across the whole keyboard, and I have a real MiniMoog right here?!?!?" After a few dozen rounds of that you start to build confidence about what you can toss.

I also tend to reject certain types of sound on principle - if I hear a glistening hopeful pad that reminds me of the mystical sounds in The Fifth Element, they're gone. If I hear anything that smells like FM synthesis, it's gone. If I hear something that sounds like it could have been made with a Yamaha / Korg workstation keyboard, like a hopeful seventh pad with trickling water behind it, it's WAY gone. Just.... NO.

In the early 2000's, when I had a full-time assistant or two, they were like, "Do you want us to help weed through this stuff for you? Like, prepare a short list that you can shorten even further?" So I showed them my process and would call out the reason why I was rejecting each sound: "Sounds like 1987. Fifth Element. FM cheese. Twinkle pad. Workstation garbage. Sounds like a sine wave. Weak sauce." etc.

And I'd also call out the reasons I was keeping certain sounds: "808 State Cubik hook. Eno would be proud. Synth Ligeti. NIN air conditioner drone. Girthy bottom. Killing Joke OBX. Roxy Music Avalon." etc. As if to say, "this sound could stand proudly in a Killing Joke or Roxy Music track."

We all realized that only I could make those calls, because they would have kept some of the garbage and tossed some of the gold - our backgrounds and influences were different. Similar, but different. It's impossible to out-source curation. So I just do it myself. That's the only way to insure that the sounds match my vision.

When I'm auditioning Omnisphere / Zebra / Diva stuff I just play a C0, a middle C, and a C5 - and often I don't even get to the C5 before going, "No." I play a low note in case there's some magic grinding aspect that C3 wouldn't reveal, but in general it's "Next Preset, C0, C3, C5, delete." Takes a second or so. I do wiggle the mod wheel as I go just in case something interesting happens though.

I also find that even after plowing through 200 patches and deleting them all, I don't get combat fatigue to the point where I'll start tossing stuff I shouldn't. Even in the midst of that much mind-numbing repetition, if a sound has an interesting character, it STILL jumps out of the speakers at me, and that's when I'm glad I took the time to listen to every.... single.... one. Because you just never know when some flakes of gold will be hiding in that pan of dirt.

But this ruthlessness doesn't happen right away. Sometimes it just takes time for your collection to reach critical mass to the point where you can toss stuff with confidence. Once your style is more established, you start to develop the ability to say, "I'd never use this sound, I'd be embarrassed if I did, and if the client really wanted something like that I'd find an alternative that suits my style better."

I admit to keeping some odd-ball stuff like some Big fish $49 loop library like "Smoky Jazz Construction Kits" because they have saved my butt here and there, like when the tv series Las Vegas did an episode set in the 1960's and I needed to score it with a sixties casino jazz comedy feel. I was really glad I had those loop collections (and Ableton Live!), otherwise I never would have made deadline. I used drum loops and wacky trumpet solos from that collection, played my own bass parts using the excellent standup bass in Trillian and organ parts using Logic's stock organ instrument, found some Barney Rubble style bongo loops for comedic effect, and that was a wrap. It was still a week of late nights though...


----------



## wilifordmusic

Charlie, a couple of questions semi-related to the bits above if you don't mind.

Do you use a template with some of your tried and true orchestral sections and synths already loaded?
Are your template options universal or only done on a super project specific basis?
i.e. Saw template, Wayward Pines template, etc... I realize that any of these could be realized as episodic and would have some sort of musical framework or vocabulary, but how far does it go?
Are there any elements/ builiding blocks common to all of your templates?
This is something I still struggle with after many years.

Have you done any projects that have taken you way outside your comfort zone that you would like to share with us?

And thanks again for your detailed explanations and generous contributions of time.


----------



## charlieclouser

wilifordmusic said:


> Charlie, a couple of questions semi-related to the bits above if you don't mind.
> 
> Do you use a template with some of your tried and true orchestral sections and synths already loaded
> Are your template options universal or only done on a super project specific basis?
> i.e. Saw template, Wayward Pines template, etc... I realize that any of these could be realized as episodic and would have some sort of musical framework or vocabulary, but how far does it go?
> Are there any elements/ builiding blocks common to all of your templates?
> This is something I still struggle with after many years.



I definitely use templates. I create a new one for each project, and this takes anywhere from two days to a week. That process involves not just loading pre-existing instruments but also making some new ones. Usually there is also a few days of recording / editing / mapping new samples into EXS as well as making audio recordings and some loops of anything that isn't mappable and playable from the keyboard, things like drum performances and loops, long drone-scapes which are best dealt with a raw audio files, and plucking / bowing phrases on a ghuzheng or ukulele or whatever else is lying around.

To build a template I sometimes do a "Save As" of a previous one and start modifying it, but as often as not I just start from scratch, either because Logic has introduced some new feature like Folder Stacks, or because I have a new idea or frustrating element that I want to change, like changing the number of instruments or stem layout, etc. Plus I am so quick and have some shortcuts that make this process less painful that it seems.

I build my templates manually in Logic's Environment, and I do not use Logic's Mixer that appears at the bottom of the Main Window at al. This lets me precisely lay out the position of each Object in a visually pleasing manner that is familiar and easy to navigate. In order for this approach to work, you must turn OFF "Automatic Management of Channel Strip Objects" in Project Settings so that Logic will never add or delete and audio object as new tracks are created or deleted. I am still using a 2013 Mac Pro cylinder with Logic v10.4.8 under MacOS Mojave, so that means I'm still on EXS24 (not the new Sampler) and there are some other newer features I don't have yet. I will switch to the current MacOS and Logic versions at the next computer upgrade, whether 2019 Mac Pro or Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

I use three rows in a single Environment Layer, with all "master" elements like stem sub masters, per-stem reverbs + delays, etc. at the left side. Here is a screenshot of the left side and the first few elements of the right side:






Top row, from left to right: 

- A single Output Object for stereo out 1+2 = this gives me a quick way to make a stereo bounce. 

- The next four, labelled Mix Bus, are Aux Objects that are the composite mix sub-masters. Their sources are Busses 1-4 and their destinations are hardware outputs 1-6, which go to my speakers. The reason these, and all the other stem sub-masters, are in groups of four is a workaround for Logic's inability to do surround stems. My kludge for this is to use a stereo Object for the front L+R, another stereo Object for the rear L+R, and a mono Object for each of the Center and LFE channels. Since Logic only has a single "Surround" set of outputs, it is not possible to use any of its Surround mixing features when one wants to output more than a single set of Surround channels, as you would when outputting multiple stems, so I must fake it using multiple stereo+mono Objects just like when mixing in surround on a non-surround-capable analog console like the SSL 4k, which I had already done so I was familiar with this method of kludging. The reason that there are only four Busses but six Outputs is because a single Bus in Logic can be stereo while a single Output is by definition mono. In order to make things clearer and line up in a 1-to-1 manner I used to skip over Busses, so Front L+R would be Bus 1, skip Bus 2, Rear L+R would be Bus 3, skip Bus 4, Center would be Bus 5, and LFE would be Bus 6. This lets the numbering of Busses match exactly the numbering of mono hardware Outputs as well as hardware input numbering on my separate ProTools stem recorder. I changed to the pictured condensed Bus allocation because for a while Logic had only 64 Busses and I was running out. Now that there are 256 or 1000 or whatever it is, I can go back to skipping over the right-channel Busses so that the numbers are all symmetrical, but I haven't yet.

- The next seven bricks of four Aux Objects each are the per-stem sub-masters. The sources for these are Busses 5-32 and the outputs are hardware outputs 7-48. (As described above, the asymmetry between Bus numbers and hardware output numbers is because I'm not doing "right channel skipping" to keep them the same.) All Instruments, Audio Tracks, and Effect Returns are routed to the Busses that feed these stem sub-masters with no exceptions except for Click, Preview, and ReWire returns which I will explain later. These stem sub-masters are combined into the composite mix via the sends at the top of each channel, whose destinations are the Busses that feed the composite mix sub-masters described above. So in each brick of four stem sub-masters, the first ones all go to the Bus that feeds the first composite mix sub-master, the second ones all go to the Bus that feeds the second composite mix sub-master, etc. In other words, all of those stem sub-masters combine at unity gain into the composite mix.



- Going off to the right are the individual Software Instrument Objects that hold all of the EXS, Kontakt, Omnisphere, whatever. At the moment there are 768 in my template. Instead of a single, giant row, for visual clarity I break them up into bricks of 16, with each brick in a Folder Stack, and a nice label beneath. The labels are NOT Logic's "Ornament" Objects, which don't work as expected - they are Fader Objects. I will explain how to make them in a separate post.

I group everything into 16-channel bricks because my brain still thinks in bricks of 16 MIDI channels, and this is a convenient size for me. Each brick will have sixteen EXS instances, so for "Kicks + Subs" that means 16 maps of 88 one-shot samples each - plenty of samples to choose from! When we get up to strings and stuff, I might have 16 strings longs, 16 strings shorts, 16 strings fx, 16 brass low, 16 brass shorts, etc.

In the second row of the top picture, from left to right:

- A single Master Fader Object. Adjusting this fader trims the levels of ALL hardware outputs at the same time. I only use this in emergencies when I need to lower the outputs by a db or two because something's clipping. Normally this is at zero.

- The next four are Click (Klopfgeist), Preview (for previewing WAV files in browsers, etc.), and ReWire returns from Ableton Live and Reason. All of these four are routed NOT to any of the stem sub-master busses, but directly to Outputs 1+2 because I don't want any of them to go through any of the per-stem processing. My ReWire returns go directly to the stereo out so that I can bounce those returns without going through any per-stem processing. That is how I bring in elements from ReWire - I use Region Solo to "solo nothing" so that nothing from Logic makes any sound, and then do a bounce of outputs 1+2 which results in a clean bounce of the ReWire elements, which I then manually drag into an Audio Track in Logic.

- Now we come to the per-stem effects returns. Each brick of four has two Space Designers and two Stereo Delays, one of each for the front and back stereo pairs. These are Aux Objects whose sources are Busses 65-92 and whose destinations are the Busses 5-30 that feed the stem sub-masters above in the same manner that Instrument and Audio tracks do. (There are no effects returns for Center or LFE channels.) Sends from individual Instruments and Audio Tracks feed those elements into the correct reverbs and delays for their stem.

- Going off to the right are the individual Audio Tracks. I route these to individual stem sub-masters just as I do the Instrument Objects. At the moment I have 256 in my template.

There are other miscellaneous Objects that clutter things up, like the VCA Faders that are automatically created for each Folder Stack and VEPro "Multitimbral Instrument". I stash these on a separate Environment Layer because I never touch them and don't want to look at them. I will discuss my VEPro implementation in another post.

The resulting Environment Window is absolutely gigantic - manually scrolling can be a pain so sometimes I use the purple "chain link" icon so that the Environment will auto-scroll to show the Object for the currently selected track in the Main Window. I leave the Environment Window full-screen on a second monitor, but usually I leave it scrolled to show only the sub-master stuff at the left side, and leave chain-link turned off since the fader in the lower left of the Main Window shows me the currently selected track.



wilifordmusic said:


> Have you done any projects that have taken you way outside your comfort zone that you would like to share with us?
> 
> And thanks again for your detailed explanations and generous contributions of time.


There are a few films I've done that are don't have my typical layout. One was called "The Neighbor" and I'm not sure if it ever came out or not. All of the sounds were made from guitars and hardware synths so it was almost all audio. Another, called "Eye Without A Face" will come out this fall and was also almost all audio and very few software instruments. So these didn't need 768 instances of EXS.


----------



## charlieclouser

Here is how I make those colored labels beneath each brick of faders in Logic's Environment. They are NOT the "Ornament" Objects, which can't be resized and made opaque; rather they are Fader Objects with very particular settings.

- In the Environment, go New > Fader > Text. This creates a Fader Object whose type is "Text", normally used as a pop-up menu to select patches from a list of 128 for a hardware synth or whatever.

- In the parameters box at the upper left of the Environment, with the new Object selected, set the Range to "0 : 0" so that the Fader has only one possible value. It is this value, which will be displayed "As Text", and NOT the name of the Object, which will contain the text that you want the label to display.

- To enter the text you want the label to display, double click the Object which will bring up a window into which you can enter text for each of the 128 possible values of the fader. Normally this would be where you enter the names of the 128 patches you want the pop-up to display. Since we have restricted the value range to a single value ( 0 : 0 ), clicking the pop-up will do nothing since there is only a single possible value, and thus only the first item in the list is of use to us. Double click the first value and enter the desired text you want the label to display. 

- It is important to give the Object a name, which will be displayed underneath the label and not in the colored portion. I just use " - " as a name so things don't get cluttered. But don't make the name field totally empty or you won't be able to move the Object to where you want it in the Environment.

- You can resize the resulting Object by dragging its lower right corner.

- You can move the resulting Object to where you want it by grabbing it by the name, displayed underneath the Object itself, and using that as a drag handle. This is why you shouldn't leave the Name field totally empty - if you use " - - - - " as a name then you'll have a bigger handle to grab and drag, but for me a single "-" is big enough.

- You can color the resulting Object by selecting it, bringing up the Colors palette, and clicking the desired color.

- In order to move and resize these Objects, you must have View > Protect Cabling/Positions turned OFF. Once things are set up the way you want them, you can turn this on to prevent accidentally wrecking stuff.

Note that these Objects are technically capable of sending MIDI to a destination, so it's important to set their output port to a null destination so that Program Change messages don't go flying around as you fiddle with stuff. These settings are shown in the pic below.






This pic shows the parameters for the Object that creates the label that displays WOODWINDS. The really important ones are "Style = As Text" and "Range = 0:0". The rest relate to what MIDI data type and port will be sent when this control is operated. Since it is not possible to select a null value for MIDI Channel and Data Type, you can leave these set to whatever as long as you make sure the Input and Output are set to a null device. I create a dummy MIDI Instrument on a spare Environment Layer which has a null destination (in this example it's named " -------- "), and I use that as a dead-end destination for these Label Objects.

On the right of the pic is shown the value list editor, this is what you see when you double-click the Object. Since our Value Range is set to 0:0, only that first field is of any use. THAT is where you enter the text you want the Object to display. In this case it is "WOODWINDS". Enter that text and close the value list editor, and the Object will now show your desired label. Color it, resize it, and position it is needed. There is no practical limit to how many or how large these can be, so go wild.


----------



## charlieclouser

The way I deal with VEPro in Logic is still archaic, since AUv3 with multi-port MIDI per instance is still not up and running yet (I don't think?). So I am still forced to deal with VEPro instances as if each one had only a single 16-channel MIDI input. Of course, since VEPro v6 or so, you can have multiple instances as tabs within a single window, so you don't have a hailstorm of overlapping windows. Plus, since my brain is hardwired to think in terms of 16-channel bricks this is okay by me.

This means that in my world, each VEPro instance (or tab) has 16 incoming MIDI channels and returns its audio to Logic as a single stereo pair. If I want individual plugins on each of the 16 slots in a VEPro instance, they must be inserted in VEPro and not in Logic, since any plugins inserted on any of the return objects in Logic will affect ALL of the summed audio from that instance. Also, any adjustments to the volume, pan, effect sends, and routing from any of those return objects will affect ALL of the summed audio from that instance. 

So you can think fo each 16-channel VEPro instance as the equivalent of a Summing Stack - all of those channels flow through the same audio path in Logic. 

Here is how I do it:

- In the Main Window, click the "+" button at the upper left to create a new Track.

- In the resulting dialog, select Software Instrument as the type, VEPro as the desired Instrument, and make sure to click the checkbox for "Multi-timbral" as shown below.






The result will be a row of 16 Tracks in the Main Window (and 16 Objects in the Environment), each representing a single MIDI channel of that instance. Again, adjusting volume / pan / routing / plugins on any one of those will affect ALL of them, so it's a little confusing and cluttered. You can't really see the individual channels that feed this "Summing Stack" unless you go over to VEPro itself and make your adjustments there.

So that's actually kind of convenient. I use each 16-channel instance to group Strings Shorts or Solo Strings or whatever, because I sort of like having them pre-summed outside of Logic. Since I run VEPro locally on the same machine as Logic, all of my plugins (except, of course, Logic's built-in plugins) are already available over in VEPro, so it's a simple matter to put an eq or reverb on just one of the 16 channels.

My template uses sixteen VEPro instances, which gives me 256 slots into which I can insert Kontakt or whatever, and which return as 16 stereo pairs into Logic - but this takes up 256 individual faders in Logic's Environment even though it's really only 16 individually adjustable objects. So I stash these on the bottom row of my gigantic Environment Window because I rarely need to mess with them very much.

It is not perfect but when I need to fiddle with big bricks of orchestral instruments I sometimes use it.


----------



## charlieclouser

Some more things I do to make dealing with large templates in Logic easier:

- After I've built a template, I save it once with "Copy EXS Instruments and Samples into project" turned ON. This gives me an archive in the master folder for the film with all of the EXS stuff that is used in the template, so I later I don't have to go fishing for which staccato strings I wound up choosing.

- After a film is finished and delivered, I save each cue with "Copy EXS Instruments and Samples into project" turned ON, and then I merge all the samples into a single master folder to save space, but I leave the Instruments for each cue in that cue's folder since they are small. This gives me an archive of everything that might have been added to the template as work progressed, like one-off Instruments that were loaded up for just one cue or whatever.

- I also merge all of those archived Instruments folders into a single master folder and put that inside my EXS Library in a folder named "zz Project-Specific Instruments". This means that at the bottom of my normal list of Instruments in Logic's Browser is a set of folders showing JUST what was used in each film. Since it's just the EXS Instruments which refer to their dependent samples stored in their normal locations, these don't take up much disc space at all, and it's very handy. 

- When I have a template I really really love, I sometimes do these two things:

A - I save each EXS Instrument to a new folder with new names that include the slot number they occupied in my template. So if Instrument 12 had the EXS Instrument "Sub Booms 22" in it, I'll save it out as "012 - Kicks+Subs - Booms 22". This gives me a new, uniquely-named copy of something pulled from my library, and I can edit this without affecting the original. But more importantly, I can also save a Channel Strip Preset that refers to this EXS Instrument file and not to the original.

B - I now save out every channel strip as a Channel Strip Setting file, with identical names to the newly-created EXS Instruments describe above. This, of course, includes any plugins that were on the channel strip as well.

Now I have a nice, numbered set of Channel Strip Settings whose names are identical to the EXS Instruments they depend on. I don't do this for every project, just when I've built a new "super template" that I want to be able to refer to bit by bit in future situations. 

Of course, if you're using Kontakt, Omnisphere, etc. this whole operation gets messy and falls apart a little bit. But you can still save out the Channel Strip Settings and just skip the saving of renamed EXS Instruments and you'll get most of the benefits. I have key commands assigned to copy / paste / next / previous Channel Strip Settings, so I can navigate tracks with arrow keys and build a new template by loading the first Channel Strip Setting from the archive I created above (like "01 - Kicks+Subs - Kicks 01"), then copying that, arrow-down to the next track, paste that, hit "next Channel Strip Setting", and now I've got "02 - Kicks+Subs - Kicks 02" on track 2. And so it goes, bringing in and rearranging the elements from a previous good template into a newly-created-from-scratch template, using only key commands and no menu diving or mousing around. Really quick.


----------



## wilifordmusic

Charlie, thanks for the master class. I'm going to be spending a little/lot of time working my way through your writings on workflow and seeing what works in my world. I think it's going to take me a couple days just to fully digest your posts and then figure out the best way to implement them on my system.

I'm a mac/logic guy as well and much of what you shared will be of great help to me as well.
I depend quite a bit on Kontakt and u-He synths so I'll have to do some of the adaptations that you suggested to tidy things up a bit.

You are obviously a thoughtful guy and the way you have created a process to create music in as efficient a manner as possible is impressive.
The fact you choose to share that process with others is generous beyond the norm.

Thanks, Steve


----------



## sopwith

Man I feel like I should be paying to read this thread. Hope a Spiral OMPS purchase will suffice.


----------



## gsilbers

Very cool stuff !


----------



## RAdkins

Thank you Charlie for being so open to sharing your knowledge and processes.


----------



## Drundfunk

I really love your input to this forum Charlie. Please never stop!


----------



## charlieclouser

Thanks you guys! Actually, typing this stuff out every once in a while is helpful because it makes me look at these processes from a slightly more objective perspective, and helps me see where I'm taking the long way around out of sheer habit.

Also, I admit to being an old head and still doing things "the old way" like I did when I first transitioned to Logic (from StudioVision!) in 1995 or so. So that's why I still use the Environment, because back then there was no Mixer at all, and still do things a bit old-fashioned. But dang Logic is a beast and even massive templates like this are quick to move around in.


----------



## doctoremmet

Still... It is incredibly cool, useful, and frankly humbling, to get these insights from someone as musically gifted, seasoned and revered as yourself mister Clouser. Very very valuable indeed. Thanks!

Do you have a preferred way for us to purchase your latest album (I’d like to make sure that an as large-as-possible percentage of the proceeds would actually reach your wallet hehe).


----------



## charlieclouser

doctoremmet said:


> Do you have a preferred way for us to purchase your latest album (I’d like to make sure that an as large-as-possible percentage of the proceeds would actually reach your wallet hehe).


Hahah thanks man! It doesn't really matter what avenue one purchases my albums in terms of payouts to me, I don't think. The money that makes its way back to me is but a pittance; we just put 'em out partly as a vanity thing, partly out of a desire for completeness, and so if any producers or directors go looking on Spotify they can find my stuff. Usually we try for a physical release for the collectors and fans (and so I can have a couple of boxes to take up space in the closet), but this time we missed the manufacturing deadline even though we sat on the finished product for a year. D'oh!

Because the SAW producers have a piece of the publishing side I can't just dump 'em on SoundCloud for free, or else I would. So, Apple Music, Lakeshore's site, whatever - I don't even keep track of if or how many copies sell. I got like 60k streams last week between Apple and Spotify, and I bet that amounts to just a couple hundred bucks, so..... Don't bother to buy unless you really want to, I'm not putting 'em out for the money that's for sure.... that ship has sailed!


----------



## doctoremmet

Gotcha haha. Weird how the world has changed in that regard...

“Got any merchandise?”


----------



## wilifordmusic

Charlie, I need a little time to digest your writings due to the amount of content and detail.
I'm sure I'll have a couple of questions for you in the near future. Would you prefer/ be willing to stay in this thread or an open letter in a new thread? Time permitting of course.

You have truly shown yourself to be a true gentleman and I think everyone here appreciates your patience and words of wisdom.

Two side notes:
1 I'm still pissed at Gibson for killing off StudioVision.
2 I would happily purchase and wear a Charlie Clouser T-shirt or hoodie.

thanks again, Steve


----------



## doctoremmet

wilifordmusic said:


> hoodie


+1


----------



## charlieclouser

wilifordmusic said:


> Charlie, I need a little time to digest your writings due to the amount of content and detail.
> I'm sure I'll have a couple of questions for you in the near future. Would you prefer/ be willing to stay in this thread or an open letter in a new thread? Time permitting of course.



We can do it in this thread, but this "CC Logic Template 2021 Tutorial" is already likely to get missed by many because it's buried in the self-promotion section. So maybe we need to start a new thread and copy these posts over, or maybe I'll just start a new thread in the DAW subsection and break it up into chapters like: Stem Sub-Masters, Per-Stem Effects. Utility Objects, Environment Labels, etc. The posts in this thread started to get a little crowded and dense, and I was fighting the 10k character limit!


----------



## charlieclouser

wilifordmusic said:


> 2 I would happily purchase and wear a Charlie Clouser T-shirt or hoodie.



If you really want to buy some merchandise, go to www.zoe.photo and check out my wife's photography books and prints. Beautiful photos of beautiful women.... artistic but a little NSFW!


----------



## wilifordmusic

charlieclouser said:


> If you really want to buy some merchandise, go to www.zoe.photo and check out my wife's photography books and prints. Beautiful photos of beautiful women.... artistic but a little NSFW!


A new thread with your posts from this thread is a great plan. 

I think it would be a big help to us oldsters as well as the new young guns. It shouldn't get lost if posted in the DAW section and the mods sticky it after you call it complete. A lot of your workflow should be useful in other DAWs with a few tweaks.

I already copied and pasted it all so I'm good. It went in my Charlie Clouser Mysteries of the Universe folder. Not the first thing you've posted that I found useful and ingenious.

Zoe's photography is beautiful but I'm afraid I would have some 'splainin' to do so I'll restrict my support to the Clouser household by getting your new Spiral soundtrack. How's that for coming around full circle?

thanks again, Steve


----------



## Alchemedia

charlieclouser said:


> If you really want to buy some merchandise, go to www.zoe.photo and check out my wife's photography books and prints. Beautiful photos of beautiful women.... artistic but a little NSFW!


As a prof photographer, I must say Zoe's work is stunning! Thx for sharing Charlie.


----------



## charlieclouser

Alchemedia said:


> As a prof photographer, I must say Zoe's work is stunning! Thx for sharing Charlie.


Gals you like it! I will tell her as well. Sometimes she shoots digital, and she prefers the way the sensors on the little Fuji X Pro cameras deal with b+w images, but her real love is ancient Polaroid Type 65 (I think?) medium-format film, which is long discontinued - the stuff that produces a negative transparency which must be timed and stopped with a little squeegee of toxic chemicals. She has two refrigerators full of the stuff, but it's a very finite resource to say the least. She often uses Holgas and LensBaby gear for extra-crusty images. 

Here is an image from the SAW II album cover art which she shot on that rig showing the awesome chemical blobs along the edge and the fantastic resolution and grain, even with a $10 camera with a plastic lens:


----------



## sourcefor

charlieclouser said:


> Thank you everyone for the kind compliments. Some notes on the sounds:
> 
> - It's all in-the-box of course, done in Logic v10.4.8 with 768 instances of EXS24 in my template (not the upgraded Logic Sampler), MOTU 112d and 1248 interfaces with 256 buffer on a 2013 Mac Pro cylinder 12-core 64gb RAM. Almost all of the sampled sounds are coming from EXS with a few Kontakt and Omnisphere instances here and there. Usually I had less than 30 audio tracks, either recorded directly into Logic or stuff that was manipulated in Ableton Live and then bounced into Logic. I do have a UAD Octo Satellite Thunderbolt with almost every UAD plugin, but I can't remember if or when I used them on this score. Maybe UAD Neve 1073 channel (the one with the fader on the UI which is way better than the others for me) or maybe AMS RMX reverb on a drum or something, but it's not a UAD mix by any means. I have VEPro available to run locally on the Logic machine but did not use it for this score.
> 
> - The low brass+strings stacks on BOZ are comprised of Tundra Brass Cresc-Dim, Symphobia Orch Low Sus, Metropolis Ark 1 strings cresc, Symphobia strings cresc, a cresc-dim from 8dio Black, my old faithful Kirk Hunter Strings Esp from the S-1000 era, and an EWQL french horns sus from the olden days. Later a bit of Symphobia sordino sus strings come in as well as some "coal" pads from one of the Spitfire libraries, and there's some brass swells from Arks, EWQLSO, and Symphobia as well. Lots of elements stacking up in different ways, each hiding some deficiency in the others. Everybody hiding behind somebody else.
> 
> - On WAXED the ostinato strings are a gigantic stack containing elements from 8dio Century Strings Ostinatos, Metropolis Ark 3 Strings Repetitions 16ths, and the original Action Strings (yes, I admit this). First I recorded manually-played staccatos to flesh out the parts, and then I dove into using those repetitions libraries to get a less-MIDI feel. Once I got all those elements marching in lock-step I added more manually-played elements on top from any strings library that had short attacks and good bite - mostly CS2, CineSamples, Spitfire Iceni, Sonic Implants, and the original ProSonus marcatos that I had manually sampled one note at a time into an Akai S-1000 from one of the first-ever orchestral sample libraries on audio CD in the 1990's. Still have 'em, still use 'em. There's also some Symphobia strings and strings+brass staccatos doing whomps on the downbeats to add accents. I used Waves Abbey Road Saturator to light a fire under the ostinato strings stem. I hate doing those kind of "normal" parts because it always sounds fake to me, so I just push it a little more into fake territory and disregard any semblance of realism. To me those ostinatos are the organic equivalent of metal chug guitars. Maybe next time I'll just use guitars instead - probably get 'em done in a day instead of three days of fiddling with Kontakt string libraries....
> 
> - On WAXED there is a ton of "gronkulated" elements done in Ableton Live, made from god knows what percussion and synth samples that have been granulated and tempo-stretched far beyond normal limits. I'd mess with the time-stretch modes and grain sizes to get them to produce pitched tones that fit with the track. Drums have a bit of Action Strikes (yes, I admit this) on the high percussion and ticky-tacks elements, as well as a mob of live drums I recorded at my place, quantized in Ableton, and then edited and re-pitched until I didn't hate them. Plus tons of single hits to get things to sound consistent.
> 
> - Pretty much all the reverb and delay is from the ol' faithful Space Designer 2.3s Piano Hall preset and Logic's Stereo Delay set to ping-pong on dotted eighths. Each stem has a front and a back instance of each which I access via sends from the individual channels. I never put individual reverbs or delays on individual tracks unless it's a special effect like a Black Hole on a piano or a Tape Delay with crazy feedback or something.
> 
> - Almost all the eq and compression is Logic's stock (not linear phase) EQ and stock compressor on Platinum Digital mode with 2:1 ratio, zero attack, auto-release, auto-makeup-gain at -12db, 0.3 knee, and 100% wet. No parallel compression here! I did deploy some special-purpose EQ and compression once in a while, but my default stock plugins are usually fine. There is generally a LOT of compression on individual elements, but with Logic's Platinum Digital mode it's mojo-free and doesn't really color things - it's just invisible level control. This makes it so much easier for me to mix since I don't have to do volume automation on every single thing. I use very little automation in general, mostly on things like Tape Delay feedback or other special effects.
> 
> - As usual I used Waves L3-LL MultiMaximizer as a per-stem limiter. On some stems it's taking a BIG bite out of the peaks, as much as 6-9db in places, and, yes, I realize that a multi-band limiter IS changing the tonal balance of each stem quite a bit as each band bites down independently, but since I'm always mixing THROUGH the L3 instances, and have them on and set from the get-go through the whole process of selecting sounds, building a template, composing and mixing, there's never a weird surprise like you'd get if you apply them at the end of the process and everything changes. I'm selecting, stacking, EQing, and compressing individual elements while hearing what L3 is doing to them down-stream, so for me this works - and my stems are held to exact peak values and the composite mix never clips, even though I have no processing at all on that composite mix - it's just a unity-gain sum of the stems.
> 
> - For delivery to the dub stage I printed seven stems in 5.1 (well, 4.1 actually since I leave the center channel empty). I did occasionally send some elements into the LFE channels but I did not remove them from any other channels - that was just a way to isolate a kick drum or whatever into its own channel so the dubbing mixers could hit the subs without sending a whole drum stem to them.
> 
> - For the album release I discarded the LFE and rear Ls+Rs channels (no down mix here) and just used the front pair from each stem. I imported my composite mix as well as the seven stereo pairs and if the composite mix sounded good I went with that for about a third of the cues, but on the bigger and more complex cues I went to the stems. On most of those I did a little bit of editing to remove spurious jump-scare sounds that only make sense against picture, add a little bit of per-stem volume automation to re-balance things here and there, and occasionally things like Abbey Road Saturator on one or two stems to spice them up a bit.
> 
> - Then the whole mix of those stems hit Ozone v9 with a brick wall high-pass at 20hz, a bit of the Exciter at amount around 5 and mix at 100% on the two highest bands ONLY, and of course the Maximizer on IRC IV mode, Character = 1.8, and Transient Emphasis at 100 (which is halfway up on the slider). I always automate the Maximizer Threshold to "chase" the level of the mix so that I can bring up quiet passages and then back off when things get loud. I'm shooting for no more than 3 db of gain reduction, most of the time it's 1db or so. Sometimes on the big industrial beat-down tracks I'll print two versions, one with no more than 3db of crush, and another with the threshold set 3db lower for around 6db of crush, and leave it up to the mastering engineer to pick one or go back to the un-Ozoned versions if all of mine are too stomped on. I always deliver the un-processed mix of the stems as well as the one or two Ozone'd versions just in case.
> 
> - Mastering was done by Dave Donnelly at DNA Mastering. He said he usually used my normal Ozone'd versions, but did cut in short sections of the super-crushed Ozone'd versions on a couple of cues. The super-crushed versions have the effect of pushing the drums down and bringing the metal guitars up, so sometimes that's better. In most cases he'd do a bit of corrective EQ, very slight boosts and cuts usually in the upper midrange, like no more than 1-2db. On a couple of cues he did add more very slight peak limiting using Weiss hardware I think, and he re-leveled the cues a bit to meet delivery standards for different formats because my Ozone'd mixes were all peaking at -0.5db. I don't know from LUFS or RMS or all that, I only speak peak. But in general my home mastering is what you hear. Ozone is a bad mofo for sure.
> 
> Sure can get a lot done in the box these days, eh?


Wholly shit tHats detailed ……thanks!


----------



## Alchemedia

@charlieclouser I could immediately tell from her images that she's fond of alt processes, lomography, etc. I can relate! I currently live in Sonoma, however I was a R&R, fashion and theatrical photographer for 20+ years in LA. Btw, here's my old Polaroid camera. ￼


----------



## charlieclouser

Alchemedia said:


> @charlieclouser I could immediately tell from her images that she's fond of alt processes, lomography, etc. I can relate! I currently live in Sonoma, however I was a R&R, fashion and theatrical photographer for 20+ years in LA. Btw, here's my old Polaroid camera. ￼


OMG that is a thing of beauty in all its steampunk glory!


----------



## Alchemedia

charlieclouser said:


> OMG that is a thing of beauty in all its steampunk glory!


Indeed! If only film was still available for the damn thing. It's one of the original Land Cameras and I have all the accessories too including tubes of the long dehydrated print coater you mentioned in your previous post.


----------



## wilifordmusic

charlieclouser said:


> Gals you like it! I will tell her as well. Sometimes she shoots digital, and she prefers the way the sensors on the little Fuji X Pro cameras deal with b+w images, but her real love is ancient Polaroid Type 65 (I think?) medium-format film, which is long discontinued - the stuff that produces a negative transparency which must be timed and stopped with a little squeegee of toxic chemicals. She has two refrigerators full of the stuff, but it's a very finite resource to say the least. She often uses Holgas and LensBaby gear for extra-crusty images.
> 
> Here is an image from the SAW II album cover art which she shot on that rig showing the awesome chemical blobs along the edge and the fantastic resolution and grain, even with a $10 camera with a plastic lens:


This again shows that good tools are helpful, but a true artist can create with anything.

I've always gone for black and white images, Ansel Adams being a favorite and in the moving picture world I do have quite a few Bogart and Bacall movies.

thanks for sharing again, Steve


----------



## Sibbo

@charlieclouser i was wondering about your gain staging process. 

Do you use the output ceiling of the L3 to adjust volume on a stem or do you set it and forget and gain stage at individual track level? do you leave the group/stem fader in Logic at 0? or is it a juggling act between all 3? 

Appreciate the wealth of knowledge you have already shared here!


----------



## charlieclouser

Sibbo said:


> @charlieclouser i was wondering about your gain staging process.
> 
> Do you use the output ceiling of the L3 to adjust volume on a stem or do you set it and forget and gain stage at individual track level? do you leave the group/stem fader in Logic at 0? or is it a juggling act between all 3?
> 
> Appreciate the wealth of knowledge you have already shared here!


All of my stem sub master faders stay at zero, as do the sends from them that combine the stems into a composite mix, and the composite mix faders as well - all at zero. So, yes, I do use the output ceiling controls on all my L3 instances to tweak output levels, but I try to only adjust these in 3db increments. 

A typical starting point for my L3 settings would be threshold -9 and output ceiling -9, but this can shift widely depending on the content of each cue. So some cues might have threshold -15 and output ceiling -3 while others might be threshold -3 and output ceiling -12. But I don't jiggle those by tiny amounts, just to keep things simple.

Also, I always try to keep these settings the same for all stems. That way when I'm fiddling with L3 settings it's not changing the relative levels of strings vs drums at all - it's just adjusting the individual squash amounts and the final levels feeding the composite mix.

The composite mix has no processing on it, so adjusting the output ceiling of the individual L3 instances is how I keep the composite mix from clipping, and adjusting the individual thresholds is how I control how much squash is happening.

In some rare emergencies I might adjust one stem's L3 a little different to others, but still in 3db increments if possible, but never smaller than 1.5db increments. In other rare emergencies where everything sounds good but the composite mix is clipping by a tiny amount in only a couple of spots, I might use Logic's Master Fader to trim down by a couple of db. The Master Fader is an Object that does not pass audio but rather trims ALL hardware outputs by the same amount. So adjusting it downwards will lower the post-L3 output of all stems to their hardware outputs as well as the output of the composite mix. But this is only an emergency measure when I just notice one spot where the composite mix is clipping by a couple of db and I don't want to re-level everything.

Since I've always got the L3's in the chain, from building a template right through to printing the mixes, and I'm always "mixing as I go", there's no surprises when I switch from writing mode to mixing mode - because there is no switch of modes in my workflow. The decisions I make about how to layer and process sounds are always made "in context", so for instance if a heavy drum part that I do want to sound squashed is having the life sucked out of it by the L3 action, I can decide to layer yet another drum or take some away based on how they're hitting those final limiters. 

But most of the heavy lifting of compression in my mixes is on the individual tracks - that's where "compression as a sound shaper" is mostly done. It's really only on heavy drum mixes and industrial-sounding parts where the stem limiters are really putting the boot to the signal. Some of those cues have 6 to 9 db of squash happening on the limiters (some even more!) but on the floaty and ambient cues the limiters are barely getting hit at all, so they're just to prevent some wild low frequency thing from forcing me to make the whole mix quieter to leave headroom for that one thing or whatever. Like, if a hard limiter can push down a big sub boom by 6db then the cue can effectively be 6db louder overall. Yes, this eliminates some of the inherent dynamics but it saves me a TON of time that would be spent trying to automate my way around those moments, and the end result of the automation would sound basically the same anyway.

L3 = Auto-Mix! Like the auto-braking on a Tesla or Mercedes. Just keep me from crashing into the car in front of me please, but when I'm maintaining a safe distance, don't do anything.


----------



## Sibbo

charlieclouser said:


> All of my stem sub master faders stay at zero, as do the sends from them that combine the stems into a composite mix, and the composite mix faders as well - all at zero. So, yes, I do use the output ceiling controls on all my L3 instances to tweak output levels, but I try to only adjust these in 3db increments.
> 
> A typical starting point for my L3 settings would be threshold -9 and output ceiling -9, but this can shift widely depending on the content of each cue. So some cues might have threshold -15 and output ceiling -3 while others might be threshold -3 and output ceiling -12. But I don't jiggle those by tiny amounts, just to keep things simple.
> 
> Also, I always try to keep these settings the same for all stems. That way when I'm fiddling with L3 settings it's not changing the relative levels of strings vs drums at all - it's just adjusting the individual squash amounts and the final levels feeding the composite mix.
> 
> The composite mix has no processing on it, so adjusting the output ceiling of the individual L3 instances is how I keep the composite mix from clipping, and adjusting the individual thresholds is how I control how much squash is happening.
> 
> In some rare emergencies I might adjust one stem's L3 a little different to others, but still in 3db increments if possible, but never smaller than 1.5db increments. In other rare emergencies where everything sounds good but the composite mix is clipping by a tiny amount in only a couple of spots, I might use Logic's Master Fader to trim down by a couple of db. The Master Fader is an Object that does not pass audio but rather trims ALL hardware outputs by the same amount. So adjusting it downwards will lower the post-L3 output of all stems to their hardware outputs as well as the output of the composite mix. But this is only an emergency measure when I just notice one spot where the composite mix is clipping by a couple of db and I don't want to re-level everything.
> 
> Since I've always got the L3's in the chain, from building a template right through to printing the mixes, and I'm always "mixing as I go", there's no surprises when I switch from writing mode to mixing mode - because there is no switch of modes in my workflow. The decisions I make about how to layer and process sounds are always made "in context", so for instance if a heavy drum part that I do want to sound squashed is having the life sucked out of it by the L3 action, I can decide to layer yet another drum or take some away based on how they're hitting those final limiters.
> 
> But most of the heavy lifting of compression in my mixes is on the individual tracks - that's where "compression as a sound shaper" is mostly done. It's really only on heavy drum mixes and industrial-sounding parts where the stem limiters are really putting the boot to the signal. Some of those cues have 6 to 9 db of squash happening on the limiters (some even more!) but on the floaty and ambient cues the limiters are barely getting hit at all, so they're just to prevent some wild low frequency thing from forcing me to make the whole mix quieter to leave headroom for that one thing or whatever. Like, if a hard limiter can push down a big sub boom by 6db then the cue can effectively be 6db louder overall. Yes, this eliminates some of the inherent dynamics but it saves me a TON of time that would be spent trying to automate my way around those moments, and the end result of the automation would sound basically the same anyway.
> 
> L3 = Auto-Mix! Like the auto-braking on a Tesla or Mercedes. Just keep me from crashing into the car in front of me please, but when I'm maintaining a safe distance, don't do anything.


Cheers Charlie, you absolute legend!


----------

