# Placing Samples in a Scoring Stage



## Callum Hoskin (Sep 22, 2018)

What is the best way to place orchestral libraries that sound dryish (not the Spitfire baked in reverb sound) in a scoring stage like Air or Abbey? How much reverb? What decay/predelay times? etc or what combinations of different reverbs sound good?


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## paulmatthew (Sep 22, 2018)

Came across this topic some time ago here and you might find some useful info for Air Lyndhurst . https://vi-control.net/community/th...ons-matching-sf-bml-to-other-libraries.51414/


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## Callum Hoskin (Sep 22, 2018)

Du know what the reverb time is for air I know it can be changed with the ceiling???


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## paulmatthew (Sep 22, 2018)

Callum Hoskin said:


> Du know what the reverb time is for air I know it can be changed with the ceiling???


try 2.2 - 2.5 s


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## Silence-is-Golden (Sep 22, 2018)

Here is my current recepy:
1) use spaces (1 or 2) for your ir’s. And there are instruments specific ir’s. Spaces2 has lots more of em

2) use a quality algorhythmic reverb on your overal mix

Forget about too specific ‘numbers’ with how long the tail of one or another hall is.
Yes, you can use it, but you may need to have a very specific client or other need if you want to get that detailed.


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## Sami (Sep 22, 2018)

Try MIR Pro


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## Dietz (Sep 23, 2018)

Like Sami wrote: Try MIR Pro.

-> https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Vienna_Software_Package/Vienna_MIR_PRO#!Product_Info


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## Dewdman42 (Sep 23, 2018)

+1


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## givemenoughrope (Sep 23, 2018)

Flux SPAT


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## mcalis (Sep 23, 2018)

I'm aware Dietz's comment might've been a little tongue in cheek, but any product that claims to be able to solve all your problems with their one solution should be approached with some healthy skepticism. While I can attest to the quality of MIR (I've owned the MIR 24 Pro version before I resold it), I didn't end up using it much. I ended up feeling like MIR + a bonedry library like most of what VSL sells or Samplemodelling might be a good match, but for that libraries I had, I could never quite manage to create the sense of space that I was after.

Here's an honest question for you: do you just want it to sound right, or do you want to learn how to make it sound right?

There's a big difference.

MIR is one of those tools that will do most of the heavy lifting for you, but you won't learn how it does what it does and should you ever end up in a scenario where you only have a delay, an EQ, and a reverb available and are asked to spatialize material... you'll be screwed because you won't know how to actually do it since MIR always did it for you.

If you want to learn how to do it, expect to be taking several months at least to gather, apply, test and experiment with all the knowledge you can find here or elsewhere on the internet. It's more of a time investment, but you'll come out having an actual understanding of acoustics. Once you have that understanding, you'll be able to create the sound _you _want which is something no one here can possibly give you the settings for.

At best I can give you some pointers in the right direction. I'm not an expert on this, but this should get you started at least:

1. Learn how instruments are seated in a standard orchestra configuration. You can't even begin to spatialize stuff correctly if you don't know where the sound is supposed to be coming from.
2. Spend some serious time balancing your instruments against each other. First, balance each section internally and then balance the sections against each other. If your violins Pizz sample sounds as loud as your violins sus at full whack, you're doing it wrong. Note that very few libraries are properly balanced out of the box, even the expensive ones.
2a: If you attend some live orchestral performances you can begin to get a feel for the internal balance of the orchestra but also how various spaces and your position in the space all affect the sound. I was once at a concert up in the balcony and pretty far removed from the orchestra, yet a single glockenspiel still cut through the entire orchestra digging in at forte (this is more because human hearing is biased toward high-frequency sounds than the effect of the space on the sound).
3. Understand that the most important dimension isn't horizontal (left or right), but depth. Even in old mono recordings, where you have no L/R information you can still hear that the trumpets are further back than the strings. This is the part of the placement you want to focus on (in other words: how far back something sounds).
3a: Once you know that high frequencies roll off faster over distance than low frequencies you can use EQ to begin to "push" dry source material into the back of the room.
4. Know that Early Reflections are much more important perceptually than the late reverb. Look into early reflections and how they largely dictate where we perceive a sound source to be coming from. Also look into the Haas effect and learn how to use delay to simulate early reflections.
5. Personally I find it helpful to have a clear mental image of where the _listener_ is positioned in your virtual concert hall. Are they way at the back of the hall? Then you can expect to hear a lot more of the late reverb. Or is the listener at the conductor's stand? Pick a spot and model toward that.

One more thing: I don't mean to advise against tools such as MIR. MIR does what it says on the tin and does it well but you won't learn how to create your own virtual venues from using it.

Wishing you all the best,

-MC


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## Sami (Sep 23, 2018)

mcalis said:


> I'm aware Dietz's comment might've been a little tongue in cheek, but any product that claims to be able to solve all your problems with their one solution should be approached with some healthy skepticism. While I can attest to the quality of MIR (I've owned the MIR 24 Pro version before I resold it), I didn't end up using it much. I ended up feeling like MIR + a bonedry library like most of what VSL sells or Samplemodelling might be a good match, but for that libraries I had, I could never quite manage to create the sense of space that I was after.
> 
> Here's an honest question for you: do you just want it to sound right, or do you want to learn how to make it sound right?
> 
> ...


This is a very valuable post which everyone should read


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## Sanlky (Sep 24, 2018)

mcalis said:


> I'm aware Dietz's comment might've been a little tongue in cheek, but any product that claims to be able to solve all your problems with their one solution should be approached with some healthy skepticism. While I can attest to the quality of MIR (I've owned the MIR 24 Pro version before I resold it), I didn't end up using it much. I ended up feeling like MIR + a bonedry library like most of what VSL sells or Samplemodelling might be a good match, but for that libraries I had, I could never quite manage to create the sense of space that I was after.
> 
> Here's an honest question for you: do you just want it to sound right, or do you want to learn how to make it sound right?
> 
> ...


Several years ago, tried VSS2, which did the job and was more affordable, but stopped using it for mixing, got better results with stereo panning plug ins, Eqs, impulses, and reverbs which i own a lot.

As mcalis says, there is no plugin which will do everything for you. If you want a natural sounding stage, you should work among instruments sections stereo placement, EQ and work A LOT with early reflections. A plug in that can help you started and make some ER, TSAR from softube can make it a bit easy, with some delays chain help tends to help a lot. Use impulses if you have some, many libraries comes with their own. Another thing you might need if you mix several libraries are stereo widening or panning tools, VSS2 did the job right at first, but when mixing 100+channels i had troubles with cpu overloads.

If you are mixing an artificial orchestra for a track you might not want to mix it natural, just balanced and sometimes an in your face dry orchestra, you might want a different approach depend on what you are mixing.

Making libraries sounds right like sample modeling is a very good practice, they sound awful unmixed and are the worst sounding instruments out of the box, but once mixed, you can make them sound amazing. LASS without its impulses are hard to get them sound right out of the box too, but once you learn how to mix it properly it just sound amazing, and you make it sound differently since its recorded mostly with closed mics afaik.


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## Beat Kaufmann (Sep 25, 2018)

First and foremost, I would like to support all the previous speakers who recommend not using mix machines. However, you must know that not to use such mixing machines is the much more difficult way. In addition, you can not learn the necessary knowledge overnight. So patience and time is needed.
First, you have to know the tools well...

...Reverb, the one big topic when it comes to mix orchestral sounds.
Here you can read and hear the most important about reverb: About Reverb (my website)

Have fun
Beat


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## Will Blackburn (Sep 26, 2018)

vss3 is in the pipeline


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## CT (Sep 26, 2018)

Sanlky said:


> LASS without its impulses are hard to get them sound right out of the box too, but once you learn how to mix it properly it just sound amazing, and you make it sound differently since its recorded mostly with closed mics afaik.



Wasn't LASS done in proper seating position at least, even though the sound is very close? I always assumed that, but if the recordings were actually just centered, and the spatializing is done by their Stage engine alone, I'm even more impressed.


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## Sanlky (Sep 27, 2018)

miket said:


> Wasn't LASS done in proper seating position at least, even though the sound is very close? I always assumed that, but if the recordings were actually just centered, and the spatializing is done by their Stage engine alone, I'm even more impressed.


cant tell you for sure(i dont own them, just mix tracks i get, and i dont hear them in "stereo" or stereo information without any impulse), but if they are close mics, they will only be panned. which anyways, its a good place to start, you have an already panned string section. VSS did a nice job with LASS, but nowadays you might need to open/close the orchestra sound, in Logic, with its new stereo panning, you can widen it a bit more by moving each section a bit(normal panning just lowers volume of L or R, so you dont get a stereo panning), or doing so you might have more room for definition of other instruments or other libraries. But as said before, ER and tails, makes the difference, done properly you can make it sound huge, and clear. 
BTW: for mixing scoring music, sometimes you will change its panning, like.... placing basses center. If you want a real orchestra vibe, of course you wont be doing this, or you might want to make a sound in your face, with lots of instruments being on the front. Mixing is creativity  do it how it would normally be, or mix it in an interesting way with a new concept, just make your music sound awesome!


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