# Danny Elfman's "Ice Dance" from Edward Scissorhands soundtrack



## Bunford (Oct 12, 2012)

I've been here gathering information for a while but finally put my knowledge into action. Here's my first attempt at a 'composition'. It's a track from a famous film, but seeing as that I can't read music I've had to learn music theory, try and work it all out myself and this is my stab at it from an orchestral angle. The ending is a bit abrupt, but I don't have the luxury of film takes to roll into at the end of the track!

Anyway, I'd be grateful if I could havesome constructive critique of my attempt!

http://soundcloud.com/originalsoundstudios/ice-dance 

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfVPPpbEN2Y

Cheers all!


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## YoungComposer (Oct 13, 2012)

*Re: Ice Dance*

Overall, great for your first attempt. There are a few minor things, but it's just my opinion and you would be your best critique. Although, I can say I have listened to this piece at least 500 times, so i can add some helpful input...

1) I'm not sure about the mix, seems the celeste is a bit loud and midi like. Check out some great companies like Spitfire, Cinesamples for a great sounding instrument that would fit this piece perfectly.

2) Strings can be brought up a bit and need to be humanized with timing, cross-fading, velocity and swells, etc.

That's about it. Btw, I LOVE the choir, sounds amazing here. Which lib are you using? Voxos is my guess.

Anyway keep up the great work!!

Elfman would be proud.


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## Bunford (Oct 13, 2012)

Choirs are indeed Voxos! Well spotted. The lead instrument isnt a celeste but is a mixture of a couple of different vibraphones from True Strike, and I agree that it might be a bit loud. 

The strings were a bit louder but I quiet ended them down a bit, mainly cos I found it difficult to humanise the faster notes on the second violins. Any tips on humanising the strings?


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## Bunford (Oct 13, 2012)

Following on from the advice, I've now tweaked it a bit and mastered and panned it a bit more and put more expression into the velocity and volumens of the instruments, particularly the strings and vibraphone. Grateful if anyone could advice whether this second version sounds better or not? Tried to quieten elements and bring the strings up a bit more too.

Here's the new version: 

http://soundcloud.com/originalsoundstudios/ice-dance

Any first back on my first ever attempt would be hugely appreciated! :D


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## Bunford (Oct 13, 2012)

Edited first post now. Any feedback for a beginner would be hugely appreciated!


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## YoungComposer (Oct 13, 2012)

Wow! Huge improvement. "Celeste" is perfect now, everything is really well balanced and sounds great.

The only other advice i could possibly give is 1) Perhaps you can pan the violins full left AND right to get true stereo for them, but that is a opinion and depends on your taste.

Also, what strings are you using? EWQL?

They can be adjusted to sound a little bit less harsh when beginning and ending lines (also can be done with dynamics)

Overall, sounds much much better!

Great job!


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## Bunford (Oct 14, 2012)

Strings are LASS full ensemble legato patches,

Great to hear I'm going in the right direction with it all! I've chosen to work on a few film scores as my 'study' topics. Figure them out, use what theory I've learnt, learn how to master them etc etc.

This is my first one and hoping a few more will come in the next few days, so SUPER glad to get good feedback :D

Also, I felt they were a bit harsh in coming at times, hence why the violins are a fair bit lowered than the rest of the strings. How would I go about tweaking this? I assume lowering the attack in LASS would work? Or is there a more effective tweak without losing the string attack?


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## Vartio (Oct 14, 2012)

you could try lowering the mid-high freqs (that's where the harshness usually comes from, sweep around a bit to find the sweet spot) and rising the highs (to get some more air) with a nice soft EQ and soak it with some warm reverb.
The celesta and choir sound lovely! Cheers!


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## Ed (Oct 14, 2012)

Just a quick comment, one of the reasons the small instruments like the Celeste sounds "like midi" is that it sounds too perfectly quantised and as if you didnt play it on the keyboard, its also too loud. I have True Strike, its not the fault of this library. Unless you're someone like Blake Robinson who is really good at inputting stuff like this with a mouse and make it feel natural, people who dont play stuff in usually end up with this problem.


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## Bunford (Oct 14, 2012)

Ed @ Sun 14 Oct said:


> Just a quick comment, one of the reasons the small instruments like the Celeste sounds "like midi" is that it sounds too perfectly quantised and as if you didnt play it on the keyboard, its also too loud. I have True Strike, its not the fault of this library. Unless you're someone like Blake Robinson who is really good at inputting stuff like this with a mouse and make it feel natural, people who dont play stuff in usually end up with this problem.



So what's the best way to humanise them if they are written in rather than played?


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## Bunford (Oct 14, 2012)

Vartio @ Sun 14 Oct said:


> you could try lowering the mid-high freqs (that's where the harshness usually comes from, sweep around a bit to find the sweet spot) and rising the highs (to get some more air) with a nice soft EQ and soak it with some warm reverb.
> The celesta and choir sound lovely! Cheers!



Already soaked with some reverb. Used about 5 mastering effects on the master output, including Ozone 5, some Waces reverbs and one or two more tweaks.

Might try and fiddle the EQ a bit more though.


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## Ed (Oct 14, 2012)

Bunford @ Sun Oct 14 said:


> So what's the best way to humanise them if they are written in rather than played?



In terms of quantise, in Cubase I can set to random quantise to a certain amount of ticks in the "Quantise Panel", in Cubase I find around 13 to be a good human quantise setting without sounding out of time, but have a play.

Are you using low velocities in the patches? In the original the dynamics seem quite soft, whereas yours seems like its played harder, but also Im sure the sound is also too loud, but experiment with just the soft dynamics. It also sort of sounds like most of the velocities sound the same, if it was played in it wouldnt be all the same. 

Also, what mic positions are you using? Maybe potentially use far mics, or if you're combining mics, more far than medium will likely help as well.

I will say that playing something in makes a big difference without needing to mess about as much with velocities, so if you have a MIDI keyboard I recommend playing something similar so you can see what MIDI information looks like.


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## Ryan Scully (Oct 14, 2012)

Hi Bunford,

On an initial attempt this is very nice work - You should be very satisfied with the results. This is one of my favorite film score pieces - A major influence on my personal choir writing as well. 


A few comments -

With LASS, you have a very strong string library capable of extremely expressive results. That said, I would work very closely with the dynamic x-fade control(CC#1 mod wheel) and expression(CC #11) to bring them to life - This will help you to overcome the sometimes "harsh" sound that can come to light on their attack - I personally wouldn't address this with the strings attack control. Also, are you using the stage and color feature in LASS 2? I find that the Batman profile "numbs" LASS and really makes it sing - without having to use an as-aggressive EQ approach to tame them..

I agree with the need to tame some of the mid-high frequencies - this is especially important when combing multiple sample libraries as you can accumulate quite a build up - Doing this can bring a more cohesive sound altogether - Also agree on softly pulling up the highs for air and using a nice cohesive verb tail for subtle gluing..

The choirs sound great - very nice legato programming and certainly faithful to the original. 

On the subject of MIDI programming vs. playing in - I tend to use a combination of both since I am not a keyboard player and I sometimes get more realistic results with input and calculated quantizing..That being said, Ed brings up a solid point as to avoiding too strict a grid quantization(not the best sentence in the world : / ). I'm not sure what your sequencer is but I would experiment and look into the MIDI humanization features to address this - most sequencers have inter-related approaches to this..

One final note and its a really important one for me personally - Work very closely with the tempo map in your sequencer. It's especially important with slow, expressive pieces like this - Experiment with subtle(and sometimes not so subtle) peaks and valleys between measures and sections - use it to build crescendos and diminuendos in sections - You will find your pieces to become much more "life like" in the process and will avoid the sound of being over-quantized. 


As I said earlier, this is really nice work Bunford and should certainly motivate you to dig deeper heading into the future - good luck!


Ryan :D


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## Ed (Oct 14, 2012)

This is True Strike Celeste Stage mic, no reverb, no extra EQ. I VERY quickly played some similar pinkly plonky Edward Scissorhands kinda thing (I am not a piano player)

http://soundcloud.com/edwardbradshawmus ... st/s-2LH8x

The first version is as played.
The second version is quantised 100%
The third version has a random quantise setting of 13 ticks.

I think what shows is that velocities make the most difference in terms of what sounds realistic for this. I could have improved this further by playing it better still and by making some tempo changes. I'd pan the celeste to the left a bit and add reverb etc like the original.

Here is the MIDI file in case it helps:

http://www.yousendit.com/download/TEhVT ... M2xjR05Vag


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## Hannes_F (Oct 14, 2012)

Ed @ Sun Oct 14 said:


> The first version is as played.
> The second version is quantised 100%
> The third version has a random quantise setting of 13 ticks.



Very revealing test, Ed!


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## Vartio (Oct 14, 2012)

> Already soaked with some reverb. Used about 5 mastering effects on the master output, including Ozone 5, some Waces reverbs and one or two more tweaks.



You should try to make the strings sound nice and smooth just by them selves. without adding anything on the master bus. (a tleast this is how i'd do it)
remember to use the lower dynamic layers (modwheel on lower positions.) maybe even layer them with the sordino sustains? I've found that lass usually takes a bit of massaging to make it really silky. and this piece really begs for that silky sound.

listen to some good string recordings and a/b them with your creation, try to figure out all the little differences that your version has compared to the recording (in terms of tome and color) then try to mach it.

after you've got a good sound on the strings, then go ahead and apply a global reverb, eq, compression and what not.

also, as it was mentioned already. Humanizing is really important.


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