# Indiana Bones - full Berlin Orchestra (Orchestral Tools)



## FriFlo (Oct 24, 2016)

With the arrival of Berlin Brass, I wrote this little piece. I certainly have to do some homework on the mix, but for now I just focused on a round composition and detailed midi programming.
Enjoy!


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## desert (Oct 24, 2016)

Great track FriFlo! Berlin Brass works nicely for JW style pieces


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## Morodiene (Oct 25, 2016)

Love that brass! Nicely done :D


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## Alatar (Oct 25, 2016)

Very nice!


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## FriFlo (Oct 26, 2016)

Thank you all for your kind comments! I do however appreciate, whatever someone might not find good or what could be better. After all, music and composing is a live long learning experience, the way I see it. And sometimes someone else not as deeply involved in the process of creating a piece, may offer valuable advice. 
So, don't keep back any negative thoughts! You won't hurt my feeling by that!


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## RyanMcQuinn (Oct 26, 2016)

Sorry I don't have a negative comment for you lol! The sound is really pleasant. Is there a trick you could share for how the brass sounds so alive? I have both libraries by ewql, but the brass never quite comes to life like that. Also, I quite enjoyed the little Williams-esque flourish toward the beginning. The timing there was perfect.


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## Ashermusic (Oct 26, 2016)

Very nice, but since you insist on some critical comments 

It feels laggy. If they were real players I would be conducting very on top of the beat trying to move them along. But really, nice.


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## FriFlo (Oct 26, 2016)

Yeah, it could maybe need a little bit of before the beat playing in some places, Jay! Very good point. I wouldn't rather do an accelerando from start to finish, but in the right places if could be good.
@RyanMcQuinn : I don't have the time to go into details, now, but if you wish so, I can do that later, once time allows. I cannot really comment on East West libraries, because I don't use any of them any more and haven't got the Hollywood series. So, one point could indeed be the sound of the Berlin series! I did receive free libraries from OT, however, so take that with a grain of salt. 
Honestly, it mostly takes great efforts of programming and editing to get it sound right in the first place. By that, I mean carefully editing the midi, experimenting with different articulations combined (in this case mostly staccatos and marcatos of different lengths in the Brass) and combining those until you hear what you want to hear. Of course, this always precedes to actually know, what you want to hear and not to forget that in the process of achieving it.
Then, you combine all those lines and see, if they "play" well together as an ensemble. I cannot claim, I am quick at it yet, because I actually prefer composing music over doing mockups and it is really a lot of work to achieve something decent. But I get quicker at it with every extensive mockup I do. So, the midi work is at least 80% of the result, maybe 90% ...


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## Cass Hansen (Oct 27, 2016)

Okay, that does it, I'm getting the Berlin Brass library. Really enjoyed the sound and piece equally. Quickly, could you tell me if you used all the mics or just the tree mic and did you add any additional reverb to the brass?
Thanks,
Cass


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## FriFlo (Oct 27, 2016)

Sure! I used on all instruments just Tree and Close. On the Strings a little more close than on brass, woodwinds and percussion. The more close I used on brass instruments, the more I compensated with algorithmic reverb to keep it behind the strings. I would always add reverb to an orchestral mockup, even with ambient libraries like the Berlin series. It just glues everything together. Not a lot, of course! I don't want to make it blurry, but always a little for the glue.
From a pure realism perspective, the tree mics would be enough for the brass, really and most of what you hear here is the tree mics! But supporting those with the close mics just adds in a little more punch and clarity. Just like with real recordings, actually.


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## Cass Hansen (Oct 27, 2016)

FriFlo said:


> Sure! I used on all instruments just Tree and Close. On the Strings a little more on brass, woodwinds and percussion. The more close I used on brass instruments, the more I compensated with algorithmic reverb to keep it behind the strings. I would always add reverb to an orchestral mockup, even with ambient libraries like the Berlin series. It just glues everything together. Not a lot, of course! I don't want to make it blurry, but always a little for the glue.
> From a pure realism perspective, the tree mics would be enough for the brass, really and most of what you hear here is the tree mics! But supporting those with the close mics just adds in a little more punch and clarity. Just like with real recordings, actually.


Thanks FriFlo for describing the mic and reverb settings you used on the brass in this piece. This helps a lot. Also the additional thoughts on overall reverb settings and usage on a piece. This is the kind of feedback I find so helpful on this forum and I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.
Cass


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## J-M (Oct 27, 2016)

Sounds gorgeous...That's unfortunately pretty much everything I can say. Well, I do agree with Ashermusic about the lagginess, but that's a minor complaint!

Here's something I did if you want to give some feedback: http://vi-control.net/community/threads/lord-of-the-woods-trying-to-be-scary.56839/


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## FriFlo (Oct 28, 2016)

Thanks for your comment, MrLinssi. I cannot comment on your track at the moment, as I am without proper speakers right now. Will do so later ...


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## PerryD (Oct 31, 2016)

Beautiful work! If I absolutely had to critique, I would say add a tiny bit of "sparkle" to your high woodwinds with eq, or perhaps double a line with a subtle glock part. Honestly, if I played with it I'm sure my results would not be a good as yours.  Very nice showcase for Berlin Brass!


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## Paul T McGraw (Oct 31, 2016)

FriFlo said:


> Yeah, it could maybe need a little bit of before the beat playing in some places, Jay! Very good point. I wouldn't rather do an accelerando from start to finish, but in the right places if could be good.
> @RyanMcQuinn : I don't have the time to go into details, now, but if you wish so, I can do that later, once time allows. I cannot really comment on East West libraries, because I don't use any of them any more and haven't got the Hollywood series. So, one point could indeed be the sound of the Berlin series! I did receive free libraries from OT, however, so take that with a grain of salt.
> Honestly, it mostly takes great efforts of programming and editing to get it sound right in the first place. By that, I mean carefully editing the midi, experimenting with different articulations combined (in this case mostly staccatos and marcatos of different lengths in the Brass) and combining those until you hear what you want to hear. Of course, this always precedes to actually know, what you want to hear and not to forget that in the process of achieving it.
> Then, you combine all those lines and see, if they "play" well together as an ensemble. I cannot claim, I am quick at it yet, because I actually prefer composing music over doing mockups and it is really a lot of work to achieve something decent. But I get quicker at it with every extensive mockup I do. So, the midi work is at least 80% of the result, maybe 90% ...



Fabulous composition! Great sound! Your above comments were especially interesting and illuminating. Especially your comment *"Of course, this always precedes to actually know, what you want to hear and not to forget that in the process of achieving it."* Which in my poor attempts I find is so true and so annoying. Suddenly one begins to forget the initial conception and get lost in the details.

So based on the thread title, this is all OT samples, including woodwinds, strings and brass?


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## FriFlo (Oct 31, 2016)

Thank you Perry and Paul! Regarding the Woodwinds: yes, they might sometimes get a little lost in this mix. but this was due to my effort to particularly feature the brass for this piece. I have gotten so many valuable advices on this piece here and other places. Although I will probably not review it soon, it helps a lot for future mockups.
And, yes: This piece is exclusively Orchestral Tools libraries:
Berlin Woodwinds, Berlin Brass, Berlin Percussion, Berlin Strings and the Harp from Symphonic Sphere. From the Berlin Series there are also some of the expansions included.


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## Atomboy (Nov 28, 2016)

Awesome job FriFlo!!! As a huge JW fan I love the sound, what reverb did you use in your piece? And any eq or mastering you may applied?
Cheers


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## FriFlo (Nov 28, 2016)

Thanks, Atomboy. I used some Cubase standard EQ to balance some frequencies a little more and for the group tracks some Manley Massive Passive. The Reverb is Bricasti. But these are just the tools I happen to use. It is not the main point of how this demo sounds, which is the orchestration and composition, the library and the way it is used. I also did some slight adjustments on the stereo master, but I would never call that mastering!  Mastering is done by people dedicated to that job and they need a room designed for that purpose only lots of experience and proper tools. What we composers do is wanna-be-mastering at max. The same goes partly for mixing, if you ask me. If I would have the budget for a given project, I would always look to hire someone specialized at that. However, there rarely is any serious budget for music these days ...


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## Atomboy (Nov 28, 2016)

FriFlo said:


> Thanks, Atomboy. I used some Cubase standard EQ to balance some frequencies a little more and for the group tracks some Manley Massive Passive. The Reverb is Bricasti. But these are just the tools I happen to use. It is not the main point of how this demo sounds, which is the orchestration and composition, the library and the way it is used. I also did some slight adjustments on the stereo master, but I would never call that mastering!  Mastering is done by people dedicated to that job and they need a room designed for that purpose only lots of experience and proper tools. What we composers do is wanna-be-mastering at max. The same goes partly for mixing, if you ask me. If I would have the budget for a given project, I would always look to hire someone specialized at that. However, there rarely is any serious budget for music these days ...


Thank you


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## dan1 (Jan 7, 2017)

FriFlo said:


> little


little?! it's bigger than huge!


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## FriFlo (Jan 8, 2017)

Thanks, Dan!


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