# Hans Zimmer masterclass + Dream Is Collapsing mockup



## Mr Greg G (Nov 5, 2012)

I went to Hans Zimmer's masterclass that took place in Paris 3 weeks ago, it was pretty interesting, kind of a retrospective of his musical carrier with funny little stories and movies excerpts. It was a 2h "discussion" with a guy whose name I don't remember. Anyway. I learnt that it was possible for a producer to scare a very established composer and make them doubt and feel guilty about what they are musically experimenting to create the music landscape for a movie. They were talking about Sherlock Holmes and the music in the fight sequence. Apparently there was a test screening so the audience would rate the music. In the end it got so great reviews the production decided to keep it.

They also talked about Rain Man which seems to be the soundtrack that got Zimmer out there with the big players. People tend to forget HZ hasn't composed huge epic orchestral soundtracks all his life. His compositions were featuring lots of synths sounds and ethnic percs. Like on True Romance and Cool Runnings (yeah I just remembered he also scored this disney comedy i loved when I was young). The guy is very versatile and I think that's what got him where he is right now. Well, that + contacts. The transition to epic orchestrations was probably made with The Lion King. We watched a short clip of the movie (Simba's father death) where the music is very present. I noticed a huge influence and references from Mozart's Requiem. The music makes it a very powerful scene. HZ said they edited the beginning of the movie to fit his music he recorded in one take with a makeshift African choir.

Hans mentioned the different work approach with Michael Bay on Rock, and Terrence Malick on The Thin Red Line. With Michael Bay it was more of a fun rollercoaster ride and very profound with Malick with passionate talks. This conference had a weird moment with a recorded Michel Polnaref's (spelling?) phone call to talk about Hans (they met 25 or 30 years ago), the guy seemed so high I think he was exploring new galaxies haha.







This is a very very condensed summary as Hans spoke for about 2 hours and told many stories but since it wasn't a conference meant for musicians there was no talk about technical things we love to hear on this forum (mockups, mix, programming, custom sample libraries and sampler...). I wanted to ask some questions but only 3 or 4 people in the front were able to ask some which happened to be not very interesting. I guess people just want to talk for the sake of talking to Hans Zimmer. I can understand that. I know he's working with Lorne Balfe and I wish I could learn more about how they work together. Their artistic and technical workflow should be interesting. I guess they both use the same tools so they can share Cubase projects. The masterclass ended with a mash up of several tracks played by Hans Zimmer on the piano.






The next day, there was a movie concert for The Artist were the music was played live with a full orchestra while the audience was watching the movie. I saw Joe Hisaishi last year and Philip Glass some years ago playing live with an orchestra during the projection of Koyaanisqatsi . These were fantastic moments so I grabbed my ticket without hesitation. We even got to experience live tracks played from the Marco Beltrami (I Robot, Knowing, T3) and Hans Zimmer repertoire (Chevaliers de Sangreal and PotC) specially arranged for the occasion. Wow. Just wow.

All this made me want to rework my Dream Is Collapsing mockup and study/understand the way his compositions I really enjoy are done. On Inception I noticed there is a mix between very closed mic'ed instruments and very far ones to give a very powerful and overwhelming . You can hear the heavy pressure of the bow like on the Apocalyptica versions of Metallica tracks.

Apocalyptica - Sad But True


One of their latest releases I'm Not Jesus:


That makes the cellos sound like heavy electric guitars. It's almost impossible to get this kind of sounds with sample libraries. There may be some I'm not aware of though that can get close to this type of sound.

My mockup attempt for Dream Is Collapsing:


I tried to get as close as possible with LASS for close strings and Symphobia for stage strings. I got rid of all the VSL instances present in my previous version because they have no round robin so it made the staccatos really synthy and the shotgun effect was everywhere. As a cello player it was making my skin crawl each time I was hearing it. I stacked divisis with full strings sections together to get a bigger sound. LASS divisis weren't enough for what I was trying to achieve so I added about 8 symphobia tracks to make the strings sound fatter at some moments.

Electronic sounds are from Omnisphere and Trilian. I EQ'ed the bass track with an automation to have a low pass filter on at the beginning of the track and off 16 bars later. Ok, the electronic sounds aren't exactly the same as in the original because they have too much subs and lack of clarity in the mids/highs but they do the job. I'm more focusing on how the track is composed/recorded than on making an exact replica.

Same thing for the guitar parts, I just grabbed the guitar I had next to me (a Squier Stratocaster made in Korea, middle mic selected) and plugged my PODxt to record the lines. I browsed the factory presets and chose the one that sounded the closest to the one in the soundtrack. There are actually 2 guitar sounds: 1 clean sound and 1 rhythm sound with an overdrive. It was done in 1 take, so please bear with my playing 

The brass parts were only done with Orchestral Brass Classic and feature Marc papeghin on half of the horns. I wasn't happy at first with the sound I was getting out of the Brass section. It was lacking some power. So I put a tube distortion (the one in Cubase) on the Horns to get a more aggressive render. I used the sustain dynamic multi, hard tuba and cimbasso patches with a very light touch of symphobia brass ens for the trumpets.

As for the reverb, I used the Reverb A from Cubase SX1 in the previous version but switched it for Altiverb Todd AO and sent it at -7db to the violins. The brass already had some reverb from the "stage" samples so they didn't need more. It's hard to find the right dosage for reverb and composers tend to add too much of it in their mockups so I'm trying not to overuse it. You often need to only feel the reverb more than hearing it as if the players are sitting in an empty tank.





This track seems easy to reproduce when you first hear it. It sounds like the succession of 4 chords with just strings playing staccatos and brass blowing up their lungs. But that's definitely not just that. There's a lot going on underneath what you hear at first, many arrangements and parts you feel more than you hear. Changes often happen in the 4th chord with a discordant tone that gives a feeling of stress or tension to the viewer. There's also a little pattern playing the same thing through the different chords, it's kind of like an anchor point for the listener that makes him think "I'm listening to the same thing (the main melody is the same) but it feels different". I noticed this technique is often used in Pop songs for lead vocals. It can be very effective, it helps creating a catchy chorus for example. Also each group of instruments plays at its own rhythm. Violins are playing 8th, cellos 4th, brass powerful blows once every bar.

I'll stop here, but there's a quite lot to say and learn about this track. It's a really good exercise to sit down and analyze what you're listening to and why you like one passage more than another!

If you've got any questions, feel free to ask.
Thanks for reading.


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## rpaillot (Nov 5, 2012)

Very Nice Mr Pringles.
You have good ears !!!

To me it sounds pretty good . 
I think Brass could be improved a little , perhaps by using that monster low brass patch from cinebrass pro ?  If you got it.

Romain


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 5, 2012)

Nice job, man! And yeah, we can learn so much from taking apart these kinds of special pieces.


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## germancomponist (Nov 5, 2012)

Very cool, but the "Pause" at 1.34 is a little bit too short....... !

But again: Very cool!


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## Mr Greg G (Nov 6, 2012)

rpaillot, thanks, yes there are things that can get improved in the mockup but you have to stop programming at some point or this becomes an endless quest! And nope, I don't have Cinebrass, you think you can get a close result to the original piece?

Ned, yes thanks! Exactly, it can be time consuming but it's definitely worth it. It helps gauge your sounds and mixes!

germancomponist, thanks, yes the little gap is shorter than in the original but we're talking maybe 500 milliseconds here because I synced the original track with my mockup. Basically, I started by creating the tempo track so it perfectly follows the original.

Again, if you've got questions about something (not just the mockup), feel free to ask!


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## germancomponist (Nov 6, 2012)

Mr Pringles @ Tue Nov 06 said:


> germancomponist, thanks, yes the little gap is shorter than in the original but we're talking maybe 500 milliseconds here because I synced the original track with my mockup. Basically, I started by creating the tempo track so it perfectly follows the original.
> 
> Again, if you've got questions about something (not just the mockup), feel free to ask!



Today I have downloaded your cover-version and listened on my big speakers. (Yesterday I had a listen only on my little net-book)

I now know what I was missing the other day: The note lengths, that 1/12 string notes, from 0.35 on are too long and/or are starting a little bit too late, so you caught not the right feeling what is there in the original track. 

And there that ritardando at 1.34 is not the same as is in the original, so here is another feeling too. There are other things,volume balance e.t.c. what also are very important for the right feel, but I have not the time to do a complete analysis. 

BTW, my criticism is good meant!


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## Mr Greg G (Nov 7, 2012)

germancomponist, thanks for your pointers! 



> The note lengths, that 1/12 string notes, from 0.35 on are too long and/or are starting a little bit too late, so you caught not the right feeling what is there in the original track.



You're right, it doesn't feel the same as in the original track. I think this is mainly due to the fact that the violins got recorded very close with a lot of rosin, you can even smell it! Unfortunatly I don't think there are any sample library that can get this feeling.



> And there that ritardando at 1.34 is not the same as is in the original



Yes some brass notes are missing, I just noticed that.

I'd be interested to know what are the "other things" you're mentioning, we (people) don't have the same ears or pay attention to the same things while listening music. So yeah I'd be curious! 



> BTW, my criticism is good meant!


Yeah don't worry :lol:


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## germancomponist (Nov 7, 2012)

Mr Pringles @ Wed Nov 07 said:


> I'd be interested to know what are the "other things" you're mentioning, we (people) don't have the same ears or pay attention to the same things while listening music. So yeah I'd be curious!



Hm, to make it short: Your cover-version grooves different. The interplay between all musicians, the involvement of the conductor, the room/hall etc, all this together makes the groove. The art of a good cover is precisely to capture even the Groove. Like almost everywhere in life, look at the finer points.

I am sure you can do much more with your midi. Experiment!


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## Tatu (Nov 7, 2012)

Nice! I really liked the low end of it; well balanced and strong.

germancomponist wrote about 0:35 and I noted the same: It sort of twists the rhythm and I sensed it as weird bounce from mid-right to left (cellos -> violins). Maybe a bit work there. And the synths, starting at 0:22, were a bit too much at the centre of the stereo image to my taste and the brass... maybe you could try to knock them up a bit with parallel compression/distortion (with a bit of high pass), so they'd be more clearly brass, yet there'd be that raw and distorted sound aside them.

Over all, a very good piece of h!


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## Mr Greg G (Nov 7, 2012)

germancomponist @ Wed Nov 07 said:


> Your cover-version grooves different.


True, and I think it's mainly due to the close recording vs sample library matter. Unfortunately I don't have much room to work on that.



Tatu @ Wed Nov 07 said:


> I sensed it as weird bounce from mid-right to left (cellos -> violins).


Good catch, I forgot to mention that in my first post! The original version of the track is also featuring some hard panning of some of the rhythm instruments (the ones that were recorded very close, yes these again  ) to make them stand out so I wanted to also experiment with this. That's what is interesting: to hear a very small group of violins or a solo cello standing out easily of the whole orchestra.

Parallel compression on the brass, that's a good idea to develop!


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## germancomponist (Nov 7, 2012)

Mr Pringles @ Wed Nov 07 said:


> germancomponist @ Wed Nov 07 said:
> 
> 
> > Your cover-version grooves different.
> ...



Hm, have you experimented with your libs? Maybe it is worth it to re-samole your short notes and stretch it, built a new instrument in Kontakt, for example... . I did this very often and it can work fine.

..


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## R. Soul (Jun 21, 2013)

Mr Pringles.... Sorry, to revive an old thread but I sent you a pm regarding your mock up.
Not sure if your inbox is full or you just ignored it


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## Mr Greg G (Jun 21, 2013)

Hey there! Sorry, I didn't see your message until this afternoon!

What I remember from this "guitar recording session" if one can call that this way is that it was pretty much straight forward. I plugged my Squier Strat, selected both bridge and neck pickups to get a nice round sound not too sparkly, tweaked 1 or 2 clean patches from my PODxt to add the desired amount of drive, recorded the 2 guitar tracks (there are 2 tracks, one doing 3 bass notes and another doing the repetitive high notes motive), added a little delay, a large room reverb very wet the high notes and more dry for the low ones, and a Marshall JCM900 plugin emulation on top of it to help sculpt the sound. I also EQ'd the shit out of the track to get rid of some fizz, remove some aggressive highs and/or beef up the mids. Midrange frequencies are the key for guitars so they don't get in the way of bass sounds. I've seen many engineers like Fredrik Nordström adding both high pass and low pass filters on the guitars when producing for Dimmu Borgir.

I didn't play these parts with palm mutes, it was a really standard playing (arppegio with downstrokes pick attacks only). I guess the trick is to find the right amount of drive and reverb for both low and high notes parts to get this airy guitar sound à la Johnny Marr. It seems quite simple when you think about it, Johnny only plays "a couple of notes" here and there. But he did that with his interpretion, you can feel it in the way he played these notes in "Old Souls" for instance. In the end, his guitar parts add a lot of nice textures to the final arrangement and it's a safe bet to say this soundtrack would absolutely not be the same without it.

Like I said in the first post, I was more focusing on the orchestral parts and arrangements than on the guitars so I didn't spend much time to tweak to get the closest sound. Same thing with the synths sounds, just used some Omnisphere presets like Analog Brass Vortex, OB-8 Brass Love... I used the fender blackface sim with a 57 off axis. When the whole strings section comes in, it's down to one crunch guitar track ie the blackface sim with a little distortion on top of it. When working on this mockup I created a synth/perc/guitars bus, here's an export of this bus if you want to hear more dinstinctively the guitars. https://soundcloud.com/inyourendo/dream ... rcs-synths
_EDIT: Don't forget to turn your volume down before the end of this track or you'll get your ears blasted like I just had when the playlist will play the next track..._

You're talking about Ministry of Rock and RealStrat. The problem with these guitar emulation plugs is they sound completely lifeless, they lack this crucial element which is the interpretation. I know it's better than nothing but if it were me I would rather switch to another instrument like a piano, an electric piano or a synth instead of using something that sounds really fake :D But that's just me!


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## valexnerfarious (Jun 21, 2013)

pretty cool.....love dimmu borgir...me and nordstrom skype regularly


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