# Bernard Herrmann "Vertigo Prelude" Mockup !



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Apr 27, 2018)

Hi everyone,

I just finished this short mockup of the "Vertigo Prelude", by the great Bernard Herrmann. I've been learning tons of stuff with this score, and it was really fun to mockup  What a maestro he was !

This was also my first try with the Orchestral Tools Berlin First Chairs, as I wanted to see how they would complement the strings from Metropolis Arks to emulate the sound of a studio orchestra.

Here are the virtual instruments I used :

Timpani : OT Metropolis Ark 3
Strings : OT Berlin First Chairs, layered with touches of Metropolis Ark 1 & 2
Brass : OT Berlin Brass
Woodwinds : OT Metropolis Ark 2 & VSL Woodwinds SE 1 & 1Plus 
Glockenspiel, Harp & Marimba : 8Dio AGE

For fun, I also tried to recreate the sound of the original recording, using console & tape machine emulations, and various EQs.

I sincerely hope you will enjoy the result, and please feel free to comment 

Emmanuel


----------



## Divico (Apr 27, 2018)

Lovely mockup. Really powerfull brass. Only critique I have that the brass is a bit to close sounding for me.


----------



## Pantonal (Apr 27, 2018)

Truly cool music! So very interesting and your mockup is really good. I had no issues with the sound of the brass, but I have an old man's ears. You picked an amazing piece of music.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Apr 27, 2018)

Thanks ! I'll have to check this brass tomorrow


----------



## NoamL (Apr 29, 2018)

You were able to get pretty close to the original studio-orchestra feeling without using a single "Bernard Hermann Orchestra" library I noticed 

Very nice sound!


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Apr 29, 2018)

NoamL said:


> You were able to get pretty close to the original studio-orchestra feeling without using a single "Bernard Hermann Orchestra" library I noticed
> 
> Very nice sound!



Ahah, didn't get this one ! I was saving for the Danny Elfman Oompa Loompa Toolkit.


----------



## Parsifal666 (Sep 13, 2018)

I'm finding myself sorry I missed this first time around. Great job, this is excellent! Makes me think about getting Met Ark 2.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 13, 2018)

Thank you @Parsifal666 ! I love Ark 2, and generally speaking all my Orchestral Tools libraries. I also know you're not a fan of the 1st volume, so... 

The real strenghts of Ark 2 are its Woodwinds & Brass sections, they're fantastic (Alto flutes, bass flutes, bass clarinets & contrabass clarinets for the Winds, Wagner tubas, fluegelhorns, bass trumpets, euphoniums and tubas for the Brass).

They're not the main elements in my mockup, though. The most important are Berlin First Chairs, Berlin Brass & VSL Woodwinds SE.


----------



## Parsifal666 (Sep 13, 2018)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you @Parsifal666 ! I love Ark 2, and generally speaking all my Orchestral Tools libraries. I also know you're not a fan of the 1st volume, so...
> 
> The real strenghts of Ark 2 are its Woodwinds & Brass sections, they're fantastic (Alto flutes, bass flutes, bass clarinets & contrabass clarinets for the Winds, Wagner tubas, fluegelhorns, bass trumpets, eumphoniums and tubas for the Brass).
> 
> They're not the main elements in my mockup, though. The most important are Berlin First Chairs, Berlin Brass & VSL Woodwinds SE.



I must say, I finally got around to the Ark 2 walkthrough and was STUNNED at how interesting that library is, so thanks for that as well (well, my wallet doesn't thank you lol!).

It always bummed me out that there weren't any clarinets in Met Ark 1, but they are obviously pretty darn good in 2!

Had I owned Met Ark 1 before my Hollywoods, EWSC, and Albions I would have FREEKED over it, because as far as the brass and choir go, it's as Wagnerian as I've ever heard. However, I was delighted to see Wagnerian tubas in 2   \m/


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Sep 13, 2018)

This is my favourite score, and you did a great job on this piece! My only criticism is the the last melodic line, about 60% in, the high strings, could be more powerful, climatic, like love finally released from its prison.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 13, 2018)

Thank you @Ned Bouhalassa, those strings were made with Berlin First Chairs and Metropolis Ark 2. A dedicated string library would probably have helped getting a bit more intensity  I also realized afterwards I could have played a bit more with the tempo track !


----------



## Parsifal666 (Sep 13, 2018)

It's definitely one of the finest mockups I've heard here...though I admit I'm biased due to being a Herrmann fanatic.

Have you considered BHOT? It's my overall favorite library and good for far more than just emulating BH, trust me on this.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 13, 2018)

Thank you so much ! But yeah, maybe it’s the Herrmaniac talking, ahah 

BHOT indeed looks fantastic, but I decided I had enough Ensemble libraries at the moment and should focus on dedicated Winds & Strings, which are still missing to my writing...

The only exception to this rule is the Metropolis Series, which became like a Christmas tradition to me


----------



## Parsifal666 (Sep 13, 2018)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you so much ! But yeah, maybe it’s the Herrmaniac talking, ahah
> 
> BHOT indeed looks fantastic, but I decided I had enough Ensemble libraries at the moment and should focus on dedicated Winds & Strings, which are still missing to my writing...
> 
> The only exception to this rule is the Metropolis Series, which became like a Christmas tradition to me



I have to recommend the Hein woodwinds, strongly. The workflow has a bit of a learning curve, but these samples are sooo dry and thus sooo malleable. Best solo woodwind library I've ever owned personally, and yes I own and like the Hollywood.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 13, 2018)

Parsifal666 said:


> I have to recommend the Hein woodwinds, strongly. The workflow has a bit of a learning curve, but these samples are sooo dry and thus sooo malleable. Best solo woodwind library I've ever owned personally, and yes I own and like the Hollywood.


Thanks, will take a look !


----------



## Wally Garten (Sep 13, 2018)

whitewasteland said:


> Danny Elfman Oompa Loompa Toolkit



100% must-have.

(This is a great mock-up, BTW.)


----------



## Bill the Lesser (Sep 17, 2018)

Absolutely gorgeous! Where there are slight differences, I mostly prefer your version. Could easily have been convinced that was a "real" orchestra. Great job on the mix too, no mud whatsoever.


----------



## gregh (Sep 17, 2018)

very impressive


----------



## Iskra (Sep 17, 2018)

Great mockup (of an amazing piece of music)!


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 17, 2018)

Thank you all for the kind words!


----------



## Michelob (Sep 19, 2018)

This is great ! Very impressive. Did you quantify (edit : quantize, sorry) everything ? At some parts, maybe it sounds a bit "squared". Perhaps a tempo track could help humanizing when needed ? (because, you know, this is really details, it sounds already very good as it is).


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 20, 2018)

Michelob said:


> This is great ! Very impressive. Did you quantify (edit : quantize, sorry) everything ? At some parts, maybe it sounds a bit "squared". Perhaps a tempo track could help humanizing when needed ? (because, you know, this is really details, it sounds already very good as it is).



Thank you ! Everything is quantized, I didn't play much. My favourite way of humanizing stuff is to "play" manually the tempo map, this is what I did for this mockup, as you can see on the pic :






But you're right, I could have done better with the variations, especially on this kind of piece...


----------



## Michelob (Sep 20, 2018)

I understand, that's always a challenge to find the right balance between rough or quantized takes.

Edit : I mean : for me too. Because I guess the best you play, the less you have to quantize.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 20, 2018)

I would love to have some slider in Cubase that moves the selected notes between their rough and quantized position, and tweakable at all time. Their is something like this in the VariAudio, where 0% is the raw pitch and 100% is the edited one.

That would probably save a lot of headaches


----------



## Michelob (Sep 20, 2018)

Oh ! Don't you have this in Cubase ? Are you shure ? Here in Reaper, we've got percent tweaking of quantize. Yeah ok, not with a slider, but surely could as everything seems possible to Reaper...


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 20, 2018)

Michelob said:


> Oh ! Don't you have this in Cubase ? Are you shure ? Here in Reaper, we've got percent tweaking of quantize. Yeah ok, not with a slider, but surely could as everything seems possible to Reaper...



Well you surely can, but I'm not sure you can go back to the original positions at all time.

But now I'm in doubt, have to verify this


----------



## Michelob (Sep 20, 2018)

Ok check it out because I wouldn't be surprised that quantize should be non-destructive unless you really want it.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 20, 2018)

So, after a little research, it seems you can go back to the original position, but can't "move" between the two...


----------



## rhye (Sep 20, 2018)

Did you use the mutes expansion of Berlin Brass? Fantastic job!


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Sep 20, 2018)

rhye said:


> Did you use the mutes expansion of Berlin Brass? Fantastic job!


Thanks! It is the main Berlin Brass library, the muted were done with the Fabfilter Pro-Q2 presets provided by @aaronventure on this thread


----------



## Zedcars (Jan 1, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> So, after a little research, it seems you can go back to the original position, but can't "move" between the two...


Pretty sure the iterative quantise box allows you to move between any degree of quantization as a percentage (not in my studio at the moment so can’t check). I think it even allows you to do this with play activated.

Of course, if you have a mixture of triplets and/or duplets it makes it a bit difficult, although it might handle that ok - not sure. Will check when I next can.

Fantastic mock-up BTW - I’ve been listening to a lot of Bernard Herrmann recently as I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy the Spitfire library.

Thanks for sharing, and happy new year to you!


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 1, 2019)

Zedcars said:


> Pretty sure the iterative quantise box allows you to move between any degree of quantization as a percentage (not in my studio at the moment so can’t check). I think it even allows you to do this with play activated.
> 
> Of course, if you have a mixture of triplets and/or duplets it makes it a bit difficult, although it might handle that ok - not sure. Will check when I next can.
> 
> ...



Thank you @Zedcars ! If you find a solution for this quantization as a percentage, I'm interested  Couldn't find it yet.

Thanks also for the mockup, and happy new year to you too !


----------



## Zedcars (Jan 12, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you @Zedcars ! If you find a solution for this quantization as a percentage, I'm interested  Couldn't find it yet.
> 
> Thanks also for the mockup, and happy new year to you too !


If you select the notes you wish to quantize, then open up the Quantize Panel (Q+Ctrl on Mac) in the Edit menu, down the bottom left is the Iterative Quantize on/off button where you can also set the percentage. I believe this allows you to move it closer or further away from the main quantize grid settings in the upper part of that window. You need to press the quantize button in the lower right to affect the changes, and you can reset the quantized notes with the bottom left reset button.

You can also access the Iterative Quantize from the Inspector or Toolbar in the editors.

Hope that helps.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 12, 2019)

Zedcars said:


> If you select the notes you wish to quantize, then open up the Quantize Panel (Q+Ctrl on Mac) in the Edit menu, down the bottom left is the Iterative Quantize on/off button where you can also set the percentage. I believe this allows you to move it closer or further away from the main quantize grid settings in the upper part of that window. You need to press the quantize button in the lower right to affect the changes, and you can reset the quantized notes with the bottom left reset button.
> 
> You can also access the Iterative Quantize from the Inspector or Toolbar in the editors.
> 
> Hope that helps.



Thank you @Zedcars !!


----------

