# Star Wars Main Title Mockup



## Waza (Nov 1, 2017)

Hello everyone,

willing to take my mockup skills up a notch I'm trying to do a mockup of the full Star Wars Main Title.

Here's a work in progress, any feedback would be really appreciated!

All the best


----------



## Paul T McGraw (Nov 1, 2017)

First of all, great work. It takes a lot of time and patience to do something like this. It is always a good idea to do a mockup of something well known that you can easily compare with a good recording. I think it is the best way to improve midi-performance skills and mixing skills. It will also reveal any weakness in your samples. I am still learning myself and I have a lot more to learn. So, hopefully more experienced folks with younger ears will jump in. In the meantime, here are a few things to consider.

The mix sounds like it has too much high frequency content. This is referred to as harshness by pro mixing folks. So why not try doing some EQ cuts around 2,750 to 3,500 hz and see if the results aren't a bit closer to a recording.

There are several wrong notes (wrong pitch and/or duration) in the second half.

The balance between woods, brass and strings is close, but still not exactly right. I think, and I may be wrong, that you need to bring up the level of the woods and strings, other than piccolo, (piccolo seems about right) or reduce slightly the brass and piccolo.

Williams loves horns, and they get a lot of great lines in his music, don't they? If you end up decreasing brass (instead of increasing winds and strings) then I would not decrease the trumpets. Trumpets can really cut through a mix and should be stronger than the horns. The balance between horns and trombones is fairly good. Trombones are capable of blowing the horns out of the building, but conductors hold them back. So I just realized what I am saying (duh, I'm a bit slow today) is to reduce the volume on the piccolo, horns and trombones and leave everything else as is. See how that sounds. You might have to make further adjustments. Consider increasing trumpets a little.


----------



## Waza (Nov 2, 2017)

Paul T McGraw said:


> First of all, great work. It takes a lot of time and patience to do something like this. It is always a good idea to do a mockup of something well known that you can easily compare with a good recording. I think it is the best way to improve midi-performance skills and mixing skills. It will also reveal any weakness in your samples. I am still learning myself and I have a lot more to learn. So, hopefully more experienced folks with younger ears will jump in. In the meantime, here are a few things to consider.
> 
> The mix sounds like it has too much high frequency content. This is referred to as harshness by pro mixing folks. So why not try doing some EQ cuts around 2,750 to 3,500 hz and see if the results aren't a bit closer to a recording.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the detailed feedback Paul, I totally see your point! I naturally gravitate towards a heavier Brass sound since I love them compared to the strings lines... while I actually had no idea that the Woods could be higher as well.

I'll try to control the frequencies you mentioned, having an old recording as a reference is somewhat misleading and I'm founding incredibly hard to replicate that silky smoothness in the high end.

Regarding percussion, reverb and low end do you find it balanced or maybe I could boost/cut something?


----------



## Paul T McGraw (Nov 2, 2017)

Waza said:


> Thanks for the detailed feedback Paul, I totally see your point! I naturally gravitate towards a heavier Brass sound since I love them compared to the strings lines... while I actually had no idea that the Woods could be higher as well.
> 
> I'll try to control the frequencies you mentioned, having an old recording as a reference is somewhat misleading and I'm founding incredibly hard to replicate that silky smoothness in the high end.
> 
> Regarding percussion, reverb and low end do you find it balanced or maybe I could boost/cut something?



Personally, my ear is not good enough to hear beyond the comments I made earlier. I'm sorry. I did not hear any problem with the low end or percussion, but something might show up after the other things are addressed. Do you use Cubase? What I am about to suggest may work with other DAWs but I know it works with Cubase.

One thing I have done in the past with Cubase is actually load an audio file from a CD track into the same Cubase file with my mockup. Then I go back and forth listening to one, then the other, trying to match the CD audio file. It is also helpful to be able to look at the EQ curves of both my mockup and the CD track.


----------



## Nils Neumann (Nov 2, 2017)

Paul T McGraw said:


> Personally, my ear is not good enough to hear beyond the comments I made earlier. I'm sorry. I did not hear any problem with the low end or percussion, but something might show up after the other things are addressed. Do you use Cubase? What I am about to suggest may work with other DAWs but I know it works with Cubase.
> 
> One thing I have done in the past with Cubase is actually load an audio file from a CD track into the same Cubase file with my mockup. Then I go back and forth listening to one, then the other, trying to match the CD audio file. It is also helpful to be able to look at the EQ curves of both my mockup and the CD track.


a match eq can be helpfull here


----------



## Paul T McGraw (Nov 2, 2017)

I know that Neutron 2, Ozone, and the Fab-filter pro Q, offer EQ matching, but I haven't actually purchased any of those 3 as of yet. Do you use one of those?


----------



## Rob (Nov 2, 2017)

I 


Paul T McGraw said:


> I know that Neutron 2, Ozone, and the Fab-filter pro Q, offer EQ matching, but I haven't actually purchased any of those 3 as of yet. Do you use one of those?


was about to suggest the free "equivocate" from newfangled audio but alas it isn't free anymore...


----------



## Waza (Nov 2, 2017)

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have tweaked the balance quite a bit, cleaned the 3/4k area, added a match EQ (I'm feeling like I'm cheating a little bit here) and a touch of limiting.

Here's the result:



One note: the match EQ is cutting pretty much everything above 14k - I'm not sure if it's too much and if it's actually due to the old analog gear they used at that time (vinyl conversion) or simply the low quality of the file I have chosen. The reference track is the very first one from the late 70s.

Anyway, let me know what you think!


----------



## Nils Neumann (Nov 2, 2017)

Paul T McGraw said:


> I know that Neutron 2, Ozone, and the Fab-filter pro Q, offer EQ matching, but I haven't actually purchased any of those 3 as of yet. Do you use one of those?


I use Ozone on my master channel, and the before mentioned equivocate which is more easier to edit. And it really helps for mock ups!


----------



## Nils Neumann (Nov 2, 2017)

Waza said:


> Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have tweaked the balance quite a bit, cleaned the 3/4k area, added a match EQ (I'm feeling like I'm cheating a little bit here) and a touch of limiting.
> 
> Here's the result:
> 
> ...



You nailed the intro! And no, match eq ist not cheating it is just analyzing, best way is to recognize "oh there are some high frequencies missing, lets boost the the violins". Not just use the eq on the master channel an boost the high frequencies, because you would even boost the double bass or horn highs, which wouldn't make that much sense.

And at 0:29 work on the timing! It sound a bit weird and undefined.


----------



## Rob (Nov 2, 2017)

you did a great job... watch out for wrong notes, at 0:22 there's an E natural that shouldn't be there, could be the trombones, the chord is Eb major there


----------



## Paul T McGraw (Nov 2, 2017)

Waza said:


> Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have tweaked the balance quite a bit, cleaned the 3/4k area, added a match EQ (I'm feeling like I'm cheating a little bit here) and a touch of limiting.
> 
> Here's the result:
> 
> ...




Hurrah!!!! Sounds SOOOOO much better! The intro is as close to perfect as you can get IMHO. The EQ really, really helped. There is a lot about the physics of music that I never learned properly and cannot explain, having to do with distance cutting high frequency definition and complex upper harmonics for different instruments. However, the bottom line is that samples often have too much high frequency content compared with a real orchestra recording. So in my opinion, I would not worry about the EQ cutting everything above 14k. Now your mix is sounding so much more realistic in most places.

Still some wrong notes in the second half. Trumpets could be just a very little louder, not much. Ditto low strings and oboes. Be careful with the oboes, just a very little bit louder. I can't hear bassoons at all, but I assume they are there. This is often the case with bassoon as it is a wonderful blending instrument. As composers we can take advantage of that to thicken cello or horn lines with bassoon. There are a few other issues that I might be imagining. My ears are not as good as some of the folks here. But I'm not sure if going further with this example right now is your best use of time. Why not try another track?


----------



## Daisser (Jan 15, 2018)

Waza said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> willing to take my mockup skills up a notch I'm trying to do a mockup of the full Star Wars Main Title.
> 
> ...




I think it's excellent, very true to the material and produced very well - totally awesome! How long did it take you to do this? Did you play it all in, or program (if a mix, which would you say you did more)? I'm also curious as to what samples you used (brass) and if you have and MIDI files of what you did that you'd be willing to share (atleast on the opening). I've been trying to mock this up myself but have not been able to get it realistic sounding and any help would be very appreciated.


----------



## Waza (Jan 17, 2018)

Daisser said:


> I think it's excellent, very true to the material and produced very well - totally awesome! How long did it take you to do this? Did you play it all in, or program (if a mix, which would you say you did more)? I'm also curious as to what samples you used (brass) and if you have and MIDI files of what you did that you'd be willing to share (atleast on the opening). I've been trying to mock this up myself but have not been able to get it realistic sounding and any help would be very appreciated.



Thanks for your kind words! 

I believe it took me about 4 hours a day for 2 weeks.

I uniquely used Cinesamples stuff.

Since I'm no piano player, I've mostly used keyboard/mouse+shortcuts to tweak and re-use the few notes I played (mainly the top melody).

What I learned from this mockup is that to sound more realistic you should avoid long articulations as much as you can and prefer short ones.

I love the mapping in Cinesamples: you can have all the articulations you need on one track/K5 instance. The first pass I did on this was without Legatos - everything was 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and few Longs for the melodies. On the second pass I used Legatos for the stuff that needed it (replacing or layering the existing articulations)... Some time ago I would have *WRONGLY* used 90% Longs/Legatos and 10% Shorts.

I'm also quite bad with CCs and using short articulations allowed me to rely on velocity instead! If you can find a score of it you can use it as a reference to input the right velocity according to the dynamic notation. I haven't found a complete score of it but just bits and pieces (mainly the intro... and that's why it came out so good compared to the second half), but your ears will help you out for the rest of it.

Another good thing about Cinesamples is the Bright JW preset - it's really close to the JW sound already and you don't have to spend too much time on mixing (but that's because of the fantastic arrangement as well)!

I'll try to get hold of the project file and share it with you for sure!

By the way, here you have a link to my YouTube video where you can see what's going on in the DAW while playing the cue (I had to bounce in place everything to move onto the mixing/mastering stage... I only have an old i5 and 16gb of ram with a small SSD!).


----------



## Daisser (Jan 19, 2018)

I have cinesampes (Brass core) as well and that JW preset had helped indeed. I first tried this with Adventure Brass but couldn't get the sound right but it's better with Cine.

You said you use velocity, are you saying you didn't use any CC curves for expression and modwheel for the long notes at all? On a lot of the Cinesamples brass I've found the volume to be louder and texture so much different on the short articulation compared to the longs it's hard to make it sound fluid. That and the Trumpet high C seems soo much louder the rest of the notes (even compared to the BB below it) it's seems absurd. 

What mapping presets did you use, and do you have any thoughts on this?

Also, a genetic question, I feel like you added some noise to make it feel like your hearing a recording and not as much MIDI. Is this true, and if so, what did you add here?


----------



## Waza (Jan 19, 2018)

Daisser said:


> I have cinesampes (Brass core) as well and that JW preset had helped indeed. I first tried this with Adventure Brass but couldn't get the sound right but it's better with Cine.
> 
> You said you use velocity, are you saying you didn't use any CC curves for expression and modwheel for the long notes at all? On a lot of the Cinesamples brass I've found the volume to be louder and texture so much different on the short articulation compared to the longs it's hard to make it sound fluid. That and the Trumpet high C seems soo much louder the rest of the notes (even compared to the BB below it) it's seems absurd.
> 
> ...



Surely I used CCs for the longs/legatos, what I meant is that relying on short articulations (hence velocity) makes everything more realistic since short articulations with less or no expressions are easier to sample and program.

I used a custom mapping of which I can't recall the settings at the moment, if I'm not mistaken it was very similar to the KS Vel Dyn Map... however it really depends on personal preference as long as you keep it consistent throughout the whole orchestra/every instrument. 

The other option would be having one track per articulation of every instrument which would result in an easier mix (especially when compressing stuff with a lot of transients/shorts or adding reverb) but more cpu/ram/ssd consumption... and possibly a more chaotic template.

I remember having the same issue for the dynamics and texture of longs compared to the shorts, I solved that with layering (longs with legatos), extreme CCs and a touch of automation in volume/eq while mixing.


----------

