# John Williams - The Map Room: Dawn - MOCKUP



## Pando (Apr 12, 2020)

One of the most epic film cues ever written.

Comments welcome. I made this using only a partial score, partly by ear.


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## Dr.Quest (Apr 12, 2020)

Nicely done!


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## Scamper (Apr 12, 2020)

Great job with the mockup. The Spitfire Symphonic Series sounds fantastic, if it's properly used.


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## Satorious (Apr 12, 2020)

This is my favourite John Williams cue. Wow... very impressive, noticed a few subtle differences but this very good from ear... well done!


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## Gingerbread (Apr 12, 2020)

_Very_ well made! Sounds wonderfully natural, and true to the original.

May I ask what libraries you used? It all sounds great, but the quick brass tonguings around 2:55 sound particularly good.


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## Ruchir (Apr 12, 2020)

One of the best mock ups I’ve heard. Pray, do tell more about the set up.


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## NoamL (Apr 12, 2020)

Really well done, you get the feeling of the piece across. 2:11 & 2:51, any way to make those brass staccatos a bit longer? Time Machine perhaps?


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## sIR dORT (Apr 12, 2020)

Really impressive, that was fun to listen to.


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## muziksculp (Apr 12, 2020)

Sounds Awesome ! 

Thanks for sharing. Love the way the Spitfire Symphonic Brass sounds in your demo.


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## Stringtree (Apr 12, 2020)

Chills. I am broadly grinning.


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## Pando (Apr 13, 2020)

Gingerbread said:


> _Very_ well made! Sounds wonderfully natural, and true to the original.
> 
> May I ask what libraries you used? It all sounds great, but the quick brass tonguings around 2:55 sound particularly good.



Thank you. I used Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra primarily, with minor elements from Scarbee Mark I, Balinese Gamelan, 8dio Requiem Pro and Insolidus, and Deckard's Dream synth.


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## Pando (Apr 22, 2020)

Ruchir said:


> One of the best mock ups I’ve heard. Pray, do tell more about the set up.



Thanks, I have the Spitfire SO running on an i7-8086K machine with 32GB of RAM and NVMe SSDs. I'm using Reaper as a DAW, and everything runs in real time without needing to bounce/freeze any tracks. I think it was 130 tracks or something for different articulations, but some were track folders/groups. A small amount of Valhalla Room and VintageVerb were added to glue everything together.


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## valexnerfarious (Apr 22, 2020)

Pando said:


> One of the most epic film cues ever written.
> 
> Comments welcome. I made this using only a partial score, partly by ear.



I would love to mix this


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## brenneisen (Apr 22, 2020)

valexnerfarious said:


> I would love to mix this



it's already 10/10


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## ZOZZ (Apr 22, 2020)

Wow. Really impressive. I can't get my Spitfire Orchestra to sound like this. Not yet, anyway. Thanks for the inspiration!


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## emilio_n (Apr 22, 2020)

Incredible. wonderful Mockup. Really inspiring. I love this score of John Williams.


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## Tim Clarke (Apr 22, 2020)

Pando said:


> One of the most epic film cues ever written.
> 
> Comments welcome. I made this using only a partial score, partly by ear.



Great job!


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## DaveHayesMusic (Apr 24, 2020)

This sounds very nice, it has a superb polish! Thank you for tickling my brain with those harp glissandi, it has put me in a magical mood!


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## Zedcars (Apr 24, 2020)

Hey,

Just wanted to say I think this was gorgeous and brilliantly executed. It is indeed a great cue from a great film and a very exciting one. I’m sure everyone on this board knows it very well so even more likelihood it would have been noticed if it was not closely aligned with the original. You’ve done a good job - now get to work on the rest of the film’s cues


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## Vladimir Bulaev (Apr 27, 2020)

Pando said:


> One of the most epic film cues ever written.
> 
> Comments welcome. I made this using only a partial score, partly by ear.




Very impressive Mockup! Sounds Awesome! Great job! 



valexnerfarious said:


> I would love to mix this


What do you mean by that?


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## Stringtree (Apr 27, 2020)

OK, I had to come back. This work makes me extremely happy, and this afternoon imbued heating leftovers for lunch with unspeakable danger. If I could feel capable of realizing even a small percentage of this awesomeness, I would feel completely satisfied. The mix MELTED MY FACE OFF!!!

So much to learn. 

Greg


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## Henu (Apr 28, 2020)

I've been now listening this constantly since last week and find even more impressively done things each time. :D May I ask you about the mic mixes on the SSO? Which ones did you use per section? I'm really curious to hear how you managed to get such a clear, yet cohesive and big sound out of the box (AFAIK).


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## Pando (Apr 30, 2020)

Henu said:


> I've been now listening this constantly since last week and find even more impressively done things each time. :D May I ask you about the mic mixes on the SSO? Which ones did you use per section? I'm really curious to hear how you managed to get such a clear, yet cohesive and big sound out of the box (AFAIK).



I didn't really mess with the mics much, I mostly left them default (the easy mix slider in the center). The entire Spitfire library is balanced really well. The few exceptions were instruments that needed to stand out more in the mix, such as the piccolo and trumpets, so I used more close mics and EQd them a bit.

This is my first mockup ever so I don't really want to pretend that I know what I'm doing.  Just using my ears what sounds good.


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## Elois (Apr 30, 2020)

It sounds really musical and expressive, well done ! And for a first mockup


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## Ruchir (Apr 30, 2020)

Hello Mr Pando, would you be up for doing a Twitch, Discord, Twittercast or YouTube livestream of your work, with us asking questions by live chat? Happy to work with you to set it up if you‘re up for it, DM me.


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## Pando (Apr 30, 2020)

Ruchir said:


> Hello Mr Pando, would you be up for doing a Twitch, Discord, Twittercast or YouTube livestream of your work, with us asking questions by live chat? Happy to work with you to set it up if you‘re up for it, DM me.



Not sure I'm up to live streaming any time soon (other priorities), but I can try to answer questions here in this thread.


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## rlundv (Apr 30, 2020)

Pando said:


> Thanks, I have the Spitfire SO running on an i7-8086K machine with 32GB of RAM and NVMe SSDs. I'm using Reaper as a DAW, and everything runs in real time without needing to bounce/freeze any tracks. I think it was 130 tracks or something for different articulations, but some were track folders/groups. A small amount of Valhalla Room and VintageVerb were added to glue everything together.


Wonderful mockup - really good! How do you approach using different articulations in Reaper? One-per-track, or using something like Reaticulate f.ex?


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## Pando (Apr 30, 2020)

beyd770 said:


> Wonderful mockup - really good! How do you approach using different articulations in Reaper? One-per-track, or using something like Reaticulate f.ex?



Thank you! My method is "as needed, per track". I mostly use legato patches and play everything in live, so it's a couple of tracks per instrument group, and there is very little hand sequenced or programmed stuff. For tracks that really require separate articulations I just use a separate track.

Oh, and this is not from some standard template. It's a template I had to build just for this mockup due to the tuning quirks on each instrument in the original recording.


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## rlundv (May 1, 2020)

Pando said:


> Thank you! My method is "as needed, per track". I mostly use legato patches and play everything in live, so it's a couple of tracks per instrument group, and there is very little hand sequenced or programmed stuff. For tracks that really require separate articulations I just use a separate track.
> 
> Oh, and this is not from some standard template. It's a template I had to build just for this mockup due to the tuning quirks on each instrument in the original recording.


Interesting! I also tend to write mostly with legato-samples, but there are always some passages that requires some extra programming. Just transferred to Reaper from Cubase, and I really miss the expression maps, so have to check into the existing options.

Can you say more about the tuning you did? Did you use a reference-track and tuned individual instruments to the original sound, or was it more of an overall balance-thing?


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## Pando (May 1, 2020)

beyd770 said:


> Can you say more about the tuning you did? Did you use a reference-track and tuned individual instruments to the original sound, or was it more of an overall balance-thing?



Kind of both.

There's been some talk on JWFan about the tuning of various releases of the same track, but for reference I used the mix version that has the "ghost" choir (at 3:25) more audible at the end (movie version didn't have that), and it's just slightly faster than the movie version.

The tuning of the original recording is interesting and certainly adds to the special mystical sound. If you compare the woodwinds at the beginning, the flute is like 25 cents sharp and some oboes are slightly off as well. Just using the library's standard tuning sounded very flat. Then again, most other instruments were just fine, which leads me to believe that some instruments were tuned off on purpose on the recording. Of course I also used standard tricks like tuning high violins 5-25 cents sharper since that's what violinists generally do when playing intense lyrical passages with strong vibrato. Some brass layers were also tuned slightly off to get them to fatten up without phasing.


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## Pando (May 1, 2020)

There's an interesting discussion at JWFan.com where the choir at the end as recorded is actually different from the handwritten score. So I decided to try what it sounds like. Not bad, but the recorded version sounds definitely better.

Here's the portion with the original choir as written:


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## rlundv (May 2, 2020)

Pando said:


> Kind of both.
> 
> There's been some talk on JWFan about the tuning of various releases of the same track, but for reference I used the mix version that has the "ghost" choir (at 3:25) more audible at the end (movie version didn't have that), and it's just slightly faster than the movie version.
> 
> The tuning of the original recording is interesting and certainly adds to the special mystical sound. If you compare the woodwinds at the beginning, the flute is like 25 cents sharp and some oboes are slightly off as well. Just using the library's standard tuning sounded very flat. Then again, most other instruments were just fine, which leads me to believe that some instruments were tuned off on purpose on the recording. Of course I also used standard tricks like tuning high violins 5-25 cents sharper since that's what violinists generally do when playing intense lyrical passages with strong vibrato. Some brass layers were also tuned slightly off to get them to fatten up without phasing.


This is very interesting! I have heard about such adjustments from two other very good mockup-artists, but I did not fully understand what they meant until now. The part about tuning up violins when playing strongly with vibrato is something I have never considered. Is it usually strings and woods that are tuned like this, or does it also apply to brass? Do you automate the tuning so they follow dynamics f.ex? What about panning in this piece? Did you use panning in the mixer, or inside the Kontankt, or spatial tool-plugins as inserts f.ex?


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## Pando (May 4, 2020)

beyd770 said:


> The part about tuning up violins when playing strongly with vibrato is something I have never considered. Is it usually strings and woods that are tuned like this, or does it also apply to brass?



How it applies to strings is different from woods/brass. In the real world, the violin player plays it slightly sharp at the upper registers with strong vibrato (at least they did in this piece). For violin it has nothing to do with the actual tuning of the real instrument. This is completely different from woods/brass where the tuning for the instrument is set before they start playing, and that tuning stays like this for the rest of the track. So when trying to simulate it with samples, you have to be mindful of how the real instruments (and players) behave and adjust accordingly.

In this particular piece I set the tuning of some woodwinds (flute especially, and some oboes), sharp for the entire track as I could hear this from the reference recording. Remember these instruments can't be tuned in the middle of the piece. But with violins they were fine until the strong vibrato in upper registers, so I used a different track with sharp tuning for that portion, and the rest of the violin tracks were normal tuning.



> Do you automate the tuning so they follow dynamics f.ex? What about panning in this piece? Did you use panning in the mixer, or inside the Kontankt, or spatial tool-plugins as inserts f.ex?



I didn't automate any tuning. I also didn't adjust much panning as this is pretty much set correctly on Spitfire. Adjusting panning on this library destroys the stereo hall image. I just used a bit of Valhalla Room/VV at the master to blend things slightly.


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## X-Bassist (May 4, 2020)

Pando said:


> How it applies to strings is different from woods/brass. In the real world, the violin player plays it slightly sharp at the upper registers with strong vibrato (at least they did in this piece). For violin it has nothing to do with the actual tuning of the real instrument. This is completely different from woods/brass where the tuning for the instrument is set before they start playing, and that tuning stays like this for the rest of the track. So when trying to simulate it with samples, you have to be mindful of how the real instruments (and players) behave and adjust accordingly.
> 
> In this particular piece I set the tuning of some woodwinds (flute especially, and some oboes), sharp for the entire track as I could hear this from the reference recording. Remember these instruments can't be tuned in the middle of the piece. But with violins they were fine until the strong vibrato in upper registers, so I used a different track with sharp tuning for that portion, and the rest of the violin tracks were normal tuning.
> 
> ...


Thanks for all the info, great mockup. I assume from what you’ve written you’re a longtime player with perfect pitch. For me playing in each part without tweaking would be impossible and this mockup would take me 4 months to complete. So Kudos for have the chops and love for the piece (which is great) to get it done right. You make it sound easy, but it is not.

My question is when you say you go sharp with the violins and woodwinds, can you elaborate how much for each instrument? I know you mentioned the 1st violins, but your ear seems so tuned to this (and the mock-up works so well) that it would be good to have that as a starting point.

Thanks for your help and all the best on your next efforts.


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## Pando (May 5, 2020)

X-Bassist said:


> Thanks for all the info, great mockup. I assume from what you’ve written you’re a longtime player with perfect pitch. For me playing in each part without tweaking would be impossible and this mockup would take me 4 months to complete. So Kudos for have the chops and love for the piece (which is great) to get it done right. You make it sound easy, but it is not.



Ha, it nearly took me 4 months to do that (no, not full time), but that's because I had to learn the DAW and library from scratch and I was mostly experimenting. I did have musical training growing up, learned multiple instruments, played solo to live audiences, but life is such that my career is not related to music, so for me this is just a hobby now. Perfect pitch isn't really necessary for this (which I don't have anyway), but it helps to have a good sense of relative pitch.



> My question is when you say you go sharp with the violins and woodwinds, can you elaborate how much for each instrument? I know you mentioned the 1st violins, but your ear seems so tuned to this (and the mock-up works so well) that it would be good to have that as a starting point.



It's not really an exact science, and please note that I did that for this track only, since I think the orchestra is slightly off-tuned on purpose. I put the reference recording on its own track and tempo matched the DAW to it so I can easily navigate and find the measures. It also makes it easy to A/B compare with the original whatever I was recording, and this is how you can easily hear if the tuning is off. Looking at the project, I adjusted the beginning flute up about 23 cents, and the very high violins were +30 (0.30 in Kontakt) primarily to simulate the intonation. Some of the other woodwinds were set to between +2 to +10, brass was mostly 0, and so were other strings. Hard to say without going thru all 149 tracks, and most of these changes weren't audible - they only made sense and sounded better when I played the instrument group alone. Again, I'm using Spitfire and YMMV if you're using another library.

Thanks, I hope this helps.


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