# Happy Christmas! Home Alone mockup with real Boys Choir



## JacquesMathias (Dec 25, 2017)

Happy Christmas!
Enjoy:

https://www.jacquesmathias.com/mockups

There are a lot more besides “Home Alone” there.

Note: I have used some custom sounds, woodwinds mainly.
JM


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## synthpunk (Dec 25, 2017)

Very talented sir.


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## Grim_Universe (Dec 25, 2017)

Wow! A lot of great mockups you have there, good job!


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## TGV (Dec 25, 2017)

That's great work.


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## Maxfabian (Dec 25, 2017)

Impressive! What brass libraries do you use for your mockups? 

Cheers


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## germancomponist (Dec 25, 2017)

How nice! Thanks for sharing, Sir!


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 26, 2017)

Thanks @synthpunk @Grim_Universe @TGV I appreciate.

@Maxfabian basically, EW Hollywood Brass, all mics, mixed with different early reflections reverbs to add some character. Some Albion Low Brass here and there do add body, too. Besides that, Adventure Brass and a touch of Sample Modeling trumpet when necessary.

@germancomponist thanks Sir!

JM


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## Paul T McGraw (Dec 26, 2017)

@JacquesMathias what a wonderful accomplishment. They all sound fabulous, but I admit to a special fondness for Williams and also Mancini. You have a terrific ear. I hope you are getting a lot of work as a result of this marvelous example of your skill.


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 27, 2017)

Paul T McGraw said:


> @JacquesMathias what a wonderful accomplishment. They all sound fabulous, but I admit to a special fondness for Williams and also Mancini. You have a terrific ear. I hope you are getting a lot of work as a result of this marvelous example of your skill.


@Paul T McGraw Thank you very much. This was an amazing experience indeed. Humbling for sure. I could do better with more work, having enough though.

Learning to make libraries work for challenging passages has been an eye opening experiment.
Thank you for your nice comments!
JM


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## amorphosynthesis (Dec 28, 2017)

JacquesMathias said:


> Happy Christmas!
> Enjoy:
> 
> https://www.jacquesmathias.com/mockups
> ...


Crazy mockups.
In particular the great escape brought tears in my eyes.
Congratulations

question:strings in runs in Hedwig's Theme?which library?Holywood strings?


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 28, 2017)

amorphosynthesis said:


> Crazy mockups.
> In particular the great escape brought tears in my eyes.
> Congratulations
> 
> question:strings in runs in Hedwig's Theme?which library?Holywood strings?




Thanks. I am really glad that my effort has inspired you. I must admit that, as a worker I felt miserable and frustrated throughout the whole process. Things just don’t work by themselves, we must be brave to listen, and conclude “man, it really sucks”, how can I make this less embarrassing/horrible? Then, the infinite amount of testing begins. These days, after a lot of time not listening to them I fell happy that, despite the fact they’re not perfect, they at least have the spirit of the original recordings. It’s really almost impossible to not embarrass yourself when doing such projects. Playing/programming notes is easy, however, getting these samples to “speak”, to “sing” is both an amazing and terrifying experience.


Regarding The Great Escape, man! I didn’t find any available orchestral score, so, all by ear. so, it’s nice that this particular one moved you.

It took me A LOT of time to blend all the instruments, and also get them “vintage” enough. Just applying one stereo trick didn’t make it right. So, several little things helped to achieve a nice/bearable effect, as believable as possible, of course, within my skills set. Thanks for letting me know you’ve enjoyed it. I almost killed myself trying to make this one work.


The Harry Potter runs are utterly annoying from the mockup point of view, of course. The ok result was achieved by using a combination of Hollywood Strings, Mural, EWQLSO Strings (a lot of filtering: tremolos and trills to create a blurred effect. Also, I own the old Gold Kontakt library (EWQLSO), SIPS script is your friend. By having multiple sources of correctly played notes (original notes of course), plus other messy trills tracks, tremolos tracks, and a considerable amount of automation, it gets “ok”. Remember, those runs do sound in the background in the original, that helped!


Please, let me know if you have any other question. I know they aren’t perfect, but I have gone through a lot of experimentation, and I want to share what I’ve learned.


Thanks.


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## amorphosynthesis (Dec 28, 2017)

JacquesMathias said:


> Regarding The Great Escape, man! I didn’t find any available orchestral score, so, all by ear. so, it’s nice that this particular one moved you.
> 
> Thanks.



Oh but it's perfect!!!!!!!!


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 29, 2017)

amorphosynthesis said:


> Oh but it's perfect!!!!!!!!


Thanks!! I am not sure if I would call it perfect, however, it is the best I could do at that time, so I am in peace with myself.

The actual arrangement/structure of the Great Escape theme is slightly easier to deduce by ear than, let’s say that Pacific Rim one, which has several synths, lots of drum programming, etc, etc. In all honesty the sound/mix was the biggest challenge, at least for me.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Dec 29, 2017)

Jaw dropping stuff on your website !

And I loved the main picture with your dog, have to do the same with my two leonbergers


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 29, 2017)

whitewasteland said:


> Jaw dropping stuff on your website !
> 
> And I loved the main picture with your dog, have to do the same with my two leonbergers


Nice! Her name was Mel, passed way this year. It’s an homage! Fells good to look at. That picture was taken at the day of my marriage.

You should do it with your two leonbergers, way more fun!


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Dec 29, 2017)

JacquesMathias said:


> Nice! Her name was Mel, passed way this year. It’s an homage! Fells good to look at. That picture was taken at the day of my marriage.
> 
> You should do it with your two leonbergers, way more fun!



Great homage, Jacques. That's nice, because some friends had the same dog breed than your Mel, and their dog was my "Best Man" at my own wedding. Looked very bad ass ! He passed away a few weeks ago. Good memories


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## lux (Dec 29, 2017)

Really cool stuff Jacques, thanks for sharing. Finally someone doing a mock-up of Elmer Bernstein


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## FredericBernard (Dec 29, 2017)

WOW! These are some real awesome mockups - the first part of the Indy theme is amazing, VERY well done sir! Keep it up!

-Frederic
fredericbernardmusic.com


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 30, 2017)

whitewasteland said:


> Great homage, Jacques. That's nice, because some friends had the same dog breed than your Mel, and their dog was my "Best Man" at my own wedding. Looked very bad ass ! He passed away a few weeks ago. Good memories


That’s great man! I bet it looked bad ass! Our Mel carried the wedding rings into the Church. Good memories, too.


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 30, 2017)

lux said:


> Really cool stuff Jacques, thanks for sharing. Finally someone doing a mock-up of Elmer Bernstein


Hey Lux, thanks. Yeah, As I said before, amazing experience, got me drinking more than I should though.


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 30, 2017)

FredericBernard said:


> WOW! These are some real awesome mockups - the first part of the Indy theme is amazing, VERY well done sir! Keep it up!
> 
> -Frederic
> fredericbernardmusic.com


Thanks Frederic!
Yeah, I am using a unusual combination for those trombones, BBB bones + EW Hollywood Brass Tenor Bones, pretty tight, defined. BBB blend helped them to cut through the mix...


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## FredericBernard (Dec 30, 2017)

JacquesMathias said:


> Thanks Frederic!
> Yeah, I am using a unusual combination for those trombones, BBB bones + EW Hollywood Brass Tenor Bones, pretty tight, defined. BBB blend helped them to cut through the mix...



Hey Jaques,

what exactly are "BBB Bones" (Big Band Brass??)? Never heard of them before.
I'm actually really surprised that Hollywood Brass does that well, perhaps also because you are very talented with layering samples. Don't get me wrong, I love EWQL products, and am using EWQL Pianos and Hollywood Strings the most, but thought the Hollywood Brass were only of mediocre quality, like the Hollywood Winds?! Do the Hollywood Brass have any obvious deficits, or do you think they are worth a shot?

Other then the EWQL Brass, the best out there seems to be:
-CineBrass
-Sample Modeling Brass - except the horns for unisono, they should be all amazing in soli though: 
-Fable Sounds Big Band -, pricey, but especially if you want to write big band music it seems to be the best one around, as it has those special ornamentic techniques like falls, doits etc: 


best,
Frederic

fredericbernardmusic.com


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Dec 30, 2017)

@FredericBernard , BBB is actually Fable Sound's "Broadway Big Band" and I believe that @JacquesMathias is the guy behind the fabulous programming of their demo "Dream No More"


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 30, 2017)

Hey @FredericBernard Yes, as @whitewasteland has already said BBB stands for Broadway Big Band, I have worked on that Dream no More demo, too.

BBB is great for very defined/tight lines, even for orchestral music BUT it has to be layered with another orchestral brass library. It takes time to find a nice balance between all these mics, but it’s worth it.

Regarding EW Hollywood Brass, I understand each one has different opinions/taste, nothing wrong with that. I really like EW Hollywood Brass. As I said before, all these mockups were done with: EW Hollywood Brass, Adventure Brass, the old EWQLSO Brass, some sample modeling here and there, and Albion I and III (Low and Mid Brass to add body to sustains, etc).

And of course, lots and lots of EQ, ER Reverbs and Compression.

Another composer would pick up different tools, it doesn’t matter, what really matters are the results.


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## FredericBernard (Dec 30, 2017)

@JacquesMathias

Do you always layer one VST instrument on another, or do you even add 3 layers, or more?

This may be slightly off-topic but I know that in Hollywood scores the layering of (live) brass or woodwinds should be rather unpopular, at least if compared to string instruments layering, which is most common and there are basically several different kinds of how to do it:
1. you want to double a string vst with another string vst or pad sounds, for an improved/fatter sound (ok, this one possibly not in Hollywood )
2. you have recorded live strings and then want a more fat/bigger-than-life sound, so you add another recording round (this also is great if you got only 30 or 40 strings - just double them and it will make them alot bigger) --->exemplary for Hans Zimmer (who often uses insane string orchestra sizes, ammounts of doublings and layerings, including synth pads)
3. you have recorded live strings and want a more accurate sound on very difficult 'to nail down ' passages. I did a mixture out of both as part of a 2015 live recording/rescore project:

4. last but not least: you have a live string orchestra, which plays different things on two different main takes: most commonly in one take they play sustained material, like melodic phrases or sus. chords, and in the other one they play rhythmic stuff, with short articulation styles like stacatto or pizzicato, and at the end they lay both takes together!
This is much typical for Rupert-Gregson Williams scoring style and cutting-edge trailer music, and it's a fantastic option to give your score more motion and energy:


...oh sh** this went indeed a bit of topic...



whitewasteland said:


> @FredericBernard , BBB is actually Fable Sound's "Broadway Big Band" and I believe that @JacquesMathias is the guy behind the fabulous programming of their demo "Dream No More"



I didn't knew that!  It's indeed an amazing song which I've heard non-stop when they released it - very, very good song writing and programming! @JacquesMathias


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## JacquesMathias (Dec 31, 2017)

FredericBernard said:


> @JacquesMathias
> 
> Do you always layer one VST instrument on another, or do you even add 3 layers, or more?
> 
> ...



@FredericBernard great insight and post! I will answer it thoroughly tomorrow, I am already in party mode here with family, so...

Just a correction regarding Dream no More, the song was written by Yuval Shrem.
Happy new Year!


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## JacquesMathias (Jan 2, 2018)

FredericBernard said:


> @JacquesMathias
> 
> Do you always layer one VST instrument on another, or do you even add 3 layers, or more?
> 
> ...



Hi @FredericBernard thanks for taking time to elaborate about Strings layering. Cool stuff.

Generally, I brake rules. I Honestly don’t care, just do whatever I feel is needed to make it musical, pleasant.

So, when you ask if I usually layer one VI on the top of each other, I would say yes, EXCEPT when it’s a solo instrument, this is kind of obvious though. We have a flute solo, well, we pick the best we have for the job, and make it sing. However, as soon as a woodwind ensemble is playing in the background, I am free to find ways to make it “realistic”, again, this is very subjective, anyway, as long as it sounds musical we’re cool.

I should add something though:

Let’s say we have one 4 french horns line, usually I would:

1) Use the most playable VI for the task, it could be Hollywood Brass.
2) Use a second library to add some intonation variation, actually to blur it a bit. It remains clear with a bit of variation. Sample Modeling would be great.
3) Even if you have used the far mics of HB along with SM + Early Reflection Reverb, you may find that you still want a bit more of depth, whice leads to the next step..
4) Now, you can add more reverb, right? So you will get a nice sense of depth. It works sometimes, but a nice alternative would be to reprogram the line with a very wet library and use it with 15% of its sound to blend. You are not layering to increase the amount of players, you’re using a second library as if it was another set if mics. Does that work always? Nope. Most of time though. The trick works because the “far” library mic will not be loud enough to be perceived, instead it’s a reverb kind of feeling played/programmed again. Works for me.

Conclusion: Increasing the amount of players is one thing, blending different mics from different libraries is another thing. Sorry, just repeating to make sure I was able to express myself!

✌


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