# New here, need help setting up orchestral template??



## dan1 (Aug 3, 2015)

Hi guys I'm new here and pretty new to composing and I need some help setting up the orchestral template

I already have the general layout ready (instruments loaded in different kontakt instances in different group section folders and each instrument with its own output that goes to the VSS panner etc)

I need help mostly with the panning, reverbing and volume adjustments (I totally cranked up the master bus, kontakt volumes too high but I dont know what volume every instrument needs) and also with choosing the right patches and maybe some routing

Can someone spare 2-3 hours with me on teamviewer/twitch and help me set it all up? I will broadcast my cubase window and audio so you can see and hear exactly what I do

I'd really appreciate one of you pros to help me get started!!!


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## The Darris (Aug 3, 2015)

First off, what instruments do you have? Are they all in the from the same library? Reason why I ask is that some libraries have been recorded in position so no panning in needed whereas others were recorded in stereo and require panning. With that said, keep in mind that libraries that were recorded in a wet environment are going to require less treatment than your dry ones. Spitfire is one of the most wet libraries out there and is very prominent in my template. Since it is the most wet and spacious, I have to blend my other libraries into a sort of "Air Lyndhurst" mock hall created with my reverb plugins. Lastly, your template should be an extension of your own workflow so telling you what and how to do it isn't really going to be the best way for you to set up your own template. Panning and placement is done by listening and comparing. Once great way to do this is by doing a mock up of an existing piece that also has a high quality recording with it, John Williams' scores are a great start as they are commercially available and are great orchestrations that will help you put your template to the test. I hope my thoughts help you out. Good luck on putting it all together.

Cheers,

Chris


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## Farkle (Aug 3, 2015)

dan1 said:


> Hi guys I'm new here and pretty new to composing and I need some help setting up the orchestral template
> 
> I already have the general layout ready (instruments loaded in different kontakt instances in different group section folders and each instrument with its own output that goes to the VSS panner etc)
> 
> ...



Dan, I'm sure you can find some people to help you out (I may be able to in the fall), but, honestly, Chris is spot on above. The best thing to do is find 4-8 bars of some music that you love (John Williams scores are available), and drop the audio file into your DAW, play the parts in, and do your best to listen to the audio, and match the stereo placement and 3D depth of the families in your mockups. I'm actually in the middle of doing that right now, it is truly amazing how much that sharpens your ear. I'm not saying this to deflate or deflect you, I'm saying, take 4 bars of "Star Wars", 4 bars of "Back to the Future", 4 bars of "Gladiator", and try to replicate it. You'll learn so much about your setup that way.

Having said that, there are a couple of standard approaches.

1. Send every instrument to some sort of early reflection (I'm sending each one to VSS2), then they all "feel in the same space". Then, bus them to families of instruments (hi strings, lo strings, hi brass, lo brass, etc), and send each ot those bus'es to a reverb tail (Samplicity has a free Bricasti set which is excellent). That can work quite well. 

2. Keep the instruments in their factory wet-ness, and have three reverb bus'es, one for close, one for medium, one for far. Bus the clos instruments (strings) to the close reverb, the med to the medium, etc. Those reverb buses will probably have different pre-delays, and MAYBE different sizes.

3. Treat it like a production album, and sky's the limit. You want 7 reverbs on your flute? Go for it! You want some humongous slap delay on your celli? Rock on! (NOTE: I have no idea how to mix this way, and I'm being a bit facetious, but you get the point).

Another great way to start. Hit up Blakus and Darris' (two separate composers) youtube channels. They do several in-depth breakdowns of their template planning. It's absolute gold. And FREE! 

I hope this helps, 

Mike


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## dan1 (Aug 12, 2015)

The Darris said:


> Cheers,
> 
> Chris



Hi Chris sorry for the huge delay in response I was so busy with studies

Hmm I have quiet a few of them but in the template that I started to set up, it is the patches from LASS for strings, BWW for woods, CineBrass for brass, CinePerc+Spitfire Perc+HZ01+True Strike for perc

I'm not even sure I'm using the right combination of patches

I route every patch in kontakt to its own output and each section (brass, woods, strings, eprc) is routed to a group track to which I send a QL reverb (I use the S Cal Hall presets)

I then send every patch to VSS, again, using the build-in presets (LASS, BWW, CB presets)







The main issue is with blending all patches all together so that each and every instrument sound as realistic as possible, individually and and alltogether in the whole section

There are too many parameters to configure and I don't even know where to start, I first have the mic settings in kontakt, then I have the volumes, then the VSS parameters and then the reverb parameters - all of these need to be manually configured to work with each other, one by one, for 50 patches, I have 0 knowledge in mastering/mixing so this is mission impossible for me, I'm getting exhausted just by the thought of about how much work needs to be done when I don't even know how to do it

How do I go from here?


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## tack (Aug 12, 2015)

The Darris said:


> I have to blend my other libraries into a sort of "Air Lyndhurst" mock hall created with my reverb plugins


Sorry to derail your thread, dan1, but I'm curious Chris what plugins/settings you use to match (or presumably at least convincingly close to) Air Lyndhurst?


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## tack (Aug 12, 2015)

dan1 said:


> The main issue is with blending all patches all together so that each and every instrument sound as realistic as possible, individually and and alltogether in the whole section


You should spring for Mike Verta's Virtuosity masterclass. He takes a pretty interesting approach by reproducing the natural bleeding that one experiences in live orchestra stems. This may only work particularly well when using dry/close mics everywhere, though. Still it was an interesting class and it has many great tips on working with VIs.


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## The Darris (Aug 14, 2015)

tack said:


> Sorry to derail your thread, dan1, but I'm curious Chris what plugins/settings you use to match (or presumably at least convincingly close to) Air Lyndhurst?


I use VerbSessionV3 to create the main space and then also add in some of the PCM Lexicon RandomHall reverb. The biggest thing is knowing the dimensions (in meters cubed) of the rooms you want to emulate when using VerbSession. Once you know that, you need to apply the proper RT60 (tail length in seconds) to that. It gets you close but you will need to work on your balance and adjust from there while also adding that final Reverb to group everything into a final room. As much as I would love to give you the numbers and stuff, it really depends on the libraries you use as well as the plugins. I got started with Peter Alexander's training series, Visual Orchestration, that gets way in depth into these concepts. If you really want to learn about it, I'd say start there.


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## The Darris (Aug 14, 2015)

I didn't notice your comment above. Firstly, take all of those instruments out of VSS. VSS is designed as a positioning tool for instruments that are not positioned. LASS, BWW, CineBrass, Spitfire libraries, and True Strike are all recorded in position within the stereo field. When you use a tool like that, you will screw with the natural stereo presence the instruments have. Others might argue me on that but the first thing I noticed when putting CineBrass into VSS was how unnatural CineBrass sounded because I lost the character of the space it was recorded it. Dry libraries or those simply recorded in stereo without natural positioning left or right or front to back are the best types of libraries to use with VSS. For instance, if you have any VSL libraries, use it. That's my honest opinion about how to use VSS convincingly.


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## dan1 (Aug 14, 2015)

The Darris said:


> I didn't notice your comment above. Firstly, take all of those instruments out of VSS. VSS is designed as a positioning tool for instruments that are not positioned. LASS, BWW, CineBrass, Spitfire libraries, and True Strike are all recorded in position within the stereo field. When you use a tool like that, you will screw with the natural stereo presence the instruments have. Others might argue me on that but the first thing I noticed when putting CineBrass into VSS was how unnatural CineBrass sounded because I lost the character of the space it was recorded it. Dry libraries or those simply recorded in stereo without natural positioning left or right or front to back are the best types of libraries to use with VSS. For instance, if you have any VSL libraries, use it. That's my honest opinion about how to use VSS convincingly.


I definitely agree with you that the instruments lose their character but in the whole mix, when I bypass VSS just to hear the difference, without VSS it all sounds way too dense and I can't even hear what is playing (maybe for lack of eq?) you mean I should avoid panning the instruments at all or just do the panning through the mixer instead of through vss?


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## The Darris (Aug 14, 2015)

Subtle panning usually works but nothing major. EQing is your friend as well as good orchestration. Balancing your template is something you might look into as developers record dynamics differently. One man's forte is another man's piano.


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## dan1 (Aug 14, 2015)

The Darris said:


> Subtle panning usually works but nothing major. EQing is your friend as well as good orchestration. Balancing your template is something you might look into as developers record dynamics differently. One man's forte is another man's piano.


great insight! ill see what I can get with some EQ and volume balance


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 14, 2015)

The Darris said:


> EQing is your friend .



Yes, but tread lightly because if you don't _really_ know what you are doing with EQ you can easily make things worse. I don't comment publicly on pieces people post here but I have heard a number of them where it sounds to me like they did precisely that.


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## The Darris (Aug 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Yes, but tread lightly because if you don't _really_ know what you are doing with EQ you can easily make things worse. I don't comment publicly on pieces people post here but I have heard a number of them where it sounds to me like they did precisely that.


Yes, precisely this^


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