# Adventure theme for your enjoyment (100% VSL Special Edition)



## Simplesly (Nov 2, 2014)

WARNING: CONTAINS NUMEROUS MUSICAL CLICHÉS !!!

Here's a recently completed track that I'm about to send off to the library. Done entirely with the basic standard VSL SE. Would love thoughts... 

https://soundcloud.com/neil-penninger/103114-adventurama/s-MP1KC


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## gyprock (Nov 2, 2014)

Sounds good. Very Galaxy Questish!

Can you elaborate on your mix a little? I have VSL SE along with MIR Pro and am getting a much more distant sound whereas your mix/reverb combination is more upfront.

Are you using MIR or are you putting reverb on aux busses for each section with a reverb tail on the master?

Cheers,
Gyprock


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## Lawson. (Nov 2, 2014)

Wow, you may have a chance at world record for most John Williams-esque cliques in one track! :D

Anyway, great piece! The MIDI programming was pretty nice for basic VSL, and I have your theme stuck in my head.


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## Simplesly (Nov 2, 2014)

gyprock @ Sun Nov 02 said:


> Sounds good. Very Galaxy Questish!
> 
> Can you elaborate on your mix a little? I have VSL SE along with MIR Pro and am getting a much more distant sound whereas your mix/reverb combination is more upfront.
> 
> ...



Thanks Gyprock. I don't have MIR - just good old logic's space designer reverb and the direction mixer plugs. I have all the instruments bused to groups, and each of those has two pre-fader sends, front hall ER/back hall ER and tail. The tail is Waves Ren reverb set to a fairly short length. The ER is a combination of the free Tokyo Dawn proximity plug-in (for pre delay) space designer for the reflections. I'm using the Todd-AO impulse this week. I am going for a scoring stage sound because I don't like super reverberant halls unless the material calls for it. But I still want depth hence the pre fade sends - the further I pull down a group's fader, the farther back it sounds, while the reverb remains constant.


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## bbunker (Nov 2, 2014)

Real nice compositionally. Sound's good too - Good, clean mix and stage.

Only one beef - the harmonics of the cymbal swells are the only thing audible of the swells on the two systems I listened to the track during the second, lyrical theme. It almost sounds like feedback.

Doesn't kill the track by any means, but you might re-check those before you print and ship.


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## bbunker (Nov 2, 2014)

Oh, forgot to mention...I think this actually sounds most like Bruce Broughton, like his work in Silverado. Which is awesome!


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## Simplesly (Nov 3, 2014)

bbunker @ Mon Nov 03 said:


> Real nice compositionally. Sound's good too - Good, clean mix and stage.
> 
> Only one beef - the harmonics of the cymbal swells are the only thing audible of the swells on the two systems I listened to the track during the second, lyrical theme. It almost sounds like feedback.
> 
> Doesn't kill the track by any means, but you might re-check those before you print and ship.



Thanks for the kind words! I met Bruce a (long) while back when I was in college. We played his tuba concerto and he conducted. Really cool guy. 

Good point on that cymbal, it bothers me too. I keep meaning to go in there and notch it out. Hopefully it's that easy. The VSL SE violins and violas also have this awful harmonic around 2.5k that I notch out, but I think doing so loses some of the body of the sound imo..


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## AC986 (Nov 3, 2014)

Well done Neil. Long live Americana!

There's an issue at 0.45 but apart from that it's great. Maybe the string ostinatos could be louder at times during their stretch.


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## Stephen Rees (Nov 3, 2014)

As a fan of 'old school' film themes I had a big smile on my face listening to this. Well done. Impressive use of VSL. They are great libraries in the right hands. Like yours


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## Simplesly (Nov 3, 2014)

Thanks Adrian and Stephen - Adrian, I assume you mean the nasty metallic cymbal sound at 0:45. Gonna play with that today. Which areas did you feel the ostinatos could be louder? 

regarding VSL - I think what I love about these samples the most is the ability to put them in just about any space. What I don't love is how much time it takes to dial everything in exactly right. :shock:


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## AC986 (Nov 3, 2014)

At the beginning and the end about 1db. Good track, it has a sort of Galaxy Quest feel to it.


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## tokatila (Nov 3, 2014)

Very nice adventure theme! 

For my taste and with my monitors (Dynaudio BM Compact mkIII) I would loved to have a little more power to the violins. If I close my eyes, it feels like they do a 5 meter forward dash at approx 0:20 from backstage to the their correct position.

I'm also missing a little warm lower section "oomph" to the end. Maybe little more timpani love?


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## TGV (Nov 3, 2014)

Nice track. Had me smile. I agree with tokatila about the sound character, and personally would have liked a bit more reverb.

It didn't remind me of Galaxy Quest, but rather of westerns, in the Elmer Bernstein tradition. I could easily imagine a strong hero on a horse, galloping across the plains. Then again, Galaxy Quest does have a strong western undertone, so there you go.


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## Simplesly (Nov 3, 2014)

tokatila @ Mon Nov 03 said:


> Very nice adventure theme!
> 
> For my taste and with my monitors (Dynaudio BM Compact mkIII) I would loved to have a little more power to the violins. If I close my eyes, it feels like they do a 5 meter forward dash at approx 0:20 from backstage to the their correct position.
> 
> I'm also missing a little warm lower section "oomph" to the end. Maybe little more timpani love?



Thanks tokatila - seems the general consensus is the violins could be a little louder. I always want to be careful not to put them at an unnatural volume. Probably gonna need to goose the cc11 up a bit. The timp and bass drum are mixed low, Maybe putting them further back but increasing their gain will help. I am still having trouble with getting a good powerful, correctly placed low drum sound without it sounding too muddy. I already spend so much time on mixing and templates - I think it's almost there...


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## Marius Masalar (Nov 3, 2014)

That was a lot of fun.

The brass is, as always, the weakest link in the VSL soundscape, but you've managed to make them sound very nice.

I wasn't bothered by the violin volume (though they did seem a bit more shy than I would have made them), but the lack of low end is really noticeable. There's not enough energy on the left end of the spectrum, so it all sounds kind of thin even though the orchestration and mix is otherwise right as it should be.

If you do go back and tweak it, maybe give the low instruments some encouragement and see if you can balance things out a bit? It would give the mix a lot more impact.

Terrific writing though. Definitely an old-school Americana kind of theme. :D


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## Simplesly (Nov 3, 2014)

Ok, taking all of your very good suggestions to heart, I uploaded a new mix. 


https://soundcloud.com/neil-penninger/103114-adventurama-b/s-g1mm3


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## AC986 (Nov 5, 2014)

That's great and because I like this track so much, I'm going to have to be a pita.

0:43 to 0.56. Needs working on the articulations. There's some sucking or something on the strings. Get that right and and your ranking goes top 5. Maybe top 3! :D 

Very good track. And also, western soundscapes were traded in for sic-fi when westerns became passé and no one watched them anymore. Most sic-fi films that aren't just noise and sound design (in other words actually have themes and recognisable music going on) are in fact western scores.


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## Simplesly (Nov 8, 2014)

adriancook @ Wed Nov 05 said:


> That's great and because I like this track so much, I'm going to have to be a pita.
> 
> 0:43 to 0.56. Needs working on the articulations. There's some sucking or something on the strings. Get that right and and your ranking goes top 5. Maybe top 3! :D
> 
> Very good track. And also, western soundscapes were traded in for sic-fi when westerns became passé and no one watched them anymore. Most sic-fi films that aren't just noise and sound design (in other words actually have themes and recognisable music going on) are in fact western scores.



Well thanks Adrian. I am gonna have another listen. That's my molto espressivo or whatever you want to call it strings patch that I created by stacking 3 VSL solo violins all transposed and pitched up and down, combined with the full 14 violin ensemble patch at a lower level. I should probably just suck it up and buy a library that was really recorded with that sound in mind. Alas, I am a sample library cheapskate.


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## AC986 (Nov 9, 2014)

Neil you won't get it to sound the way it deserves like that with VSL solo strings staked.

I'm also a library cheapskate too. But if I was going to get a string library all rounder today that in fact would augment VSL, I would choose Mural from Spitfire for this kind of work, especially if you can get as many articulations as you can afford. CS2 is another good sound but has less arts and no sordino.


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## peksi (Nov 11, 2014)

I would love to hear this with more high end orchestral libraries.

Very uplifting and skillfully orchestrated song, loved it. Made me smile.


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## Michael K. Bain (Nov 11, 2014)

Simplesly, I really like this track. That soaring brass is awesome. I want to go looking for cattle rustlers to arrest.
All the replies being made with such technically-oriented comments tells me 2 things:
(1) I don't know much about orchestral music
(2) I need to re-label my music from "orchestral music" to "music played by orchestral-sounding instruments"!


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