# "Dark Crystal Overture" Mockup ! (aka Soaring Strings Crash Test)



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Mar 13, 2019)

Hi everyone,

Having recently acquired Musical Sampling's Soaring Strings during their latest sale, I wanted to try them in a new Mockup.

I am a huge fan of Trevor Jone's score for Dark Crystal, so I thought it would be a perfect candidate. Here is my Mockup for the "Overture" piece (well... not the whole piece, but the biggest part !)

With the exception of a very few runs, trems and stuff, 99% of the strings are Soaring Strings. Brass is Berlin Brass with a few touches of Metropolis Arks & the excellent Majestic Horn from Organic Samples. Woodwinds are from VSL SE, + the sweet Clarinet from Embertone.

Hope you'll enjoy the result !


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## ryans (Mar 13, 2019)

Great work, and may I say great taste as well... it's a gorgeous score.

A major letdown with sampled strings, for me, is the inability to capture that (soaring) quality that high strings in octaves/unison have when performed live... but they sound pretty good in your mockup, soaring strings doing their job!

Orchestral balance is really good for the most part.. brass may be a bit underrepresented in a few places. At around 2:00, it would be nice to hear that beautiful cello line come through a bit more... although I'm probably only noticing that due to my familiarity with the original recording..

Well done!

Ryan


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## Land of Missing Parts (Mar 13, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Hope you'll enjoy the result


Love it love it love it. 

Is that Drum Fury I hear in the bass drum and/or timpani?

Also, _is that Gelfling I smell?_ :emoji_gem:


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Mar 13, 2019)

@ryans : Thank you so much ! I think Soaring Strings did very well in this situation. Very happy with it !

You're probably right about the balance issues you mentionned, but I spent so much energy on the transcribing/playing/programming process I may have lost focus on the mixing stage. I guess I'll find out in a few days 

@Land of Missing Parts : Glad you liked it ! No Drum Fury on this one, it is very well recorded, but too clean/modern for this particular mockup.

I usually use a lot of close mics in my mockups, but here I sticked to only using decca trees for all instruments (or ORTF for Berlin Brass).

The Gran Casa is from Ark 3, and the Timpani is from HZ01 (even if I told @NoamL I didn't like them a few days ago, lol).



Land of Missing Parts said:


> Also, _is that Gelfling I smell?_ :emoji_gem:


<3


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## Manaberry (Mar 14, 2019)

Very nice mockup! I really like the mix. Sounds natural.
Beau boulot!


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Mar 15, 2019)

Manaberry said:


> Very nice mockup! I really like the mix. Sounds natural.
> Beau boulot!



Thank you @Manaberry ! The mix is actually dead simple, just reverb, some volume automation and a very soft limiter.


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## Manaberry (Mar 15, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you @Manaberry ! The mix is actually dead simple, just reverb, some volume automation and a very soft limiter.


Sometimes it's not that easy to do simple things


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## Brian Nowak (Mar 15, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you @Manaberry ! The mix is actually dead simple, just reverb, some volume automation and a very soft limiter.



Sounds great... right out of the box...


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Mar 15, 2019)

Brian Nowak said:


> Sounds great... right out of the box...



You know what, I was SO CLOSE to write that and tag you, Brian


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## DivingInSpace (May 27, 2019)

I have been listening to this score over the last couple of days, and started considering getting the score to analyse. This sounds great!


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (May 27, 2019)

DivingInSpace said:


> I have been listening to this score over the last couple of days, and started considering getting the score to analyse. This sounds great!



Thank you @DivingInSpace , I certainly learnt a lot by studying this piece. It is brillantly written and orchestrated


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## Vladimir Bulaev (May 28, 2019)

Beautiful Mockup Emmanuel! Quality work!
Do you write notes by ear or do you have access to scores or midi?

Thank you for sharing!


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (May 28, 2019)

Vladimir Bulaev said:


> Beautiful Mockup Emmanuel! Quality work!
> Do you write notes by ear or do you have access to scores or midi?
> 
> Thank you for sharing!



Thank you @Vladimir Bulaev , much appreciated !
The Trevor Jones and Herrmann mockups were made with the score, and the Elfman and Desplats mockups were made by ear.
Both are good exercices for me


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## LudovicVDP (May 28, 2019)

What a great movie! What a great score! And what a superb mockup!


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## handz (May 28, 2019)

Love the score, love your mockup. These old scores have very special sound - lots of air in them and you nailed it nicely with Soaring Strings - they are so nice sounding. 

Would you mind sharing the midi file?

thank you


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (May 28, 2019)

Thank you both !

Here is the MIDI file


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## handz (May 28, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you both !
> 
> Here is the MIDI file


yay, thank you!!!


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## Paul T McGraw (May 29, 2019)

@whitewasteland a very believable mockup. I am sorry to say that I thought the strings sound was the weakest area. I wish you had Spitfire Symphonic Strings for this project. Your skills are great, but I just do not like the sound of soaring strings.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (May 29, 2019)

Paul T McGraw said:


> @whitewasteland a very believable mockup. I am sorry to say that I thought the strings sound was the weakest area. I wish you had Spitfire Symphonic Strings for this project. Your skills are great, but I just do not like the sound of soaring strings.



Thank you @Paul T McGraw , always like to know what you think 

To be fair with Soaring Strings, it's a small and light library compared to big guys like Spitfire Chamber Strings or OT Berlin Strings. I think they did really good for that exercice, but clearly there are parts in this mockup where other libraries would be more appropriate. I'm thinking especially about the parts with lots of divisi, where the Molto Vibrato of Soaring Strings creates a slightly "shaking" and unstable sound with so many voices together.


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## Paul T McGraw (May 29, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you @Paul T McGraw , always like to know what you think
> 
> To be fair with Soaring Strings, it's a small and light library compared to big guys like Spitfire Chamber Strings or OT Berlin Strings. I think they did really good for that exercice, but clearly there are parts in this mockup where other libraries would be more appropriate. I'm thinking especially about the parts with lots of divisi, where the Molto Vibrato of Soaring Strings creates a slightly "shaking" and unstable sound with so many voices together.



Exactly!


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## DGravel (May 29, 2019)

Amazing work.


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## Patrick.K (Nov 12, 2019)

Very,Very Nice, Soaring strings are amazing !


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Nov 12, 2019)

Thank you very much Patrick ! This library is great indeed


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## Patrick.K (Nov 12, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you very much Patrick ! This library is great indeed



I think you have a lot of talent!
I take this opportunity to ask you if you know Adventure Strings and Trailer Strings?
What would be best with Soaring strings ?.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Nov 12, 2019)

I don’t have them but I would say Adventure Strings is probably a best fit. Complementary articulations, same string section and setup


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## Patrick.K (Nov 13, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> I don’t have them but I would say Adventure Strings is probably a best fit. Complementary articulations, same string section and setup



Well, I can trust your enlightened advice, especially after listening to your other mockups too.
I am really impressed by your work, I see we love the same composers.


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## RobbertZH (Nov 13, 2019)

I love the original Dark Crystal Score. So magical.

Thanks for providing the midi file.
Interesting to find out how it sounds when using it with the libraries I have (maybe a bit different, but I hope not to much). Hopefully I have time for that during the christmas holidays.

About your midi mockup, maybe I am wrong, but it appears that the tempo is static?
If so, you can breath even more live in your mockup by changing the tempo gradually during the whole piece (both speeding up and slowing down). Maybe you could add the original soundtrack audio as an extra track in your DAW, playing it together with your midi tracks and find out where the original piece does speed up or slow down and draw those changes in a tempo track.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Nov 13, 2019)

@RobbertZH : Thanks !
I usually add some tempo variations on my mockups, but you're right : not in this one. If I remember correctly, I had awful CPU/performances issues when doing so. I'm working on a laptop with 24gb of RAM and a CPU that starts to get old, so sometimes it gets a bit tired


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## Scamper (Feb 20, 2020)

I just watched The Dark Crystal a little while ago and loved this theme as well. So, I'm happy to see a mockup of the Overture, which sounds great.

Did you transcribe this by ear or do you have the score around? Anyways thanks for the MIDI, since I'm also interested in transcribing the piece and to see, how it will sound with the Cinematic Studio Series libraries.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Feb 21, 2020)

Scamper said:


> I just watched The Dark Crystal a little while ago and loved this theme as well. So, I'm happy to see a mockup of the Overture, which sounds great.
> 
> Did you transcribe this by ear or do you have the score around? Anyways thanks for the MIDI, since I'm also interested in transcribing the piece and to see, how it will sound with the Cinematic Studio Series libraries.



Thank you ! You can find the score on Scribd. Very interested in hearing your results with the Cinematic Studio Series


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## Scamper (Feb 21, 2020)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you ! You can find the score on Scribd. Very interested in hearing your results with the Cinematic Studio Series



Great, thanks. I'll probably wait until CSW is out though.
I hope you've also seen the new series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which I found surprisingly fantastic as well.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Feb 21, 2020)

Scamper said:


> Great, thanks. I'll probably wait until CSW is out though.
> I hope you've also seen the new series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which I found surprisingly fantastic as well.


It was beautiful indeed !


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## keysplayer (Mar 7, 2021)

whitewasteland said:


> Thank you @Vladimir Bulaev , much appreciated !
> The Trevor Jones and Herrmann mockups were made with the score, and the Elfman and Desplats mockups were made by ear.
> Both are good exercices for me


I'm looking for the score. Any recommendations?


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## RobbertZH (Mar 9, 2021)

keysplayer said:


> I'm looking for the score. Any recommendations?



https://musescore.com/joshuasommerl...age-of-resistance-main-theme-orchestral-score


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Mar 9, 2021)

RobbertZH said:


> https://musescore.com/joshuasommerl...age-of-resistance-main-theme-orchestral-score








@keysplayer : I found it on Scribd - Don't know how legal this thing is !


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