# Captain Strong (80s Flavoured Action Theme)



## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 13, 2016)

Hey Guys,

Here is one short 80s flavoured action theme which I orchestrated / arranged this morning.
I like a lot of Silvestri, Horner and Williams music and do impressions of them or lets put it this way: I try to train my own chops. This one ecspecially deals for a case study for private classes I give.

Libraries: Adventure Brass, Strings are CSS, Woodwinds are a mix of Eastwest HOW, VSL and Strezov Sampling.



Here are my other alternative versions which I do a lot. Experimenting with different melodic statements and see what is possible. So practically same chords but slightly different arrangements.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbvokmsv1x9vcc7/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dsm4dxdvk72j3rh/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative_2.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/goj65xaa4p3184q/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative_4.mp3?dl=0

So to sum it up: That´s the way how I do and start my own impressions.

PS: Yes..galaxy rangers..cool animated series!


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## Fer (Sep 13, 2016)

Well done! awesome string/WW runs


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 13, 2016)

I like it a lot! I think the cymbal is a bit too quiet. I quite don't get the rhythm, is it intentionally sometimes a bit disturbing?  But all in all, very good orchestration and 80's vibe.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 13, 2016)

sekkosiki said:


> I like it a lot! I think the cymbal is a bit too quiet. I quite don't get the rhythm, is it intentionally sometimes a bit disturbing?  But all in all, very good orchestration and 80's vibe.



I heard that cymbal thing in the other thread as well, I think I should raise the cymbals a bit I guess. Regarding the rhythm: Well, everytime I accent on the downbeats my right hand gets an electric shock. :D Joke aside, are you referring to the underpinning rhythm just in general in the whole track or a specific section? Sure it is a bit between the lines which was intentional. Does it take you out of the track?
Thanks for the feedback. 



Fer said:


> Well done! awesome string/WW runs



Cool! Thanks. The Runs are only on sustaining notes as flourishment to celebrate the note. So I tried to place them with system. I really don´t like random runs still I think some of the tracks can benefit from this decorational elements.


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 13, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> I heard that cymbal thing in the other thread as well, I think I should raise the cymbals a bit I guess. Regarding the rhythm: Well, everytime I accent on the downbeats my right hand gets an electric shock. :D Joke aside, are you referring to the underpinning rhythm just in general in the whole track or a specific section? Sure it is a bit between the lines which was intentional. Does it take you out of the track?
> Thanks for the feedback.



You're welcome . I like generally the underpinning rhythm, but I'm referring to 0:07, 0:23 and the runs at 0:15 before the beat. They sound like off beat. It doesn't take me out of the track, I like confusing rhythm :D.


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## NoamL (Sep 13, 2016)

The first 5 notes remind me of something, can't put my finger on it though.


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## zacnelson (Sep 13, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> everytime I accent on the downbeats my right hand gets an electric shock.


hehehe you're a classic Alexander! 

I LOVE this composition, I look forward very much to a longer version. This has potential to be one of the best things I've heard all year. I like the rhythmic complexities, you are clever enough to write complex music which still communicates to the average listener.


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## pixel (Sep 14, 2016)

Wow! Well done  Rhythm didn't take me out of track and I'm before my first coffee today  (I don't like complex rhythms at the beginning of the day) so it's totally fine. It's good to begin day with piece like this


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## Assa (Sep 14, 2016)

NoamL said:


> The first 5 notes remind me of something, can't put my finger on it though.



It's basically Alan Silvestri's Captain America theme


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## handz (Sep 14, 2016)

Really cool, sad this is now categorised as "80s" therefore retro and old, as this should be still the way how adventure movies should sound!


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 14, 2016)

Assa said:


> It's basically Alan Silvestri's Captain America theme




See my initial post. Aas I do impressions also as case studies which helps me to train my own chops.


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## Assa (Sep 14, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> See my initial post. Aas I do impressions also as case studies which helps me to train my own chops.



Sure, I expected it to be done on purpose considering the name of your track. Just wanted to help out NoamL


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 14, 2016)

Assa said:


> Sure, I expected it to be done on purpose considering the name of your track. Just wanted to help out NoamL



It is all fine. There is no secret I love all those kinds of stuff. When you listen to my other tracks there are similiar things what I repurpose in somehow one or another way of scores from Horner, Silvestri, Williams etc..
Look that are alternative versions as I do often with such things, but the flavor is for me the most important. I experiment with a lot of different ways how you can make abit more your own thing out of it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbvokmsv1x9vcc7/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dsm4dxdvk72j3rh/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative_2.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/goj65xaa4p3184q/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative_4.mp3?dl=0


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## byzantium (Sep 14, 2016)

Great stuff Alexander, and thanks for posting. Do you mind me asking what are you using for the deeper drums / timpani at the beginning section (with the off-beat 'stabs' and snare), sounds great, sounds like it could be duller/shorter/damped timpani or other toms? (or maybe none at all?). I have cinesamples timpani and while they are fantastic there can be a long tonal ring / decay to them which is often not appropriate / too long. Thanks!


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 14, 2016)

byzantium said:


> Great stuff Alexander, and thanks for posting. Do you mind me asking what are you using for the deeper drums / timpani at the beginning section (with the off-beat 'stabs' and snare), sounds great, sounds like it could be duller/shorter/damped timpani or other toms? (or maybe none at all?). I have cinesamples timpani and while they are fantastic there can be a long tonal ring / decay to them which is often not appropriate / too long. Thanks!



Cinesamples stuff, also Toms (the old Single Library) and some Concert Snare layered with Piccolo Snare from the Cinesnares. Plus bassdrum from the old Albion from Spitfire. What in my opinion creates the punch is the low Stacc Tuba + Celli + DB + the rest of prc. And so you have this "Dadamm" thing. I pretty much got this orchestration stuff from this silvestri and sousa marches. There is by the way no compression, no eq nothing done there. What I do is I gate those signals to get more shorten the release. Sounds funny but it works here and there. Also with cymbals.


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## byzantium (Sep 14, 2016)

Ah yes, thanks very much for this Alexander. I hear the bass drum in there now as well. It's amazing how many instruments are layered in those hits. Plus you answered exactly what I guess was my real underlying (unasked) question, which is how do you get that punch. Brilliant, thanks!. I'm guessing you probably don't quantise (or quantise fully) as well which gives added depth/realism. Re faking the stops, not a crazy idea re noise gate, I've had to do volume automation on occasion to stop the drums/timpanis ringing on.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 14, 2016)

byzantium said:


> Ah yes, thanks very much for this Alexander. I hear the bass drum in there now as well. It's amazing how many instruments are layered in those hits. Plus you answered exactly what I guess was my real underlying (unasked) question, which is how do you get that punch. Brilliant, thanks!. I'm guessing you probably don't quantise (or quantise fully) as well which gives added depth/realism. Re faking the stops, not a crazy idea re noise gate, I've had to do volume automation on occasion to stop the drums/timpanis ringing on.



I never quantize my orchestral music, everything is performed, and that makes imo a major difference that not everything is so damn on spot or lets put it this way: on the grid. When you look at my project templates the midi notes are all over the place _but not on the grid_. They are before, sometimes a little to late, sometimes to early, everywhere. Some composers who are used with their quantizing approach (nothing wrong with that) would say that my stuff is probably not tight, but look: live orchestras in those contexts are everything but not always on spot and it contributes so much more to a real performance when you try to incoorporate those human imperfections in your sampled orchestra.So if you want a bit more life in your sampled orchestra, make it not so perfect..

_And there is another factor when you perform: You are living the part you record and you are putting some kind of love into it which reflects your sample performance. _

A technical tip: For such Low tutti Staccs I recommend to use an ensemble patch which always sounds better imo than stacking a single cello ensemble + Dbass Patch.
In case such performing makes your life difficult slow down the tempo or record short chunks.


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## byzantium (Sep 14, 2016)

Thanks very much Alexander. I can see / hear that there is a good teacher in you!


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## NameOfBand (Sep 23, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> I never quantize my orchestral music, everything is performed, and that makes imo a major difference that not everything is so damn on spot or lets put it this way: on the grid. When you look at my project templates the midi notes are all over the place _but not on the grid_. They are before, sometimes a little to late, sometimes to early, everywhere. Some composers who are used with their quantizing approach (nothing wrong with that) would say that my stuff is probably not tight, but look: live orchestras in those contexts are everything but not always on spot and it contributes so much more to a real performance when you try to incoorporate those human imperfections in your sampled orchestra.So if you want a bit more life in your sampled orchestra, make it not so perfect..
> 
> _And there is another factor when you perform: You are living the part you record and you are putting some kind of love into it which reflects your sample performance. _
> 
> ...



I just saw a tutorial on Youtube where a guy made the point that when playing ensemble patches, if you don't match the notes perfectely to the grid, that means the sample with the entire ensemble, and every player in it, will be off the beat. That seems kinda unlikely in a real scenario. How do you deal with that? To me, when using ensemble patches, it makes a lot of sense for me to quantize them, I actually think it would sound bad if you didn't. So regarding the sort of "wierd rhythm" in this piece, could it be explained by this? Also, I guess it matters a lot how far off the beat your playing actually is. Nice piece btw!


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## novaburst (Sep 26, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> https://www.dropbox.com/s/goj65xaa4p3184q/Alexander_Schiborr_Captain_Strong_alternative_4.mp3?dl=0


They all sound like some thing you would here in a movie, basically all well done, if i was to choose one to work on it would be this one as it had the same flavor as the rest but the direction of the notes separated it, 

I know for this type of sound the brass is king, but it would be nice to have the strings join in the fun on the front line too, i say this because i love the strings so its personal


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## NoamL (Sep 27, 2016)

NameOfBand said:


> I just saw a tutorial on Youtube where a guy made the point that when playing ensemble patches, if you don't match the notes perfectely to the grid, that means the sample with the entire ensemble, and every player in it, will be off the beat. That seems kinda unlikely in a real scenario. How do you deal with that? To me, when using ensemble patches, it makes a lot of sense for me to quantize them, I actually think it would sound bad if you didn't. So regarding the sort of "wierd rhythm" in this piece, could it be explained by this? Also, I guess it matters a lot how far off the beat your playing actually is. Nice piece btw!




I agree.

There are two kinds of tight - the tightness of note attacks, and the tightness of tempo.

I think VI composers have a very strong tendency to *under*estimate how tightly musicians play together and *over*estimate how tightly they stick to a tempo (unless recording to a click of course).

If you doubt how well an orchestra plays together just take any recording of fast action music and use a program to slow it down 4x-10x. You will see that the attacks are within very small ranges even in fast and complex music.

Similarly, try to recreate a click track for a piece of music performed at a concert and you'll see the "click" is all over the place, it changes every single measure as the musicians are naturally shaping their phrases.

So my preference is to quantize very very strongly (80-90%) and then draw a click track that creates musical expression.

It's true that not quantizing creates a "natural" performance, but it creates a natural performance _of someone playing a keyboard_. There are built in effects like a slight pause when the hand needs to move a distance on the keyboard - these are telltale signs of a keyboard performance, and when we're simulating an orchestra I think we should want to eliminate them not highlight them. Especially since I'm terrible at piano


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## byzantium (Sep 28, 2016)

NoamL said:


> It's true that not quantizing creates a "natural" performance, but it creates a natural performance _of someone playing a keyboard_.
> So my preference is to quantize very very strongly (80-90%) and then draw a click track that creates musical expression.



That's REALLY interesting. I never thought of it like that before. Thanks for sharing.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 28, 2016)

Hi Guys,

I agree to your things here to a certain extent. It is true that there is a natural inconsistency in the the way how an Ensemble, lets say the violins 1 perform a short note action. But you should also consider that all these samples are not recorded in a real live context enviroment. It is a different thing when there is a section of Violins 1 playing live a string figure of 8 triplets ostinato in context live with a conductor, or if in case those figure is performed in takes to produce and record all the single notes for the sample library. They are more on Point then. And that leads me to at least my conclusion: No live orchestra would perform that figure in the same way in live the way they would Play that when they are in the recording session producing single short articulation notes for a sample library. And I can hear that all the time when I listen to classic Hollywood Soundtracks. There is also another very important factor which you guys probably know but I didn´t mention. Just an example. Take the finale of the Rossini William Tell movement. In the score sheet there are this 8 triplet figures. But do yourself a favor: Play them in a very lets say mathematic precise way but that´s not how the orchestra does perform those 8 triplets. They perform them a tad faster and later. So when you would see how the notes are on the cubase grid, they are all wrong, but they feel and Sound right. And that is something you can´t do when you quantize your notes because you destroy that characteristic.

At least that is my perference deciding not to quantize anything in my works.


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## NameOfBand (Sep 28, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> I agree to your things here to a certain extent. It is true that there is a natural inconsistency in the the way how an Ensemble, lets say the violins 1 perform a short note action. But you should also consider that all these samples are not recorded in a real live context enviroment. It is a different thing when there is a section of Violins 1 playing live a string figure of 8 triplets ostinato in context live with a conductor, or if in case those figure is performed in takes to produce and record all the single notes for the sample library. They are more on Point then. And that leads me to at least my conclusion: No live orchestra would perform that figure in the same way in live the way they would Play that when they are in the recording session producing single short articulation notes for a sample library. And I can hear that all the time when I listen to classic Hollywood Soundtracks. There is also another very important factor which you guys probably know but I didn´t mention. Just an example. Take the finale of the Rossini William Tell movement. In the score sheet there are this 8 triplet figures. But do yourself a favor: Play them in a very lets say mathematic precise way but that´s not how the orchestra does perform those 8 triplets. They perform them a tad faster and later. So when you would see how the notes are on the cubase grid, they are all wrong, but they feel and Sound right. And that is something you can´t do when you quantize your notes because you destroy that characteristic.
> 
> At least that is my perference deciding not to quantize anything in my works.



Well I guees in these ostinato examples everyone is a bit off the beat, that might be how the figure sounds, as you said. Also if you'd wanna make a rubato a tempo effect it probably wouldn't be so good to quantize that part. But I still think the general idea is the same: if you play ensemble patches every player will play that note as you order them via the MIDI. Now that I think about it, the MIDI-performance in a way reflects the performance of the conductor. How about volume automation? By this principle that should be drawn fairly precise to achive a realistic sound. But I guess its easy to just record it in.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 28, 2016)

NameOfBand said:


> Well I guees in these ostinato examples everyone is a bit off the beat, that might be how the figure sounds, as you said. Also if you'd wanna make a rubato a tempo effect it probably wouldn't be so good to quantize that part. But I still think the general idea is the same: if you play ensemble patches every player will play that note as you order them via the MIDI. Now that I think about it, the MIDI-performance in a way reflects the performance of the conductor. How about volume automation? By this principle that should be drawn fairly precise to achive a realistic sound. But I guess its easy to just record it in.



Well, from my understanding there is a difference in Sound when you record a single sample with an Ensemble in a sterile non context enviroment with a lot of breaks note by note for a sample library content, or the same Ensemble playing the same notes in a context with a live Piece. I have to admit that very good orchestras can Play tight together and that was not so much my Point, that they can´t.
Lets say you have a fast Piece and there are the Violas playing a short articulation underpinning ostinato while horns horns doing the melody. The piece is uptempo music before and after. Even if you work with Violas short articulation patches each single note will not sound so on perfectly on spot because every Viola Player doens´t play at the same time the note like the viola ensemble Players sitting in a recording hall and recording exactly the same sampled note for library. They do breaks, they have more time to prepare to Play such note. (Besides the thing that they have no context around how to Play the short note really)
Sure there are situations like slower passages where this might be ending up in a very similiar or even very close sounding, but with uptempo tracks that doesn´t work anymore.

How do you see that, guys?

Maybe this discussion could be a good topic for a sample talk?

Anyways, I would like to hear your opinions because this is also of an interest for me and of course I am always open to suggestions.

Thanks


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## NameOfBand (Sep 29, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> Well, from my understanding there is a difference in Sound when you record a single sample with an Ensemble in a sterile non context enviroment with a lot of breaks note by note for a sample library content, or the same Ensemble playing the same notes in a context with a live Piece. I have to admit that very good orchestras can Play tight together and that was not so much my Point, that they can´t.
> Lets say you have a fast Piece and there are the Violas playing a short articulation underpinning ostinato while horns horns doing the melody. The piece is uptempo music before and after. Even if you work with Violas short articulation patches each single note will not sound so on perfectly on spot because every Viola Player doens´t play at the same time the note like the viola ensemble Players sitting in a recording hall and recording exactly the same sampled note for library. They do breaks, they have more time to prepare to Play such note. (Besides the thing that they have no context around how to Play the short note really)
> Sure there are situations like slower passages where this might be ending up in a very similiar or even very close sounding, but with uptempo tracks that doesn´t work anymore.
> 
> ...


Is it common to sample figures like that, for the reasons you mention? Seems like something that could be useful


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Oct 1, 2016)

NameOfBand said:


> Is it common to sample figures like that, for the reasons you mention? Seems like something that could be useful


I am not sure if it is that common to sample ostinato figures like that. There are a few libraries out there who cover some of the more Standard ostinatos, like in NI Action Strings Library and while I think they Sound good and help Composers with short Deadlines to create Music I don´t think they would apply to my writing that much.


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## BigImpactSound (Oct 1, 2016)

Really awesome work, congrats!


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## J-M (Oct 2, 2016)

Sounds great, brings back childhood memories! :D


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## David Stiles (Oct 2, 2016)

Great job, Alexander! I think you've done a great job of capturing the feel of that 1980s/Silvestri kind of sound.


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