# Template test - Alderaan Mountains



## Lassi Tani (Sep 1, 2016)

Hi! I'm starting to finish my template with BST, BWW, HB and EWQL SO Perc. I also received the score of the Force Awakens, and started studying it. I tried to get similar sound for motion in Rey's theme, in which Williams uses quick trumpet notes with tremolo in violas and violins + harp. It's a really interesting effect. When I listen to this tomorrow or the day after, I might notice right away something, I didn't notice now. So be merciful, but of course all kind of feedback is appreciated .


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 1, 2016)

Now when listening it, I find the brass to be too much in front, maybe.


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## Silence-is-Golden (Sep 2, 2016)

It sounds very dry in my ears, sekkosiki.

If you would use a good reverb in the sends and use the pre- fader setting to put it all in a space by adjusting some of the faders. And some finer balancing may show that your overall balance may actually be close by.

PS:seeing your libs you would probably welcome the release of Berlin Brass?


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 2, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> It sounds very dry in my ears, sekkosiki.
> 
> If you would use a good reverb in the sends and use the pre- fader setting to put it all in a space by adjusting some of the faders. And some finer balancing may show that your overall balance may actually be close by.
> 
> PS:seeing your libs you would probably welcome the release of Berlin Brass?



Thanks a lot for commenting! I'm always struggling with reverb. I have Spaces in the sends for each group. I'll go through the faders again.

Yes you guessed right, I would welcome Berlin Brass with open arms :D. For this kind 'not very bombastic' style I think Berlin Brass would suit very well, because the current Berlin libraries are quite classical sounding, which I love.


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## Quodlibet (Sep 3, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> use the pre- fader setting



This or keep the post-fader setting and raise the output level of your reverb and/or lower the level of your dry signal.


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 3, 2016)

Quodlibet said:


> This or keep the post-fader setting and raise the output level of your reverb and/or lower the level of your dry signal.



Thanks! Yes I could also do that to lower the level of my dry signal. I have DRY and WET channels, so that's a good idea


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## Silence-is-Golden (Sep 3, 2016)

Anyone's method is valid to the goals it achieves.

The reason I do it is, because I like to work with one reverb. And thus if I would adjust the w/d ratio that would be for all. I prefer the pre-fader method because it allows me to have the same reverb for all, but place the respective instruments in a place by the fader adjustments. Lower fader means then more reverb vs dry. But then per instrument.


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## Quodlibet (Sep 3, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> Anyone's method is valid to the goals it achieves.


Of course! 

I use both: pre-fader for dry libraries like vsl and post-fader for wetter libraries and "glue"-reverb.


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 5, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> It sounds very dry in my ears, sekkosiki.
> 
> If you would use a good reverb in the sends and use the pre- fader setting to put it all in a space by adjusting some of the faders. And some finer balancing may show that your overall balance may actually be close by.
> 
> PS:seeing your libs you would probably welcome the release of Berlin Brass?



Updated the piece with a bit more reverb, and pushed the brass further.


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## Silence-is-Golden (Sep 6, 2016)

You seem 'reverb - shy' 

Hopefully some others wil offer their views too about what they hear, but for me I hear 2 major considerations:
- it sounds to me as if all your instruments are played from the first row in the virtual room. And it sounds like a too small room for the 'orchestra to be in'

- the dynamic range of each section/instrument may be more utilised. At times it sounds as if you used ( strings & brass mostly) volume more then cc1 for dynamics.

Therefore I suggest to look at these 2 things first and place all sections in 'a room'.

But again: if you hopefully receive some other comments you might get a more overal idea what to do, instead of only my view.

Maybe try to overdo the reverb as well to experiment more....


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## Quodlibet (Sep 6, 2016)

Is this the updated piece? The one above sounds way better to me!


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 6, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> You seem 'reverb - shy'
> 
> Hopefully some others wil offer their views too about what they hear, but for me I hear 2 major considerations:
> - it sounds to me as if all your instruments are played from the first row in the virtual room. And it sounds like a too small room for the 'orchestra to be in'
> ...



Thanks for the feedback! Yes I am definitely reverb-shy . I'll try to overdo it and play with it in the next update. That might be true, that it sounds like coming from a small room. The brass still needs work, especially when listening to the short stabs towards the end. In long notes it's not that obvious. Also with harp the small room is noticeable.

Actually my problem is in Eareverb. I'm not using it correctly I think. If I push the instruments back in the space, they become very dull, and lose their brightness too much I think. Should I just use a basic reverb for a section and section volume fader? How much does the space affect the brightness of the sections?

Interesting that it sounds like I used volume more than cc1. I didn't use volume at all :D. Only cc1. But true I should utilize more the dynamic range of each section.



Quodlibet said:


> Is this the updated piece? The one above sounds way better to me!



Thanks! Yes it's the updated piece. The WIP version is the first vesion. The one above is the new one.


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## Silence-is-Golden (Sep 6, 2016)

Later today I can respond.......not too much time now.

If you have eareverb2 then I can give you my idea's how I currently use it.
This is my only reverb at the moment also and you should get good results.

Also the pos mode will help with the dry HB patches.


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## Quodlibet (Sep 6, 2016)

Ok, my mistake! The brass sounds still too loud to me. What mic position do you use? I don´t have eareverb2 so I can´t say anything about the reverb settings. I am sure, silence-is-golden will give you some good ideas. Good luck & success!


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## Silence-is-Golden (Sep 6, 2016)

Hi Sekkosiki,

sorry for the late response.

regarding Eareverb2: you have probably constructed your own presets, but since I like a reasonable hall sound for an orchestra like the size I hear on your mockup, I use the concert hall or large hall. And then set the tail length to taste.

If you go to the SE mode then there you have this knob for the ER/Tail setting. I usually set that to zero. That reduces the ER's a bit more which sounds good for me.

For drier libraries like HB I would use a second send and use the POS mode on that. And in my experience ( which is within its current limitations) you need to experiment with the ER/ tails as well. Also the dry/ wet knob can help how much 'space' it needs. You can also choose to turn the tails off f.e.
And then obviously the positioner helps to place it more to the space where you want it.

hopefully this may offer some approaches( if you not already use it as such? in which case its redundant )


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 8, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> Hi Sekkosiki,
> 
> sorry for the late response.
> 
> ...



Thanks a lot! I'm using Spaces as the reverb and Eareverb2 for positioning, and I had mixed Woodwinds and Brass, so that Woodwinds were in the back and Brass where woodwinds should be :D. That explains, why the brass sounded to be too much in front. Also I added more reverb. Thanks for the tip about ER, I'll try that out.

I should also try, how using just Eareverb2 for both reverb and positioning would work.


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 8, 2016)

Quodlibet said:


> Ok, my mistake! The brass sounds still too loud to me. What mic position do you use? I don´t have eareverb2 so I can´t say anything about the reverb settings. I am sure, silence-is-golden will give you some good ideas. Good luck & success!



I have only Gold version of HB, so it's mid mics. I hope the positioning the brass to the back helped with the brass. It's a tough thing to balance brass, since it can be very loud, but still should sound like coming from the back of the hall.


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## David Stiles (Sep 8, 2016)

I'm just jumping into this conversation now, and I'd say that your mix has improved considerably since the first version (I listened to all three). That said, your brass is too loud - I think I'm hearing some digital artifacts that suggest that you might need to push back the levels there. That might, in turn, mean that you need to turn some other stuff down as well. 

As for the composition itself, I'd say that it is well done. You have captured some very nice JW-style energy, especially with that staccato trumpet/tremolo strings technique that you mentioned. Good work!


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 9, 2016)

David Stiles said:


> I'm just jumping into this conversation now, and I'd say that your mix has improved considerably since the first version (I listened to all three). That said, your brass is too loud - I think I'm hearing some digital artifacts that suggest that you might need to push back the levels there. That might, in turn, mean that you need to turn some other stuff down as well.
> 
> As for the composition itself, I'd say that it is well done. You have captured some very nice JW-style energy, especially with that staccato trumpet/tremolo strings technique that you mentioned. Good work!



Thank you very much for the feedback David! I'll turn the brass down a bit in the next version. Next time I should maybe do template balancing with a mockup . I like JW a lot, and I'm currently studying the Force Awakens score, thus I'm sure it will influence quite a lot of my future compositions :D.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 9, 2016)

sekkosiki said:


> Thanks a lot! I'm using Spaces as the reverb and Eareverb2 for positioning, and I had mixed Woodwinds and Brass, so that Woodwinds were in the back and Brass where woodwinds should be :D. That explains, why the brass sounded to be too much in front. Also I added more reverb. Thanks for the tip about ER, I'll try that out.
> 
> I should also try, how using just Eareverb2 for both reverb and positioning would work.




Very cool Track. Thanks for sharing. I will tomorrow afternoon take a listen on my studio monitors and give you a short briefing! Keep up the good work.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 10, 2016)

So, I had finally a chance to have a listen. Nice piece. But I think your Vlns I u. II, Celli leg + your flutes is way too upfront and so to dry to my ears, ecspecially in comparison to the rest, also the low strings (short articulations) seem to sit more back in the room which is fine. Did you eq the mids? It sounds a bit like bathtube curve for me. In General you can do that a bit but not too much because then you kill also some frquencies which gives the mid the and directn and open character of the sound.
Stylistically there are additional things which I would do a bit different with voicings in the brass and dynamics, but maybe that helps already a bit?


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## Lassi Tani (Sep 10, 2016)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> So, I had finally a chance to have a listen. Nice piece. But I think your Vlns I u. II, Celli leg + your flutes is way too upfront and so to dry to my ears, ecspecially in comparison to the rest, also the low strings (short articulations) seem to sit more back in the room which is fine. Did you eq the mids? It sounds a bit like bathtube curve for me. In General you can do that a bit but not too much because then you kill also some frquencies which gives the mid the and directn and open character of the sound.
> Stylistically there are additional things which I would do a bit different with voicings in the brass and dynamics, but maybe that helps already a bit?



Thanks for your response, and constantly helping us composers here!  You should be awarded with some kind of Helper medal! 

Yes that might be true that the V1, V2, Celli and flutes are too upfront. I'll try too look at that. I didn't eq the mids. I've just equed some lows off.

I would gladly hear the feedback about voicing in the brass and dynamics, if you just have time. I don't want to take too much of your time . This is already plenty of advice, you've given.


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