# Mockups of Classical Repertoire



## Paul T McGraw (Aug 15, 2016)

The reason to do a mockup of a classical piece is to learn. Specifically to learn how to better use samples to create music, and to learn to be a better composer. Creating music requires many skills to be mastered. And just as a pianist or a cellist must spend thousands of hours with their instrument to master it, so also do we need to learn many skills and techniques to use the tools of sampled sounds to make music.

No one (with the present state of technology in 2016) is going to produce a classical mockup that is superior to a real performance. A typical professional orchestra musician has typically spent 10,000 hours practicing their instrument in order to master it. That is not an exaggeration. That number is based on actual studies. Only a very dedicated musician is going to get good enough to achieve the dream of playing in a professional orchestra.

Starting in middle school, a typical future orchestral musician will practice at home and with the school orchestra about ten or twelve hours a week from 7th or 8th grade all the way through high school. That is about 3,000 to 4,000 hours. In college, a music major has to really pick it up, spending perhaps 30 to 40 hours per week with their instrument in addition to all of their other academic classes and assignments, bringing the total hours up to around 10,000 at graduation. For a string player, the callouses on the tips of the fingers become so thick that it will take many years of NOT playing for callouses to eventually go away.

Is it any wonder that we have to really work at the craft of making music with samples to get good at it? It probably will not take 10,000 hours, but it does take work. So how does one practice with using samples? I think one of the best ways is to practice by doing mockups of classical works.


*Why use a classical piece as a learning tool?*

1) You can easily get the score, often free from IMSLP in PDF form. And a score for most of us is essential. Some have a good enough ear to transcribe a piece of music, but I have never met or heard of anyone who can transcribe a full orchestral score exactly and perfectly. A score is a necessity for most, and always helpful for everyone.

2) You can easily listen to a real performance for comparison, often free on YouTube, or at little expense on CD. You use this for comparison with your mockup.

3) You can learn about how different performance techniques translate into the various sounds heard in the orchestra, i.e. legato, spiccato, sforzando, etc. And the best libraries today have lots and lots of sampled performance techniques.

4) You can learn the relative balance of instruments, for example it takes two horns to balance one trumpet or one trombone, and how to emulate that balance with your samples. This is a great reason to use a classical piece (instead of or in addition to a film track) for mockup learning. Classical performances usually do not use “close” microphones. Generally a classical performance is recorded using hall mics without mixing, though a small amount of EQ might be used to eliminate acoustic problems with the venue, such as low rumble, etc. A film score could have a classical guitar (a very soft volume instrument) being heard clearly above a full orchestra playing forte (loud) because of mixing of close microphones.

5) You can train your ear to know the timbre and tone quality of various combinations of instruments,

6) Humanization of a performance can, within limits, really enhance your mockup. This refers to small variations in pitch and timing as would actually occur with real musicians, no matter how talented they are. But too much humanization will make your mockup sound like a high school orchestra, or worse, and totally destroy the realism you are striving to achieve.

7) You can experiment with various ways to achieve spatialization in your mix to simulate the characteristics of an actual orchestra in the context of a hall. This can be quite difficult depending on the tools you have and your mixing skills. These mixing skills are totally independent from other skills,

8) You learn how rubato and a fluid tempo can breathe life and musicality into a performance. Listen to a classical performance while using a metronome and observe how often and to what extent the orchestra vary the tempo. The introduction section of the Dvorak Symphony No 9 is an awesome example, that will really show the value of rubato and a fluid tempo.

9) You can learn how phrasing, expression (use of dynamic variations supplementary to score markings) and timing are used to create an emotive performance,

10) You can use the close study of a great score to improve knowledge of harmony, form and compositional techniques,

11) Close study of a great score will also teach orchestration techniques, including the concepts of foreground, middle ground, and background parts to achieve many varieties of textures.

12) Feedback. Feedback is crucial to learning. How do you know if you are getting better, what areas need more improvement, what to focus on in your next attempt? With a mockup of classical music you can compare to a live performance. This provides critically needed feedback for you. Sometimes we get so immersed in little details we lose track of the forest as we work to get each leaf perfect. That is where a teacher can really help, by pointing out what is good, and what needs more work.

No private teacher? A community like VI Forum should be of help. Share your work on the forum, and hopefully someone will help you to see things you have missed, while reinforcing to you the good things you have done. This is another reason to practice your skills with a classical mockup. Other forum members will hopefully know how the piece is "intended" to sound. However, keep in mind that at some point your skills will surpass the skills of some other forum members. Their feedback might be actually wrong, or they might just be having a bad day. Also, some emotionally damaged folks will use the forum as an outlet for anger, aggression and negativity that is not going to help you or anyone else, including themselves. This is to be expected and is not new. In the history of music there are many examples of highly negative and insulting critics, composers saying terrible things about each other, and performers making outrageous statements about other performers and composers. It is just part of the human condition.

I wish you the greatest of joy in your journey of musical creativity.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 15, 2016)

Personally, and I do not say this should be true for everyone, I feel that I got better when I focused on making original music sound better, rather than mocking up pieces that had little to do with what I was hired to write/orchestrate.

I learned more when I got hired to create a MIDI version, a ballet, by another composer because of her comments on what I was giving her. After 6 versions, she was satisfied. That was 15 years ago, and today because the libraries are better and my skills are better, I could do a better job.

And since nobody would have compared her work to a revered piece of Beethoven, it was less offensive.


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## Baron Greuner (Aug 15, 2016)

Nice article Paul. I tend to go along with Jay but I think there's a lot of people out there that really enjoy studying classical works in this way i.e mocking up with a sample library.
When I was about 15 or 16 and going from grade 6 to grade 8 which in those days was part of the necessary examination requirements of The Royal College of Music (and all the others), I was at a boarding school and doing about 7 hours a day practice most of the time. Not all at once, but the hours were long in those days. There were no computers, not allowed to watch television, no social media, no mobile phones, just 3 Steinway and Bechstein pianos in 3 different parts of the school buildings.


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## novaburst (Aug 15, 2016)

Paul T McGraw said:


> No one (with the present state of technology in 2016) is going to produce a classical mockup that is superior to a real performance.


Well these days of late this statement is becoming more and more subjective, its not just that library's, are becoming better, (CSS), is an example, I feel composers are becoming more dedicated and creative with sample library's,

Plus we are over looking the fact that the artist that has spent 1000s of hours learning these instruments are the ones being hired to play for the samples, they are the one doing the staccatos and thrills and leggatos for us.

Plus the fact sample users are becoming more smart, creative, dedicated and can super impose over there work, sometimes achieving a little more dynamics than the real life sound becuase of what tech is on offer,

More and more I am hereing that alot of the real life orchestra is being over dubbed with samples, 

But great post and great read you have, i really enjoyed.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 16, 2016)

novaburst said:


> More and more I am hereing that alot of the real life orchestra is being over dubbed with samples,



OOPs, typo needs correcting

Not new at all for lower budget stuff. From 1990-1994 I composed the music for "Zorro" with a 24 piece orchestra augmented by Emu Emulator 3 samples.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 16, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> 19909



BC?


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 16, 2016)

Oh come on man. Nude pics of Jay on a public forum ... that's more something of an acquired taste, don't you think?


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## Ashermusic (Aug 16, 2016)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Oh come on man. Nude pics of Jay on a public forum ... that's more something of an acquired taste, don't you think?




Clearly, you are jealous of my sheer overwhelming physical beauty


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 16, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> Clearly, you are jealous of my sheer overwhelming physical beauty



You're one of those people who get real cocky just because they're beautiful!


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## Ashermusic (Aug 16, 2016)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> You're one of those people who get real cocky just because they're beautiful!




I know, the constant mistaking of me for George Clooney as I walk around LA is _so_ annoying.


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## Rodney Money (Aug 16, 2016)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Oh come on man. Nude pics of Jay on a public forum ... that's more something of an acquired taste, don't you think?


What did I just click on?


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## novaburst (Aug 16, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> OOPs, typo needs correcting
> 
> Not new at all for lower budget stuff. From 1990-1994 I composed the music for "Zorro" with a 24 piece orchestra augmented by Emu Emulator 3 samples.


I think my statement came out a little wrong, 

Ok what I have been seeing and hearing more and more is real life orchestral parts are being not so much over dubbed, but reinforced by using sample library's,. 

And we are talking modern day, up to date this is being practiced quite a bit

And the samples have been masterd with the real life orchestra, and we are not talking synth library's, we are talking strings, horns, percussion, and more.

My feeling is, is that sample library's are at a extremely good standard, and composers, and mixing engineers are very comfortable with this method to getting certain dynamics, tone and sound, 

So in essence many on this forum will use different library's and blend two or maybe 3 strings library's together to get a certain result,

This is also going on in the real life orchestral recording.


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## Guy Bacos (Aug 17, 2016)

Doing good mock ups of classical works is the most difficult task with samples. I agree with Paul that it's an excellent learning tool, however, if you are going to use it as a tool, I would approach it a bit differently. I would stick with shorter pieces or selected passages, because what didn't sound good in bar 2,3 and 4, will not sound good everywhere else you have that same articulations, so you are magnifying your weaknesses though out the entire movement. So as long as you are doing this as an exercise, I support it, what I'm not a fan of is people doing big mock ups just for the accomplishment, that will get you nowhere, unless you've mastered your craft to a high degree and ready for this. You very rarely see a great classical mockup. Jay Bacal does great work with mockups, I don't know how he does it, but I think some of it has to do with the amount of hours he puts into it.

If your goal is to do this as a learning process, it might also be wise when posting a mock up to mention it is an exercise, so you don't get re-peat to write his same essay for the 1000th time about sampled classical mock ups. Whatever motivates you to improve is the right way, to each his own. So go for it, but work wisely.


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## Reactor.UK (Aug 17, 2016)

Guy, are there any recent youtube videos of Jay Bacal classical mockups?


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## Guy Bacos (Aug 17, 2016)

I think Jay has about 10 new mock ups from the last few months.

https://vsl.co.at/en/News/Recently_Added


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## Carles (Aug 17, 2016)

Here you can find the tests I did for learning orchestration and testing instruments/templates/having fun, from pretty simple to very complex ones.
http://www.carlespiles.com/playlist/classical/

I know it's up to every one, but no doubt to me that I did learn one or two things by working on classical renditions.
It's also clear to me that working this kind of mockups with profit in mind is just silly given the huge amount of work required to get them minimally right (and always years light away from the real deal). Some of those tracks took over a month of work, being the Nutcracker suite the most time expensive (ironically because of the minimal approach where everything is so exposed. For instance only violins and violas from Miniature Overture took more than 10 days of intense work) but for educational purposes/fun these have been essential to me.


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## Arbee (Aug 17, 2016)

Without wishing to unfairly single one mock up out from the VSL site, because there are several there that in my opinion pass as very credible performances, the one that catches my attention every time is Beat Kaufmann's mock up of the Prelude from Greig's Holberg Suite. To my taste, Beat managed to capture an energy in this performance that I find lacking in some "real" performances of the piece.


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## Kyle Preston (Aug 21, 2016)

Thanks for the excellent post Paul! I love comparing mockups to real orchestral performances. It really does train your ears in the right direction. It also makes bad examples of this stick out like a sore thumb. Someone shared a mix with me recently (not on this forum) and if memory serves, I heard a flute over-powering a snare drum..........What?



> what I'm not a fan of is people doing big mock ups just for the accomplishment, that will get you nowhere, unless you've mastered your craft to a high degree and ready for this.



Can you elaborate on what you mean by this Guy, I don't understand why this will get you nowhere? Also, thank you for mentioning Jay Bascal, first I've heard of him - his Stravinsky mockup is ridiculously good, and 7 years ago but it still holds up!


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## Reactor.UK (Aug 21, 2016)

I can't answer for Guy, however, I'm going to guess he means to master each instrument, learning how they form colour combined with other instruments on a smaller scale, rather than complex orchestrations (big symphonies etc). Maybe starting with a quartet... mastering articulations, blending and balancing so as to master the sample libraries and DAW. If I'm wrong, I'm sure Guy will eloquently correct me.


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## novaburst (Aug 22, 2016)

Reactor.UK said:


> I can't answer for Guy, however, I'm going to guess he means to master each instrument, learning how they form colour combined with other instruments on a smaller scale, rather than complex orchestrations (big symphonies etc). Maybe starting with a quartet... mastering articulations, blending and balancing so as to master the sample libraries and DAW. If I'm wrong, I'm sure Guy will eloquently correct me.


This concept may be true however, there are many type of people that do mockups inside there Daw and library's,

Please consider the very skillfull, but maybe has no classical or orchestral training,

You also have the gifted who some how just know how it all should sound and can easily pull the wool over your ears.

My last consideration, would no doubt be the conductor who is also very skillfull with a Daw and mockups these are very dangerous when it comes to mockups,

There is of course in musical pieces where you need to give impressions or let me say a falls sence of impression and this is also achieved with real life musicians,

So in essence there are such great performers be it Daw , mockups, real life, that are able to let you here in there pieces what they want you to here, and you will not here nothing else beside it even if if the wrong way or the right way you just will not notice.


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## Guy Bacos (Aug 22, 2016)

Reactor.UK said:


> I can't answer for Guy, however, I'm going to guess he means to master each instrument, learning how they form colour combined with other instruments on a smaller scale, rather than complex orchestrations (big symphonies etc). Maybe starting with a quartet... mastering articulations, blending and balancing so as to master the sample libraries and DAW. If I'm wrong, I'm sure Guy will eloquently correct me.



I think you said very well.


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## Guy Bacos (Aug 22, 2016)

Also Carles is another example of super mockups.


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