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Cinematic Studio Series Tips & Tricks! :)

Tips on EQ and Mic selection to get the woodwinds to sit a little further back would be greatly appreciated.
 
For better comparison, I created a quick and dirty mockup. First with Cinematic Studio Strings v1.7 alone, then with Cinematic Studio Solo Strings layered. Now I did not exaggerate the effect on purpose. This is about the amount I would layer in for such a usage. To make clearer what CSSS contributes I have also rendered the excerpt with only CSSS.

Cinematic Studio Strings out of the box:

View attachment CSS v1.7 out of the box.mp3


Layered with CSSS:

View attachment CSS v1.7 and CSSS layered.mp3


CSSS alone:

View attachment CSSS solo.mp3
Beautiful writing! It sounds fantastic, what legato speed are you using?
 
Beautiful writing! It sounds fantastic, what legato speed are you using?
Thank you Mattia! I'm using the advanced legato. Mostly with the medium and slow speeds here. It varies a bit between the sections, depending on the line section is playing. It's cool that you can control the legato speed by velocities. I set the speeds I want already when playing the lines in.

I'll post a picture of the midi tomorrow when I am in the studio again.
 
Thank you Mattia! I'm using the advanced legato. Mostly with the medium and slow speeds here. It varies a bit between the sections, depending on the line section is playing. It's cool that you can control the legato speed by velocities. I set the speeds I want already when playing the lines in.

I'll post a picture of the midi tomorrow when I am in the studio again.
Great stuff man, I tend to only use the low latency mode. I find the advanced mode near impossible to use and hate with a passion the messy looking MIDI after editing, sounds really awesome here though. Might have to give that another shot
 
This script makes the advanced mode very useable for me:


Basically you play everything in with the low latency mode. Then set cc13 to a value over 64. After that, all three legato speeds are being used, and they play back in time automatically. No nudging notes around manually. Also, all the midi notes stay on the grid. It's a convenient solution and not messy at all. You'll see when I get to post a screenshot of the project.

Well worth trying when you have some downtime. And if you have questions or need help with setting it up just let me know. I'd be happy to help.
 
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These are the velocity settings I used:

1685031100733.png

Light blue is low velocity/slow transition, red is high velocity/fast transition. Purple is the medium transition in between. The notes are not perfectly aligned to the grid. That's not to compensate the delay. Rather it's me not playing perfectly on the beat. I didn't quantize because it sounded pretty natural to me. I could quantize perfectly to the grid, and CSS would play perfectly in time with the metronome thanks to the script I mentioned above.
 
Don't know why we didn't think of creating this thread before... Better late than never I guess !

As a mixing tip, Joel Dollié created a plugin a few months ago called RoomWidener and it recreates the "Doubler" effect/trick he mentions in his "mixing CSS" video but it's a lot simpler and optimized. It basically enhances CSS's quite narrow stereo width but in a clever way. I used the Doubler plugin by Waves before and I've now replaced it with RoomWidener since it was released it and it's worth every penny in my opinion !

Just saying I'm not paid or anything to promote this plugin, it easily became part of my CSS mixing process.

Here's the link to the plugin presentation video :

Cheers
 
For folks using Variable Delay Compensator, I posted configurations for CSW and CSB in the main thread for that script. The purpose of the script is to make all the delays of the articulations uniform so you only need to apply a single delay for the track in your DAW or notation software (and don't have to separate each articulation into a separate track). What I love about VDC is allows different values for the first note in a legato phrase and the remaining so everything gets lined up correct, along with all the other articulations. It also allows for trills to be triggered by a single note instead of having to put two. Idhoc also has a similarly great script (described by Muk above!) that serves the same purpose specifically for cinematic studio libraries! I used VDC simply because it can be configured for any library so I wanted to learn how to use it :)

Addendum: I should add that I have run into challenges using this with Dorico’s track delay in terms of legato release times. It works fine in Logic, but for D I’ve removed track delay and instead calibrated all my other libraries to line up with the uniform lead created by VDC.
 
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Don't know why we didn't think of creating this thread before... Better late than never I guess !

As a mixing tip, Joel Dollié created a plugin a few months ago called RoomWidener and it recreates the "Doubler" effect/trick he mentions in his "mixing CSS" video but it's a lot simpler and optimized. It basically enhances CSS's quite narrow stereo width but in a clever way. I used the Doubler plugin by Waves before and I've now replaced it with RoomWidener since it was released it and it's worth every penny in my opinion !

Just saying I'm not paid or anything to promote this plugin, it easily became part of my CSS mixing process.

Here's the link to the plugin presentation video :

Cheers

do you have any before and after applying the RoomWidener. Is it that significant? For the Cinematic Studio Series, you only apply this to CSS?
 
do you have any before and after applying the RoomWidener. Is it that significant? For the Cinematic Studio Series, you only apply this to CSS?
I use it mostly on strings since they're are generally narrower in terms of stereo width. It makes CSS more coherent/unified in my opinion. I sometimes use it subtly on brass or WW but when mic positions sound pretty wide already, adding this effect doesn’t really make a significant difference.

The room mics for CSB sound wide enough for example. I enjoy the sound of the overhead and room mics with CSW and you usually don’t pan WW as much as strings (since they’re more centered in the orchestra) so I tend to add a small amount of RoomWidener on CSB and CSW but it’s very subtle tbh.


This plugin can also be extremely useful when you have to deal with narrow sounding solo instruments in general. It’s meant as an insert before sending your instrument/section to a reverb. You also want to adjust the panning before using the plugin.


Here's a few examples of with/without RW applied on CSS :
- WARNING you might wanna turn your volume down -​

Example 1 (without RW)​
View attachment Ex. 1 (no RW).mp3

Example 1 (with RW)
View attachment Ex. 1 (with RW).mp3



Example 2 (without RW)
View attachment Ex. 2 (no RW).mp3

Example 2 (with RW)
View attachment Ex. 2 (with RW).mp3


Notice how, without RW, each string instrument sounds a lot more isolated. Now it doesn't necessarily sound better with RW, it's a question of what sound you're looking for obviously. RW sort of turns CSS's intimate studio sound to a wider symphonic ensemble and I really like that !
 
Wait what? I thought there were only two vib settings you could play with thanks to the new crossfade that came in v1.7.
 
Yup, that's just a crossfade between non-vib and vib. I'm not hearing 3 or 4 recorded vibrato levels as stated.
 
What other string libraries is everyone using to layer with CSS to get a more "hollywood" or "john williams/silvestri/horner" sound? Not anything extreme or "epic" like hybrid trailer strings, just the classic Hollywood scoring stage sound.
 
What other string libraries is everyone using to layer with CSS to get a more "hollywood" or "john williams/silvestri/horner" sound? Not anything extreme or "epic" like hybrid trailer strings, just the classic Hollywood scoring stage sound.
CS2 - works perfect. VERY similar approach - just 'bigger'. Depending on how much you 'mix-in' (for me often about 60-70% relative volume) - works like a charm. Bigger sound = < 80% mix of CS2 (relative to CSS)
 
What other string libraries is everyone using to layer with CSS to get a more "hollywood" or "john williams/silvestri/horner" sound? Not anything extreme or "epic" like hybrid trailer strings, just the classic Hollywood scoring stage sound.
Yep I agree with @Rob Elliott, CS2 and CSS works perfectly together! I sometimes even use them for divisi lines, so instead of duplicating a CSS viola patch I'll just use the CS2 one (plus you won't have phasing issues when playing the same note!)
 
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