@muk This is really interesting. Do you happen to have a before and after to do an A/B comparison. Is Kush Clariphonic your main eq for for all your instruments. I like the sound alot. I see they do a demo version. Might you be able to share your settings ? Thanks you@NoamL have you tried Kush Clariphonic? That's the first tool I reach to when trying to make CSS sound a little brighter and more open.
Here is a super quick and dirty test:
Mad Max Clariphonic test.mp3 | Powered by Box
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Only processing is from Clariphonic and just a tad of reverb.
By the way, have you rebalanced your CSS template somehow? Using your midi file out of the box, the melody line sounds much more prominent for me than it does in your example.
Thanks so much @NoamL this is so helpful,thanks for taking the time to do this. I'm going to give it a try now. Do you use a Valhalla Preset, or have you made your own. I agree, perhaps mixing is best left to the pros and I stick to composing ! It would be good to learn a little more though. Thank you
My EQ's looks very similar to this, and I get what you mean about the hiss from the high frequency peak, but honestly I love the way it adds some air to the strings, so it's a constant struggle between "do I get rid of the hiss, or do I keep the air"
Do you happen to have a before and after to do an A/B comparison.
Is Kush Clariphonic your main eq for for all your instruments.
My EQ's looks very similar to this, and I get what you mean about the hiss from the high frequency peak, but honestly I love the way it adds some air to the strings, so it's a constant struggle between "do I get rid of the hiss, or do I keep the air"
Yeah, the most common ones I saw were the cuts just before 500hz, just before 5k, and then a boost at roughly 12k. I don't have the room noise killer cut right at the bottom on my strings eq when composing, but I usually do that at the end when mixingInteresting! Do you have cuts and boosts at about the same frequencies?
In terms of what CSS shorts can sound like in those right hands Jay referred to, be sure to check out Christof's excellent composition done with CSS:
I'm sorry if this is derailing, but does a legato-delay "fix" plugin exist for Cubase too, or is it just for Logic?
I like CSS quite a bit. The only two real limitations imo are:
1. the heavy vibrato on the sustains
2. and the section sizes being short of symphonic proportions.
Other than that it can handle lots of different kinds of music.
It does need a lot of EQ, I feel.
You've got to tradeoff between added clarity and added hiss, especially on the lower dynamics, but I don't mind a bit of air in samples. It's rarely too audible in orchestral context.
Here is a theme from Mad Max: Fury Road by Tom Holkenborg with my CSS setup (still a work in progress...)
And here is the exact same MIDI but CSS out of the box:
Again, still battling the hiss a bit and this excerpt is unforgiving in that aspect (strings stop & start and are very exposed). But it shows that CSS doesn't always have to have that dark & muddy sound. You can shape it to whatever aesthetic pleases you!
Probably the latter.How do you get such a good stock css sound?
I tried different chord progressions, and they always sound strange. I tend to use Albion One strings and this is very dumb.
Do you use the none legato patch for chord progressions? Or do you split the progression into 5 tracks and run in legato mode for all?
Probably the latter.
Also, how familiar are you with 4-part writing? Parallel fifths, octaves, resolving tritones etc.
Makes a huge difference in sound, something I knew almost nothing about some time ago
I stopped reading at "CSS doesn't do short samples too well". You are comparing a lib that has 4 different shorts (and can sound very trailer-ish aggressive too) with one that only has one. Comparisons are nice but please, use the lib a bit before doing one
When Studio Strings fires up, it loads a "greatest hits" patch of common articulations, presumably to save memory. That is only some of them. It has a ton. One has to go further to "core", "extended", "individual" etc. to see all of them...I stopped reading at "CSS doesn't do short samples too well". You are comparing a lib that has 4 different shorts (and can sound very trailer-ish aggressive too) with one that only has one. Comparisons are nice but please, use the lib a bit before doing one
Well, you could always call one of the many shorts "staccato" if you'd like.I have it. Yet, I didn't find common shorts like staccato