I wish I had.It sounds like only you have the answer then!
I wish I had.It sounds like only you have the answer then!
I did a quick mock up that is similar to the 2wei example. I added MIDIs and Stems so you guys can analyse it. I didn't add any fx because it usually doesn't make things better if they aren't arranged right. Let me know what I can improve. ^^
I had a quick play with this earlier. I'm not going to pretend that my shoddy ear-transcribed harmony isn't a mess. That said there's a whole brass line you missed in the original. It's a bit louder in mine but you'll get the point...Hey,
But what about the 2wei example ? Hans is orchestrating more "traditional" but the 2wei example sounds like just Horns with Low Root Note Brass and Bass.
Your arrangement and orchestration sounds 100% right. Can you send the midi file? I would like to have a look at it.I had a quick play with this earlier. I'm not going to pretend that my shoddy ear-transcribed harmony isn't a mess. That said there's a whole brass line you missed in the original. It's a bit louder in mine but you'll get the point...
Brass-wise? I'm 95% certain it's mostly Metropolis Ark 1. As in - the majority of the arrangement... the strings sound pretty damn identical to what I whipped up with MA1's 8va high strings. The brass also has a very similar round attack if you stack short or long marcatos with longs in the same patch. (A trick I use often to make things sound somewhat natural with minimal automation.)
Arrangement-wise I used 3 sections. Horns a9 for the main horn line, and horns a3 stacked with bass trombones for the counter melody in the lower register.... Your strings also needed some spacing out. For example I dropped the lower notes in your high strings 3rds down an octave. (Again, I won't even pretend the harmony's right...This is all I can make out by ear currently....)
Basically the previous question you responded to was about the x-factor of what makes this sound the way it does?
Arrangement, levels, and imaging are 90% of what you hear in my wav below. There's some processing to add a small amount of sparkle and clear traffic between 300/400, some light widening and compression, but it's not nearly as processed as you might think. Using the same library for just about everything certainly doesn't hurt in terms of minimizing the need to over-process.... Compression and EQ settings are more or less under 3 dB each....
TL;DR - The arrangement and leveling do the vast majority of the work... MA1 doesn't hurt either... The sound OOTB pretty much just works with this, they just needed some level adjustments...
Sure, and thanks mate. I'm not home now but can upload them later... Yeah, just a rough mix. Could have made the mix a lot wider but just scrapped this out quickly...Your arrangement and orchestration sounds 100% right. Can you send the midi file? I would like to have a look at it.
I have Metropolis Ark 1 so I will revisit the brass section in it.
I think the main difference between your version and the original is that they have much more sound design bass instruments and their Stereo Image is much wider. That's their thing, I never heard that somewhere else.
I'll upload MIDI this evening... Cheers and have fun experimenting with some of those Ark tricks..
I have the stems for one of their tracks, the strings and brass is not too special mixing wise I'd say, just very well done. They seem to get their signature sound more from other layers. The drums sound is phatter than almost any other composer out there, and their processing etc on bass (very stereo, and a few different layers, seemingly ran through amps etc) and other layers like resampled brass etc is where their productions really come to life imho. If you like their sound I'd advise watching the studio times from JXL as their approach is quite similar (and I think they were assistants there for a while?)
It's possible for sure... I tend to pan them apart, then widen a little if needed. Panning's also a lot easier than MS EQ though because all of the sections are already broken apart and its easier to manipulate the image more precisely just by adjusting the position of each section... The one thing I do is I mono my low end below 120. You can either roll off the sides or use a multiband imager like Ozone's...@jcrosby
What about Mid Side EQing ? The Horns sound very wide and clean in the original. That could be because of some mid low cutting in the mid signal ?
And thank you for sharing the Positon Music site. I had a listen to a few different songs. And some of the Stems sound like they where messing a lot with the mid side channels. Sometimes it sounds almost like it was a mistake. ^^ This could be a hint.