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How to write big chords like this:

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. ^^

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.
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...


 
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...


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.
 
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.
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...

For the brass try stacking short marctos with legatos for solo lines, and sustains for polyphonic lines. If the short marcatos feel too noticeable try the longs. I basically just experiment until I find a combo I like.... It's 'trick I started using a couple years ago that I now try with any new brass library. (Doesn't work with everything... With MA1 and JXL it works brilliantly)....

One other thing you can try - if you have high strings in the same register (like the spiccato ostinato and high suatains) is to swap the L/R on one of the two. In an arrangement like this where the sustains are the backbone of the harmony I swap the L/R on the ostinato. This should make it appear on the right and sound separated from the high strings on the left...

You can increase the sense of separation with a little widening or panning the highs and lows apart a little in Kontakt, then swapping the ostinato with an insert effect.... (Panning's more ideal, but a good widening plugin won't cancel in mono, just make sure you know the imaging plugin you use doesn't cancel de-correlation. I use the width on Izotope's Relay plugin or the Ozone imager... Both are totally mono compatible.)

I also saw the other poster mention mono-ing low end. I do this as well. You can use a simple mid-side EQ to roll out the sides below 100-125 if you don't have something like Ozone's imager.

I'll upload MIDI this evening... Cheers and have fun experimenting with some of those Ark tricks.. :)
 
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Here's a link to the midi below. Included bounces of the busses as well but didn't include the percussion MIDI since I didn't try re-create it. The audio files of them are there though to use...
If you want to try and recreate the percussion there are a couple alt mixes on Position's site including a percussion only mix...


The BPM is 130 FYI, and you'll see there's very little CC automation... This is where the stacked patches become useful, they let get away with the brass sounding somewhat natural even if CC 1's mostly mostly maxed, because you control the marcato volume with velocity. It also gives you more control over the timbre since you can use low velocities with high CC 1 values for a timbre that's basically just sustain, or maracato attacks with sustained tails using high velocities.. Anyway if the velocities seem kind of weird that's why...


About the bass... Yeah I just used a kontakt patch from Devastator as a placeholder for the most part. Nothing fancy... That said there's one defining thing about the sub in their track. It's pretty heavily modulated sounding but I'm pretty sure they've done this with reverb actually. It's a technique used pretty heavily in EDM... It creates a chorusing effect, but more importantly it helps the sub separate from the mix and can even make it sound 'bigger'. (You can use this trick to make anything separate from the mix actually).

Assuming you have VH Room I pasted a screenshot of my settings below. I used the default settings, just set the algorithm to Large Room and used the slider settings below...

Bounced out a new version with the sub treated that way:


MIDI Mockup and Bus Stems:


Valhalla Room Sub Reverb:



Screen Shot 2021-07-17 at 4.44.53 PM.png
 
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@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.
 
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?)
 
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?)

Run Baby Run ?
Check out the individual Stems with an Imager. Every Stem is Stereorized to the max. And thats why I think there is some mid side EQing going on.
 
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@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.
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...

I also don't think they sound wider than strings/brass in other trailer tracks. I have some stem references from one of the libraries I write for and they're just as wide.... Synths and everything else probably have a lot more processing and/or MS EQ on them though since that's pretty common... Strings/brass can be made to sound wider just by panning them apart though...

It's basically all about making space in the middle of the mix for the hits and slams which really need to drive the track.

Someone posted a video last year where they broke down one of their tracks and they talk about doing the same thing. Pretty sure it was this one... (Funny enough I'm in Logic and have always used the direction mixer for panning as well since it pans the entire image.... )

 
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I just wanted to let you guys know that the 2WEI example was indeed written with only Horns (3,4,5 Voices in the Horn Section).
So all the notes are Horns except the Bass Notes that are played by Bass Trombones and Tubas.
The Zimmer example might be a realistic Orchestration because of it's live recording.
But the 2WEI example was made using an "unrealistic" amount of Horns Players.
 
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