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John Williams - Leia's Theme - Mockup

0cme

New Member
I made a mockup of Leia's Theme from Star Wars... not trying to recreate the original London recording or anything. I love that recording but it's very unique, I was going for more of a straightforward "orchestra in a nice hall" sound. I'd be particularly interested in feedback on how the final mix sounds, mastering feedback, anything that jumps out, etc. Thanks!

 
This is a very sensitive and musical performance! That goes a long way, and I think it's more important than most of the stuff we tend to whinge about on here.

The only such whinging I might do is to suggest a little more reverb, both overall, and between sections to give more depth and perspective. I have very wet tastes, but I think even disregarding that, a tiny bit more "space" would be justified, and pull things together. This sounds more like a pretty flat studio, to me, than a nice hall, as you put it. That might be due to the samples, which don't seem to have much natural space and air in them to begin with.

That's all I could add. This is very satisfying as it is.
 
Thanks miket! This is actually one of the heavier reverb mixes I tried. :D It's a fairly close-mic-heavy mix and I don't want to work against that by blurring them up with more reverb, but I'll try playing with the tail/glue reverb a little more and see how I like it.
 
One of my favourite tracks... also on my to-do list, but I'm still learning and very far from it.

As the original version is also very dry, I like the mix. I usually like drier (scoring stage) recordings.

May I ask which instruments were used? I like the french horn at the beginning.
 
SM Horn? Impressive. The tremolo strings in the middle are a standout too.

The winds are good but could benefit from a little more verb, and by contrast, less on the solo vln.

Also very well done on the tempo modulation.
 
I made a mockup of Leia's Theme from Star Wars... not trying to recreate the original London recording or anything. I love that recording but it's very unique, I was going for more of a straightforward "orchestra in a nice hall" sound. I'd be particularly interested in feedback on how the final mix sounds, mastering feedback, anything that jumps out, etc. Thanks!



Very well done. I, like you, am a fan of the more close and intimate sound. Too many examples here drowning in reverb, in my honest opinion. Care to elaborate upon how you managed the SM Horn, if that is what you use? What other libraries are in motion here? Thanks for posting, you have got a subscriber.
 
Wow. This was great. Doesn't matter how close it was to the original, it just sounded right and had the right feels. Congrats on such a nice rendering of what I'm sure is a favourite of many.
 
Sounds fantastic! Lacks a bit of low end during the climax to me, but that is all the constructive feedback I can give. Well done.
 
Thanks everyone! The solo horn lines are Samplemodeling, horns a2 or a4 (along with everything else) are Hollywood, and there's some Spitfire solo and chamber strings in there too. The SM horn doesn't use SM's internal reflections, there's two parallel sends to 100% wet reverbs, one is just the early portion of an IR of the Hollywood/EW space, the other is a small Valhalla room, very heavily skewed towards its early reflections. Both then go out to the normal reverb chain. (Sort of trying to emulate a multi-mic setup like the rest of the orchestra.)

NoamL: thanks, yes, the tempo map looks... pretty gnarly! :D

oQknwoT.jpg
 
SM horn... wow! How did you do the legato, I always wanted that exact sound, but when I play it, it doesn't sound like it. Especially the transition to the third note of the phrase, after the repetition. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Is it possible to have a midi snippet of the horn phrase?
 
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SM horn... wow! How did you do the legato, I always wanted that exact sound, but when I play it, it doesn't sound like it. Especially the transition to the third note of the phrase, after the repetition. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Is it possible to have a midi snippet of the horn phrase?

I just looked at it again and Kontakt or my DAW is malfunctioning like crazy, sorry, but there are a few controllers (I think they were 22 and/or 26 by default) that work on the - for lack of a better term - little 'blups' that a horn naturally has on certain pitch changes... if that's what you're after, try those? I think one was called 'transition flutter'.
 
Thanks everyone! The solo horn lines are Samplemodeling, horns a2 or a4 (along with everything else) are Hollywood, and there's some Spitfire solo and chamber strings in there too. The SM horn doesn't use SM's internal reflections, there's two parallel sends to 100% wet reverbs, one is just the early portion of an IR of the Hollywood/EW space, the other is a small Valhalla room, very heavily skewed towards its early reflections. Both then go out to the normal reverb chain. (Sort of trying to emulate a multi-mic setup like the rest of the orchestra.)

NoamL: thanks, yes, the tempo map looks... pretty gnarly! :D

oQknwoT.jpg
Really kind of you to share these settings, really appreciate it. I'm new to the Hollywood-series - is the name of the reverb in the horns-patches, the same name as the reverb you have chosen in Spaces? Or did you just choose one with similar settings, like size, reverb-time etc? And what exactly do you mean by "heavily skewed towards its early reflections"? We use almost the exact same setup, so really interesting to hear about your settings. Thanks again :)
 
So... I used IR-1 for the reverb, not Spaces. There's a reverb IR sampled from "Cello Studio 1" in the Waves IR collection - Cello Studios was the earlier name of the building/room that got bought by East West and used to record the Hollywood series. (From what I can gather.) So that's what I used, just the early reflections from that IR.

And for the second question, in Valhalla Room, there's a percentage slider that controls the ratio between early reflections and late reflections. I set that at like... 90% early or so. A lot of other reverbs, convolution and algorithmic alike, have that option though.

(To clarify, the above is about the Samplemodeling horn early reverb setup, not the whole orchestra setup!)
 
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Hi! Sounds pretty good! I would recommend using a bit more reverb because it sounds kind of one dimensional. Also, the more soloistic parts need a bit of programming work (more so the soloistic parts but the orchestra has to move as a whole), the phrases don't seem super connected and some notes really stick out. (Are you extending notes into the next for the legato effect?). Some counter lines get lost and are not terribly present. I would recommend going back and double checking your mod and expression. The expression and mod seem to be fairly stagnant and I feel like it needs a bit more shape and movement. Overall sound good though!
 
Please, would you be so kind and give us a list of all the software instruments you have used?
It would be interesting to analyze this wonderful track.
Great work!
 
Please, would you be so kind and give us a list of all the software instruments you have used?
It would be interesting to analyze this wonderful track.
Great work!
The solo horn lines are Samplemodeling, horns a2 or a4 (along with everything else) are Hollywood, and there's some Spitfire solo and chamber strings in there too.
 
Beautiful mockup. Despite the many shortcomings of using samples, your musicality and obvious love of the source material shines through...

Ryan
 
Amazing work, I only find attack on some string samples a bit weird, like they miss that first bite. Overall, amazing work. John Williams is a genius!
 
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