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Project Anvil's Cinematic Studio Orchestra

Sounds very nice. Thanks for sharing.

But I don't feel they are super dry, You have a tasteful amount of acoustics/reverb.

By the way, I don't mind having a nice medium length reverb tail on orchestral tracks, provided they are mixed properly. There is a certain quality that a high-quality reverb offers that a dry recording doesn't, and vice-versa. It all depends on the context.
 
Normally I think this amount of close micing on every instrument would be a little unpleasant & claustrophobic but you've done something here to create a very nice sound. Could you spill some more details about your process? Mics, reverb, eq, sounds like some saturation too maybe?

It sounds kinda like those Anvil Studios recordings of John Williams.. ESB... Well done...
 
aka70 said:
You're being very modest because this is awesome! The sound is very rich, well balanced and the positioning (panning, depth) is just great for my ears.

Awesome work. I wish I could make CSS sound like this
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Thanks :) I don't mind sharing my settings actually, just not sure if I should put it in text (which would be a long read) or in video. The only thing I won't do is share the project file directly because that bypasses many things that could be learned from implementing it directly (and besides, the chances folks have the exact same plugins I have is low).

muziksculp said:
Sounds very nice. Thanks for sharing.

But I don't feel they are super dry, You have a tasteful amount of acoustics/reverb.

By the way, I don't mind having a nice medium length reverb tail on orchestral tracks, provided they are mixed properly. There is a certain quality that a high-quality reverb offers that a dry recording doesn't, and vice-versa. It all depends on the context.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's certainly reverb in there, just a lot less than I used to have. I just find that in vintage William's recordings the sense of space is mostly defined by, well, the room, not by any added reverb.



I hear a ton of depth, hard-panned close section mics, but very little in the way of reverb. I'm still reading up a bit on Eric Tomlinson who recorded TESB in Anvil recording studios. Pretty interesting stuff so far, you can have a read yourself here if you're interested:


EDIT:
NoamL said:
It sounds kinda like those Anvil Studios recordings of John Williams.. ESB... Well done...
Click to expand...
376535-big-rigs-over-the-road-racing-windows-screenshot-you-always.jpg
 
Project Anvil said:
Thanks :) I don't mind sharing my settings actually, just not sure if I should put it in text (which would be a long read) or in video. The only thing I won't do is share the project file directly because that bypasses many things that could be learned from implementing it directly (and besides, the chances folks have the exact same plugins I have is low).


Yeah, there's certainly reverb in there, just a lot less than I used to have. I just find that in vintage William's recordings the sense of space is mostly defined by, well, the room, not by any added reverb.
Click to expand...
Your great music examples and the studio sound you are referring to comes across brilliantly - listening through my tiny iphone speakers!

Well done! Very well done!

I have always liked that dryish scoring stage sound of the old Williams scores. The depth and width of E.T.!

I would certainly appreciate learning more about how you achieve this sound with the Cinematic Studio Series.

Thank you for posting! Love it!
 
I appreciate the kind words, though I honestly think I still have miles to go, both composition and mixing wise.

Some areas for improvement, based on some feedback I've gotten on other forums and my own listening are:

- Trumpets sound forward compared to the rest of the brass.
- Woodwinds could be pushed back further.

I'll share the exact settings either in text or video format later on (I want to try to address the above two points before I do), but I can already offer some insight into the plugins used:

- Eventide SP2016 Reverb (can be substituted with REverence if in a pinch)
- REverence (stock cubase plugin)
- Fabfilter Pro-Q 3
- TDR Nova (free!)
- Panagement 2 (free!)
- Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms Pro (not so free, but really you could use any other reverb here, as long as you have access to a pre-delay setting)
- Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven, non-pro version (any other decent algorithmic verb will also work)
- Mixerdelay (stock cubase plugin)

Though REverence and SP2016 are both reverbs, I use them as "Dry reverb" Michael White has a very good video on how that works (in general his videos are excellent):



EDIT:
Winds pushed back some more. On headphones it sounds much less centered than with headphones + canopener due to the lack of crossfeeding.

 
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Project Anvil said:
I appreciate the kind words, though I honestly think I still have miles to go, both composition and mixing wise.

Some areas for improvement, based on some feedback I've gotten on other forums and my own listening are:

- Trumpets sound forward compared to the rest of the brass.
- Woodwinds could be pushed back further.

I'll share the exact settings either in text or video format later on (I want to try to address the above two points before I do), but I can already offer some insight into the plugins used:

- Eventide SP2016 Reverb (can be substituted with REverence if in a pinch)
- REverence (stock cubase plugin)
- Fabfilter Pro-Q 3
- TDR Nova (free!)
- Panagement 2 (free!)
- Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms Pro (not so free, but really you could use any other reverb here, as long as you have access to a pre-delay setting)
- Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven, non-pro version (any other decent algorithmic verb will also work)
- Mixerdelay (stock cubase plugin)

Though REverence and SP2016 are both reverbs, I use them as "Dry reverb" Michael White has a very good video on how that works (in general his videos are excellent):

Click to expand...

I think a video would be helpful. Thanks.
 
Sorry for the delay folks, I tried to make a video last weekend but wasn't happy with it. Ended up way too longwinded and clumsy. Instead, I've been working on writing it down as a concise, illustrated article. I think it will be clearer than a video where I'm switching between windows all the time and mumbling into the microphone.

Also, HOOPUS got in the way :)

I expect the article to be done today or tomorrow and will post it here once it's up.
 
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