Rachmaninoff Prelude in C-sharp minor
- Thread starter Daisser
- Start date
Hi
Big ominous opening, but the strings sound unnatural to my ears, and the main theme sounds a little rushed, I think it needs more rubato. It sounds a bit mushy with the reverb too and when the big chords come in about half way through I can`t hear what`s going on. From 3:19 it`s better and the drop in dynamics is a bit of a relief.
The ending was the strongest section.
Big ominous opening, but the strings sound unnatural to my ears, and the main theme sounds a little rushed, I think it needs more rubato. It sounds a bit mushy with the reverb too and when the big chords come in about half way through I can`t hear what`s going on. From 3:19 it`s better and the drop in dynamics is a bit of a relief.
The ending was the strongest section.
Hi, I appreciate the feedback. I reduced the reverb a bit, pulled back some of the horns later on, and added tempo variation based on your suggestions. Please let me know if you hear a difference. I'm curious if you ever heard the Telarc recording of this, it's what I'm aiming for.
Damn, that's the kind of response that makes me feel like I should get a new hobby...I put a lot of time into this thing too :/ The Stokowski sound is what I was comparing it to and I've been A and Bing them as best I could, and thought I came a bit closer then you perceived.
-Considering the reference track I'm using, could you give some suggestions on how you would mitigate the 'accordion affect'. Make the strings softer in between, hold longer to overlap with the winds?
-The top version you posted above moves even faster in the beginning then my piece, so can you be more specific on what you mean by 'rushed'.
-For lacking nuance, do you think there's not enough volume or dynamics on viola/cello/trombones. Could you provide any suggestions for addressing this?
Curious - Do you not like this source arrangement of the piece and of the thought this one should be left to the piano?
ctsai89
Poem of Ecstasy
after hearing this, i've decided to orchestrally mockup all Scriabin's (Rachmaninoff's classmate) piano sonatas 
with spitfire and CH.. wait for it
by the way i especially liked it when you use the tam tam cymbal that was a pretty good pre-climactic moment.
which libraries have you used?
with spitfire and CH.. wait for it by the way i especially liked it when you use the tam tam cymbal that was a pretty good pre-climactic moment.
which libraries have you used?
Tino Danielzik
Active Member
Can not agree with this! Especially the accordion thing! Of course you can improve the sound with some mixing adjustments etc., but to my ears especially the brass section sounds really good to me, what library did you use here? Yes, the strings samples lack the most in this demo, would be helpful to know which library it is here. Regarding arrangement and orchestration (yes it is very close to the examples mentioned above) I really like it, so don't feel discouraged.
I know your response wasn't malicious, you were trying to help and I do appreciate that. My response was mostly frustration at trying to get this whole music thing "correct", lol. If you produce music well (orchestration, mixing, mastering, etc), people just feel it, and seeing them feel it is awesome. I put the time in, just not sure how to make that next jump in my stuff.
Btw, I'd still like feedback because that's the only way I'll get any better. I can't play the piano piece up to speed but got parts of it down after doing this exercise. I might work on that after this though, it's a good exercise and I love the piece. As you indicated, it also may give me additional phrasing insight into my derivative work as well.
Last edited:
@ctsai89
Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I used HWB+Ablion 1/2, HWS, 8dios's Agitato, BWW, EW and Impact Soundworks for percussion. I made another update and tried to soften up the string triples in the opening to make it less sea-saw like with the silence. I have CSS, maybe their tremolo's would be more expressive in the opening motif.
Okay, I very tentatively will try a third time and see if I strikeout. If so I will leave you in peace.
First, let me re-interate I was listening to, and commented upon, your mp3 in the wrong context.
If it was a "mock-up" context, I would totally hire you.The tone, and the libraries sound great, and yes,
I knowingly hear you have put in the time.
If I was hiring you for a demo simulation I would be over the moon happy.
By all means a green light to promote yourself professionally as a mock-up artist.
If I was sitting in Carnegie Hall, closing my eyes wanting to be swept away by the performance, I would fucking walk out. (I'm sorry. I blame NYC on this. I just gotta call a spade a spade. I don't try to be an asshole, I am just so good at it the mastery of it takes over sometimes.)
Ok,... so why ? (Please do not to let this discourage you, and by no means is this "right" or the "truth".
I just feel that since I fucked up my first reply I owe it to you to provide at least more clarity for the rationale of my initial post.)
Let me A/B a few things for you.
The first audio you will hear for each is the live version of the Stokowski, followed by your mock-up. (with 2 second gap)
Ex. 1 Cellos with melody (about 1:22" of your mock-up)
What to my ear I hear, in the live version, is the melody getting passed around. The last two "longs" become accompanyment and the lower voices get the crescendo and move towards the foreground. Also, and I know this is a question of arrangement, but the piano is an attack instrument so it can only decay. It naturally goes from loud to soft. While, yes sustaining can easily do what you have done, to my ear you are giving away what is to come later. Save some amo for your gun. Another way to say this is think about the art of Rhetoric. One needs both a thesis and anti-thesis. Don't rush the drama (not a tempo issue)
Ex.2: (1:18 - 1:32" of your mock-up)
If you are following the Stokowski the instrumentation is totally different.
The woodwinds are 100% missing. Again, I think it is fine if you want to do your own thing. However you mentioned in a few posts you were trying to follow this arrangement and as mentioned question marks pop into my head as to why. (Perhaps your flute player is Union and you were overtime ? Just kidding, please support your local AFM)
There are other spots where you have changed the instrumentation and it's hard for me to tell if this is playing to the strengths of your libraries or an artistic choice.
Ex.3: The build up
Every piece of Rachmaninov has a "Golden Section". This comes directly from the composer himself.
Think of it like a big reveal in a movie. You wouldn't want Darth Vader to say " Luke, I am your...... oh fuck it; you were always a disappointment. Let's fight"
I am just going to let each section play both the live and yours and comment on the use of rubato.
In the live I hear the conductor "Pushing" the orchestra, and in the Mock-up I hear a "Pull". You can even see it in the wave files. Both ex. 1 and 2 pretty equal. Then notice the contrasting shape.
This is the spot were a real life conductor can do their interpretive dance to the piece. In my experience the two most fundamental and foundational aspects of music conductors look for are 1. Architecture, and 2. Tempo.
Phrasing 3rd. Most thrive on a "top-down" approach because a conductor paints the big picture of the work.
Once thing you may try as an experiment. Take this, or a rendition you really like of the stokowski, import into your DAW and see if you can get an accurate tempo map of that recording. See if you can import that map into the season you have your mock-up in. I have never tried this myself, but if it can be done, it may yield some ear opening results, and be a musical dentist for your mock up
I am biased here, but I would check out this site sometime for a future reference. I literally had for a job going through every single page, of every single score that Leonard Bernstein ever conducted for the New York Philharmonic in order to post here. The next mock-up could be one with his actual conducting marks that offer a window into his ideas of interpretation. https://archives.nyphil.org/index.p...ngleFilter&search-text=*&doctype=printedMusic
I sincerely hope that this post has at least shed some light on the reasoning -- not that you need to agree -- to my initial post. I really do wish you all the best, and think you already have all the needed skills to use you libraries/DAW well.
You are correct, you are flying in the land of Hercules. This stuff take crazy amount of effort, so please know I do have empathy.
PS. I'll take down the mp3 in a few days as this is your work, and I don't feel comfortable having this on my soundcloud. I just did not know of a better why to demonstrate within the forum.
Thank you for your long thought out response. It is very useful and when I'm home from work today I'll review through it thoroughly.
You basically nailed where I'm stuck with all this - my mockups as mockups are ok but compared to the real thing I'm off, esp in the realism / passion area. Although I might make a journey into doing this professionally (mockups, orchestration, composition, etc) since it's not my primary career, I'd rather make works of art as realistic as possible. Mockups cant replace the real thing but if I can create mockups of existing works that 'move people' then I'll have a good road map for my own pieces.
This I the first work that I put serious effort into tempo mapping as this piece benefits heavily from rubato. I mostly did it by trying to listen to it from the recording and draw it in afterwards. I'll try use my DAW to map it from the wav file to get a more accurate picture. Verta would suggest it should be all played in without the metronome which would solve this but I don't have a good enough 'absolute tempo' tick in my head that allows me to do this with mockups and not have the thing get all muddied up.
I tried not to vary this from the Stokowski sound so if I made incorrect instrument choices it's because my ear didn't hear it correctly (boy I would be helpful if I had the score to compare). You said the winds are absent - I have them in the opening sections where they decend in two spots then Tutti in the end. Where did I miss them, and what other instrumentation choices seem incorrect?
This is another reason why I and many of us post music here - I can't hear what's wrong at times and I need feedback. My friends, fellow musicians, and even my primary music teacher (who also does the VI thing) listens to these things and are like 'wow that's awesome'. I post here and I get quite a different response. It's amazing to get such a wide response, but I know the critical response from here is educated and I listen to it carefully.
Okay, I very tentatively will try a third time and see if I strikeout. If so I will leave you in peace.
First, let me re-interate I was listening to, and commented upon, your mp3 in the wrong context.
If it was a "mock-up" context, I would totally hire you.The tone, and the libraries sound great, and yes,
I knowingly hear you have put in the time.
If I was hiring you for a demo simulation I would be over the moon happy.
By all means a green light to promote yourself professionally as a mock-up artist.
If I was sitting in Carnegie Hall, closing my eyes wanting to be swept away by the performance, I would fucking walk out. (I'm sorry. I blame NYC on this. I just gotta call a spade a spade. I don't try to be an asshole, I am just so good at it the mastery of it takes over sometimes.)
Ok,... so why ? (Please do not to let this discourage you, and by no means is this "right" or the "truth".
I just feel that since I fucked up my first reply I owe it to you to provide at least more clarity for the rationale of my initial post.)
Let me A/B a few things for you.
The first audio you will hear for each is the live version of the Stokowski, followed by your mock-up. (with 2 second gap)
Ex. 1 Cellos with melody (about 1:22" of your mock-up)
What to my ear I hear, in the live version, is the melody getting passed around. The last two "longs" become accompanyment and the lower voices get the crescendo and move towards the foreground. Also, and I know this is a question of arrangement, but the piano is an attack instrument so it can only decay. It naturally goes from loud to soft. While, yes sustaining can easily do what you have done, to my ear you are giving away what is to come later. Save some amo for your gun. Another way to say this is think about the art of Rhetoric. One needs both a thesis and anti-thesis. Don't rush the drama (not a tempo issue)
Ex.2: (1:18 - 1:32" of your mock-up)
If you are following the Stokowski the instrumentation is totally different.
The woodwinds are 100% missing. Again, I think it is fine if you want to do your own thing. However you mentioned in a few posts you were trying to follow this arrangement and as mentioned question marks pop into my head as to why. (Perhaps your flute player is Union and you were overtime ? Just kidding, please support your local AFM)
There are other spots where you have changed the instrumentation and it's hard for me to tell if this is playing to the strengths of your libraries or an artistic choice.
Ex.3: The build up
Every piece of Rachmaninov has a "Golden Section". This comes directly from the composer himself.
Think of it like a big reveal in a movie. You wouldn't want Darth Vader to say " Luke, I am your...... oh fuck it; you were always a disappointment. Let's fight"
I am just going to let each section play both the live and yours and comment on the use of rubato.
In the live I hear the conductor "Pushing" the orchestra, and in the Mock-up I hear a "Pull". You can even see it in the wave files. Both ex. 1 and 2 pretty equal. Then notice the contrasting shape.
This is the spot were a real life conductor can do their interpretive dance to the piece. In my experience the two most fundamental and foundational aspects of music conductors look for are 1. Architecture, and 2. Tempo.
Phrasing 3rd. Most thrive on a "top-down" approach because a conductor paints the big picture of the work.
Once thing you may try as an experiment. Take this, or a rendition you really like of the stokowski, import into your DAW and see if you can get an accurate tempo map of that recording. See if you can import that map into the season you have your mock-up in. I have never tried this myself, but if it can be done, it may yield some ear opening results, and be a musical dentist for your mock up
I am biased here, but I would check out this site sometime for a future reference. I literally had for a job going through every single page, of every single score that Leonard Bernstein ever conducted for the New York Philharmonic in order to post here. The next mock-up could be one with his actual conducting marks that offer a window into his ideas of interpretation. https://archives.nyphil.org/index.p...ngleFilter&search-text=*&doctype=printedMusic
I sincerely hope that this post has at least shed some light on the reasoning -- not that you need to agree -- to my initial post. I really do wish you all the best, and think you already have all the needed skills to use you libraries/DAW well.
You are correct, you are flying in the land of Hercules. This stuff take crazy amount of effort, so please know I do have empathy.
PS. I'll take down the mp3 in a few days as this is your work, and I don't feel comfortable having this on my soundcloud. I just did not know of a better why to demonstrate within the forum.
I also just realized something that might also help, and I can also explain a note about what 'Telarc' is (you asked in the first post). The late Erich Kunzel, former conductor of the Cincinnati Pops did a recording with the now out of existence Telarc digital company of this. He took some liberty from the Stokowski arrangement which probably explains why some of my choices differ from above (including overall tempo). I will try to post this recording temporarily somewhere. I based off this recording because some regard the Cincinnati Pops /Telarc work as some of the best orchestral recordings ever made (Mike Verta talks about them a lot too) and I remember listening to these on LP as a kid. From Racc to Star wars, they did all kinds of stuff that music buffs would love, I'd recommend looking them up if you have time.
handz
Senior Member
I must say that the second version is definitely much much much better than the Stokowskis version. It shows all potential of the piece. Bombastic introduction, then slower passages progressing to bombastic finalle, Stokowski is slow and too quiet all the time. Still, I belive it sounds best on solo piano.
This brings up an interesting point about music and subjectivity. I heard the orchestrated version of this when I was young long before I knew who Rach even was. Most people heard / played the piano piece first and that became their 'base' of what this should and was intended to be. I might be very tainted and as others have suggested should go back to the piano piece and study that further. Luckily I can hear Rach play it himself!
At this point I'm not sure if I should keep messing with thing or move on. Part of me thinks the topics here about Rubato and phrasing are important enough to continue this work but maybe I would be best to work on this on a work originally intended to be an orchestral piece.
At this point I'm not sure if I should keep messing with thing or move on. Part of me thinks the topics here about Rubato and phrasing are important enough to continue this work but maybe I would be best to work on this on a work originally intended to be an orchestral piece.
These are all excellent resources and ideas, thank you!! I'll continue to work on this piece but look at others from the link you provided.
I tried messing with Sonar's tempo mapping software and it sort of works for my audio. In the end the best way to achive natural tempo movement in a mockup is to play it all in without a metronome from the beginning - something I have not had much success with. I'll keep working at it!
