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Star Wars - Main Titles - JXL Brass, BBCSO Pro and SCS

The Retroblueman

The Retroblueman

Active Member
Hey all – I’m on a general quest to “be better” this year (on all fronts – composition, orchestration, mixing, etc) and part of that involves a project to mock-up as much music from scores as I can (doing so mindfully and studying the harmony, voicings, instrument choices, counterpoint, etc).

On this, JXL is covering all Brass except the Tuba, which is BBCSO Pro. Then it’s BBCSO Pro (all mix 1 to save on the system given how many parts there are) for everything else. I also layered in SCS over the string melody at 0.28 just to give it a little extra, um, “cinemacity” (or something like that – I may just love Air Lyndhurst strings...).

I accept this one may have been a tad ambitious but it was a great learning experience, and I have definitely made bigger messes of simpler pieces in my time!😁 Feedback and suggestions for improvement extremely welcome!

Many thanks for listening – hope you find at least something enjoyable in there!!

Rob



PS – do ignore the end screen – gotta lure the punters in somehow.😉
Click to read more...
 
The Retroblueman said:
Hey all – I’m on a general quest to “be better” this year (on all fronts – composition, orchestration, mixing, etc) and part of that involves a project to mock-up as much music from scores as I can (doing so mindfully and studying the harmony, voicings, instrument choices, counterpoint, etc).

On this, JXL is covering all Brass except the Tuba, which is BBCSO Pro. Then it’s BBCSO Pro (all mix 1 to save on the system given how many parts there are) for everything else. I also layered in SCS over the string melody at 0.28 just to give it a little extra, um, “cinemacity” (or something like that – I may just love Air Lyndhurst strings...).

I accept this one may have been a tad ambitious but it was a great learning experience, and I have definitely made bigger messes of simpler pieces in my time!😁 Feedback and suggestions for improvement extremely welcome!

Many thanks for listening – hope you find at least something enjoyable in there!!

Rob



PS – do ignore the end screen – gotta lure the punters in somehow.😉
Click to expand...

Right now, the first thing I notice is that the instruments are "too loose", making it hard to hear exactly how they sound.

Try making a much drier version: Dial back the release a little bit on each instrument and probably also dial back the reverb. And experiment with mic positions for a drier sound.

It's hard to comment on the quality of the mock-up right now 🌞
 
Henrik B. Jensen said:
Right now, the first thing I notice is that the instruments are "too loose", making it hard to hear exactly how they sound.

Try making a much drier version: Dial back the release a little bit on each instrument and probably also dial back the reverb. And experiment with mic positions for a drier sound.

It's hard to comment on the quality of the mock-up right now 🌞
Click to expand...
Thanks!!😊 Am (slowly and very painfully) moving over to cubase (from reason) and plan to exploit the freeze function to free up more resources - should give me more system headroom to explore mic options! Will report back in due course.
 
I'd also suggest turning off most of the reverbs for now, going with just the pure sounds of the rooms as a start, and perhaps use Mix2 instead of Mix1 if you want to stick to just one mic for BBCSO (that one is a bit less roomy-boomy). With less verb and more controlled sound it'll be easier to feedback on the programming and mix. :)
 
Hendrixon said:
From 01:00 something went wrong... like a sustain controller is held and things start to trip on each other.
Click to expand...
I definitely know what you mean - I think possibly it's the point where the overabundance of room sound generally (that others have mentioned), and the super-dense orchestration, the beefy tuba bass, and that nutty trumpet line all converge to give the impression of something going wrong (which, in simple terms, means that I probably messed up and something did go wrong - but I ended up quite liking the sheer insanity of that bit on its own terms😁). That being said, I think the way to fix the mix generally might be to loop 1.00 to 1.10 and play around with mics until it sounds less like you describe - that might then carry through to an overall nice mix. Which I would love to do but BBCSO is currently only working in Cubase and not Reason for me (?? aaargh😬)and I would probably have to start again from scratch- which I will do one day because there is more to be learned from it, but I do need a break!

Although, and this is not an excuse for my substandard workmanship, I just think it's interesting, (having spent at least 10 hours doing this this month for reference purposes) there is a particular phenomenon with regards this piece that I am not sure anyone has pointed out yet - if I listen to any one of the recordings, particularly from the latest trilogy, over and over, and then go listen to an earlier version, particularly from the OT, then it really sounds like something has gone wrong - but then the old version will come right again with repeated listening and the new version will sound way-over produced- is this just me? I don't seem to get it with ANY other piece than this?

ooh, lastly, whilst I am here - great call from @mybadmemory on using mix 2 - that feels like it is going to be very helpful- thank you very much! I will give it a go in my next project, which, by way of a hint, is going to need some cannon samples! 😉
 
The Retroblueman said:
Hey all – I’m on a general quest to “be better” this year (on all fronts – composition, orchestration, mixing, etc) and part of that involves a project to mock-up as much music from scores as I can (doing so mindfully and studying the harmony, voicings, instrument choices, counterpoint, etc).

On this, JXL is covering all Brass except the Tuba, which is BBCSO Pro. Then it’s BBCSO Pro (all mix 1 to save on the system given how many parts there are) for everything else. I also layered in SCS over the string melody at 0.28 just to give it a little extra, um, “cinemacity” (or something like that – I may just love Air Lyndhurst strings...).

I accept this one may have been a tad ambitious but it was a great learning experience, and I have definitely made bigger messes of simpler pieces in my time!😁 Feedback and suggestions for improvement extremely welcome!

Many thanks for listening – hope you find at least something enjoyable in there!!

Rob



PS – do ignore the end screen – gotta lure the punters in somehow.😉
Click to expand...

Hey!
This sounds really nice, but as Henrik already said, the instruments sound too loose, and the Strings from 0:28 to 0:42 are a bit weird, i know, this melody is (ironically) hard to get it sound convincing, the only libraries i heard that can play this easy melody are Soaring strings, CSS (only partly, the upper register of the violins legato sounds too overlapping for this melody), Performance samples Con moto, and EW Opus strings.

Now remember: Of course, its mostly the programming, but all libraries have their limitations.
You need to be confident with the delay all these libraries have, only then you will get those melodies sound realistic and cohesive.

Nearly every string library from a big brand can somehow play this melody but only a few can let it sound convincing, cohesive AND realistic.

I think you could easily nail this, just use the right libs, or try to get the best out of those you already have :)

I also did a mockup but only the first 30 seconds bcs the string part is the hardest part to arrange, if you want i can send it over, its pretty good i think.

Im kind of the "specialist" when it comes to those star wars mockups, f.e. i already did the imperial march 50 times or so, the main title 20 times over the last year... I learned much about how an orchestra works, how to increase the realism and also how to deal with reverb, i can give you some tipps if you want :)
 
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