Scorbit – Behind the Scenes of a Film Score MIDI Mockup

Behind the Scenes of a Film Score MIDI Mockup

Date of Webinar: November 8, 2013
1h 12m Intermediate
Author: Chris Fitzgerald

Being able to deliver a realistic-sounding, orchestral MIDI mockup is a critical skill to have, in order to stand out from the crowd as a film composer. Whether it’s a mockup to give the director the gist of a cue before going to the recording stage, or the end product in itself, a full-scale orchestral cue can be done 100% “in the box”. In this webinar we dissect an orchestral mockup.

Sydney

Hi Chris,

First of all thank you for this extremely helpful video. I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.

What advantage is it to load your instruments through EXS24 rather than going through, for example, East West’s Play? Or is that just a preference?

Do you have any recommendations for libraries with good Eastern instruments and sounds?
- Chris
  
  Hi Sydney, you bet! I’m glad you found it helpful. Good questions! No real advantage to using the EXS24, in fact it’s not nearly as powerful (or as nice as an interface) as other samplers, including Kontakt and Play. I actually really loathe the EXS24 interface when building my own sampler patches. To echo what Adriano said, it is the proprietary sampler format for Apple’s Logic DAW. So for Logic owners, there’s a sampler available out-of-the-box (with a decent entry-level library), that can get you started without having to shell out more $ for other libraries right away. What DAW do you use?
  Regarding the tutorial, I thought it best to not introduce too many software apps within the space of one tutorial, especially because I was trying to keep it more concept based, rather than specific platform based.
  In addition to Adriano’s recommendations, I would strongly suggest checking out MOTU’s Ethno. It’s a very comprehensive library of world instruments, and they’ve gone to great lengths to capture natural tunings of instruments (especially those using non-western and micro-tonal scales). There’s also RA by EastWest.
  Are you looking more for instruments or voice? Which region specifically? Are you working on a project right now that requires these? If so, I’d love to hear about it!
  Anyone else have recommendations?
Adriano

Hello Sydney and welcome to Scorbit.
If I may, I would like to answer your question. Using the EXS-24 (Logic) is no different than using EW’s Play, Kontakt or any other samplers. It can be used as a preferred or a convenient sampler, simply because – 1) It integrates better within Logic in many ways. 2) Some of the stock instruments, are actually very good and some or not, but that applies to other samplers too.

For Eastern instruments, please check the following link:
http://www.ilio.com/products/ilio-samplelibrary/origins
http://store.samplephonics.com/products/ethnic-flutes-and-whistles
Also try http://www.bigfishaudio.com

Hope this helps,
Adriano
- Chris
  
  Thanks for this Adriano! Good recommendations too, I’ve bought stuff from Big Fish, and I find them quite affordable, and decent in quality.
Adriano

Hello Chris and you’re welcome. I completely forgot about Ethno from MOTU and that’s because I’ve uninstalled anything that’s iLok based.
Good library indeed, though.
I’ve purchased some libs from Big Fish also and yes on quality and price.
Try http://embertone.com they also have some nice free instruments.

Here is another upcoming sampler, new, stable and nice libraries – Engine Player http://www.bestservice.de/demo_files/00001023.pdf
and for the sake of Eastern sounds and instruments, please check the following links but they do have more:
http://www.bestservice.de/en/desert_winds.html
http://www.bestservice.de/en/epic_world.html

Best Service is the library developer for the ENGINE PLAYER though, they do develop for KONTAK also.

OK! Enough about sound libraries for me. My wallet is burning a hole in my pocket, again. Just last Friday, I made ProjectSAM $3,000 richer. LOL!
Adriano

I should’ve also clarified that BestService licensed the ENGINE Player from Magix -> http://pro.magix.com/en/independence/independence-free.1013.html who bought Independence Pro in 2012 ? from Yellow Tools. BestService maintains and updates the coding for ENGINE while, Magix maintains/updates Independence. The good thing is that the Engine libraries work flawlessly if loaded in Independence because of the same code base.
For some reason, Independence was never very popular here in the U.S. but, it is in Europe. It comes with an 70GB size library for about $300 and includes anything from EQ to convolution. It’s a little weak on piano, electric pianos and organs, but it does have nice orchestral libraries including the big Hollywood Strings, nice Sax, drums and world percussions.
Andrew

Hi Chris,

I really enjoyed watching this video – one could tell you had a lot of fun, doing it – and so had I watching it! I got 2 questions now:

– Where to get such original film scores from? Are all big film scores available for everybody to purchase? Studying scores this way is such a fantastic way understanding and learning how to do some orchestra scoring! I tried midi mockups myself, but i used to do them by ear with the music from the original soundtracks – and I gave up on that.

– Expression vs modulation? Some sample libraries can make use of the modulation wheel of any midi keyboard, like sustained string patches for example. So in Logic I use the “modulation” section to draw those dynamics lines. Is there an important difference between those 2 functions “expression & modulation”? Because at the end of the day they seem to do the exact the same thing for me, don’t they?
- Chris
  
  Hey thanks Andy! Yeah it was a lot of fun to put together. Unfortunately it’s really hard to find film score sheet music. And often when you find something it’s a concert arrangement and not the original. There’s quite a bit available at http://www.sheetmusicplus.com, which is where I purchased the Pirates of the Caribbean score.
  Here’s the link to that: http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/soundtrack-highlights-from-pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-man-s-chest-full-score-digital-sheet-music/19461655
  What I like about some of these from sheetmusicplus is that they sell score highlights for around $10, where the full scores are closer to $80 or more.
  Check out The Planets full score: http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/the-planets-full-score-sheet-music/3491707
  This is by Gustav Holst written around 1915. Holst was a major influence to John Williams, and therefore a lot of Williams’ film music echoes orchestration and development you’ll hear from Holst. The Planets is a great score because it conveys many different emotions and uses many different composition techniques. And the full score is only $15.
  Regarding modulation vs. expression, a lot of those libraries repurpose modulation, so that you use the mod wheel, but it’s not modulation that’s happening, usually it’s a crossfade between softer and louder samples. With libraries that have that built in, definitely use that function over expression. Expression is volume control, unrooted from the channel strip volume fader, which is a good way to get a lot of rich volume automation going, while maintaining overall control of the volume of the track.
  Really good questions!
  - Andrew
    
    I got me some of the scores there!! thats an amazing tip! Also started doing some Midi Mockups.I finished a midi mockup for the Main Theme of the movie Basic Instinct – the score is from Jerry Goldsmith! Thats my result:
    
    Bounce: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10806500/Music/Basic%20Instinct%20Midi%20Mockup/Basic%20Instinct%20Main%20Theme.aif
    
    Screenshot: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10806500/Music/Basic%20Instinct%20Midi%20Mockup/Workflow.png
    Score: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10806500/Music/Basic%20Instinct%20Midi%20Mockup/Basic%20Instinct%20Main%20Theme.pdf

By Topic:

By Software:

By Topic:

By Software:

Behind the Scenes of a Film Score MIDI Mockup