Don't want to debate his skill as an orchestral composer but I must say what his team is doing with technology and orchestras is rather neat. A colleague of mine works at RemoteControl and although not a senior engineer, he does work with them and he tells me some of the things they are up to. The amount of time they spend trying to colour their orchestral timbres with anything you can think of from amps to bit crushers and anything you wouldn't ever put on an orchestra. It is rather amazing how many hours and man power they have trying to get different sounding timbres from traditional sources. Just wondering if anyone has any views on this sort of processing on what has been for the longest time except for non aesthetic mixing tools just not something people did. Maybe they did but ZImmer seems to really be pursuing this end which I suppose is good as I've always thought his strengths lied not so much in composition but rather in production. I think it is neat. Perhaps not the recipe for a great score but definitely something to listen to and pay attention.
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Hans Zimmer - Unconventional FX on orchestral instruments
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Ever since this forum went online, I repeat like a broken record: Distortion is your friend. :-)
There's nothing that our ears like more than some nice harmonics and non-linearities. This is especially easy to achieve with VSL samples, as all our instruments are recorded exceptionally clean and uncolored. Personally, I used everything from subtle saturation up to heavy fuzz-distortion, spectral delays, filtered echoes, even phasers and/or flangers in a more or less "typical" orchestral context.
... I even wrote something like that in the MIR manual ;-D
/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library -
These statements remind me of one of my lecturer's answers when he was asked what he thought of Boulez's compositions; "As a composer, Boulez is a great conductor"... Similarly, if Zimmer is such a talent in production, why is he wasting himself on composition?... (I know, because he's asked to...)
Dietz, can you point me to specific points in some of your orchestral examples where you have used 'heavy fuzz-distortion' etc. in the demos? I'd really want to hear the enhancements.
Thanks.
P.S.: Maybe by now Hans deserves his own dedicated forum? (No, no, I didn't mean it seriously....)
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The "fuzz distortion" was used on a solo-violin in a mix I did a few weeks ago, for a "regular" customer, not as a VSL-demo. Think of the distortion as an added "parallel FX" in that case, not a 100% wet thing. It's more about added color and increased density / energy. - I think the piece is still unreleased, and I'm not in the position to send copies of the mix over the net, sorry ... 8-)
More subtle saturation is used in almost every mix I do, mostly on brass sections and percussions, but also on solo-instruments or basses - this depends a lot in the context. I have to admit that I never compiled lists of what I did when and how during a mix, but I reopened the mix of "Sentimental Mood" a few days ago, that's why I know for sure that I used saturation on the Jazz Bass -> [URL]http://vsl.co.at/Player2.aspx?Lang=1&DemoID=5501[/URL]
I use distorted slap-back echoes on fanfare-like brass a lot, or sometimes subtle, long echoes on harp glissandi. I use flanging or chorusing pretty often to add "interest" to the reverb tail, especially when it's derived from non-multisampled IRs (... the modulation is used in the Aux-send). I use tape and/or tube saturation on the mix bus more or less regularly (not as much for VSL demos, though).
I don't have the time right now to go through all the "official" VSL-demos I mixed in search for the most obvious examples, but as soon as I stumble upon one I'll let you know. :-)
Kind regards,
/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library -
Dietz,
Thank you for posting this because I've been experimenting with distortion and VSL samples lately and sometimes I find the results quite extraordinary. I haven't recorded anything yet as I'm still in the 'tinkering' stage and I'm recording orchestral/electronic hybrids now and not pure orchestral music anymore.
Basicaly, I've been feeding everything through certain Guitar amps and messing with distortion levels within the amps but I hadn't considered using tape or tube saturation. That's an interesting idea. Thanks for sharing it.
Was any distortion used for the demo piece during the Vienna Suite Overview video? Or any of the Vienna Suite videos? I thought I might have heard some distortion in the musical piece that was playing during the Vienna Suite tutorial video. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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I've gotta say, I adore what they did for the "Joker" theme in the Dark Knight. I could care less about most of Zimmer's work, but the way they integrated narrative and character (playing the "theme" on a violin with a razor blade) into the music was just unbelievably character.
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What I like about the Inception score is the same thing I liked from the Dark Knight, the way that Zimmer was able to integrate narrative and music in a really clever way. See this youtube video:
I hated about the inception score was how present and over the top it was. I wasn't crazy about the movie in general, but the score I think did more than anything else to ruin it for me.I thought the trailer music, not written by zimmer, was pretty awesome. Which is funny cause trailer music is so awful most of the time. It was way over the top and sounded more like it belonged in a video game, but if you judge it by the standards of video game music it pretty much kicks ass.
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I really loved the unique textures. Same with the dark night and the joker theme. I'm really glad that Zimmer is focusing on what he is good at. I think for the longest time, he harboured this self doubt because of his difficulty with the more traditional vocabulary of Steiner and all those guys from the the golden era up to even and the more recent Williams. It is good to see that he is not trying to mimic things he just isn't able to do. I think the Simpsons soundtrack was the turning point. That score was so awful. I actually found the score to inception quite refreshing. It did support the drama but what I loved was just the rawness of it. That polished Hollywood sound just doesn't do it for me. I also really loved the movie. There was also more thought put into it than alot of his older scores. My colleague that works as an engineer was telling me all the play on time and how they would apply that to just about every thing from sampling and what not. Even the main theme using the slow dream time philosophy and taking that french chanson and slowing it down was clever. Lets face it, there are very few scores worth talking about and I won't let my previous dislike of Remote Control make me hate it before the get go.
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@mikezaz_27157 said:
Which is funny cause trailer music is so awful most of the time. It was way over the top and sounded more like it belonged in a video game, but if you judge it by the standards of video game music it pretty much kicks ass.
That is because trailer music has to be awful. It is specifically designed to be awful so that it can easily and seamlessly appeal to the type of moron that plays videos games. That is why films look like video games a lot of the time. Imagine having trailer music that was say, Vaughn Williams based on the typical content of a 21st century film. How the fuck are they going to get anyone to see that based on a trailer?
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When I see a movie with workmates, we play name that tune. First one to name the original source gets 10$. Sometimes it gets ridiculously easy. I remember 2 years ago, every trailer was using John Murphy's 28 days later theme. I remember actually watching Kick Ass and hearing the same theme and thought, he didn't just compose the same music for a different score but as it turns out, they just used it as one of many other msc songs as I suppose it has become a pop tune in a way. Just confusing because he was involved with the score. The worst trailer music has to be the kind that just bangs a drum every time the guy with the dep voice says something and the scene changes. I suppose they are there to let me know what ever is happening in the movie is super awesome and suspenseful. BANNNNG!! BANNNG!! man this film is going to rock.
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@mikezaz_27157 said:
Which is funny cause trailer music is so awful most of the time. It was way over the top and sounded more like it belonged in a video game, but if you judge it by the standards of video game music it pretty much kicks ass.
That is because trailer music has to be awful. It is specifically designed to be awful so that it can easily and seamlessly appeal to the type of moron that plays videos games. That is why films look like video games a lot of the time. Imagine having trailer music that was say, Vaughn Williams based on the typical content of a 21st century film. How the *** are they going to get anyone to see that based on a trailer?
One of the good things you can say about video game music is that it (at least traditionally) is much more melodic than film trailer music - which was again true of the Inception trailer.
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@BadOrange said:
When I see a movie with workmates, we play name that tune. First one to name the original source gets 10$. Sometimes it gets ridiculously easy. I remember 2 years ago, every trailer was using John Murphy's 28 days later theme. I remember actually watching Kick Ass and hearing the same theme and thought, he didn't just compose the same music for a different score but as it turns out, they just used it as one of many other msc songs as I suppose it has become a pop tune in a way. Just confusing because he was involved with the score. The worst trailer music has to be the kind that just bangs a drum every time the guy with the dep voice says something and the scene changes. I suppose they are there to let me know what ever is happening in the movie is super awesome and suspenseful. BANNNNG!! BANNNG!! man this film is going to rock.Yeah, Name that tune. I remember in the 90's when Vangelis's "1492 Conquest of Paradise" was getting a lot of trailer time. I remember watching a trailer and hearing 1492... then hearing it again two trailers later. I looked around and wondered if I was the only one who noticed that they used the same track twice.
You metioned BANNG! BANNNG! I had a lady friend who used to specialize in trailer music. She told how guilty she used to feel for receiving the amount of $$$$ she made for doing so little work; basically spitting crap out of her DAW. She's now an artist liason for a music library out of LA that only licenses, you guessed it, trailer music.
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P Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on
