I think that the main point of Amadeus is that the director tried to mould the story into a re-telling of Cain and Abel with Salieri jealous of Mozart's gifts from god. Whether he was right to do so is up for debate.

 How about Krull?

I know Horner gets a bad rep around here but at least that's him at his most fun and exciting (and with the LSO!) and Krull is about as bad a movie as could be made.

 Yeah, this pretty much sums it up. I was going to write something similar last night to be honest. A lot of younger directors tend to think of music in films as a music video and want songs. I know this is a sweeping statement but from my experience it's very popular at the moment. Thankfully I'm not having to do that too much in the current movie (one song and a couple of pieces of source music).

 Not really sure I get your point here Errikos.

Firstly, it's nice to see that you, like me, know how to orchestrate but recognise the various reasons for using pro-orchestrators.

After that, you seem to contradict yourself, on one side defending Elfman whilst admitting that the orchestration may not be all his own work and then, on the other side, attacking  modern composers for using other people's orchestration.

I know that at least some of the orchestration on Batman had to be reworked (it's one of the assignments and examples in the Scott Smalley course) to improve the tone and voice leading in the strings.

The worst of all this is that I'm sure you and I actually have the same aesthetic towards film music and are just arguing semantics at this point. As I've said all along, I love the early Elfman scores however I feel that the sound he created at the time was heavily influenced by his collaborators.

As for another 'hack' who has demanded imitation ... well it depends on how you define hack. I'm sure many people consider Zimmer to be one and he is imitated by a lot of people these days ... including Elfman.

In response to your 'manifesto' I can only say that this is getting noticed. Nearly every major film I've been to see of late I've walked out to hear people in the audience complaining about the weak score.

Oh and thank you William! It's nice to see someone who values scoring independent movies. My only problem is that too many indie directors (in the UK at least) want to sound like Hollywood! At least when I'm not getting paid a lot I can argue my case more strongly.

 Errikos, first I want to say that the scores Danny Elfman wrote back in the day were very good. I particularly love Batman and Edward Scissorhands. Having said all that, there's absolutely no doubt as to the influence of his collaborators.

Take a listen to Marc Shaiman's score for The Addams Family and see how much it sounds like Elfman ... and again was orchestrated by Steve Bartek.

Shirley Walker (now sadly no longer with us) went on to score several films (like the Final Destination series) and some tv stuff (including the Batman cartoon).

There's no doubt that Elfman has really grown into a good composer (although I've found his later scores to be less interesting as he increasingly sounds like Zimmer) but it's well known that he had a lot of help on Batman (with Steven Scott Smalley being one of the uncredited orchestrators). Given that William's original point was against scores by collaboration I felt this was particularly germane.

Of course if you want to argue against a point I wasn't making then go ahead. I'll be the first to admit that if I ever get to move from scoring independent movies to the mainstream then I'll be using a pro orchestrator.

 Ah, definitely!

Jerry Goldsmith is another. I believe his orchestrator said that his job was to copy the notes from the white paper to the yellow paper (or vice versa, I forget).

William, I completely agree with your sentiment here but I'd be wary of citing Elfman's Batman work as how good a single composer sounds. Not going to go into details but at the very least Steve Bartek and Shirley Walker had a significant input on that score.

Quick question: -

I currently own VSL SE, Appassionata Strings and Chamber Strings II (all extended).

Just wondering which articulations people might recommend for fast string runs.

I was considering (from App Strings): -

• Fast legato
• Performance trill
• Grace Notes

...and then using EQ to thin them out a little.

Any suggestions?

I generally use somewhere between 35 - 60 ms. I keep this fairly standard front-to-back but I alter according to taste (i.e. try modifying the amount and listening again).

I got this from the book Mixing Audio where the author reminds us that samples and convolution reverb do not behave like reality (and so trying to model them that way often causes problems). For instance Early Reflections from a convolution reverb "interfere" with the original signal whereas in real life where should (in a good ambient space) blend with the original signal.

So ... I treat them like signals with reverbs and delays and use those rules to guide me. Anything much less than 30ms and you can get phasing problems, anything above 80 ms and it will start sounding like a separate signal (i.e. like a delay rather than a reverb).

In reality the predelays should be shorter but as I said, ERs from convolution reverbs will cause comb-filtering that wouldn't happen in the real world.

I hope this is useful but I'm sure others will disagree with me on this and have a completely different way of doing things.

James

Hi Tanuj,

I have been using the Vienna Suite a lot recently. I love the presets for the Epic Horns and the strings, they sound wonderful.

In terms of production, I use around 11 instances of Altiverb for positioning combined with VSL Power Panning (and Waves S1 for non-VSL instruments). I do a lot of EQ-ing generally, mostly to remove a lot of low-frequencies that build up when instruments are recorded close-miked (the proximity effect).

One thing that worked for me is to realise that samples are not instruments and Altiverb is not reality. You have to work with samples and convolution reverbs as they are and rules that apply to real instruments recorded in a real space often do not work with samples.

Anyway, I often use Nomad Factory's D82 Sonic Maximizer on my final mix to add some sheen. I usually limit with Waves L1. For an example of this kind of mix check out Epic Journey on my website (http://www.jamessemple.com/music.php). Although there are some live instruments on it there's a lot of VSL on there.

Depends... I believe Sonnox Inflator also includes something akin to a harmonic exciter or distortion which gives an impression of loudness.

Hi there.

I know that there are people on this forum who know lots more about orchestration than I but I have definitely seen a long sustained horn section with staggered breathing in at least one orchestral score that I own. Having listened to that particular piece of music I would say that you could get away with simply a sustained chord (provided it's at mezzo-piano or lower). I don't think you'll need to do anything to represent the breathing as I don't remember the effect being particularly audible... not even a noticeable drop in volume.

Hope that helps.

I think John Williams has openly regretted "sticking too close to the temp track" on A New Hope.

You can hear the influence of the low strings motor rhythm on other parts of the soundtrack as well.

This is on Leopard on a new 8-core MacPro.

I installed the VI SE and VE software about 3 weeks ago with the latest versions from the VSL site.

I didn't install new VI/VE software when I installed App Strings, just the library files from the DVD.

regards

James

Hi there,

I recently bought VI SE (+Extended). Installed it plus the Vienna Ensemble and thought everything was great.

I then bought and installed the Appassionata Strings and since then it has changed the vertical/horizontal controller settings for all my Vienna Instruments.

Is there a way I can set them back to the way they were before?

regards

James

Wow, thanks for the info Peter! I have been using your advice and setting my reverb tails around 120ms and it is making quite a difference.

Peter, I often try and use this setup myself:

AV to represent a stage area and then add on Pristine Space with a Samplicity 'verb at the end.

Do you have any recommendations for which specific reverb (from your collection) you might use in this case?

This reminds me of a similar situation with computer graphics (an another art form which I constantly compare to samples). A friend of mine recently bought a blu-ray and told me that many of the films now look entirely unrealistic as the better player just helps to show up the mistakes a lot clearer.

Steve,

First, let me clear up your confusion and say that you don't need the Performance Tool when using Kontakt 2. Don't give it another thought.

On the other hand, your Epic Horns problem sounds quite odd. Could you perhaps expand upon this? I think your saying that one or two keys play intermittently but I'm not sure.

regards

James

Cosi e la Vita (That's Life) has a similar twist in the plot. I don't believe the music is similar at all.

Sixth Sense was ruined for me because I watched an Italian comedy called La Cosi é la Vita about a month before and it uses a similar idea.

Ah, sorry about. I stand corrected.

It is a beautiful melody and I'm listening to it a lot at the moment. In fact I really love the lush production on this, the brass sounds fantastic. This is my current reference track for Altiverb settings.

In terms of melodies I would say that John Williams' Across The Stars is wonderful. Very simple idea but it really works so well. I heard the Royal Philharmonic play this in Leicester Square a couple of years back and it is a very moving piece.

PS. Hmm ... aren't the opening 6 notes of the First Contact melody exactly the same as The BlackAdder theme tune? Maybe only Brits would spot this?

All great choices here. I'm currently writing a pastiche of Jurassic Park's main theme for an assignment (academic not work) and JW's melodies are really quite something.

Two quick questions: -

Anyone know what the temp score track was for that march at the end of Star Wars? I think it was by William Walton but I could be mistaken.

Wasn't Star Trek: First Contact's main theme written by Joel Goldsmith? I know Jerry is credited with the score but Joel's name is given on the soundtrack album for that particular track.

This is a difficult question at the moment.

Literally, today, I would say that XP64 is the better of the too. I am using it and it rocks.

Unfortunately it is very likely to be a dead-end street with little longevity.

Also Microsoft are apparently releasing their first service pack for Vista very soon. These service packs can make quite a difference and I'm sure that Vista will soon fix up the flaws and become the OS of choice.

So... if you have the money then buy XP64 but expect to migrate within a year or so.