Orchestration addict...

Half-way through the composition...  Took this screenshot a few days ago..  it's already MUCH fuller... time to do mixing.

If it weren't for the myriad of other things going on right now I probably would have this done a lot sooner.  I've been aching to get back to some personal projects. 

I've started 2 new tracks, one completely orchestral, and one symphonic hip-hop for Redhawk.  On top of it all  I have bills and jury duty coming up that I need to take care of.  Should be interesting to say the least, as the Jury duty date is set for just around the same time I am supposed to start working on a film project. 

On a side note, while on a trip up north last weekend with my family, I managed to work more on one of my story projects. Perhaps I'll post a glimpse of it on here sometime. 

But, in the meantime: orchestration has a plethora of sub-jobs that one has to do.

It's taken me a while to find good complementary sonics with the composition to play nicely with the metal part of the song so they don't sound like two disparate parts just playing together.

Yes, the song is over 7 minutes and 18 seconds... and this is just one of four that I have to work on.  I think the composition is complete as of now, just needs to be mixed down.

A hundred and seventy-two Channels later, there's stuff to consolidate and stuff to add i'm sure.  All I can say is DAYUM!  Hopefully orchestration gets easier from this point out.

A How to.. to do

I've decided I want to move the demo project I started in Ableton Live over to Cakewalk Sonar to develop further before things get too complex.  I've noticed Ableton doesn't support OMF, and while I enjoyed being able to easily compose with Ableton, there's a few things I like to start iteratively touching on with mixing and automation that will get lost in translation if I move too late from Ableton to any other DAW.

Before I start, let me say that I have a certain workflow I like to follow.  Most daws will have the capability of saving and loading universal .FXP and .FXB patches, but I like to save patches from within the plugin software so that I can load them individually.  I try to stay pretty organized, so any project I start immediately gets it's own folder sorted by date, archived in the year I started it.  In this case, the project resides on my Projects drive under the Audio section, and I keep things divided by client projects and personal projects, remix projects, etc...

The main project folder Ableton created resides in this root folder, and I have 2 folders that branch from here.  Once I create the Sonar project file, this root folder will become the primary project folder.

 

• Resources: houses several directories to keep track of various project data
• Renders: houses the rendered material, final stereo mix pre-master, mastered versions, wav, mp3 etc...

Resources Folder is where I keep 3 folders:

• Audio: recordings, stems, edits, processed audio, bounces, etc...
• Settings: saved patches for virtual instruments, effects, plugin data, External hardware patches, etc.
• Midi: any midi material used in the project

So, with the folders in place, time to open Ableton:

 Now, take a look at the track list:

•  Big T Drums is the primary drum instrument I use for the main beat.
• Nexus Arp is the first mid-range synth that rolls from the intro throughout.
• Nexus Bass is the 2nd synth that comes in the first bass pass in the arrangement.
• DrumFX is the 2nd layer drums I use once the beat comes in to establish a thicker sonic signature for the first verse or motif.
• 8-bit flutter is the 3rd synth in the list that comes in for the change-up: the 8-bit sound in the breakdown.
• Tron Synth comes in way later in the song that I ended on the last time I shared the demo.  
• Katakis Bassline is the buzzy bass synth that I used for the chorus.
• 8 Vanguard is a synth I loaded up and haven't even written anything for but plan on using the patch I made at some point.  While I don't have any midi material for this one i want to keep it in mind as I'll be saving and loading the instance in Sonar as well.
• 18 Violins is an EWQL Symphonic Orchestra patch I used for the chorus, a staccato patch that I will have to save out as well because I tweaked the settings for the mix from within the 3 layers (C, F, and S mixes for close mic to far ambient mic).  This one I may play with a bit in Sonar once I get it in there, but for now I'm not worried about the mix as I'm just going to extract midi and patch data, no audio necessary.
•  10 Violas is also an EWQL Symphonic Orchestra patch I used for a supporting line under the Violins during the chorus.  This one also has a custom set of paramters I used in the patch that I will save out for import into Sonar to keep the mix sounding similar.
• 11 Geist is exactly that...  I haven't shown anyone this part yet, but it's some drumwork I'm starting that goes well with that Tron synth mentioned above. Geist is an awesome tool once you get used to the interface.  It feels (at least to me) more akin to the drum sequencing ability of Reason, albeit more more complex and rich.
• 12 Geist is another instance I brought in to load a completely different set of complementary samples for a layered drum sound.  I think the change up will be nice once I get it going.  Geist has several features that I've already started playing with and programming material to.  

I'll get back to these later though.  For now, it's  time to start exporting everything.
Naturally I'll start with the first in the list.  Ableton's module section has a neat little interface that makes it very easy to save the patches and banks:

Right where it says New Multi, to the left of it the diskette icon will let you easily save the current preset or bank as a universal FXP / FXB file.  So, I saved the FXP file out, and labelled it appropriately.  Now, I like to take things one step further and have all my options covered.  I opened up the instrument:

 

 And I save out the instrument's proprietary patch preset:

The intakt engine saves out the patch as a Native Instruments .NKI file.  So, using a simliar naming convention I end up with both the FXP file and the NKI files respectively.

I repeated this process for every instrument patch. There are a couple of instruments I have a small effect chain going on.  The Nexus Arp track has an instance of Nexus going into an instance of Sony Oxford EQ for it's filter pass.  Nexus is interestingly simple in that it's native to the FXP and has no direct patch saving options.  

So, for nexus I just have the FXP file to save out my custom patch.  and the Sony Oxford EQ I loaded the Type 3 Classic Soft preset, but then tweaked it for the band-pass effect.  This one I can save out two ways as well.  Before I do this I go into my resources / Settings folder, and create 2 more directories; one for instruments and one for effects.

This allows me to keep things more organized and easier to find when I start importing into Sonar.  Sonnox EQ has it's own proprietary file type:

Saving as a new preset reveals the home directory where the program keeps its preset files.  I won't be saving this there as I only plan on using this EQ setting for this particular project.  However, if I find this setting to be pretty commonplace in my mixes I can easily just copy it back to the root folder and name it appropriately for future reference.

 The same thing applies to the Addictive Drums kit modules: it too saves out proprietary files.

My custom Thumpy Tunnel Kit gets an FXP and ADPreset file.  Again, the program reveals the home location for storing user and factory preset files, which show up in the drop menu within the VST if you save or change the presets in any way.  I will still just be saving this preset out to my project directory:

The instance of Nexus I use for the buzzy bassline during the chorus has an effect after it.

When it comes to the two strings sections, I have a Linear EQ I dialed in on one, copied over to the other as well, so I only need one preset saved out for the EQ:

Even with the custom kontakt engines, they use the standard Kontakt Multi format for saving out the presets.  I saved out the multis and while they reveal their home directories for the multis I don't need to save them for reference later..  Off to the project folder they go.

Now, remember I mentioned I would get back to Geist?  Here's why.  Geist is pretty complex, it pretty much has it's own sequencer and can be a full-fledged DAW in it's own right especially when it comes to live performance.  It's a very unique tool.  The first thing I'll do is the usual: FXP

 

I noticed there are numerous saving options within Geist.  I saved the Preset out to the .geist file respectively.  While it has a lot of options I'm just concerned with it loading the proper samples for the midi to trigger.  but since I also used Geist to program the drum patterns and created several scenes within 2 of the instances I opened.  I also want those drum patterns saved out to their own midi files with appropriate naming conventions.  Later on, i'll come back to Geist and go through the various patterns and save them out as individual midi files.  Speaking of which...

Ableton lets you bounce out any midi track on the timeline as it's own midi file.  Which is pretty useful especially for moving projects on the fly, but if you're further along into a project than I am above, and say 40+ midi tracks, it can get pretty unwieldy as well as time consuming.

Before I open up Sonar, I'm going to go double check all the material I have and make sure it's all in order.

To re-iterate: I have 2 folders inside the Resources folder which resides inside the project root folder.  Midi and Settings folders now house all the preset patches I just exported.

Notice there is one additional folder.  While I was working with the first Geist on creating patterns I went ahead and saved out each of the various patterns to their own midi files, but I also used those to import back into geist's track within Ableton to play with their arrangement from within.  Therefore that is why I also have a midi file for the Geist track as well.

I don't have too many presets to work with, but if I were working on a bigger project I'd just create folders for each instrument, name them after their corresponding track name, and save their presets inside those folders.  Stormbreakz actually saves out the samples when you save the multi file so it created the folder up there.  Not bad in case one might need to transport the module somewhere else for use inside a different DAW on another machine

All the Kontakt and intakt based instruments have the ability to save out multi files as patches only, patches with a sub-folder that saves all the associated samples, and a monolith file which packes the samples into the preset file itself.  Very useful for many reasons, however when it comes to copy-protected patches they may disallow the ability to save samples out or save monolith files.

The Effects presets aren't numerous, but they're easy enough to understand.  Again, I only have 1 LP64 EQ preset for both of the string patches because I copied the same preset to both.

Now, there's one more effect i'm missing but it's not necessary to save as it was just a factory patch that comes with T-Racks 3 Deluxe.  I put the effect on the master bus just to give me some idea of the final product (roughly).  Since I don't plan on using that exact same patch it's not necessary to save it out.

Sonar finally gets to load up.  While I wait for it to load my plugins let's talk about project versions.  While I may have started in Ableton, I try not to delete anything.  If the project in Ableton contained audio or a lot of information I'd probably just pack it up into a zip or rar file.

The new project dialog appears and I enter in the information, I also gave the project a name: Code Black... seems appropriate.  I point the project to the right location, and then the audio path I moved to reside inside the resources folder as well, so it would look like Resources / audio.

The project comes in as a blank template, and I add in the tempo information.

My projects in Sonar always work in 96k, 24 bit (just out of habbit).  I learned a valuable sampling lesson long ago when dealing with time stretching and sound design with audio that's pretty much become my adopted rule for pretty much everything I do.

However, there are always exceptions to that rule, for example the orchestral projects I'm working on for a band right now are in 44.1k 24 bit as no time stretching or sound design manipulation will be done to the orchestra, and the engineer the band is working with has the projects in that format so that's what I'll be bouncing all the multitrack stems as.

Back to my project.  I'll start by importing all the drum and percussion stuff.  I create the Stormbreakz instrument.

It creates 2 tracks in a folder, but i'm going to use the folder a different way.

I'm going to use that folder to house all the percussion tracks together, and label them based on their instrument name.  I haven't worked with Geist much yet, but there are 15 stereo sub outs beyond the master stereo output from it, which could come in handy if i start using geist for more than just drum programming.  Also, Sonar can split up the stereo into individual mono tracks so if I use the outputs as individual channels of audio to route the various sample pads through I could essentially have a multitrack drum section.  The same goes for Addictive Drums as it too supports multi-out.  But for these tracks I don't need to do any in-depth mixing of the drums (at least i don't believe so at this moment).  For now, i'm just going to use the stereo master outputs from these.

Up next, Bass.  I only have 2 bass synths I used so this should be quick:

Not bad, all my synths are up next:

Now here's where I'm going to change things up and this is why I saved both the FXP preset and the multis separately.  I'm going to load up Kontakt 4 instead of the East West individual plugins, and i'm going to have 3 stereo outputs for each because of the different mic positions each output provides, thus allowing me to better control the sound when it comes time to mix.

I do the same for the Violins. 

What i like about the fact that I saved the multi this way is that my edits to the individual volumes of the 3 mic positions is saved from what I did in Ableton to get it to sit in the mix a little better, and thus saving me time trying to get the strings to sound the same in Sonar.

Now that I've got all my patches and tracks set up, time to import midi.  Simply dragging and dropping the midi files over the very beginning of the timeline window in the row for the midi channel allows sonar to automatically place the midi at the right starting point for where those drums come in.

I simply repeat the process for all the instruments.  However, because of the way I saved the midi info in Ableton, when I drop the midi onto the track, everything starts at the same time, instead of the measures where they should start.

So, let's go back into ableton and make some notes about what measures each instrument starts at.  The stormbreakz material comes in at measure 9, the first bassline synth at 13, the 8 bit flutter effect at 25, etc..  I got all the midi material lined up.

The last phase is to add in the effects on the appropriate channels and then the project is completely imported!

I added the Sonnox EQ to the intro synth, and loaded it's preset.

The 2nd to last thing I would have to do is re-do the automation I did in the Ableton project for the buzzy bassline.  The Ableton project had a volume change during the breakdown fill, as well as the mix level of the Filter Freak plugin.

The volume automation is a 4dB drop from -6 dB to -10 dB.

The Filter Freak Automation looks like this in Ableton:

Simply hovering your mouse over the automation nodes will reveal their attributes, in Ableton it shows the first node at .10, and the 2nd node at .18 but opening up FilterFreak1 and moving the timeline playback bar to the node shows the FilterFreak Mix knob at 10% for the first node, and 18.2% for the second.  I match this automation in Sonar:

Now, I can just recall the same levels I had roughly mixed in Ableton for all the instruments, and instead of dropping 2 instances of the LP64 EQ, I'm going to create group buses for the various instruments and then put 1 instance of the LP64 EQ on the Strings bus.  The busing is pretty simple for this song so far:

I route each of the mic positions on the strings to their own group buses and then those buses to a Symphony stem bus.  Everything else is pretty simple.

I'll add an update on soundcloud once I get further along with where I want to go with the new section. 

So lost, so utterly lost...

I've undertaken a huge orchestral project for a friend's band and it's got me under the mental weather...  I just stripped out my entire rough draft material I put together for their first song to move up to a full divisi orchestration.  I'm learning as I go, and spent the entire day creating custom patches, templates, and project layouts, as well as organizing how I'm going to mix it all.  There's a tall demand from the band to have a complete symphonic sound that's as realistic as possible.  While I've got an idea of what they want, I still have to write and program a lot of material in based on the chord progressions and simple movements they've brought to me for the symphonic stuff.

That brings me to this little side-note.  In the midst of all this, Monday I spent most of my day with distractions, albeit pleasant ones.  Myke's been over quite a bit because of his new job.  Also got a call out of the blue from a producer friend who invited me over to talk about an upcoming project and meet the director and founders of the production company.  Went and saw Fast Five with them, freaking loved it I must admit!  Then came back to the studio to work more on the projects and instead started this little foray into Ableton Live.  It's not a bad little DAW, but I'm already finding my Sonar workflow wanting to creep into the way I do things and learning how Ableton works differently has been quite simple...  

Now, take a listen...  I'm having fun with this track; but I seriously cannot figure out what the hell to label it as...


Downtempo symphonic electronica?  Epic electronic soundtrack music?  Scott Pilgrim, eat your heart out..?  I dunno, I give up.  Not on the song, just on trying to figure out what this song is about...

Anyway, let me share how I got where I did with this little track so far:

I always start with a drum pattern, whether it's a loop or a kit.  After I got a good drum pattern going I started searching through synths to play around in.  Nexus 2 is an awesome versatile and big sounding synth, so I pulled one up:

Dialing in a sound that sounded interesting took some time, playing with presets is only so fun, I like to dig into my synths.  I love, love, love arppeggiation and came up with a cool little 2 note riff; between the arp settings playing between octaves and some envelope on the velocity   I liked the patch but it was a bit boomy, I wanted more of a lof-fi mid-range sound so I added an EQ to the chain:

I'm a big fan of the philosophy Less is more.  I liked the idea I had going and just needed to build it.  I opened up another instance of Nexus and loaded the patch I made to tweak it into something new with more low-end control:

I changed up the arp pattern and brought in the low-end i wanted.  I liked the exposition I was establishing and kept the drums at the front of the mix to create a sense of room to build on.  There's a good vibe going on now with the 2-note rhythmic arpeggios going on, and the drum pattern.

I brought in Addictive drums to fatten up the drums and start adding more spice to the hihats, and add in crash and ride.  A nice effected kit added the thumpy lowend and an anvil/tunnel sound to the snare track got the vibe going.

Now that I have a good sound, it's time for it to go somewhere.  I brought in an instance of QuadraSID and played around until i got an interesting 8-bit throwback to chiptunes arp.  The arp is so fast moving through the triad that I played it with stacattos (stabs).

 

It made for a good breakdown, and I kept it in the next build up section, bringing back the drums and first synth, but no bass.  The track was moving now, headed straight for a chorus.  With the build up I wanted a new sound that wasn't about to completely change what I had just established, so I opened up another instance of Nexus 2 and loaded my original bass patch:

I dialed in a totally new sound with it, much more buzzy and reminiscent of 8-bit but still more up-to-date and full.  I kept the main 2-line pattern that's pretty much established the mood, and opting for a minimal change to keep it simple (the less is more factor) I added a low note at the end of every 4th bar and alternated between an 8th note and quarter note for movement.

As the chorus evolved I added in an eq in the chain to the bass to play with the amount of low, and the amount of buzz.  Notice the pinkish line that dips down half way through the track, we'll come back to that in a sec:

Playing with some automation on this track right at the 8-bit flutter breakdown just before the strings come in allows me some wiggle room in the mix.

I automated the Filter to cut-off the buzz and bring out the low-end during the rest half-way through the chorus.  The other line in the picture just 2 above is automating the volume level because of the amplitude change between the filter cutoff and original level.

I had this crazy idea for some spiccatto strings playing around in the chorus.  I don't know why.  I dropped in an instance of EW Symphonic Orchestra Strings:

I played around with it for a bit and settled into a nice run that syncopates with an 8th-note triplet moving through the minor triad and ending up in B with the bassline.  Even with 18 violins marching through the chorus it sounded a bit sparse.  To thicken up the string section I brought in another instance:

The complimentary sound of 10 Violas stacattoing below the Violins within the same octave helped fill out the string section nicely.  While the Violins stuck to a much simpler run, the Violas were hard at work on a steady 8th note rhythm bouncing through fifths into the minor 3rds and also resolving into the B note with the bass-line.

So, in about 2 hours (more time spent on tweaking synths and sound exploring than anything else) I've arrived at roughly 2 and a quarter minutes worth of track, and intend on delving further.  Let me know what you think.  and Yes, that synth at the end will take it somewhere else. :)