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Official JWFan mock ups and fan-made recordings thread!


Jay

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Thank you @karelm for the feedback!

 

In terms of libraries, for the Raiders extract I used:

 

EWQL Pianos for the piano (Steinway D)

EWQL Symphonic Orchestra for the Harp

True Strike for the glock, xylo and triangle

Berlin Strings for strings

 

For JP I used Orchestral Tools for both strings and winds, as well as:

 

EWQL SO for the trumpet ("2 trumpet" patch), celeste and cymbals

Orchestral Brass and EWQL SO for the trombones

Orchestral Brass for the tuba

The Timpani for the timpani

I also used crotales from True Strike to replicate the "synth bells" doubled with the trumpets

 

The trumpet patch is such that the velocity controls the loudness and the modulation controls the accent. It's very rudimentary, with no legatos to speak of, though I use it fairly often because it "behaves" well when played in, if that makes sense. I get where you're coming from with the phrasing, though. I could've done a better job with adding in more legato, particularly in the second half.

 

The trombones were probably the biggest issue here. I used Orchestral Brass for the first half and EWQL SO for the second (you can clearly hear the transition in the no trumpet version, at 0:08). This is because, for the first half, I thought the trombones had to sound more accented (like the strings, which were also all "accented sustain" patches in the first half). But then I had to go for a normal sustain patch, however the Orchestral Brass sustain patches' attacks were too long, so I switched to EWQL SO which felt better.

 

I don't actually have any brass legato patches. Berlin Brass sounds amazing (15:45 - wow!) but, yeah, it's pretty pricey. Guess I'll have to just work harder at "faking" it for now!

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2 hours ago, Jilal said:

Please stop sharing that video, @karelm. It's making me depressive! :(

 

Sell a kidney!  You only need one.

 

2 hours ago, loert said:

I don't actually have any brass legato patches. Berlin Brass sounds amazing (15:45 - wow!) but, yeah, it's pretty pricey. Guess I'll have to just work harder at "faking" it for now!

 

Yes, it is a premium product.  I wish I had a need for it right now that commands me to purchase it but strings is where I suffer most.  Since you have the even pricier Berlin Strings, you have plopped down quite a bit of cash for your set up.  The last few orchestral projects I worked on did not need mock ups since they were to be recorded with orchestra so it is hard to justify the cost...but very tempting.  However, I did lose a gig because my mockups weren't up to modern standards.  I still need better strings. I also want a very expensive hardware reverb.

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10 hours ago, karelm said:

Since you have the even pricier Berlin Strings, you have plopped down quite a bit of cash for your set up.

 

There are ... other ways ... darker ways.

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So, I've made the eight or ninth revision of "To Boldly Go".

 

 

I don't know. I like most of it, but I'm feeling like it's a little incomplete, particularly in the third reprisal of Courage's theme.

 

I also whipped this piece up while I was at it.

 

 

It was interesting to do this one because although I have the Composer Cloud, I had to use quite a few instrument patches I would not normally use here. The entire piece is based off the rear channels I ripped from the DVD, so it is probably somewhat inaccurate, but I did try to get it as close as I could. I'm fairly sure the Composer Cloud does not have some of the instruments the original piece uses, so I had to improvise in places. The washtub kick drum, for example, is a sample from the OST.

 

Excuse this one if it appears synthy. After all, it's a cover on an RCP piece :P

 

As for the next one, it's from a score I would love to have but will never, ever see the light of day owing to splitting of the rights. So I have tried my best to cover some of this. I did actually once ask Amotz Plessner if he could spare some sheet music so I didn't have to do everything by ear, but he never got back to me after saying he would see what he had, so a few pieces here and there is all I'll ever be able to do.

 

And this last one is what I had in mind for something I'm writing. It's definitely influenced by "Dance Of The Nebula" from Beyond, which fitted what I had in mind but I wanted something that could hold 'corrupted' versions of Nick's theme and the 'crime' theme. It's not perfect, but it's along the lines of what I was thinking of.

 

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On 10/5/2016 at 2:05 PM, loert said:

Thought it would be fun to mock up the tinkly percussion bit (from 2:58) from the "Map Room" track in Raiders. Though unfortunately I don't have a cimbalon VST. :(

 

Here are three versions:

 

Percussion + High Strings:

Percussion only:

Percussion, no triangle:

 

All played in manually of course...you can sort of tell, right? :sarcasm:

 

EDIT: OK, I've actually found time to do another one: the first 5 bars of Journey to the Island.

 

Here's the full mockup:

 

Now with no swirling background (pretty hard to tell the difference really, at least in this case):

 

Now with no trumpet :devil::

 

And finally, with EPICTM choir added (because why the fahq not):

 

Love the no trumpet one (these deconstructions are really cool). Gives a great sense of how JW constructs the harmony. Absent being able to read sheet music this is the best way to see/hear that. It's kind of funny how much you want to hear the trumpet when listening though. Very frustrating in a sense. :lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Figured I'd try actually creating something 'new'.

 

In order of composition, Battle Theme came first (Take 1 isn't available, but there's not much I've changed to get to Take 2) and it was based wholly on a four-note motif I found myself humming one morning for no reason - I don't recall hearing it anywhere, so I might have just written my first, very simple, theme. The ending contains references to two of Giacchino's pieces (Judy's Theme on celesta, inspired by TFA's end credits, and a small quote I borrowed from "Ewe Fell For It"). Villain Theme came about afterwards when I wanted a non-action version of that motif.

 

EDIT: And a third one I titled "The Melancholy of Dawn Bellwether" which plays around with the villain theme and the interlude from "Battle Theme"

 

 

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On 10/18/2016 at 2:17 PM, Will said:

 

Love the no trumpet one (these deconstructions are really cool). Gives a great sense of how JW constructs the harmony. Absent being able to read sheet music this is the best way to see/hear that. It's kind of funny how much you want to hear the trumpet when listening though. Very frustrating in a sense. :lol:

To play it in "manually" is the best thing that you can do.

I kind of have to laugh ( just "kind of" though ) at people who spend more time on "stepping in" performances and touches and inflections and articulations and yoda, yoda, yoda, than on the actual performances themselves!

Let me put it another way.

Do ANY of you, make love to your "significant other" by merely "masturbating" in front of them?

Or do you get to the "down and dirty" the old fashioned way?

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  • 3 months later...

I always thought that Krennic's Theme worked better rather than as an interlude with the somewhat Saturday-Morning-Cartoon-Villain Imperial theme there. So I sequenced a version of Krennic's Theme on its own, using that middle section and the end of "Good Luck Little Sister" to finish it off.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
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  • 2 months later...

Just a little couple of somethings I threw together.

 

 

 

The Evangelion covers use some sampling from the original tracks for certain percussion instruments.

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  • 2 months later...
8 minutes ago, Loert said:

 

I made this arrangement of the chase scene, from the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a few months ago, but only got round to recording it today. Some parts are out of sync (especially towards the end) and that's because 1) when I was recording the 1st piano (i.e. after recording the 2nd piano) the audio was coming out of different speakers and occasionally I couldn't even hear my backing track and 2) some parts are f***ing hard to play!!!

 

But nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the arrangement hypothetically. :)

 

(Cripes, I really need to work on my piano playing...)

 

Thomas, this is absolutely, incredibly brilliant as always. 0:30 and 1:50 are just hilarious! :lol:

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On 9/2/2017 at 11:51 AM, Loert said:

 

I made this arrangement of the chase scene, from the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a few months ago, but only got round to recording it today. Some parts are out of sync (especially towards the end) and that's because 1) when I was recording the 1st piano (i.e. after recording the 2nd piano) the audio was coming out of different speakers and occasionally I couldn't even hear my backing track and 2) some parts are f***ing hard to play!!!

 

But nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the arrangement hypothetically. :)

 

(Cripes, I really need to work on my piano playing...)

Wow, awesome job!  That was great!  Very detailed too.  I'm not sure if you worked from some transcript or just picked it up by ear, but very detailed, I could hear almost every note from the original, nice job! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Could someone do at least one of the heavy-percussion cues of TLW without the percussion? Like it would be super interesting to hear the ending of, say, Visitor in San Diego with just the orchestra.

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Gosh, watching that Potter opening above I was reminded of how unbelievably epic Williams' Hedwig's Theme horn statement is at 1:14 (right after the part Loert mocked up). Fits absolutely perfectly with the image.

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5 minutes ago, Loert said:

Here we go:

 

http://picosong.com/wwJvk/

 

And here's the brass-only version:

 

http://picosong.com/wwJvu/

 

Imagine trying to get this approved for release by Williams.

 

Great mockup, by the way. I'm consistently impressed by your MIDI efforts!

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20 minutes ago, Jilal said:

Imagine trying to get this approved for release by Williams.

 

Great mockup, by the way. I'm consistently impressed by your MIDI efforts!

 

This must be his worst nightmare, somebody picking apart his pieces like this. Thank God he doesn't know about JWFan... :unsure: 

 

And thank you! :) Now that I listen back to the original, I realise that the sustained brass passages are supposed to be more in your face. So wtf does the score have "mf" as a dynamic? Oh well.

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Absolutely fascinating! I don't know why, but I inmediately pictured a random Harry Potter scene when it's played without the percussion. And when the strings attack in ostinato at 0:44 or so it reminds me of something else but I can't quite place it.

 

It's still a great cue nonetheless, but the percussion adds a whole other level of personality to it.

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17 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

And when the strings attack in ostinato at 0:44 or so it reminds me of something else but I can't quite place it.

 

Since you mention HP, could it be this?

 

 

It's even the same pitch.

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Could be! (it doesn't seem quite right somehow...) I thought that self-lift from TLW was only in CoS! Didn't recall it was also in the first movie.

 

Also, re-listening to the original track, the trombones by the end seems to make a small glissando while playing those DUM DUM!'s.... Don't know it it's written like that in the sketch, maybe it was a last minute change?

 

It also suprises me, considering how Williams is usually quite dense in his orchestrations, how sparse the actual playing here is when you remove the percussion: the trombones keep playing the same note almost all the time, with little variation, like a long sustained pedal note, and the orchestra almost plays around in sections when the other instrument stops playing. Like when the trumpet plays a little phrase, it stops and the horn responds. There's very little of one instrument playing on top of another, maybe except when the Island motif makes an appeareance. For some reason, I find this particular curious for Williams. 

 

I know he plays with the orchestra most of the time like Stravinsky would do, in sections. But I still find this particular example absolutely fascinating :D

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31 minutes ago, Muad'Dib said:

Also, re-listening to the original track, the trombones by the end seems to make a small glissando while playing those DUM DUM!'s.... Don't know it it's written like that in the sketch, maybe it was a last minute change?

 

Oh ****!!!... I totally forgot about that. In the score, in the penultimate bar (i.e. before the final tutti octave), the low brass play a slightly different rhythm. Instead of this:

 

dTkK99r.jpg

 

 

they play this:

 

CJpZA7n.jpg

 

I totally forgot about it when doing the mockup, as I was in a bit of a rush to finish it. :unsure: I was so used to pressing Ctrl-C -> Ctrl-V. :lol:

 

But yes, it's a very interesting track. In another thread I said that it's almost like the orchestra is improvising over the percussion, although of course it's not an improvisation but a composition.

 

It seems to me there are three musical layers here: the tribal percussion (1), the DUM DUM motif which includes the slides on the third beat (2), and the playful brass/wind figures dispersed throughout (3). Layer 2 essentially supports layer 1, while layer 3 seems to function as a surface distraction. Layer 3 can even be comical sometimes. For instance, the horn rip at 0:24 in my mockup sounds like a stand-in to the beat-3-slides in layer 2, as if the horn players are trying to cut in on the action! And the way the horns and trumpets feed off each other is entertaining too. Williams has an uncanny ability of writing complex, hyper-active orchestral music whilst always maintaining "flow".

 

What is also interesting is the ABA structure, and how layer 2 gives up its instruments to layer 3 in the B section, turning it into a kind of solo section for the orchestra. I haven't seen the film in ages so I don't remember what goes on during the B section, but as a standalone listen it gives the track ending a nice arch structure. 

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2 hours ago, Gistech said:

Thought I'd give a stab at "The T-Rex" from the Tomb Raider Suite.

 

Ah. the nostalgia! :) Great work. My only gripe is the low basses from 0:37 should keep playing quavers throughout, instead of semiquavers when the cellos play semiquavers. Apart from that I loved it!

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9 hours ago, Loert said:

 

Ah. the nostalgia! :) Great work. My only gripe is the low basses from 0:37 should keep playing quavers throughout, instead of semiquavers when the cellos play semiquavers. Apart from that I loved it!

 

Thanks for the feedback :D It was a fun piece to work on. I've done one or two other pieces from Tomb Raider as well (though not quite as extensive as the Remastered series) but this is definitely my favourite.

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Good evening musicians.

Is there someone with a decent array of samples paired with a bit of spare time, to help me out? I'm having horrible computer problems currently, and no internet access (I'm currently dependent on my iPad), and I will have to get a new one most likely, which takes some time until I can afford it. But I have a little piece that I would like to see recorded, so maybe someone can do that for me? 

I will find a way to send a MIDI or other music program file for the sheet music and orchestration.

 

If you are willing, you can PM me.

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I'm in the process of replacing some of the horrible sounding source fanfares of the original Ben-Hur recording with the Tadlow rerecordings (i know, sacrilege, but they sound horrible) and I got the idea of creating a timpani overlay for the original The Galley which I always thought needed some (also I have a timpani fetish). So I took the first, clean set of fours from the Tadlow, looped them and changed the tempo around to fit the first minute of The Galley. It ends at a point I feel is should naturally end because the tempo changes around too much and it would take way longer to do the whole cue than I thought. 

 

Overlay: http://picosong.com/w3RZF/

 

Not perfect and not final combination of original cue and overlay: http://picosong.com/w3RZ9/

 

EDIT: Also replicated the film edit of Charioteers with the Tadlow recording: http://picosong.com/w3RTW/

 

Do we know why a certain number of cues sound so horrible while the majority could have been recorded yesterday?

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Question to those who know: are there any string libraries out there that have samples of tremolos that go beyond the usual full or semi step? Like fourths, fifths or even Minor/major thirds?

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On 10/7/2017 at 5:03 AM, Holko said:

I'm in the process of replacing some of the horrible sounding source fanfares of the original Ben-Hur recording with the Tadlow rerecordings (i know, sacrilege, but they sound horrible) and I got the idea of creating a timpani overlay for the original The Galley which I always thought needed some (also I have a timpani fetish). So I took the first, clean set of fours from the Tadlow, looped them and changed the tempo around to fit the first minute of The Galley. It ends at a point I feel is should naturally end because the tempo changes around too much and it would take way longer to do the whole cue than I thought. 

 

Overlay: http://picosong.com/w3RZF/

 

Not perfect and not final combination of original cue and overlay: http://picosong.com/w3RZ9/

 

EDIT: Also replicated the film edit of Charioteers with the Tadlow recording: http://picosong.com/w3RTW/

 

Do we know why a certain number of cues sound so horrible while the majority could have been recorded yesterday?

Because some were recorded outside at Rome and some were recorded in the studio at Culver City.

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4 hours ago, gkgyver said:

Question to those who know: are there any string libraries out there that have samples of tremolos that go beyond the usual full or semi step? Like fourths, fifths or even Minor/major thirds?

 

Berlin libraries (sorry Jilal) records various tremolos.  You basically play two notes and it will use the appropriate tremolo pitches.

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4 hours ago, karelm said:

 

Berlin libraries (sorry Jilal) records various tremolos.  You basically play two notes and it will use the appropriate tremolo pitches.

 

You mean you play a dyad?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quick attempt at transcribing one of my favorite parts of The Two Towers: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxQSwI5aPja9ZDlYTlNIX1RNNTg/view?usp=sharing

 

Focused more on getting the pitches right than on the note lengths.

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Would anyone be willing to make top of the line mock ups for the remaining unreleased material from Revenge Of The Sith? Obviously non can be made for "Padmé's Visit" since the sheet music isn't available for that one.

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14 minutes ago, Trent B said:

Would anyone be willing to make top of the line mock ups for the remaining unreleased material from Revenge Of The Sith? Obviously non can be made for "Padmé's Visit" since the sheet music isn't available for that one.

 

I could take a crack at it, but I'm unfamiliar with what the unreleased material is, so if somebody could point me in the right direction that would be most helpful! 

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5 hours ago, Loert said:

 

I could take a crack at it, but I'm unfamiliar with what the unreleased material is, so if somebody could point me in the right direction that would be most helpful! 

 

I'll send you a PM.

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