Short film score (watch it here!)

[posssu]

Hi!

Here's a short film I scored and produced completely in Live.

The strings are LA Scoring Strings + a real violinist doubling the 1st and the 2nd violin, piano is Garritan Steinway. Percussions are Project Sam freebies and GPO.

Direct link to the video page:
http://www.juhanalehtiniemi.com/MUSIC_F ... lm%29.html

[FORMAT]

Good work!

[MacGuffin]

really nice stuff!

[digitallush]

Oh.. my.. goodness! The strings are absolutely gorgeous - they don't sound sampled (at least to the naked ear) and I really really appreciate your arrangement. The piano drives, but is so simple it gives the strings room to breathe and really make a beautiful and resonating impact. I've been putting off using Kontakt because of financial issues, but those strings just may have sold me... cheers to you!

[digitallush]

Well I'll be $1,000 still isn't in my price range lol! But my goodness, what beautiful samples... I can't get over it. I do have a question - have you used any other comparable products - anything live ready - I have always been content with working with what I have in front of me, but being so drawn to strings, I'd really like to get some better sampled strings - the ones in the EIC (or whatever the additional instrument package is that you can purchase with live) just don't do it for me.. not so happy I paid for them after the fact.. unless I'm just not manipulating them correctly to get a good sound.

Anyways - any recommendations - anything I may be able to run off a laptop for live performance? (I know, I know.. but I really want something grandiose for stage ;(... and can't afford an orchestra!)

[Pitch Black]

Beautiful! Good work sir!

Just checked out your showreel - awesome!

[posssu]

Thank you so much everyone for your nice feedback! I'm really happy!!!

Pitch Black, Thanks, glad you liked it!!!

Well I'll be $1,000 still isn't in my price range lol! But my goodness, what beautiful samples... I can't get over it. I do have a question - have you used any other comparable products - anything live ready - I have always been content with working with what I have in front of me, but being so drawn to strings, I'd really like to get some better sampled strings - the ones in the EIC (or whatever the additional instrument package is that you can purchase with live) just don't do it for me.. not so happy I paid for them after the fact.. unless I'm just not manipulating them correctly to get a good sound.

Anyways - any recommendations - anything I may be able to run off a laptop for live performance? (I know, I know.. but I really want something grandiose for stage ;(... and can't afford an orchestra!)

Unfortunately my previous string library was Garritan Personal Orchestra, which doesn't have really that realistic strings (although it's incredible value for money in general, it has lots of very good instruments and sounds and it's also a beginner level package, it doesn't aim that high). So I don't have any personal experience on other high quality string libraries than LA Scoring Strings (LASS). But I did lots of research and listened to different things before buying and I think I made the right choice, LASS is amazing. If you go to audiobro.com and check out their video on the new feature called "Auto Arranger" which just came out, this gives the package even more value, especially when using it live. You can play a whole string orchestra with realistic glissandos/portamentos/legatos live with one keyboard and the script does the rest.

But there are really good tips on other string packages on http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... Discussion - just search with "LASS" - since this library if often recommended when people ask about string libraries, it will bring out many good threads. You can also try "strings" or "string library". You'll surely find good things there.

Here are few links I found quickly:
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... ht=strings
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... light=lass

etc, just search.

The most important thing is to listen if you like the sound and try to figure out if it's actually playable vs requires lots of programming, tweaking and patches.

[digitallush]

Hey Posssu, appreciate the insight. I usually consider myself a pretty savvy little researcher but I wasn't even sure where to begin. Have you by any chance used Session Strings from NI? And last question, I promise, have you used / do you use any of these string packages for live performance? I'm assuming no for LASS! Anyways, thanks again for your insight, and keep up the beautiful work.

[posssu]

Hey Posssu, appreciate the insight. I usually consider myself a pretty savvy little researcher but I wasn't even sure where to begin. Have you by any chance used Session Strings from NI? And last question, I promise, have you used / do you use any of these string packages for live performance? I'm assuming no for LASS! Anyways, thanks again for your insight, and keep up the beautiful work.

No problem, glad to answer. I haven't used the Session strings and I don't have them, sorry... but if I'd use live strings, I'd probably either use the Full strings in GPO as a pad or if I was after realistic, I'd use LASS. There's no reason why not to use them (except CPU). Depends what kind of a laptop you have. But there are also ensemble patches in LASS, which means you have the full orchestra spread to the keyboard. This means it won't have any fancy stuff LASS usually can do well, but at least it sounds good and won't take much CPU (at least that much as 5-20 separate patches for the whole orchestra that are also possible with LASS). Also the spiccato-patches are really nice and I could imagine using them live, but I'm not gigging at the moment. Check out the A.R.T-script demo on audiobro.com-website.

[DangerousDave]

Nice work Posssu, that was fantastic, the film and the score were both really well put together. The mixing was what impressed me the most, I know that getting strings and piano to sit together delicately like that can be tricky, but you pulled it off very well.

[cubehog]

Rarely you find such beautiful stuff in this forum section. Besides the different genre it is something beautiful and heartfelt.
I don´t care for any LASS or piano libraries whilst I´m listening to this.
You have to have the skills to master the task even though the tools are much better and more comfortable to use these days.

The film itself is artful and emotional, the music underlines and supports the pictures. One very good example of how a film score should work.

der Ivo

[posssu]

Thank you so much again for your nice comments! I appreciate!!!

[HouseofBrouse]

hey, first of all.
the link didn't work and i would really like to see the thing!! haha and also, i was wondering how you worked in ableton to score the music. i tried once before and i couldnt wrap my head around it.

i play in a touring band and use ableton exclusively so i am very familiar with the program, if you could give me a short rundown of how you used the arrangement view and the video together it would be a big help because i was just hired to do a score for a film and i dont want to buy logic again or cubase. i think my problem before was that i could not figure out how to integrate the hours, minutes, seconds, and frames into ableton.
thanks,
sam

[posssu]

Hi!

Thanks, I've fixed the link now! I updated my website recently and it broke the link.

I'll try to post some screencaptures, but well... to answer shortly - I don't really ever check the timecode when I work with film music. Sounds weird, but if you have the video in your project, why would you need a time code? (at least in my workflow).

My workflow is somewhat like this:
If the music is orchestral without a metronome tempo (or maybe ambient), I record directly into the arrangement view without following the grid, it becomes more lively this way. If I need to be able to deliver the parts for real musicians later, I either retype the music into a notation software later or would even preferrer programming the music directly into a notation software with Rewire (like Notion), but unfortunately the software quick enough for this kind of workflow yet. You CAN do it though, but it's too awkward.

If the music follows the grid, I usually start by recording all the elements in session view, just to hear how it will sound at the climax. Then I duplicate this row in session and try to cut down the lesser parts of the music, by combining the elements I just wrote in different ways. After this it goes to Arrangement. There it's just about moving around, re-recording, re-composing, etc. Finally export. And add the markers to the beginning and the end so your export will always be the same length and start from the same place so you only need fix the position once in someone elses program (like ProTools). If you want to see the timecode, it's probably the best solution (syncingwise also!) that you ask the film editor a version with an imprinted timecode. Makes delivering the music and syncing it in the other end much easier. (but you CAN also see the hour:minute:second,frame instead of the normal minutes:seconds if you want - the setting is in the menu somewhere)

Hmm... yea... I guess this was the most common way. Please ask if there's something or if there was something unclear. But like I said, I actually never need to calculate any frames, we can see all the sync points in the video and hear the music immediately and see if it works - there's no need to calculate anymore. (again, at least in the way I work).