02-06-2017, 09:02 PM
Spitfire is very wet to begin with, meanwhile Kontakt sounds are very dry to begin with. What I mean is, spitfire has baked in full reverb- you actually should hardly need to add any on top. The downside is obvious: wet things in one hall and dry things in no hall don't typically work well together. Pouring reverb generously over both will over-saturate the wet and leave the dry with something to be desired. Therefore, it is best to add reverb to the dry to get in in the same wetness as the baked wet stuff, then add a very gentle reverb over the top to hold it all together.
The trick to using spitfire (and other wet libraries like EWQL SO) is to mix in the close mics ("close" "overhead") and avoid far/room mics; this will add more clarity and reduce the amount of wetness. When using EWQL SO, I've been known to turn down the main mics and rely almost entirely on close mics at time just to get a tone that is clean and incisive rather than lurid and damp.
When you use a reverb, you should always adjust the wet/dry mix. It should almost never be above 50%, even on bone-dry sounds. I find that IR reverb goes well between 10-30% wet.
On other reverbs (e.g. QL Spaces) you will notice that there is no wet/dry mix but rather a wet volume and a dry volume. For this, set the dry volume fairly high with wet off, then slowly increase wet until it has a pleasant sense of space without ruining the incisiveness of the articulations. Reverb is way too easy to overdo, and about 80% of my own early works are now the sonic equivalent of swamps. When you first start out, reverb is always the ultimate "soundgoodizer"- it just makes everything sound all big and spacey and round. But the ultimate desired effect is to find equilibrium between room and clarity.
For comparison, here's an example from the realm of live recording.
Here's a live concert band recorded with some "mid" mics just a few feet from the stage. There's a good balance, but the reverb sound is unpleasant and it's in general a bit tinny.
https://instaud.io/rXK
So we might add reverb. In this case, let's instead use a far microphone position- this is *basically* what reverb would sound like. As you can hear, it's like listening to mud, but has a lot of missing space.
https://instaud.io/rXJ
Together, this makes a pleasant mix with the best of both worlds-
https://instaud.io/rXL
Something to keep in mind is the "bands" of your composition- it's important to make sure that what is in each register has room to breathe and be heard. This is particularly important in the bass area, as heavy "cinematic" toms and such tend to fill up that register with waves of muddy thudding. Most reverbs have options to filter out or reduce their effect on certain frequencies, and this is an excellent option to do that so long as the reverb isn't baked in there (like Spitfire).
Often times, it's very easy to go "big" but very hard to make that "big" sound right because elements start stepping on each others' toes.
A good practice you can do to help is to do a "build up" piece where you slowly add elements into the mix, such as this-
https://instaud.io/private/58dbee0afc5e5...b173af912c
You want to be able to at least identify elements in the mix (of course, some elements are supposed to be background and not easy to isolate, but they should still be clear that if you are locked onto that element, you can follow it)
As far as phrasing is concerned, this isn't quite something you can pick up from a book or even very well private instruction (at least not without a lot of it). You need to listen to how real musicians phrase things.
Here's an example of an old piece played live solo:
https://instaud.io/leG
You'll notice every few notes there is a break for the player to breathe. This also allows the music a moment to pause, like a comma or a period. If you're working off a music written to words, these breaks are easy to find and phrase to, but phasing your own material can be a lot more difficult. If you've gotten this far in theory, you may have encountered notes called "pick-ups" or "approach tones". Typically in a phrase, we have a starting point, going to a peak, then down to a cadence which ends the phrase. You may then experience either a rest or another phrase immediately.
Another portion of phrasing has to do with the meter and style of the work. Here's a live example of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", a popular Christmas song-
https://instaud.io/GiJ
In this case, the third beat of each measure (it is in 3/4) gets played short, which is common to dance music. This trick (long-long-short) is a great way to phrase any triplets or 3/4 measures and adds a lot of liveliness to the sound.
Here's a virtual case-
https://instaud.io/private/59c3d7c82f045...e502cdf773
You'll notice how in the start, we are introduced to a motif, or common musical fragment, that starts loud and then goes to a quieter lower note. This "Push-pull" motion is a very common one in music. This phrase gets explored throughout the rest of the piece by several woodwinds- you'll notice after each "duuuuunn-dunn..." there is a short break, where the player would breath, then the exploration.
We could imagine this piece something like this:
Hiiii there,
Hiiii there,
Hi hi hi hi hi hiiiiii there,
bassoon (after pause):
hi there, I hope you are doing well,
hi there, I hope that your day is great,
hi there, it is a quiet spell, oh
hi there, I think it is but fate, oh yes
english horn:
and hi there, I think I'm doing well and
you are, without worry and indeed
hi there, it's all just going swell and
hi there,
bass clarinet:
shuddup you double-reed,
flute:
hey now, that's no way to talk to a
bass-oon, now go away you
ba-ffoon, that's right you go away you
ba-ffoon
clarinet:
he told you right, now sing out you
oboe:
o-boe, that is my name it's pretty don't
you think, but really I just play the
high notes, watch me do that
again now,
flute:
ok oboe it's time to stop,
my solo is better than yours ever was...
everyone:
YEAAHHHH!
(bass):
-eaahhh-huh...
============
After the nightmares (and my immense songwriting royalties) subsist, you might see how assigning random words to music can help realize the phrasing intrinsic to the music. It's a lot more like text than one might suspect.
The trick to using spitfire (and other wet libraries like EWQL SO) is to mix in the close mics ("close" "overhead") and avoid far/room mics; this will add more clarity and reduce the amount of wetness. When using EWQL SO, I've been known to turn down the main mics and rely almost entirely on close mics at time just to get a tone that is clean and incisive rather than lurid and damp.
When you use a reverb, you should always adjust the wet/dry mix. It should almost never be above 50%, even on bone-dry sounds. I find that IR reverb goes well between 10-30% wet.
On other reverbs (e.g. QL Spaces) you will notice that there is no wet/dry mix but rather a wet volume and a dry volume. For this, set the dry volume fairly high with wet off, then slowly increase wet until it has a pleasant sense of space without ruining the incisiveness of the articulations. Reverb is way too easy to overdo, and about 80% of my own early works are now the sonic equivalent of swamps. When you first start out, reverb is always the ultimate "soundgoodizer"- it just makes everything sound all big and spacey and round. But the ultimate desired effect is to find equilibrium between room and clarity.
For comparison, here's an example from the realm of live recording.
Here's a live concert band recorded with some "mid" mics just a few feet from the stage. There's a good balance, but the reverb sound is unpleasant and it's in general a bit tinny.
https://instaud.io/rXK
So we might add reverb. In this case, let's instead use a far microphone position- this is *basically* what reverb would sound like. As you can hear, it's like listening to mud, but has a lot of missing space.
https://instaud.io/rXJ
Together, this makes a pleasant mix with the best of both worlds-
https://instaud.io/rXL
Something to keep in mind is the "bands" of your composition- it's important to make sure that what is in each register has room to breathe and be heard. This is particularly important in the bass area, as heavy "cinematic" toms and such tend to fill up that register with waves of muddy thudding. Most reverbs have options to filter out or reduce their effect on certain frequencies, and this is an excellent option to do that so long as the reverb isn't baked in there (like Spitfire).
Often times, it's very easy to go "big" but very hard to make that "big" sound right because elements start stepping on each others' toes.
A good practice you can do to help is to do a "build up" piece where you slowly add elements into the mix, such as this-
https://instaud.io/private/58dbee0afc5e5...b173af912c
You want to be able to at least identify elements in the mix (of course, some elements are supposed to be background and not easy to isolate, but they should still be clear that if you are locked onto that element, you can follow it)
As far as phrasing is concerned, this isn't quite something you can pick up from a book or even very well private instruction (at least not without a lot of it). You need to listen to how real musicians phrase things.
Here's an example of an old piece played live solo:
https://instaud.io/leG
You'll notice every few notes there is a break for the player to breathe. This also allows the music a moment to pause, like a comma or a period. If you're working off a music written to words, these breaks are easy to find and phrase to, but phasing your own material can be a lot more difficult. If you've gotten this far in theory, you may have encountered notes called "pick-ups" or "approach tones". Typically in a phrase, we have a starting point, going to a peak, then down to a cadence which ends the phrase. You may then experience either a rest or another phrase immediately.
Another portion of phrasing has to do with the meter and style of the work. Here's a live example of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", a popular Christmas song-
https://instaud.io/GiJ
In this case, the third beat of each measure (it is in 3/4) gets played short, which is common to dance music. This trick (long-long-short) is a great way to phrase any triplets or 3/4 measures and adds a lot of liveliness to the sound.
Here's a virtual case-
https://instaud.io/private/59c3d7c82f045...e502cdf773
You'll notice how in the start, we are introduced to a motif, or common musical fragment, that starts loud and then goes to a quieter lower note. This "Push-pull" motion is a very common one in music. This phrase gets explored throughout the rest of the piece by several woodwinds- you'll notice after each "duuuuunn-dunn..." there is a short break, where the player would breath, then the exploration.
We could imagine this piece something like this:
Hiiii there,
Hiiii there,
Hi hi hi hi hi hiiiiii there,
bassoon (after pause):
hi there, I hope you are doing well,
hi there, I hope that your day is great,
hi there, it is a quiet spell, oh
hi there, I think it is but fate, oh yes
english horn:
and hi there, I think I'm doing well and
you are, without worry and indeed
hi there, it's all just going swell and
hi there,
bass clarinet:
shuddup you double-reed,
flute:
hey now, that's no way to talk to a
bass-oon, now go away you
ba-ffoon, that's right you go away you
ba-ffoon
clarinet:
he told you right, now sing out you
oboe:
o-boe, that is my name it's pretty don't
you think, but really I just play the
high notes, watch me do that
again now,
flute:
ok oboe it's time to stop,
my solo is better than yours ever was...
everyone:
YEAAHHHH!
(bass):
-eaahhh-huh...
============
After the nightmares (and my immense songwriting royalties) subsist, you might see how assigning random words to music can help realize the phrasing intrinsic to the music. It's a lot more like text than one might suspect.
Sample library developer, composer, and amateur organologist at Versilian Studios.
