John Williams style cue

Hi to all.

This week I took part in a 5 day composing challenge, where we had to write a short cue in the style of John Williams.

We started with a piano sketch, then progressed through different stages of orchestration.

Posting my work from all 5 days here.

What I found, was that MuseScore produced progressively more distortion as I added more instruments.

The meters didn't show any excessive levels, but I'm definitely hearing a serious problem, even when I turn the faders down by 6dB or more on all instruments across the entire mix!

Tried using the free EQ and mastering plugins from MuseHub; but they're very limited in scope, and seemed to make things worse.

Any tips on mixing solutions very welcome!

I could pull everything into Logic Pro 11, and try to fix the issues there. Not really sure what plugins to use though, and on which tracks to apply them. 

So a few things:

Firstly, this isn't really very similar to the style of John Williams at all. But of course, John Williams is an absolute master; he'd already been composing 40 years before his first film score. Writing a piece in his style is no small feat.

As for your mix issues, I'm not really hearing a problem with the overall levels on my end atm, but there are definite balance issues.

Some of these are due to musescore/musesounds which right now are notoriously unbalanced and have limited ways of fixing that, but some can't be. What you could do is put the tracks in logic and automate volume to help them out and send them in to a new reverb.

However, some of the other issues are related to orchestration and sample limitations.

For example, you have, as a lot of modern composers do, all these big block chords with a melody over them.

Bar 20 is a good example. Firstly, you have the trombones and celesta eating up a ton of the frequency spectrum by playing these huge chords, but then you ALSO have the trumpets coming in three-part harmony AND a String Melody in three octaves with the cellos taking the lowest octave. And everything there is playing mezzo piano. That's a recipe for mud, even in a live context I'm afraid.

Then, in bar 22 onward, you still have trombone footballs, but now they are accompanied by absolutely massive harp chords. While that is happening, you have different things happening between bassoons + horns, violins, etc. Another issue is that the bass is entirely footballs in the piece, which does not give it any breathing room and becomes rather exhausting to the ear.

"Melody + Chords" style Chord pads that have become popular in film music are actually generally considered bad practice not only because they're boring to play, but because the strings, low brass, and choir are basically the only ones good at playing them and these are large ensembles that take up tons of room in the frequency spectrum and stereo field. So you see beginners give this big, five-voice string harmony with a lonely oboe melody on top and then wonder why it's so hard to make the melody stand out even if the strings are at Piano. It's because the oboe is totally surrounded and your ear will focus on whatever line is thickest (the chords). If try to thicken the woodwind line, you're now competing for space with the strings.

However, unlike samples, live orchestras have almost infinite dynamic range, and not only that, but they can stay at one dynamic range and still have a lot of modulation in the sound, which is something samples can't do. So chord pads with samples tend to just sound bad. With these pads mocked up with samples, you're always going to fighting the fact that your chords seem like they just can't play quietly enough, and if they can, the timbre is bad because you can't modulate the sound without screwing up the dynamics.

TL;DR: You can fix some issues by loading it into a DAW, but the main problem is the writing/orchestration and samples suck at chord pads.

Wow, great analysis!

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly too.

Agreed I didn't really hit the brief very well. Quite difficult though in just 5 days, as JW tends to use lots of strange chords and exotic scales. Hexatonic and octatonic seem to be his favourite.

Will go back and rethink my arrangement along the lines you've suggested.

Part of the reason it ended up that way is down to the course itself.

We were told to use octave doublings to create a strong melodic line on Day 2.

Then on Day 3 we added harmonies. (I pretty much copied the orchestration of the course leader here.)

Day 4 was middle ground (counterpoint lines), and Day 5 finishing touches of orchestral colour, like harp, cymbals, glock, mark tree, celesta etc...

Some of my tracks have a ton of extra reverb, e.g. celesta and trumpets 2, 3 & 4. That's because I liked the effect; but I imagine this uses up lots of extra frequency space in the mix too.

Anyhow thanks again, will take another look at this over the weekend.

Alex

Hey Alex, 

Except for those balance issues, I cannot hear a problem with the audio either. Do you still notice it in the exported and uploaded MP3 files, or is it just in the program itself? When I tried MuseSounds I had a lot of problems with it (including 'stuttering' and distortion), and I think that was because my potato pc just couldn't handle the program... But I'd imagine (didn't try it myself though) these issues would disappear upon exporting the audio.

I should say I tried MuseSounds at its very first release (I believe 1-2 years ago), and my experience might've been due to a bug that has been fixed since. Anyway, I was so horrified that to this day I haven't tried using it again, so this might not be an issue anymore.

1 hour ago, Marius_ said:

Do you still notice it in the exported and uploaded MP3 files, or is it just in the program itself?

Hi Marius,

Yes I do hear it on both the mp3, and the playback within MuseScore.

I've checked with two sets of headphones, and I'm hearing it in both. Not all the way through, just when many instruments play together. Also hear it on my laptop speaker. 

Spectrum analyser shows some red transients in the mid frequency range: so I'm guessing that's what's causing the distortion.

What you're describing sounds like buffering, which can be a problem if your PC is low spec.

I think this issue has been improved though with more recent updates.

Many thanks for listening!

Alex 

20 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

I'm not really hearing a problem with the overall levels on my end atm, but there are definite balance issues.

You were dead right with your analysis.

Turns out MuseScore doesn't like to have more than two instruments playing the same pitch at the same time, and sometimes seems to prefer only one.

Otherwise the mid frequencies stack up on top of each other, and blow out of range, even though the overall level is well below maximum.

When I thinned out the arrangement, most of the distortion disappeared (see attached version). 

Unfortunately this has sucked the life out of the cue, and it's lost all its former richness, especially in the middle section.

Sounds very hollow and thin now, not to say badly orchestrated!

Hey man! Great work at coming this far. I can tell that this style of orchestration was stretching you, but I hope it opened your horizons and you’re growing a lot:)

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

Distortion: I also noticed the distortion over time. It was slight and in the background, but perceptible. I agree with both the above analyses that it’s part Musescore (which could be fixed with a DAW), and part a thicccc orchestration lol:)

Composition: This is already a great start. I don’t know if I would call it a “cue” (that seems to mean introduction to me), but it seems like a mid-scene Star Wars music. What I think would help you most would be developing your melody with a more cohesive theme (maybe using period or sentence forms), then using it to create a simpler piano sketch. Having everything sketched out on one (or two for complex pieces) pianos/organs/accordions helps to have a clear vision of how much harmony is going on at once. Then you can orchestrate and double all you want to get the timbre you’re looking for.

These are some of the most helpful videos I’ve found for this topic, from my favorite YouTube composer Ryan Leach:

This one covers using just a basic 4 or 5 part writing sketch, then adding octave doublings to give it an epic feel. I really recommend only using 4-5 parts/pitches at a time for emotional purity. This will also help cut down on the mud/distortion: 

Next is an example of another young composer who was coached into writing a cinematic piece from a sketch.

Then finally, “How to Orchestrate…” is the pro composer’s version, starting from a more complex 2-piano sketch.

I hope that in giving high quality feedback, I might be able to receive high quality feedback when I post something:)

1 hour ago, JP S. said:

Composition: This is already a great start. I don’t know if I would call it a “cue” (that seems to mean introduction to me), but it seems like a mid-scene Star Wars music. What I think would help you most would be developing your melody with a more cohesive theme (maybe using period or sentence forms), then using it to create a simpler piano sketch.

Thanks so much for listening!

That's all all really helpful.

The challenge was apparently inspired by a short cue from Harry Potter ("Buckbeak's Flight"); although I didn't actually discover that until after I'd finished writing on day 5!

For the piano sketch, we were told to use four piano tracks, one for melody, one for harmony, one for counterpoint, and the last one for extra flourishes.

It's actually quite a good idea, because it makes the orchestration process much quicker and easier.

We were told to write about 30 seconds of music; though I went beyond that (and some people ended up writing about 2-3 minutes!)

I wanted to use harp and celesta for extra colour, as these are frequently employed by Williams. 
He also tends to have triad fanfares in three trumpets quite often: so that's why I used one here.

Probably should've added some woodwind runs as well; but I felt that would make it too busy.

The challenge gave me some new composition techniques: so it was definitely a helpful thing to take part in.

I may decided to expand this into a longer work of 5-10 minutes at some point.

Anyway, thanks again for the analysis, and the links.

Alex.