Orchestral/Hybrid Music Production Tips & Tricks

How To Write Orchestral/Hybrid Music

Written By Idan Refaeli
Inspired By Alex Moukala's YouTube Tutorials
Alex's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_CyR8Aqfl45kzFIDeMr-CQ

Hey,
I am a self taught musician that makes music as a hobby.
In order to learn how to produce this kind of music, I watch Alex's videos for about a year and learned so much.
I am sharing this document with you in order to grow this community and help more and more producers that find it difficult to follow the basic principles.
I am not related to Alex and don't have any connection to the content he creates. This is just a document that describes the rules given in his videos.

This document will be updated every time I add more content to it.


Percussion Rules:

* Big drum sounds define the accents, so they are less dynamic.
* Fillers like sticks and brushes can add interesting movement.
* Velocity must be adjusted.
* Hidden sounds can be added to spice things up
* Cymbals must be added - about 50% velocity
* Add trailer hits to the beginning of each bar. They must be used with care. Whoosh hits (long tail and atmosphere) and short hits (powerful impact) can be layered together.
* Add taiko rolls.

» VST/Sample Libraries used:
Heavyocity Damage, Boom Library Cinematic Trailers Designed, Impact Soundworks Juggernaut, 8Dio Hybrid Tools 2


Brass Rules:

* French horns are an instrument to write basic and clear melodic lines. It is the best instrument to write melody within the brass section.
But it is not enough since the freq. spectrum isn’t full yet.
*  Bass trombone and cimbassi are brass instruments that broaden the spectrum and fill the low register. But bass trombones are cluttered so this is why we can’t write melodies with It.
* Bass trombones are great to write root notes because they are cluttered in such a way that the French horns aren’t.
* Double bass can help the brass section fill the low-mid register. Sometimes it is needed to be in low volume.
* Beginners tend to forget that brass is played by humans and they need to catch a breath. Small pauses are required inside the piano roll.
* After every pause, the next note will sound huge thanks to the absence of the sound.
* MOD - Usually determines how hard the player blows. EXP - Allows to fade the volume over time to make it sound realistic.
* In high registers, the articulations should be versatile to add movement, contrary to the low registers. Single notes are the best choice as root notes.


Epic Realistic Staccato Strings:

* To make a melody sound bigger and richer, we can layer it with other instruments, such as Violas + 2nd Violins.
* 3 dimensions to make staccato strings sound good:
	a) Accents.
	b) Syncopated Notes - Notes between accents to add movement. We should also play with their velocities to define an interesting pattern. Syncopated notes usually have lower velocities.
	c) Voices / Harmony - Also considerable as counter-melody.
* If there is a lack in low frequencies, Add staccato cello to support the low-mid registers.
* Use double basses to fill the low register but DON’T CHANGE NOTES FAST to avoid clutter. Staccatos are allowed with changing velocities and only on root notes.

Libraries used:
- Strings:  Metropolis Ark 1
- Brass: Metropolis Ark 1
- Choir: Metropolis Ark 1
- Percussion: Heavyocity Damage, Metropolis Ark 1
- Trailer SFX: Various Custom Samples, CinematicTrailers Designed, Scenes From The Multiverse Vol.1


Using Reverb:

* Use one unit of reverb in the overall mixer! Huge resources saver. Use two instances - dry and wet.
The more wet signal, the more distance between the listener and the player.
Also, when the wet signal is bigger, the sound will be less powerful.
* Percussion shouldn’t have so much reverb because it loses a good amount of power (use about 15-20%), and also since percussion is mostly defined in the low register, the reverb will make it sound muddy.
* A good tip is to put a slight low-cut to the percussion and then apply the reverb.
* Choirs can be sent to the reverb a lot, because it makes a good atmosphere and doesn’t have too many low frequencies because the human voice is mainly in the mid range.
* If the choirs is the main melody, send it more to the front.

Pre-delay - Sets the amount of delay before the reverb and allows 	to play the reverb after a delayed time.
Decay - Allows to control the tail of the reverb (for mid freq.)
	Too much is unreal, but can be used to create a pad.
High Cut - Making the sound become less sharp because the 	reverb cuts off the high frequencies after the given parameter 	(example: 5000 Hz)
Depth - Determines the space by controlling how far the instrument is. Less depth, the narrower the room. Concert venue requires very high depth, around 90%.


Creating Melodies & Counter Melodies

* When the melody rests, the counter melody can fill in the empty spaces to create an interesting pattern.
* The Melody shouldn’t get lost too much in order to not confuse the listener, but the listener needs to be introduced with an effect of surprise each time, so add versatile articulations & movements to the piece.
* Listen to Coldplay - Pop music is a great example to how to make simple melodies to hook any audience.
* Sing along a song to trick your brain to think what can be added to a song.


Making Better Melodies:

Making interesting melodies that don’t sound boring after repetitions and making melodies stand out in a crowded orchestration are based on the idea of changing pitch and changing/adding instruments.
For example: After 8 bars the French horns alone are not enough, because they will sound boring and will disappear thanks to the new instruments added.
So we can layer them with trumpets in higher pitch and add a counter-melody to make them stand out more.


Using Articulations:

Not explaining here about types of articulations because it can be found with a simple Google search.
* In percussion use taiko and cymbals rolls to create tension
* Use as many articulations you can in a logical way to make the piece sound interesting. Orchestra is played by humans.


Using Woodwinds:

* To hear examples of proper use of woodwinds hear Japanese soundtracks.
* Listen to How To Train Your Dragon soundtrack.
* Like brass, don’t write long sustained notes and add small breaks.
* Bassoons and Clarinets sound better in low-mid notes.
* Flute is good for mid-high
* Piccolo is the highest of them all.
* Woodwinds have a precise range other than other instruments, especially in high end. It gives the freedom to write fast changing notes and trills.
* Woodwinds are great for layering because of their pure sound.
* When writing fast notes use ‘runs’ articulation or legato notes.


Writing Epic Choirs:

* Choirs stand out more because they are played at higher octaves, and because they are mainly single notes, the freq. are really concentrated.
* Counter melodies for choirs are great, especially when they are in the same rhythm as the melody because they support it and make it sound bigger.
* Marcatos are better for main melody because they give more energy.
* The shorter the note is, the harder the singer can sing, same as brass.
* Choosing the right library is very important, the library should contain the ability to change phrases automatically, manually and randomly (optional).
Libraries such as Metropolis Ark, Voxos 2 are great for big and epic choirs.
* Less is more. When we want the choirs to contain the melody, we want to use single concentrated Marcato notes. Use staccatos if we want the choirs to sound very short.


#1 Mixing Rule For Professional Sound:

The most important rule is focusing in arrangement. Mixing is important but not the most important ingredient.
Choosing the right instruments is the most important step because when using cheap, non-professional tools, the tracks will also sound not professional.
Learning how to mix and master before learning how to arrange the track correctly is a huge mistake that will not bring any positive results. Be cautious.


Mixing Steps - Orchestral Music

1) Write a good arrangement - Use articulations and interesting transitions, have the frequency spectrum calibrated correctly, and don’t have clutter and mud in the bass frequencies.
Fill the high end with proper instruments such as hats and cymbals to make the track sound more open. Of curse the same rule applies to mid and low either - Use proper instruments.
If a certain frequency isn’t full enough, maybe you are using the wrong articulation. Try switching articulations. Sustains are weaker than staccatos for instance.
2) Tweak reverb to sound deep and realistic - Like mentioned before, never use an instance of reverb for every instrument. It is huge resources consuming. After lowering the the reverb from the libraries as much as you can, have one instance of reverb and send all the instruments to the same one. After that, tweak and adjust.
Don’t use too much depth and decay because it will sound as the orchestration is being played in another room. Be careful with low end because the way digital reverb processes low end is not quite good, so make everything sound natural by ear.
3) Volume balancing and panning - To prevent the melodic instrument being drown, we can use volume balancing.
A good way is to put all background instruments in the back and the melodic instrument in the front. Also, selecting all the instruments and silencing them. Then, increasing the volume slightly for each one to find the balance.
Also, create volume automation for the instruments you want to stand out more in each section.
DO NOT PAN! In the sample libraries the instruments are already panned correctly, so we don’t have to add additional panning, and it can also pan the internal reverb of the library, making it sound very unnatural.
Panning for percussion is valid.
4) EQ - High end determines how sharp the sound is - good for sticks etc..
70-90 Hz modifies the sub (“boomish sound”)
“Aggressive EQ” - Modifying a wide variety of frequencies.
“Surgical EQ” - Fix something using EQ, overlaps for example - When we play the same notes on many instruments, we may have an overlap on common harmonics, end up having some frequencies standing out too much.
When we see this peak in the spectrum analyser, we can add a surgical EQ in a narrow range of freq. to fix the overlap problem.
5) Tuning the details with additional mixing units such as compression, delays, stereo imagers…
A bit distortion to low end instruments such as tubas, bass trombones, basses can amplify their freq. and harmonics.
6) Comparing the mix with reference mixes.


Writing Trailer Music:

* Use layering to reach a higher frequency response to make the melody hearable on a variety of speakers.
* Make things short, use many articulations on percussion, fill the holes of the melody with some interesting counter melodies and percussion. Try not to use long notes because trailer music should be interesting and dynamic.
* Learn how to resample to give yourself freedom with ready-to-use samples and not to limit yourself with the rhythm presented by the sample.
* Use distortion to make things stand out more.
* Use stuttering. It has an amazing impact that builds massive tension, especially when layered with big percussion. We should also stutter the bass because if not, it won’t sound as dramatic.