Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh well it's just I want to get more involved in the music process because in past projects, the scores didn't sound like how I wanted them to, so I wanted to get more involved therefore. Otherwise I feel the same thing will happen and it will not sound how I feel it should.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Just watch how the best film music composers create their music in that "Score" documentary, At the moment, your current method seems to be a moving target of copy and pasting stuff from other films.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Well I don't want the composer to do the exact same track but give me something that is simiIar in feel and sound, but is that bad? I watched the movie Score. It was pretty good, and learned some things from it for sure! The producer and director do work with the composers during the process though in the video clips in the movie, and the composer still seems to want to give them what they are looking for to an extent, but also throwing in some ideas of their own. I think after thinking about it and what you people said that I should perhaps put the example tracks in the final edit, but then ask the composer if he has any other ideas too in his experties, that I may like better. Then in the end, I can pick which temp tracks I feel work best, if that's better?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

That sounds more sensible. In the documentary, they're composing music in the post production stage, so everyone has a sense of what the film actually feels and looks like.

For anyone in the UK, it's currently available on iplayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...st-soundtracks

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

The guy michelmore I bang on about is worth watching because he gets sent new instruments, so in his videos he will have an instrument to use a video and no guide at all. Composing music for film and tv is his job. He listens watches and plays. Sometimes it works and sometimes he just says no, that’s rubbish, when I rather liked it. However, the way he works is important and it’s also always fast. If he is showing off something he plays with it, tweaking and fiddling until he goes aha, then a melody appears. He will do the whole cue or just 16 bars of it. He spends time getting tempo right or deciding on the time sig, but he plays, and it builds. Most music in a movie is not a theme - the bit that gets promoted as the movie music, but it’s mood music and after people finish the movie they cannot remember it.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

There are or used to be scoring programs that used virtual instruments along with settings for tempo, mood, key, probably a billion other things to create a score suited to your movie. You can do it bar by bar so it builds and dips in the right places etc. One was “sony cinescore”. Doesnt look like they make it any more but maybe there are others. Something like that seems like it’d be perfect for Ryan. yeah, you wont the most unique score but do you really need it? This aint Star Wars or Indiana Jones. He could fart around to his heart’s content til he got it just right and not have to pay anyone else or harass them with endless tweaks and revisions.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Okay thanks, I saw some of the michelmore ones before, and can watch some more. Thanks.

I wasn't thinking most of the music would be 'theme music', just music that fits the moments more so.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh well even though I know what I want the music to sound like, I still don't know how to write it. But does does Sony cinescore allow you to use samples of instruments though?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

They don't make it anymore; maybe can find an old version on eBay or similar software, but yes, that's what I was getting at, samples/instruments are built in, you don't have to know jack about music...it has all sorts of parameters for mood, tempo, etc you adjust, and you can edit to build/climax at just the right moment etc. It's aimed at people who don't know how to write music.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

There are several examples on Youtube demonstrating Cinescore. I know nothing about music but used it on amateur films. I found it very useful. A lot of people were disappointed when Sony didn't develop it.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Seems like there have to be alternatives? Surely sony isnt the only one who thought to fill that niche.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

It's on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Cinesc...AAAOSwvihY-mdO

I predicted 10 pages back that Ryan would want to take over the composer's job.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh okay, I'm not taking over the composer's job. It was suggested to me that I try out cinescore, so I was just taking the suggestion.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

The snag with it was simply technology moved on and the Cinescore results started to get over-used, as any good software tends to. There really wasn't much wrong with it, but the number of add on packs didn't;t develop - so with the rise of Shazzam, the 'uniqueness' of the end results started to drop off - people on forums would complain that everything started to sound the same, and they also started to object to the need to buy continual add ons to be different from the ones you did last week. A great idea and for a while, it was different, but then it started to just get boring and, to be fair, they didn't have the ability to put in a bass flute themed track - clearly a severe limitation.

Seriously though - technology has got a lot better in ten years - but also the kind of music people want has also changed.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

But if you layer a didgeridoo and a nose flute, couldn't you approximate the same thing?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh okay. Well I wanted sounds from different sources, and wasn't planning on relying on just one package, if that is what you mean, unless that package were to be so good, it would have them all in it.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

The alternative is Smartsound's Sonicfire Pro, they are still updating it and producing new music for it.

I have both, I often prefer Cinescore music but the repertoire is very limited, even though I have four of the five theme packs they produced. The one on ebay looks to be the original package with only the Cinescore Essentials theme pack, which also contains some sound FX. Unless some other theme packs can be found it would be very restricted. I have searched for the pack I am missing, but no luck, so haven't bothered for a few years.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Dave’s comment is the problem, you need to constantly add and update. I think Ryan missed we were talking about the products that generate the music for you. He’s talking now about the sample/synthesis packages and few weeks pass without buying something from the email offers that come every day.

Sounds are personal. I collaborate with another musician and we have a core of common packages. If he needs X for a project I will work on later, I buy it too, and vice versa. However, though I just bought the latest spitfire, he found nothing in it useful to his music, which only deals with real instruments, not the pads, washes and effects. I have lots of violins, because he writes violin music!

EDIT
Ironically yesterday I got a Ryan style commission. I got a time, and a mid piece hit point for a change. Small chamber music, sadder at the start, brighter at the hit point, then, can it have a bass clarinet and a violin! I thought of Ryan straight away.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh why did you think of me, because of that?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Make the link Ryan - you should not have to ask the question.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh because I asked for a specific instruments before.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Ding ding ding

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Thud thud thud. That is my head hitting the wall. For many years I have followed the British Army maxim - the 6 P's. Proper planning prevents pi55 poor performance. It has always worked well for me. Maybe it should be Pi55 poor planning promotes poor performance, when carried out in Saskatoon.

There really seems so little point planning in micro depth, but getting the basics totally skewed. We know Ryan has terrible actors he wishes to use. We know he is having real trouble getting locations the right colour. The know the soundtrack has been planned before any pictures have been shot, and we know the sound is going to be terrible. The script at last discussion was in a terrible state too. We are now talking about capturing audio properly by limiting the camera departments ability too frame a shot - we're talking about extreme wide frame formats because that's the way to get closer audio perspective, and we still have that damn bass flute to cope with.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

And yet, some part of you, that grows larger each day, desperately wants to see the finished product, AMIRITE?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Well at the end of the day I'm just trying to do the best I can with what I have. Is that so bad? I still feel like I have to try my best, rather than not try at all.

It means thinking of outside the box solutions and asking if it'll work but I'm not sure what else to do since I don't have everything that a bigger budget project would have to solve problems.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

The lesson everyone here is trying to get you to learn is that you either need more money/resources or to scale back your ambition, and you won't do either.

You have the budget to make a movie where three people argue in a house for 90 minutes, not an action/police/horror blockbuster.

Not a Santa Claus movie.

Not a submarine movie.

Most filmmakers would look around and say "I have $50k and x x and x locations that I can use", what could I do with that? And write a script around it, make that as well as they could, and THEN (in a perfect ideal world) use that to attract money to make the blockbuster. You want to skip right to the blockbuster.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

oh okay, it's not that I don't mean to scale back my ambitions it's just that if the average building has noise problems how am I supposed to scale back my ambitions more further back than the average building. It seems to me I need to move the ambitions further maybe and more money for better locations to shoot in perhaps or better actors since I was told I need better actors or better crews since I was told I need better crew? Scaling back seems to have cheaper results, unless I am wrong?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Most locations have sound issues of some sort, it's a matter of if they can be solved or do you find another location. In the end, even the noisiest location can be used, if required, because there are solutions available today that weren't possible without a lot of work in the past.

You're not making a film with a noisy 16mm Bolex camera, with the kit you've currently got it's relatively easy to shoot reasonable quality dialogue scenes at a low cost.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

I do not know where you get these crazy statements from. The average building doesn't have noise problems. My office and studio is next to a railway line. I have a computer in the office that shows me rail traffic, and I have a continuous window between trains of maybe 40-50 minutes. I can find silence at those times. However, for some things I can record when a train goes by - it's distant enough to not intrude. I did a shoot at a stately home, because the production company loved the Hogwarts style wood panelling. The neighbour unfortunately had a Spitfire which took off and landed a few times during the day. We sorted that one too. If you are really a one man band production company - you can make super products, but they need managing properly.

You get forced to use poor actors, poor crew and poor locations? You choose them - if they are poor find better ones. If you cannot find better ones, write a movie that doesn't require things you can't get.

There's a great clip on YouTube of a James Bond movie where they needed James Bond in a shot, but he'd been released and wasn't there they used a still photograph of Roger Moore, and nobody noticed. If you have problems, cleverness and cunning can save them.

Your problem seems to be that you and your people are not good at problem solving.

If it was my money Ryan, there is no way I'd waste it on a poor production. Most people start small and do it really well, then get bigger and more complex as their skills grow. Looking at the movie we've used as examples - the wrath thing - clearly it was too much. Everything conspired against you.

Have you sorted out the camera operation - the wobblicam was in need of sorting.
The sound problem. Can you manage this for the next one.
Some of your actors were actually fine. Others were miscast and some very bad - do you have enough decent ones?
Locations - do you have what you need?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Oh okay thanks. As for starting out small I thought I was starting out the smallest, and getting a small group of actors for a real locations short film. I didn't think I could start out any smaller than that. I feel that a couple of the actors were decent and will try to find more, and try to find more locations for nex time. I was too impulsive and just wanted to get a project in the can perhaps, but I can try to have more patients and keeping looking for more first, if that's best.

As for the wobble cam, yes I could just find a better gimbal operator for next time, if that's best. The sound problem can hopefully be solved with better locations if that's best. Did the sound have any other noise problems, other than the one location?

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

I kinda like the idea of Santa Claus *IN* a submarine. Call it "Das Snow Boots."

A sequel to the movie where Mrs. Claus files for a divorce, the elves all go on strike, and then the little angel walks in and asks, "Santa, where should I put this tree?"

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

C'mon Ryan, think before you speak! You don't really want to solve the problem. You don't even want to understand the problem logically. You just want to argue with us.

The average public school building, or college classroom building, or probably office building, is mostly vacant and mostly quiet at night. Here where I live, in a college town, over winter break most houses that are rented by students are vacant, when the students go home to visit their families. Of course there will be exceptions (cleaning crew, etc.) and if you are any good at planning you will anticipate, ask, and avoid those particular situations.

Nowhere is totally silent (except outer space which is a vacuum) because sound is the oscillatory movement of molecules including air molecules. But through intelligent planning you find a building that's *pretty* quiet, hire a sound man who knows how to treat spaces and how to choose & place mics to *minimize* noise in the track (you cannot entirely eliminate it) and then hire a mixer who can further reduce it if necessary. Done. The end.

Re: Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?
 

Sure I can do that. I will look for buildings that are not being used at night. For this particular script, if the scene is set at the day time, I guess the DP can still make it look like daytime though of course.

I don't have to make the submarine movie, it's just others told me it was the best script treatment and ideas I had, and that they wanted to help make it more than other scripts. But I don't have to do that one. I think it will be too challenging, so I put it on hold for now.