How Hans Zimmer approaches orchestral brass

[andygabrys]

By Hans Zimmer off v-control forum:

I write very strategically for the spaces I record in. For instance, the Hall at Air Studio has a gallery, so I put my horns up there above the orchestra in Batman. The space you have people perform in is as important as the quality of their instruments. Players respond to good accoustics and will give you a better, more committed performance. The same goes for sampling. A dead room gives an artificially surpressed performance. It's no fun playing in a dead room. Especially brass players like "using" the reverb in the room to give them time to catch their breath between notes, so they'll have the courage and strength to play the next note stronger. I like recording in churches and halls, not studios and artificial reverb. 2000 years of architects like Brunelleschi figuring out how to amplify a sound beats the 20 years we've had of fake reverb development. But if your budget is a bit tight, try a school auditorium. Or an empty warehouse. Use your imagination. You belong to the proud fraternity of poor, starving artists. People expect you to ask them for favors in the name of the great piece of art you are about to unleash upon the world Smile

Good advice about orchestral brass no?

[crystallions]

Thanks for sharing this. Will keep it in mind next time I work with brass.

~ Lydia

[Kolstad]

It's like a singer with reverb in the headphone mix, you'll perform differently depending on the sound you hear.
When I record layers, I try to play them, and a patch with some fx on is definitely different and can be more fun to play.

I know that's not what HZ meant, but just to imply that I believe a somewhat similar vibe can be simulated by IR's when recording vi's.

[Len911]

Isn't that the "Virtual Instruments" forum?

In the context of virtual instruments, I'm not sure what the heck he was talking about.

It's like when someone asks what's the best sampled guitar, and someone will answer, "learn to play guitar"!

The "People expect you to ask them favors", if he is a "people" I think that is a very kind offer.

[andygabrys]

Isn't that the "Virtual Instruments" forum?

In the context of virtual instruments, I'm not sure what the heck he was talking about.

It's like when someone asks what's the best sampled guitar, and someone will answer, "learn to play guitar"!

The "People expect you to ask them favors", if he is a "people" I think that is a very kind offer.

yeah thats it.

Interesting everybody gets a different take on it.

I have read that post a number of times, but the thing I got today was the brass players using the room reverb as a cushion to elongate their sound, and giving them the space to take a proper big breath and really commit into the next passage.

which to me is one of the challenges of virtual orchestration for winds and brass - they can't play continuous lines as they have to breath. but listening to some mockups there are no spaces. Obvious issue.

my 2 cents.

[Len911]

Andy, that's what made Big Breath Bill Broonzy so great, he could blow like a machine and didn't need to take breaths as often as most all players, a true virtuoso!

Okay, so B.B. Bill might have only been a figment of my imagination, but imo virtual virtues wouldn't necessarily be high up on my priority list. In the seventies I purposefully avoided "live" albums because they sounded lo-fi -er (crappier) than studio albums.

I'm pretty sure it was here on this forum that someone said that their violin sounded midi, and the girl replied it was a real violin she played,lol!

Andy, I must have an iron fetish, because the first thing I look for is irony.

A couple weeks ago I went with my dad to drop of my mom's car at the shop for a tune-up. We must have been held 15 minutes listening to the mechanic discussing his "talent" and on about how charitable he was and that no one would accept his help that were broke down. Meanwhile, my mom still doesn't have her car back, and what was supposed to be a tune-up turned out to be an overhaul, the mechanic broke a spark plug and is to replace the head, at my mom and dad's expense, no charity, very talented I must say, and wondering aloud to my folks if maybe that was why no one ever accepted his help even while left stranded with a broke down vehicle, needless to say they weren't amused at the irony,lol!

[VanderBoegh]

Speaking as a brass player, I absolutely agree with Zimmer's statement that musicians will react differently depending on their space. Good natural reverb does give a player a chance to let notes sing longer, so breaths can be longer & deeper which will in turn lead to more power. Also, I find that I tend to exaggerate my legatos when I can actually hear them, which leads to a more expressive performance with vibratos and dynamics. I play in a local orchestra pit for musicals, and we've got 2 performance spaces we use - one is a crappy "backstage" set up (not really a pit at all) where we're cut off from the natural acoustics of the environment and instead mic'd up; and the other is a legitimate pit in a university auditorium where we can all hear our sound in a beautiful space. Guess which one I respond better to? Now if only I could emulate that in my little 10'x14' studio... haha. Until then, it's a healthy dose of ProTools' D-Verb to the rescue!

Great quote. Thanks for sharing that, Andy!

~~Matt