Strings Divisi, Reverb - MIDI Mockups Tips and Tricks

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We continue this chat on how to improve midi mockups with a new couple of simple tips and tricks. Strings divisi and how to use reverb for positioning dry recordings in a hall
0:00 intro
00:13 strings divisi
1:32 chords
3:49 legato lines in harmony
7:54 reverb
14:23 out

[@pavelsabacky]

How did I miss this one! Thank you. You are in my top 5 fav composer youtubers!

[@raymondspagnuolo8222]

Very helpful, thank you for posting.

[@nathanmarshallmusic]

Great video! Extremely useful information! Thanks so much!

[@eddiefranklin1446]

Great stuff. I love it. Thanks for being so generous.

[@elchabonification]

This channel is a gold mine. Thanks Mattia

[@MattiaChiappa]

Thanks!

[@argentosthemepark]

Thanks for sharing! I'm working on a mockup of Williams Jurassic Park theme and he uses quite a lot of divisi (even splitting violas and cellos into three at certain points). Always having a bit of a struggle to make this work.

[@joeldavidpalmer]

Thank you! Very clear and useful.

[@yvanroustan4426]

Always very interesting ! thank you Mattia !

[@MattiaChiappa]

You’re welcome!

[@kappabravomusic2101]

Very nice and easy explanation. Cheers

[@markdavenport2613]

Thank you for the tips. Was experimenting with string libraries and was looking for a way to now have them sound like reverb slapped onto them.

[@muddycube-theboringytchann9036]

Thanks for sharing!

[@garygimmestad4272]

Excellent and helpful! Thank you!

[@MattiaChiappa]

Thanks glad it helps!

[@LongshanMusic]

Reverb is what I find the most challenging. Thank you!

[@MattiaChiappa]

Oh yeah man, reverb is hard 😅

[@scottfoster3643]

Fantastic reverb tips!

[@MattiaChiappa]

Thanks glad it’s helpful!

[@DavideBonfantino]

Hi Mattia, great video as always. :) What do you think about a video series about writing in different styles? Maybe regarding film scoring(action, adventure, romantic, thriller/horror etc…). Always dealing with melody, harmony, orchestration and the good stuff. I personally would find very interesting to see your process throughout maybe with explanations in subtitles and scores. How about that? :) Have a great day. 💫

[@grobinson9352]

Very information. Thank you!

[@MattiaChiappa]

You’re welcome!

[@muziksculp2r]

Thanks. This was very helpful.

[@MattiaChiappa]

You’re welcome!

[@danielbendshadler9479]

Really appreciate your feedback on the divisi topic. Should help me fell somewhat less self conscious about sneaking in the occasional 48 violins.

[@MattiaChiappa]

😂

[@composeryadinmichaeli6272]

Hello there,thank you very much your channel is amazing and really helping

[@sergioisone]

Nice video again Mattia. I don't know if I missed it , or it wasn't mentioned in the video, but I noticed that you used CSS for the chords as oppose to BBCSO, (both which I love using btw) and of course CSS is a smaller recorded section, so I assume that helped towards recreating a better sound. I would like to ask if you would advise (or have indeed already done so yourself) mixing BBCSO and CSS together, only using CSS when creating chords?

[@MattiaChiappa]

Hi Sergio you got it on the other way around. I used BBC for chords and CSS for legato. Yeah I do mix them up all the time. I think they complement each other very well. I use BBC almost exclusively for chords now. I really like the sound of all the long patches, much more than CSS. Once again I’m not super concerned about ensemble size but you’re right, technically using CSS instead would be more appropriate since it’s a smaller group.

[@paulthiebaut]

Thanks for addressing those two important subject Mattia ! Those explanations were quite helpful although I found the microphone example quite confusing when you talked about creating depth. Low frequencies are known to travel a lot further than high frequencies and our ears tend to associate low frequencies as wet and distant whereas high frequencies are associated to a close/dry sound... I believe Joel Dollié explains this pretty well in his videos as well.

[@MattiaChiappa]

I think you might have misinterpreted what Joel says. It doesn’t quite work like that 😅 Look up proximity effect. The closer you get to a mic the more bass you get, just like I show in the video. Try it yourself, it’s super easy and you can clearly hear it.

[@paulthiebaut]

@@MattiaChiappa Oh ok got it thanks ! I confused to different things as you were talking about closeness and I was talking about how frequencies are affected with a reverb so when the sound is distant which are two different things !

[@lucasguillaneux7240]

I juste discovered jour channel and I must say it's amazing I have a question, I'm a guitar player and I'm getting into composing so I started to transcribe orchestral pieces I love and put them into logic. And I can play a few notes at the time on the piano but I'm not familiar with playing chords on it yet. I think I've read that you studied guitar too, so how did you got into piano ? Did you take lessons, or just learned by yourself as you were transcribing ? thanks a lot, it's really motivating to watch your videos

[@MattiaChiappa]

I wouldn’t recommend what I did. Get a good teacher! The one things I feel is holding me back right now is me not being very good at the piano. I’m self taught and never really studied the instrument. I guess I’ve learnt by the past few years of composing and playing others music but I’m in a rough spot right now and developed really bad habits that constantly get in the way. Yeah, get a teacher, it’ll pay off in the long run. You’re a musician already and I feel like with good guidance it’s a much easier instrument than guitar, at least for your needs.

[@lucasguillaneux7240]

@@MattiaChiappa thanks for the answer ! 🙂

[@tanglung4379]

Hi , an instrument like drum behind others instruments have more or less early and late réflexion compar to guitar on front scene , what do u think about ? . Thanks .

[@MattiaChiappa]

I don’t know exact science behind it but in theory the further away it is the more late reflections you get. If are interested in the topic I would do a google search on acoustics laws. You’ll find a ton of info and the exact science behind it

[@tanglung4379]

@@MattiaChiappa ok thanks for this .

[@rubenmolino1480]

A question Master, .... a string quartet! ..Is it better to compose it first on the piano...or directly try the composition from the beginning,...with the strings? ...what do you advise me?..........thanks in advance!

[@MattiaChiappa]

I sketch everything on piano no matter what ensemble the music is for. That’s what works for me though, there’s no right or wrong

[@rubenmolino1480]

@@MattiaChiappa thank you very much Mattia .... as always a big hug!

[@pseudomino3]

A question kinda unrelated to the video: how many gigabytes of ram does your template use? Great video, btw. I discovered your channel recently and I’m really enjoying the tips and techniques.

[@MattiaChiappa]

Hey! Thanks! I’m not sure. I load everything un-armed and load instruments gradually. With everything armed I think think it’s still less than 32 GB which is what my computer used to be equipped with

[@pseudomino3]

@@MattiaChiappa Than you for answering! I’m planning to buy a new mac and I was wondering if 32gb is enough.

[@Ahobakachan]

@@pseudomino3 it's fine until you load the whole bunch of mics on each instrument. In this case even 64gb is too little