Writing Cinematic Film Music with Nucleus Lite | "Unearthing The Legend" Walkthrough
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- Let's take a look at how I wrote Unearthing The Legend, a cinematic film music track, using Nucleus Lite Edition (a $99 orchestral sample library from Audio Imperia).
►►► MIDI & Session File -- not available at the moment.
I go through how I composed the track, how I programmed each part, how I used interesting chord progressions using “chromatic mediants” (this is something I could explore in more depth in a future video) & a few general mixing techniques I used.
And I also cover what Nucleus Full can do to create more realism, just a little section on that towards the end of the video.
I hope you find this valuable :)
Video is still processing, it will be 4K quality soon! :)
I hope you enjoy this tutorial! Let me know what your biggest takeaways were and what you might like me to cover in future tutorials 😊
Hi Tom. Your explanation of layering and modulation was a big help. I’m not musically trained myself and can sometimes get bogged down trying to figure this stuff out but your explanation about modulation gave me a simple understanding how it can be achieved. At this time my current goal is to spend time understanding arrangements and instrumentation/voicing however I’ve always been clueless when it comes to using pro logic eq and how to get rid of all the unwanted low and high frequencies which I know is vital in making tracks sound more professional therefore a tutorial on this would be greatly appreciated if you ever find the time. All the best. Dom
Dominic Matthews Hi Dominic, thank you so much for the kind words! And I’m really glad you found this tutorial helpful. So a basic mixing tutorial? I will see what track could be useful for this kind of thing, adding this to the list of content ideas :)
Audio Mix Expert hi there! It’s on my list of videos to make eventually, if I do a video dedicated to percussion I want to make sure I go all out with it and create something super valuable 😊
@Audio Mix Expert Think I've just seen it now, again didn't get a notification for it for some reason. I'll reply there now :)
I need your help. All I have for now is free projectsam. I’m thinking of buying this since it’s not cpu consuming or buy spitfire originals. Which of them do u advice ?
Nice Video 👍
Thank you! Glad you like it
Thanks so much for putting up this tutorial. It's always really interesting to see how other musicians come up with their ideas. I love this track, and the audio gravitas you've added with a "Lite" version of the library and so few tracks. I'll certainly be following your channel from now on. Thanks so much for sharing.
Thank you Stu! I'm glad to hear you found this video useful and enjoyed listening to the track :)
Excellent demo of this product! Thanks for uploading, you helped me make my decision on which intro library to go with.
Thanks! I’m glad you found this video helpful!
A fantastic track and a really good tutorial. Keep up the great work!
Dominic Matthews Thank you so much! And I’m glad to hear you found the tutorial useful! 😊
Clear and inspiring tutorial. Very Nice. Takeaways are arrangement, modulations and use of dynamics. Nice. Thanks.
Seni Hoellmann Thank you Seni! I’m really glad you found this useful 😊
I would LOVE to get the MIDI and session file from you. I have Nucleus Lite and would love to tear this session apart to learn from it. I also run Logic Pro X, latest version, so a Logic file would be great as well. Thanks!
Enjoyable and a good demo of Nucleus Lite; but couldn't help noticing you tend to forget to give players that use their breath a chance to breathe - apparent at least with the choir
You’re absolutely right! Looking at it now I see I must have copy and pasted the strings MIDI and forgot to add the breathing space for choir and other instruments too. I did this mock-up pretty quickly, so that must have been an oversight on my part!
@@TomHawkComposer Something like that is easy to do, particularly in a demo. I noticed as I've been a musical director with choirs so possibly a bit pedantic.
I really wish I can relate but I’m new to orchestra. ☹️
@@MRREVILOable Give it time, you will learn. Just think of instruments that make their sound with blowing - eg brass of woodwind. Actually it's amazing how long pro players can play on one breath. For starters, think of choirs by seeing how long you can sing a line you're writing before you need a breath.Just make sure you have a break for a breath at the end of a musical line or phrase. And experienced choirs can probably go a bit longer on one breath than you can.Then transfer the idea to brass and woodwind parts. Listen to real performers (rather than digital ones) to get a feel for where they take a breath. A fair bit of wind can be taken in in a very short time!
Bryan Leech wow! Thanks a lot for your explanation. I’m beginning to see clearer now. I must play choir , having at the back of my mind that they are not just sounds but human voices and deserve to breath at intervals 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Another great video Tom.
Thanks for taking the time to show this community of composers the ins and outs of your composition.
Joshua Thomas Thanks Josh! Glad to hear you found it useful. Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like me to cover in future videos 😊
Gracias a tus videos me he animado a aprender a producir composiciones así de increíbles, ojalá lo logre algún día. 💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯 Saludos desde Perú 🇵🇪
amazing work !
Thank you! Glad you liked the track and hope you found this video useful :)
Thank you for explaining the different layering techniques with full ensemble patches vs section patches. This has been a confusing topic for me as a beginner and this helped a lot! Maybe a video idea? I would love to learn more!
Glad you found this useful! Good suggestion for a video, I’ll make that :)
Hey BryceS! I've made a video about this topic, hope you find it useful :) czcams.com/video/77qjWe4GZm0/video.html
Ive always wanted to get into Music- and recently ive decided to give it a go. I’m a complete noob- like, I’m learning notes now 😂 but you gotta start somewhere! I’ve been binging on your videos! Can’t wait till I will finally be able to compose sth.
I'm glad to hear you're starting to compose music! It's an exciting journey :D
Let me know if there's anything you'd like covered in future videos. I'm always interested to hear how I can provide more value through my content :)
Thank Tom this is going to help me composing my video game main theme since i am a poor indie guy who cannot afford a decent composer, wish i had the money to hire Graham Plowman!
loved the track
Great Walktrough & you are also showing midi notes. ;-)
Nice composition and love the walkthrough. Been looking for an affordable Orchestra VST and this def sold me on Nucleus Lite. Glad I ran into your channel :)
Adil Constantine Sounds like Nucleus Lite Edition is what you’re looking for then! Great starting point, and you can upgrade to the more detailed Nucleus Full later on with what you pay for Nucleus Lite as a credit towards the full version! Glad to hear you found this video useful, and I hope you enjoy my other videos 😊
@@TomHawkComposer Yeah for sure. Digging your vids, keep up the good work :)
Adil Constantine Thank you! Glad you’re liking the videos. Let me know if you have any specific requests for future videos :)
HI Tom, here I am, promised to come by and support you too. You found me through Gary Vee and I really appreciate you came to my channel. Now I know you're into music 😀 Great tutorial. I use Camtasia for my video editing but I have no clue in music ;)
If I can help you in anything related to confidence or quitting your job and living your dream life, THAT's my passion area😃😃
Hey thanks Rachel! Keep up the great work you're doing :D I just quit my job at the end of February 2020 and went full-time as a composer, content creator & freelancer, exciting start to the year!
Camtasia is awesome for screen recording, sounds like you've got a good setup there! If you ever need more advanced video editing then Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere Pro might be good options :)
No words .... 🔥🔥🔥
Vinod Hiremath That’s cool, 3 fire 🔥 emojis means a lot these days I guess? 😄
Either way, glad you found this video useful 😊
Ooooooh that was 🔥🔥🔥
R K Sarathy Thanks!! Glad you found it useful 😊
well done it was amazing , and thanks for the tutorial , i really need tutorials like this because im so new , for cinematic music ,,
Mr Nobody Thank you! And I’m glad you found the tutorial helpful 😊
Wow, thank you for this tutorial. I didn't know that I need it so much :D
great work waiting for more tutorials
MOATAZ Thanks! Glad you like this tutorial! You can check out some others on my channel :)
Loved it!
Really great video, just trying to break into the film scoring style of music, I have a lot to learn.
Really enjoying this composition and walkthrough Tom, thanks so much. Two requests if I may, (1) would you be prepared to share your Logic file as this would be really helpful in further understanding your structure, chord progressions and particularly automation? and (2) in future videos could you turn on note labels so we can see the individual notes identified in the piano roll - this will help us better understand the chord structure.
Just subscribed and really looking forward to watching past and future content. Stay safe and best wishes.
batonruse Thank you so much! Glad you liked the walkthrough. I’m looking into what’s the best way to share the MIDI file for this (and one other track that’s already up on my channel, the Avengers mockup). And good idea about the note labels, I will turn that on for future videos, thanks! Hope you find my other content useful :)
Great, thanks Tom
Hey Tom, another awesome screencast... Would it be possible to access the MIDI and Session file for this...??
Hey,
I would really love a video about „Theory“ of using different chords, inversions etc.
Keep it up 🤝
I’ve been planning to make some music theory videos for a while, just need to make the time to plan out the video concepts and share the information in an easy to understand way :)
Thank you bro 🤟
Glad you found this video useful!
Thanks for the walkthrough of your fantastic track. Is it still possible to get the Midi file, that's mentioned in the description of the video?
Oh man! I had no idea I could change the range on the choir. I was disappointed in the choir range on Lite but thought that Advanced control was only for velocity. Doh!
Yep you can still adjust the range for instruments in Nucleus Lite :)
With Cubase elements I can only have twenty four tracks, so nucleus lite works pretty great
Marvin Schluckauf Nice, yeah this could be a good solution for now!
@@TomHawkComposer if I upgrade to full nucleus, will 24 tracks still be enough?
Marvin Schluckauf Hmmm, it depends how you organise your session.
If you are happy to key-switch on one single track rather than having different tracks for different articulations, and you’re happy to use ensemble patches for things like choir, then you might be alright. Even then, you’d be limiting the potential.
Longterm, when it’s possible, it makes sense to invest into a DAW (in your case Cubase Pro maybe) without such restrictions is essential.
You will have creative ideas that will easily take you past 20-30 tracks without you even trying.
Obviously, if that’s all you can afford right now then make the most of what you have. We all have to start somewhere.
I think it makes sense to upgrade to the pro version of Cubase before you invest in other libraries after Nucleus Lite (or even Full) though. You don’t want your creative process & potential to be held back by such limitations.
It’s also worth bearing in mind what computer you have & working with what resources you have available with that right now. 8GB RAM is going to be very different compared to 32GB or 64GB RAM, and will greatly determine how big your sessions can be.
I hope that helps you in some way 😊
@@TomHawkComposer thanks for the very thorough answer. My budget isn't extremely high and I have 16 GB RAM, I might have to look into using midi channels instead of creating a new Kontakt Track fr every Instrument. (The advantage being that I can have 48 MIDI tracks) I'm looking forward to future uploads! :)
Marvin Schluckauf 16GB RAM is a decent starting point, I only had 8GB RAM when I was starting out and that caused a lot of issues trying to use multiple big libraries. Nucleus Lite shouldn’t be an issue though 😊
Hi Tom, thanks for this great tutorial, you mentioned in your video a website dealing with chromatic mediants, unfortunately the name of this website was not very clear ?
Where can I download this midi file for rehursal ?
bruh🔥
Deli Stacks Did you find it useful? 😊
@@TomHawkComposer I actually dont make film music but I found it very awesome that you can make something like that! Did you go to school for music?
Deli Stacks Thanks! I went to university for commercial songwriting and accidentally discovered that I wanted to this composing thing instead haha.
So my degree had nothing to do with this other than the Music For Media module (which is what got me into orchestral writing) & lots of music theory lessons (which were very useful).
Lots of self teaching though, lots of research, taking online courses, 1-on-1 coaching, many hours of practice, etc. 😊
Thank you for sharing. Is the midi available?
Bro 👍👏💪👑👑❤
International Music Did you find this tutorial helpful? 😊
@@TomHawkComposer 👍😉😏😏
Also, what’s the minimum requirement for a laptop for scores. For now I have intel i5 2.6ghz double core and 8 gig ram. Can it carry full version of kontakt 6?
Im really late to this as I got this library not long ago, but how do you make the brass sound so realistic? mine sounds like a synth
I would recommend using the Classic Mix, the Modern Mix can sound a bit too hyped for certain styles. And make sure you’re really using the Dynamics and Expression to create a realistic sound, and don’t always use the top dynamic layers. Think of how real brass players can play their instruments and try to write idiomatically for them.
@@TomHawkComposer how do you make such big brass chords as these??
Are these out-of-the box sounds, or are you mixing/mastering?
spiralsofdanu Hey! I show you throughout the video what I’ve done in terms of mixing & mastering 😊
GENIUS!!! Where did you learn to score cinematic? Any suggestions to start? I've a technical preparation as a pianist student, but little music theory, unfortunately... BTW, where MIDI files can be downloaded? I searched on your site, but no sign... THANK YOU!!!
i want to get this but i really need solo instruments. any good alternative solutions?
Can I use nucleus on kontakt player ?
Any chance of an overview of Spitfire's BBC Discover?
I just got that today...... the samples on the string 1 &2 are VERY SCRATCHY, up high, sounds like a wind tunnel behind them, horrible, The basses are great the horns are good, I mean for free, how can you complain. I think its a LEARNING TOOL, how to work with Orchestral Sounds, but NOBODYS scoring a movie with this. I paid the $49...… and as cheap as that is, Im not feelin so good about it. If you saw the video by Guy Michelmore, you'll notice he gives you about 15 seconds of each sound, hes careful not to expose its weaknesses. Its a free program, and you get what you pay for.
Yeah agree. I did some scoring with the plug in and the sound is a bit amateur and quite synthy when use for a long time. Love the brasses, woodwinds and percussions but there are inconsistency in each note you play (the dynamic texture of the note). Was wondering that paying more money in the core ver. Would give a better result. After this I would switch to another brand (might be too harsh but the studio strings is quite nice) But I'm not going to spend money in the bbc library.
Hey bro, what are the specs of your computer??
10:20 can someone indicates where is that bass plz?
It's just one of the pads presets in Nucleus playing a low note :)
@@TomHawkComposer Thx but I've tried with the most similar (sustained string) and it doesn't sounds the same and it cannot get lower than C2 (what you call the root)