Epic Trailer Music | Basic Structure to Final Mastering | Chaos Theory | Two Steps from Hell

hi and welcome in this video I want to give you a full walkthrough of my track beyond the stars that I had the pleasure to write for the Two Steps From Hell album Chaos Theory I will go from the basic structure to the final mastering so I hope you enjoy over 1 hour of video material and just in case you're up for more trailer music material make sure to check out my free audio artist Academy or even check out my course trailer music Trailblazers and as always you will find the link in the video description below thanks so much and I hope you enjoy this video [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] oh oh oh oh [Music] okay so let's dive into the structure of this track so you can see that there is an intro part again we have uh the main part here then we also have a little bit of an extended quieter part and then we have the you know the dramatic ending or the final part also you can see before forget this I want to mention this you see the gaps again here then also another one is happening here and here so let's analyze what is going on here [Music] okay to this point this is just the intro you can hear nothing special a little bit of buildup a little bit of tension creating by staying on the same base note you hear a little bit of a fragment of the main theme here so these are these three notes that happen uh you know throughout basically the entire song and and this will lead into this more powerful part towards the ending so next up is a little bit of more sorry a little bit of more [Music] building and also you can now hear that the Rhythm the B these hits are now A Little Bit Stronger so in the beginning pay attention to that it it was just a synth here okay but it was it's always present and this is what I think the very the most important thing when it comes to like the storytelling you just stay in the same topic you don't change too many Melodies you don't change chords you don't change too many parts you just build and uh create tension and then at the end of course we have that little Gap here so this is the main part there's also nothing really special happening it's it's more of like a little bit focused towards um the dialogue part again maybe there is some action happening maybe there is some dialogue a little bit of Storytelling of the movie trailer or of the movie itself if the editor wants to have this part shorter they can probably cut out the last half because it's basically the same so I just wanted to do that without building too much but just keeping it at the same level because most of the time there at this part in in a trailer there's the storytelling there is something getting into the characters or revealing some mystery or whatever at this point also notied that I continued the Rhythm this B ba ba but I didn't play The Melody because um I felt it's distracting at this point and I don't want to overuse it in general so again after this part uh we go into into one of these gaps again here [Music] and then we you already heard it we reintroduce the melody and we have this for eight bars actually going depending on how you count and then at the end basically the part repeats and then we have some buildup that is bringing a little bit more attention towards the final part [Music] [Music] and basically back into the final Downer or the final Gap where we build build a little bit more tension again and then finally release the whole Beast for that final part here okay so for this part it's basically twice the same part here with a little bit of variation of the let's say the main vocals and uh you know some little variation also in in the chords and the arrangement and then towards the end we have directly going into like a an ending of the track but then again as a reminder we have the very initial fraction of the melody the first three notes of the melody that also happened to at the very beginning we also have this at the end again too because I like to create this kind of like reminder you know this corporate corporate identity uh you know identification whatever you want to call it um um that characteristic for that track that people always get reminded you know of the beginning of the track maybe to create a subconscious Circle maybe they want to go home check out the track you know get get an album just in case if this would be something that would be publicly available whatever reason so I just like to build these things that also the ending is sometimes the beginning again okay so that's it for the structure okay Harmony in theory there is actually not a lot going on this entire track stays on D Minor until the very end until up to like 2 minutes and then let me just open the uh trombone chords because I used like closed chords here it's basically B flat C then D Minor then going back to the C then B flat again then C then D and then going back to to the C chord to the final chord here okay last but not least we have our little Melody here which is basically just these three notes [Music] that the track is starting with and it's basically like the rudimentary notes of what is later becoming on that Mighty French horn Melody let me play you this one [Music] here so this is the entire ire Melody again this is not a lot what is going on but I can't press this enough we're not writing music for other composers we just want to build tension as much as possible and then go into a glorious final part where we just Unleash the Beast or make everything shine and this also you know matches with the trailer if you if you're watching a trailer there is always the explosions and the Mysterious stuff or the Glorious stuff the shiny stuff is always happening towards the end to build that endless amount of tension that makes you want to see that movie so let's take a look at the strings here I've used the nucleus strings full assemble picato patch I think I've used that for the entire production of that album because the track stays in D all the time there is just a little bit of let me just play you the part [Music] here this is basically it we have a little bit of variation going on towards the [Music] end so very let's say yeah not really organic just like robotic I just wanted it to have it that way and also to just you know kind of like enforce the feeling for that Rhythm that we used b b b b like the hits we use as also kind of like a signature thing I also use the double bases and ch yellow's doubled [Music] here so the structure is a little bit different but there is this Gap happening and this is just the length roundabout of these initial hits B to just finish that phrase and then there is a rest going on so nothing really special the same thing repeats and then we only have strings again in the final part so we have two patches here again used nucleus full assemble the sustained patches here I left the Reverb on and everything the only thing that I didn't need for this track I set the sample start to zero so I didn't need to take care about you know track delay or anything so we just have simple Triads playing here with that patch so that's basically it did just have some modulation going on to to create Dynamics a little bit what is happening here next on this track here is the same stado pattern basically the same thing and then towards the end we have it also played an octave above so that it sticks through the choir and all the other elements okay that's it for the strings okay so let's check out the brass here [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so again nothing really especially with that brass but it serves its purpose just wanted to have like a decent you know thick pad again I'm not when it comes to hybrid music I'm not thinking Orchestra I'm just thinking instrument colors so I was thinking like the typical trombones [Music] pad what I also want to mention is again what I'm basically did all the time is to layer you know put these on the same media channel and use the sustains the marcados and the statis imos it could vary sometimes you use the stacos sometimes you use the uh marado Longs sometimes you just use marcados and sustain sometimes you just use the statis Imus and the sustains it totally depends on what you want to bring across what this song is about what this track is about this pretty convenient to work with because you are always able to play short notes and you can play sustain notes and do swells so that's why I really love doing [Music] this and I just loved using the junky Exel brass because the dynamic range is so huge it's not just sounding great when it's loud it also sounds great when it's very low the best pick for me when it comes to this kind of hybrid music also I felt that the trombones weren't enough I just wanted to have something this is a little bit more nasty so I just loaded the chimbas here and I did the same basically just the makato shorts Theus and the sustains and these sound like [Music] this so just providing kind of like a syn I was thinking in that color of you know creating something that is really huge I don't care if it's a synth or gimes or trombones I was just picking something that I was hearing in my head so it sounds like this when we both combine these okay and for the horns I used junk Exel the 12 horns and again the same setup sustains marato short so this sounds like this [Music] here towards the end of the phrases I have a little bit of dips going on in Dynamics but the track is so busy at the end I just really wanted to cut it through so I'm playing you all the tracks of the end so there is so many you know drums the synth going on the trombones the chimy it's kind of like you can hear everything at the same time but nothing really just fights with each other to stick through okay that's it for the brass so let's talk about the percussions of this track I just want to separate it between the cinem medic percussions that is this part here and later on we talk about all the electronic the synth based stuff and the hits and the effects and everything in the beginning you have this little thing going on here nothing too special it simply supports the hits that we talk about later and so supporting this part uh we basically have the Los Angeles modern percussion the bass drum Ensemble going on this Ensemble sounds like this so it's kind of like a roomy Lish but it's called B drum so it's it's B drums obviously but it sounds like a low Tom assemble and I mixed that up with the Medusa main kit which sounds like this so it's also low Toms but there is a lot of aggressive attack let me just play another round okay and when we both mix them it sounds like this so it's like sounds like a combination of bigger Tom Ensemble but there is a lot of attack like a modern sound but also like a traditional Rish character but from two different libraries this is why I love layering so much so you don't use the same room information from the same drum library or the same strings library or whatever you you just mix it all up this is the next part [Music] here so this is the groove basically happening what we have here is the same part going on from these uh from from Los Angeles modern percussion we have um the Medusa main kit playing a little bit of a different part [Music] now so it mix is up the Tom Ensemble a little bit with a typical bass and snare drum and then we have the Ensemble drums from herocity and they sound like this pretty hardcore we also have um decimator drums here I know this library is not available anymore but you can find these sounds or similar sounds in cus and alog together let me just activate them one by one [Music] [Music] so I didn't play I'm sorry decimated drums on its own so pretty thick then again and this is just what you shouldn't do in general but you can of course do it copy just a part over when there is so much other stuff happening I mean for this track in the first half here we we don't have any major harmonic stuff going on it just stays in the key of D you know building tension building tension stays like this all the time and then later on we have all the vocals and uh the all the other synth and the the entire brass section that wasn't there before as you have noticed this is basically what happens for the percussion also one thing I want to mention is what I really love doing what brings a lot of power to Drums is when you just take a look at these Ensemble drums again here you can see that I've simply layered several drums so we Ed this one we used this one and we also use this drum okay so all together they sound like this for trailer music I always like to stay a little bit on point and tight but I could technically go in here whatever software you're using and we could say like rough quantise and I could bring in a value like eight or something and when I hit quantise you can hopefully see that in the video that I'm just you know randomize these notes so if we just play them right now let me just first go back to when there was no quation happening play it again to you [Music] and let's then let's undo it and as you can see I also don't include like the first notes because if I just pick those two I would mess up the parts you know and make this disappear I just randomize these notes Here it sounds a little bit like [Music] this again let's take this out again listen to it again so the difference is not really that much maybe I can use something like 15 and make it a little bit more more obvious so the drums now sound a little bit more like strummed you know like several players just hitting kind of like with different delay settings micro timing somebody's rushing somebody's a little bit laidback and this is creating way more massive drum Ensemble than you actually have right here so if you use several just hitting several keys at once and just do this quantization trick you can make drums way more massive but you also have to be aware where they sound not that tight anymore and could get a little bit washy inside the full mix okay so that's it for the percussions so let's check out the synth here so the first thing that I've used I put it into the synth section because I didn't want to create dedicated bus for just one instrument I use this NADA Dream piano here sounds very cool I just wanted to start off with something dreamy but I already wanted to introduce that hook line that is later taken over by the horns and the choirs and all that stuff to introduce that in the beginning already [Music] already we just layer that with this Devastator plugs that I've been using here and let me just play you the sound [Music] here okay so if you put these both together it sounds like [Music] this so I mean this is my sophisticated way of not making some instrument obvious but just layering it it later on happens also with these plugs here let's go through that right now here because there is this pluck also by Devastator that sounds like this and this is basically the strings Melody here this little ostinato or aeto and it adds a subtle a little subtle thing on top of the strings to sound a little bit different so this is Again by way of being a little bit sophisticated what we are all longing for we just want to make that track special and if I can't do that with the harmony and the theory or the chords and the melody to getting too sophisticate because it doesn't make sense in trailer music and license music you're writing music for the masses again not for other composers but to just let's say please that little urge to to do something special I am doing this with layering sounds that it kind of like creates a unique character okay so I don't want to cause too much chaos here we have another patch here that is a massive X patch sounds like this so it's kind of like a little attack is sound and then together with Razer another Native Instrument synth it's one of my favorite patches rip it up it sounds like it distorted synth distorted guitar but it reminds me of trombones like an electronic synth variant of trombones and I like like to use this also sometimes layering this with trombones very subtle because it can create a really kind of like a battle sci-fi is but orchestral sound still but sometimes I just like to use it on itself and layer it with some other synth here so to create this little with these sounds also next here we have a hive arpeo I think I justed some of the notes it also may be a preset I have no problem using like little presets here and there if it's just buried inside the track [Music] so okay and I just mainly use these things to create pulls for the for the more important instruments then we have a Repro patch here sub kiss base it sounds like this there is tons of Reverb on it so it just gives you that this mixture of all these instruments what we have here is uh I just have to look because I've rendered something from zebra let me just unmute this here for a second play you this patch so this is how it sounds like and there is also no processing going on right now I rendered this to audio now it sounds like this I will show that later a bit Crusher and decapitator on it to just kind of mess it up a little bit and when you listen to this section so far it sounds like this so basically this sound stops when the next hit is coming in if you listen to that it sounds very dry actually you would probably put Reverb on it but it's not needed so you have a direct signal sound in there and kind of Mak sense the other thing we have here is I'm getting to these instruments later so we have another p of Devastator just a little bit of something that is creating atmosphere in the background next up we have these pulses it's the low sub pulses by Devastator again and it sounds like this and we also have this little PLU sound that I already talked about [Music] before let me just play you the full package here next up we have artifact reanimate by Audio Imperia and they sound like this so these are basically like some calling sounds a little bit like a mammoth or like a big robot or something giving that hybrid feeling but also another signature sound because when you listen to that full part here so what you basically have here if you just reduce it to the core it's basically binging it kind of creates a pattern later on in the track you can see that I used pretty much the same patches as before but in the end something happens you can see that I leave out a lot of synth at the end but introduce some other synth here in the very back I think I used Amma Anna Anna for this not ammaa and it sounds like this it sounds so huge getting loud again for a second here so basically nothing really has space anymore so that's why I got rid of these sounds and introduced something new next up we have a Nexus patch in here and this is called epic Dawn split whatever you use whatever you want to use it's just something that fit to this part and it sounds like this I mean this is basically like a brass maybe with some strings in it very very softly but it just basically matches the trombone cord above here also there's a little bit of rub going on let me just play this to you with a full brass so if I just mute that [Music] patch it it basically gives much more power to the entire Orchestra and and this is the interesting part it's just the orchestra is playing and it's basically filling up everything but then you have a patch on top that kind of like gives way more juiciness so to say it fills and packs the track even more we just have another synth here that is doing the same for the French horns it's this lead sound of Devastator it sounds really terrible if you listen to this but it gives that track in combination with the horns let me just play that again for [Music] you so again I don't care if this horn sounds hybrid sounds like a synth because all I'm looking for is to getting like that big Power and to create something unique let me just play you the full thing here now let me mute the horn so you still have that power from that synth let me mute the synth now so you hear the horns and the choir but something is missing and to just give those horns some teeth be able to survive in that big battle where all that stuff is going on I just you know put that little synth on top on it yeah and I think this this gives that track uh that unique character or what I'm preaching like every minute of my life how much sense it makes to just layer all kinds of elements and sound and not think always in categories these are syn then I can do just this this is my Orchestra I can only do this you know I have trombones there are just four trombones so if you want to use 12 36 128 trombones if it makes sense for a track of course it's kind of like dangerous if you use too many instruments you get kind of like a swampy muddy sound but I mean as long as it makes sense as long as it makes sense to hit like a D Minor cord with a 12 trombone patch and you hear 36 trombones there is nothing wrong with it as long as it gives the track the deserved power and of course it's always not about power and being epic and blah blah blah most important is emotional and to just touch the listener but this is a great way to just give all your tracks a unique character okay so that's it for the synth we just have one choir part in here and this just takes the function of just thickening up the very ending so let's listen to that part again here uh it's getting a little bit louder again okay so this is the choir that I used [Music] [Applause] so you can see it's very thick just basically is a mixture of the horn Melody the brass that little synth patch just to thicken up this entire thing yeah that's it for the choir there is nothing really special to it and in this case I have seen it again as some kind of like a layering color for the very end okay so let's talk about the next category here the hits I am using for the for the gaps mostly I'm using Gravity by herocity still an absolutely awesome Library totally underrated there are some really great sub hits on there so I'm using these for the you know the typical downers here for these for these gaps there is just something happening you know if the cutter doesn't want that he can easily get rid of this mute that part no problem then next up there is a patch that that sounds really awesome it's called ultratron and it's from the Hollywood synth edition of Nexus and it sounds like this like basically a drum hit not really drums more hits that's why it's obviously in this section here and I just used that to support the synth section from above a little bit better and next up we have a Devastator trailer drums they are probably in every track of that album because they sound so thick and so huge so if you hear that together with the ultratron it's it's just Mighty uh next up we have little thing going on here on that and um I just have to be honest here I'm not really sure what this is this is epic trailer hits uh Evolution uh also keep Forest Library it sounds like this so what happens here is that I created kind of like a signature pattern for this track with just that one instrument that's it basically for the hits if I just play you the entire hit section here then you can make sense of that pattern [Applause] okay and so on and if you just listen to the whole thing [Music] here so this gives the drag that driving character because of these things that are just sneaking in like you know that are coming in like this it gives the track a lot of power and speed and uh you know pulls basically and it just helps a lot of building tension in the atmosphere okay so it's sfx time sound effects time so we just have a few patches in here that is not technically a scream it sounds like this and I just cut this part for just one bar and I created this from a sound basically simple process from airus artifact reanimate which I really consider to be a great Library especially when it comes to all these signature sounds these individual sounding elements that you can find in a hybrid trailer track and it sounds like this so that was a little bit too aggressive for me so I just put Reverb on top to kind of like make it longer and then cut this track down that's how it sound that's that's all so when you listen together with this element here which is again a little a soft Bram by Devastator okay and if you just listen to the sound effect section here it just gives you kind of like a little bit of a let me just turn on the [Music] click okay so it creates kind of like an additional atmosphere that supports you know the entire idea of the track so let me just play the full Parts getting loud [Music] again just creating a little bit of a a subtle thing on top uh next up here we have a little bit of a funny thing I I'm honestly didn't know exactly what I wanted to try to do with it so we have a little bit of a soft Bram sound here but it just gets cut off because I just wanted to turn down everything that belongs to the synth section so we just have a a little bit of that kickish sound here and if we just listen to that full part it adds a little D to the subbase so next up I have this little thing here that is from one of my uh libraries it's rising from the surface it's a little patch look this looks really cool right what I did with that is I've used this element here from that Library which is basically a riser and then I also have Evolution Dragon I've used the [Music] downer okay and if we combine that's it for the for the S effect section here but if we combine these two sounds and again I'm playing you this with [Music] click so sounds kind of stupid when you listen to this on your own but if you just listen to the full track it sounds like this so it's almost an element that you really can't hear but it's there because there is something rising and bringing you down again and it just always plays with your mind all the time below all the instruments and last but not least we just have this little sound here thing and I've used Devastator again from the Riser short section to just give a little bit of it's very subtle but just coming in at the very end of that of that part yeah that's basically the same What's Happening Here ramping up into the track again here at this part okay so let me just play you again this one part here okay so that's it for the for the S effect section here I was really flattered because when when the album was released people assumed that Nick Phoenix was singing on this track but it's all me and I not particularly did it because I was singing to put myself on the spotlight here I just wanted to pick vocals in general because doesn't matter if you hire a male female singer it always adds something that is a little bit special and you heard these vocals by now when listening to the full track so I just wanted to give you a little bit of insight on how I did these let me just play you the final part again so you have it in in your mind okay so as you can hear hopefully as you can hear you have this easy Melody and then you have like a little bit of a a counter Melody but there is also a pattern going on in that counter Melody so let's listen to the vocals isolated there's obviously lots of Reverb on it and then this is the next one [Music] here it's a little little glitch happening because of the tuning because I show you right now so besides that uh there is no uh editing going on when it comes to like copying or stretching the file or anything I just did a little bit of correction if I just switch it to very audio you can see that there's quantise pitch and some straighten curve going on not full like 100% but always a little bit not really subtle but still some somewhere around 50% so that it just does a little bit of something or leaving little bit of character of the natural character for my from my voice and not just messing it up and and you know creating kind of like a chair effect of course there's a little glitch going on I could have fixed that but but you don't hear that in the full track if I just played from here it just sounds like a little bit like a h like a pull-up or something you can see that I did a little bit of timing correction but put it a little bit in the flow of the track so let's uh get into the mixing so now you can see that I have my buses here basically every of these tracks are going in here most important thing is that you're never go too high you can see that all of my faders here let me just zoom in again here for a little bit so you can see that they are mostly placed around- 18 until minus 12 some of course go a little bit more up it's absolutely not a problem but the main balance should be around this area on average like minus 12 DB something later on you don't get a problem that everything is pumping up and you get clipping signals or anything so this is just very important to keep in mind and then you just route all of these things into group stems I also suggest to use insert effects unless you're really fond of what you do with send and returns I like to have it the easy way to just have reverbs and everything on the stems itself so that I can later on simply export stuff and if a customer says we don't want Reb I can just go on here and just bypass these or if they say which just want the unprocessed stems that you can just export them right away so again all of these things here have been routed to the group tracks over here and then obviously everything is going into the master bus and we have this mastering going on let's just hop over and take care of the plugins and the processing that I did for these tracks so you can see on the strings there is nothing going on there is the first thing happening here on this track let me just hop over here so these are the junk XL chimbas and what I did let me just open I'm sorry I just have to jump back and forth let's listen to this and what we did here this is how it sounds without be reminded that I have the mastering signal activated all the time this would be too much of a hassle to just turn this off because it would totally change the sound so I just want to have let's say the final sound how it been released how you can hear the final outcome but without the internal processing that is going on specifically on that instrument track so this is how it sounds without [Music] so there is a lot of Buzz going on here and what I wanted to do is simply just get rid of that Buzzy sound that the the Chimas create so it sounds like [Music] this okay so just getting rid of that Buzzy sound I'm just cleaning up my mix again to just leave space for the synth the the high strings so basically everything that is high frequencies the Chimas you currently would steal away too much of that sound that I want to reserve for other instruments this is the most important thing always for me so now we have that n piano here so I just used a little bit of FAP filter Timeless on this let's play this piano [Music] without and let's turn this [Music] on so this is just there to create a little bit of a a more dreamlike atmosphere mysterious something I remember on the last record I did for Two Steps From Hell Solaris I used a lot of delay effects on the strings on almost every track I use delay effects on the stakato strings and I loved it so much and it kind of like created a unique character when you listen to that album and you listen to the strings most of the time they are not really like always hardcore stado spato strings on point but they are sometimes just like moving and playing along a little bit in the stereo field I just love doing this it was like a little bit of a special like that characteristic sound that I wanted to put to that album so the next sound we have here is this Hive [Music] synth so the the same basically here I just wanted to clean up that mix I I was totally fine with the base uh elements the mid-range and everything let me play this without so there's a lot of sizzling and I didn't want to have this this is basically everything what I did here so we have over to the next one there is a little bit of stuff going on so let me just open what I did here we have the decimator we have driver okay so we can have kind of like a nice overview so let's find this instrument let me just deactivate everything so this is the order this one then to the driver then Timeless and then Reverb it sounds like this without anything this is the signal okay not really like special so then I turned on the decapitator it's actually a lot of distortion going on here see how this sound changes it's just like a a substance with a lot of attack and with a distortion we get this nice signal then I turned on driver and it sounds like this can you hear that little artifact at the very ending it's kind of like a little bit similar to what MC Gordon did on the Doom soundtrack he's working with low sub Sy and um with kind of like weird releases so we can take a look at this patch again it's I think that was that Repro sub kiss Bas this is kind of like a sub synth only you heard this sound before without and now you can hear that the driver adds this kind of like weird feedback release on the [Music] end okay so now we turn on fap filter Timeless to just give it a little bit more space [Music] this is the sound and now I just wanted or felt like routing this all through a little bit of Reverb [Music] here maybe I just play the full track again so you can now hear what's going on so you hear that little Le at the end it's just adding a little bit of something that is not really audible when you just listen to the track and you don't know it but you would definitely miss it when it's not there and it also melts together and merges with with that NADA piano in a sense so we have a little bit of bitc Crusher and decimeter for this that little signal sound here so this is how it sounds without anything okay not really like doing something special so we add the bitc crusher I'm kind of like destroying the signal a little bit more and then I'm putting some decapitator so it just sounds like a broken signal like a very abrupt or short frequency signal from a radio transmission or anything let's listen to how this sounds in [Music] context and the thing is it stops exactly where the big hit is coming in so the next instrument here we have the Sonic Reverb I really love this Reverb because because it has kind of like a special character can I do this with Valhalla Shimmer can I do this with seventh heaven probably in a way kind of like yes recreate this but again for me it is always choice I just like to open things and see if it works if it doesn't work I close them again if I I think I just want to try something else I open this again and try it when it works I use it so there is nothing that I think I always have to use this plugin I always have to use this plugin it's the same for me when I'm cooking when I'm cooking I think would it be cool to put some curry in here or soy sauce or whatever or salt pepper or you know whatever I just try it and if it tastes good I prepare that meal a little bit more often in the future if I don't like it I do it once and and then quickly forget about this again so we have this I just play that without it sounds like [Music] this so this little call there's nothing special to it so we put that Sonic Reverb on top and it sounds like this let's listen to this how it sounds in context so it's just adding again just a tad in the background if you listen to this without I I simply love to play around with elements that you can't really hear but they add something to the track okay next up we have this one here this is like the synth yeah that is supporting the horns but because of the big Reverb and then in combination with the horns again okay it's getting loud here this is the final part of the music I think I've muted I've shown that before when when we talked about the synth section but let's do that once again so it just adds that little subtle signal that is putting like a sawing character to the French horns so we have some valhala Shimmer here so you can see that there is not really too much processing going on on all these uh tracks this is like a another pluck sound and I just put there is something awesome about this valhala Shimmer it it's like this emulation of the Big Sky guitar pedal that blue big one can't quite recreate the sounds that you can do on the on the big sky but the balala Shimmer comes really close and if you just want to particularly go for that little pitch above you know like that little octave above or these two octaves above it can do some really cool stuff for your music [Music] so again most important for this track here having direct crunchy sounds sitting there and just with no Reverb lots of distortion and then you have all these dreamy elements that come in let's check out there is a little bit of Reverb going on on this track I just have the trailer drums here so let's turn off the Reverb turn it on just a little bit of Reverb on top for these we have one more here at the back it's just like that little virtual mix rack on the vocals so I think we talked about this one before this is how it sounds without [Music] everything so diving into the the bus section over here so let's start off with the strings here and let me just play the final part of the track so we can hear what's going on I've used these effects so this is the order we have a little bit of EQ going then we have this rack and then we have seventh heaven uh at the end you can also see that I have the Sonic Reverb on here and the rc48 by Native Instruments I just kind of like fooled around with all kinds of Reverb settings um and turned out that I just liked seventh heaven the most so let me just deactivate all these effects here and let's listen to how it sounds so I'm taking that little dip out here of 500 HS I just want to create this space kind of like for the horns dipping out a little bit of 500 because I want to create this range for the horns to you know make them stick a little bit through and this Noble kind of frequency I may be totally wrong by using the wrong words here but this is my impression this is how I like to see these things and and they work and also I just Tred to dip down a little bit of the f 5K uh section to just create a little bit of space for the upper vocal range for the choirs for the you know like all the the synth and everything okay so the order would be that you may have heard somewhere you know but why do you use the EQ before the compression shouldn't you do compression first and then use the EQ and then you hear something else and then you hear something else again and then you're confused and don't even know what to do and it just totally stops your creative process the simple answer is whatever feels right in this case I simply wanted to get rid of these frequencies to create space for the other instruments so I just added this this channel simulation here emulation sorry so just creating a little bit of that analog analog is feeling and then putting some compression on top to just glue it all together [Music] and then we have some custom series uh e EQ here the Slate one I just adding a little bit of 15K I just Fooled Around and thought okay getting rid a little bit more of the 4K sometimes it's like a process you just add stuff then you take stuff away it's like a little bit like sculpting some point I'm using different tools but at the same time but then at some point it sounds good it could be that like really if you're skilled audio engineer saying like oh my God what are you doing here you're adding frequencies then you take them away the thing is I don't care it works you know and and there is nothing wrong with it it doesn't add any fragments or something that is disturbing the track itself so let's activate this one here so not doing that much just adding a touch of 1.5 DB on 15K just adding a little bit of something and then last but not least we have some air acq going on here it's at to 11.8 and we have a high cut going on after this I can bypass this right now and activate it and fool around with these two so you can hear the [Music] difference could I have used this one only yes maybe could I have used only this one yes but it worked okay so I'm not thinking that much how can I make something work better if it just works and it's not like I'm spending hours of fooling around with these things so last but not least we have Reverb we have the Sanders Hall I just used this Sanders hole for the entire album I think it just sounded great maybe on the next album I will use something else I don't think about this I just see what is coming along when I'm doing the next album and what will I use there maybe there will be like a new River sounds absolutely groundbreak maybe I will use one that I have been owning for like 5 or 10 years I totally don't know I will decide when this opportunity is coming up so this is how it sounds without [Music] Reverb okay turning this off again so it's already got a nice room but and again if we just listen to this entire thing in context this is to me what matters do the strings sound great in the track so let me just play the full track it's getting loud again so the end is pretty busy anyway the strings are still there let me just play that bit here okay head over to the Brass section here so again we have a little bit of a dip down here it was probably a little bit too much of the noble character and uh we're just playing in combination with the chimy the trombones and the horns so let's bypass these this is the last one in line this was the first one second one third one so let's listen to how the brass [Music] [Music] sounds so it's not really audible but let's listen to how this when when we hear that in full context it's just a little dip Happening Here I felt that this what I had to do to maybe it was a little bit too much there is no absolutely no problem just testing things out during the process so let's turn on the virtual [Music] Channel giving it a tiny little bit of that analog character then next up we have the [Music] compression just gluing it all a little bit together and then I just opened this here and added again a little bit of 500 Herz again let's see how this [Music] [Music] [Applause] sounds so let's turn on the Reverb here [Music] and then it's [Music] deactivated so pretty Studio like decent orchestral room but I just wanted to have it big here on this PO I'm just bypassing this EQ and this EQ to just find out if it does something oh I don't know I just have to say it adds something so there is nothing wrong with just playing around and if you're convinced it does something and it sounds better in this case I don't care if it was more of like a homeopathic dosis or something if it makes makes you happy if it works then do it we just go over to the percussions here so we have two things again going on a little bit of a dip in a few frequencies here let's bypass these and listen to this group [Music] track so getting rid as I said before 200 htz is mostly for me the point where percussions Stack Up in some tonality if that makes sense so let me just fool around with this [Music] here the tonal character of the percussion Ensemble is gone and this is what I wanted to have to just create space for the synth and all the busy instruments around this [Music] area Okay and then we have a little bit of a dip down of the low frequency so to not adding them up around this range here so first we have virtual Channel then we have the compression and then a little bit of EQ going [Music] [Music] on okay so I hope that makes sense sense just glues things together give it a little bit more impact and that it's a little bit sounding more sharp to survive in this busy part of the track okay next up would be the synth we have some hardcore dip down here happening I just wanted to get rid of everything below 50 HZ because there is a lot of power coming from the chimbas let's listen to how this sounds so we have the the rich base of these is still here I just don't want to have stuff going on below 40 HZ let's just play the full section here again oh let's mute the chimy here we have the choirs same process virtual Channel a little bit of fg4 one for compression the air acq adding some extreme high frequencies and then adding a lot of Reverb so let's listen to how these sound [Music] so especially this portion of air is very important to me [Music] [Applause] here so let's play the ending so this is the only thing that is going on on the hits here we just have again the same setup just adding a little bit of virtual Channel compression and equalizer [Music] so I just wanted to play the full track and just bypass this so I just wanted to have them really sticking through and again see like mixing like uh you know tweaking a bike a motorcycle a car or something you just do something that maybe just adds 0.5% maybe there is another process that adds 2% maybe there is three or four processors that add 0.1% and so on but in the end you are optimizing the speed of the car or the power of the car for like 10 20 30% you want to make sure that all these little tweaks improve the entire track to a certain amount of percent okay so let's check out the S effect section here [Music] [Music] without okay so you can hear that there is too much base on that low thing happening [Music] here so basically another way of just cleaning up that bus here so that's it for the mixing let's head over to the mastering process I will just turn off all the plugins that we have uh open here and uh this is the order first I start with the dynamic Spectrum mapper to the drummer then we go into the neutron then we have a little bit of Ott then we go to the invisible limiter and then we go to the Oxford inflator so let me just play without anything okay what I wanted to have first is just basically glue all kinds of things together why did I use this one I find it works pretty well sounds like this let's turn this on here glues stuff together a little bit more so next up we have another compressor on top I just like it to have like several compressors doing their thing I think there might be a little Dropout of the audio when I activate it with a drummer there's a little bit of more going on under the hoods not just a compressor you can just set it to neutral Clarity one two more air do Rumble punch wi mix and anything most of the time I'm using the neutral setting here when I just move that knob here it just adds a little bit of higher frequencies just sounds a little bit clearer a little bit more shiny okay so now we hop over and turn on Neutron so again this is how it sounds without and this is how it sounds with Neutron so you can hear it also sounds a little bit softer in general the general picture seems a little bit more balanced right so let's go through the individual settings what is going on here as said before I'm not ashamed to use Neutron it just helps me to see what is going on I can check out this EQ curve let's just bypass this one so I have to learn you know something like that I have to get rid something like 1K maybe it was a little bit more I'd reduced it maybe in general it was still a little bit too much then it raised a little bit here and of course I tweaked these a little bit maybe it was less Extreme More extreme maybe I felt like changing a few things I also don't like to always set these things to like 100% mix especially for the sculptor I just like to put it to something like 50 EQ I use the mix level a lot compression is okay here compression 2 most of the time I don't like the exiter if I like it I just dial it in like a you know like 25% something so these are the settings that I've used here so we added Ott this is how it sounds without so this is adding you know some additional light we have some high frequencies of the highs we just added a little bit we got rid of the mid frequencies a little bit and we also added some low frequencies again next up we have our limiter I just want to bring this thing to level I just added something like 1.45 DB I have it set to Min - 0.1 there is always a discussion do it like minus 0.2 or 0.3 I'm fine with this it works if something else works for you that's totally cool let's turn this on and see how this sounds of course on the heavy percussion it just kind of chops off a lot of Peaks going down to like 40b something let me just click this again so we can see if it's really like tendy B going on it's a little bit less uh but I just felt this is okay in the invisible limiter so last but not least we have Oxford inflator in here I'm just using it probably on everything I do it just adds something that sounds really amazing let's just see what this does okay so I hope this video was helpful if you have any questions as with every other video too make sure to use the comment section below and I will get back to you that's it for this track I hope you enjoyed this entire walk through and see you on the next video

Channel: Alex Pfeffer's Audio Artist Rise

Views: 1,036

Keywords: trailer music, trailer music course, trailer music trailblazers, alex pfeffer, two steps from hell, beyond the stars, epic music, epic cinematic music, basic structure, final mastering, sample libraries, vst plugins, trailer music production, trailer music tutorial

Id: lRw3ZyChhDU

Length: 73min 53sec (4433 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2024