Room Impression (CSS Series + Pacific + Berlin Studio)
Dr Bensmir
Active Member
The room and the balance sound great ! @ricoderks
QuiteAlright
Gastronomer
It sounds excellent to me!
ModalRealist
Senior Member
I found this to be quite a convincing mix emulating a real room sound, to my ears. I felt the piano section from 1:00 onwards could have been quieter still, but this struck me primarily as an aesthetic decision/preference and not a "it's less real" issue.
The other big giveaway to me was that the string motif in the opening felt a little robotic in its performance; but again, many scores these days seek that sound straight from their live recordings! The background string whirls at 00:40 sounded a lot more convincing (although they are of course, a bit less audible).
Honestly, hugely impressive. In sound character, probably one of the most convincing renderings in this style I've heard. Mad props!
Edit: @ricoderks if you wouldn't mind me asking, what general approach are you using with mics and Berlin Studio's convolution? Do you feed the complete mic mix you use into Berlin and adjust balance, or are you, e.g., feeding only close or only ambient mics into Berlin Studio? And in general, is the source mic mix heavier on closer, tree or room/surround? I don't actually own the Cinematic series, but I'm really intrigued as to what kind of mic source you used to get this effect.
The other big giveaway to me was that the string motif in the opening felt a little robotic in its performance; but again, many scores these days seek that sound straight from their live recordings! The background string whirls at 00:40 sounded a lot more convincing (although they are of course, a bit less audible).
Honestly, hugely impressive. In sound character, probably one of the most convincing renderings in this style I've heard. Mad props!
Edit: @ricoderks if you wouldn't mind me asking, what general approach are you using with mics and Berlin Studio's convolution? Do you feed the complete mic mix you use into Berlin and adjust balance, or are you, e.g., feeding only close or only ambient mics into Berlin Studio? And in general, is the source mic mix heavier on closer, tree or room/surround? I don't actually own the Cinematic series, but I'm really intrigued as to what kind of mic source you used to get this effect.
Peter Roos
Senior Member
Listening again, so amazing 
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ricoderks
Senior Member
Listening again, so amazing
Thanks a bunch! Also for the nitpicky detail feedback, love it!
I'll try and respond from what I remember doing here, hope I'm correct since I forgot really
Ill start with a mix in CSS series first in this case with pacific. Enabling all the mics for full control, since I'm a bit of a control freak i guess.... I like to eq these signals differently since room mics captured different resonances and problems then say the decca and of course close mics. It also allows for better panning this way. They I created many berlin studio instances on fx channels, sends if you will. Every instance of that has the dry signal off, to avoid double dry signal, the panning per instrument turned on (v1 v2 violas etc brass seperate), and only the surround mics enabled as IR in this case. The way I like to see it is this: I already have a main mic, and close mics, So i don't really want to 'double' that mic with berlin studio (yet). Because these signals already have a sense of space and panoramic info. So I chose only the surrounds to make all of these libraries feel bigger, as if they were captured in a bigger space. So Berlin Studio should in this case help and improve what's already there sonically. I think I've set the reverb size/time to 85% on all of these instances. To somewhat make it dryer as if the room is full with players dampening the tail a tiny bit. Then finally I think Ive added 1 more berlin room on everything with the mid wide IR, turned down the early reflection a tiny bit, and inverted the stereo signal. I used this as if there is mic-bleeding or just a tad of added room glue. Also didn't shorten the verb here. So it sort of also acts as an added tail reverb or added chaos. All very experimental and I guess some stuff works better than other. But I liked the end sound very much.
Hope that's somewhat clearly explained here.
Wow. Great piece and sound phenomenal. Now the CS series reinforce why is so popular. If they just could improve legato techniques paired with intelligent lookahead system… Hope that the lastest update to CSSS could bring that to series and implemented at the rest of the sections, but that is another story. I was impressed in how good is this piece and the sound overall. I guess the original/sampled Surround mics in every instance are turned on with a mix of the Close and Tree also, and then all those into (as send) with all those mics to Surround in Berlin Studio?
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ricoderks
Senior Member
Thanks! I need to look it up sorry, i really forgot what i did here haha. Its either all mics going to berlin or maybe even only the room mics from css-series. I truly cant recall.
Thanks for the reply
It could be so helpful to have a screen shots of these settings, if you feel. I guess the bd levels on those sends channel could’ve at 0db maybe ?
ModalRealist
Senior Member
@ricoderks thank you for the insight into your process. I think part of the magic here is clearly that you’re carefully layering the signals and the reverb, finding the sweet spot of “chaos” from all that information, but not letting it come to dominate too much in the mix. I also think the per-mic EQing is pretty ingenious! I’ve never thought to do that, but now you’ve said it it seems so obvious (e.g. tame resonance in room mic, remove harshness from close, and as a mix rebuild that body). Thank you again
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ricoderks
Senior Member
If I have the project still. You know... "untitled test v3 def final berlin studio tessssttt" probably on the desktop in a folder called desktop too. If i have it Ill see if i can send it here.
quickbrownf0x
I had fun once. It was awful.
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ricoderks
Senior Member
Waat zeaste? Woa kumps doë vandaan haha!! Dank!Doa velt mig de boks van aaf, man. Very nice. Haije!
quickbrownf0x
I had fun once. It was awful.
Dat was mijn beste en laatste woordje Limburgs, als import-Amsterdammer.
On-topic; I think I like the overall writing even more than the mix itself.
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ricoderks
Senior Member
Haha geweldig! Haije en bedankt!!Dat was mijn beste en laatste woordje Limburgs, als import-Amsterdammer.
quickbrownf0x
I had fun once. It was awful.
Best to start practicing now, after all; "'t is een kwestie van geduld...".Haha geweldig! Haije en bedankt!!
Also, screw you for being only thirty-one and this talented. Seriously annoying. 
EricValette
Active Member
Jokes aside, that would be really great Rico!!! ... remember how excited I was when you first posted this new "R&D demo" a few months ago ha ha!
ModalRealist
Senior Member
@ricoderks so I just listened to this again from my phone. The coolest thing is that it sounds quite like a real recording on a phone speaker too. Often I find that a samples mix sounds real on poor speakers (phone) or good speakers or headphones, but not on several or all. But this really does! Pretty wizard if you ask me. 
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ricoderks
Senior Member
@ricoderks so I just listened to this again from my phone. The coolest thing is that it sounds quite like a real recording on a phone speaker too. Often I find that a samples mix sounds real on poor speakers (phone) or good speakers or headphones, but not on several or all. But this really does! Pretty wizard if you ask me.
