As a string arranger, it’s always nice to tackle more involved projects requiring strings and this week we certainly got the chance to do just that with an intricate, 8 minute long track that needed a really large string section sound.
I’d been asked to arrange the strings with a particularly epic climactic section which had a 5/4 beat but also triplets running through it – this had the feeling of two different time signatures simultaneously and I was concerned it might sound chaotic, but we took great care when recording and actually it worked really well. The parts were scored for 3 violin sections, often with double stopped notes to thicken out the chords – with the violas & celli adding a rhythmic base for the violins to bounce off. Some of the passages required different techniques such as tremeloes and powerful spiccato strokes with accents and once recorded, gave the impression of a much bigger string orchestra.
We’re looking forward to hearing the final result once all the post production & mastering has been done.