Yesterday we were booked to provide a large string sound for a dance track being produced by someone studying recording technology in Oxford. As the rest of the track was just drums and vocals, it gave us plenty of scope to add some inventive strings, scored for violin, viola and cello parts - the final arrangement ended up being scored for cello, viola, violin 2, violin 1 and an additional violin part which repeated the opening hook to help the cohesion of the track. Because the track was in the key of F minor, (with four flats), tuning had to be really precise. The session ran smoothly and the final track sounded powerful and detailed - all that remains is for it to be mixed and mastered!
Posts Tagged ‘Large string sound’
Embellishing a dance track
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009Tags: Adding string parts, adding strings to a dance track, arranging for violin, Large string sound, Orchestrating for strings, SAE, session musicians, session string players, studio musicians, studio strings, writing for string orchestra, writing for string section
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Big string sound….
Saturday, April 11th, 2009It’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 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.
Tags: Adding string parts, Large string sound, notation, orchestral instruments, orchestrating, Orchestrating for strings, String Arranging, String orchestra, studio strings, writing for string section
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