Scoring Session 101 - Part 2: Session Preparations

When I had my first professional recording session with an orchestra at the age of 21, I remember being so nervous that I didn't really sleep for several days. The pressure of realizing that no matter what goes wrong, I was the only person to blame for was really incredibly high.

Fortunately all went reasonably well and with more experience in doing something like this the pressure level really falls to a point where enjoyment of a session exceeds the sheer terror by far. But one of the mistakes I made back then was not being prepared at all. Sure, I brought the score sheets and I knew the music reasonably well but I simply didn't know how a session would work so I went there completely naive and unprepared.

In the last part of this series I mentioned already how to plan a recording order but there are a few more things to consider before going into the session. One thing I didn't mention in the last part which of course also has influence on the recording order is the increasingly common practice of "striping" the orchestra. This means to record the orchestra in sections to have more flexibility in the mix. The more cost effective way to do something like this in a larger project is of course to book only the players of the section that you need to record for a session but the more musical option would be to play a tutti take with everybody so they know their role in the music before striping it down. This would also potentially give the brass more breaks to recover stamina between cues.

Also quite common would be to do something like this to record overdubs. This would for instance be another take of strings in a cue where you have a staccato bed of the entire string section but also want to have sustained chords or lines in the cue which would only be realizable by excessive divisi in a "single take" and would consequentially be problematic for the mixing engineer as there would be no separation of the different techniques on the mics. The mixing engineer might want to level or process staccato notes differently than sustain notes though.

My personal approach always is to record as many musicians together as possible and write music in a way that it could be played without relying on overdubs. But in some cases, even with this approach it might be useful to record things separately.

Such things are:

Exposed instrumental soli: Things like a solo violin passage over the orchestra or a really exposed woodwind solo will work better if you record them as overdub as the mixing engineer will have control over it and can shape their sound to be more "shiny" which will not be possible to apply on a tutti take as it will alter the sound of other instruments (that bleed into the microphone of the soloist) as well.

Strings overdub: In some cases (especially in smaller studios and/or with smaller string sections) it might be useful to record the tutti and another pass of just strings to layer on top of the mix. This will give some possibilities in the mix to balance or massage the overall sound of the orchestra, particularly when the music is very brass heavy.

All these things of course should be planned into the recording order and of course take up session time.

Another thing to consider when preparing the session is to communicate any specific wishes regarding microphones and/or seating of the musicians.

In some cases you might want to have specific wishes to seat musicians in the room  to achieve a certain effect in the music. Well known instances of such specifc seatings are scores by Hans Zimmer who loves to use the room in specific ways.

Air Lyndhurst is a studio well known for being very flexible in the seating and Hans Zimmer for instance uses the balconies quite often to seat musicians there to use the room ambience.

Of course seating requests don't need to be as extreme. More common would be for instance to have the two violin sections sit left and right from the conductor and not left and mid-left as usual or to move certain percussion instruments that you don't want to bleed on all microphones out of the main room into an instrument booth or have them shielded more than usual.

Consequentially any alterations, especially the more extreme ones require an adjustment of the mic setup. Air studios for instance places a lot of microphones in different spots in the hall to capture the ambience. If you ever used any products from Spitfire's "professional" line, you will have noticed all the different mics and characteristics that come with them. Not just location of mics but also their type has a big influence on the sound.

So in any "non standard" case, you should definitely communicate with the recording engineer and studio beforehand to make sure your intention is captured sufficiently.

Another big issue to take care of before a session is to prepare click tracks which we will have a look at in the next dedicated part.