Absolutely stunning Jeff. Wat een ongelofelijk goede strings sound hier zeg! Ook top gemixt. ❤️🔥

What's the most beautiful instrument after the piano? Yes, the orchestra.  From the use of synthesizers in the beginning my interest shifts more and more to orchestral programming, with libraries from mainly Orchestral Tools and Spitfire Audio. And some Sonuscore here also. By the way the naming of 'Abbey' refers to Abbey Road One, a library from Spitfire Audio that I used (among others) in this piece. I hope you like it.

Orchestral Abbey Fantasy

Right Where I Want You

This is a remaster of an earlier track (2021), it sounds somewhat more brighter now. Makes me feel somewhat more fine...

I Feel Fine

Ryan Leach proposed his most recent composition competition July 2023, based on a drawing/picture by David Frasheski; the image is shown above. Due to circumstances I was too late to come up with something before the deadline so this entry is not submitted for the competition. However, I made something after the deadline, within the 90 seconds limit. Is it based on, or is a connection with the drawing? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is not a Bonanza, High Chaparal or Ennio Morricone Western heroic style piece, it is what it is...with some melancholy feeling in it, some farewell-like mood.
(This is a second upload, the first upload had some flaws in the mastered end result.)

TerraCanyon Farewell

Back again with a fresh remix of this fire tune, enjoy.

FREE DOWNLOAD

J Hus ft. Drake - Who Told You (NDRKFFR Remix)

In the Clouds

A piece in a series of pieces with a short length, about 45 seconds.

45sec - Woezel

Relative long orchestral composition using a lot of libraries from Spitfire Audio and Orchestral Tools, and some others.
I finished it mostly with headphones, and that was satisfying in sound, but listening on the speakers, it is not yet what I aim for talking about the mastering, so this is not yet the final version I imagine in my head.

Dreamed Future

This is my entry for the Ryan Leach competition January 2024. They ask for a composition not longer than 90 seconds, based on an artwork. The artwork is created by Hardy Fowler. The shown image is cropped, the full image can be seen here:
https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/054/964/553/4k/hardy-fowler-7-cyberpunk.jpg?1665777108
In the music I tried to visualize the urban character of a world city conglomerate, the two persons in the center have some kind of intimate conversation, or is it a business conversation? The eastern elements are inspired by the chinese or japanese looking woman.
In the music orchestral settings are combined with eastern instruments, and also with a trance like middle part in which synth sounds play an important role.

Urban Intimacy

For some decades making a Adagio for Strings (Barber) mockup was on my bucket-list and for long string plugins just didn’t match up I experienced. Times have changed and I finally went for it combining BBCSO Pro strings and Appassionata Strings, both Spitfire Audio products. The performance of Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic string players is my all time favorite cause of it’s intens expression and dynamics. Did my best to ‘conduct’ my digital orchestra with this kinda passion also. I created my mockup using the 1936 original score, with divisé parts.

I used the following mic settings within Appassionata Strings:
Close Ribbon 35%
Tree 80%
Ambient 35%
Outriggers 80%

And these mic settings within BBCSO Pro:
Tree 85%
Outriggers 70%
Leaders 35%
Close Wide 45%
Sides 40%

These 9 mics I rendered seperately per instrument in Cubase Pro, so I got complete control over them in the mix. Leaving me up with 45 mic tracks. On violins 1, violins 2 and the violas I used EQ automation on all mics for low end roll-off, getting rid of the rumble specially in the high climax part.

This mockup stringorchestra is counting 70 players in total:
Violins 1 - 24 players (BBCSO 16 / Appassionata 8)
Violins 2 - 20 players (BBCSO 14 / Appassionata 6)
Violas - 18 players (BBCSO 12 / Appassionata 6)
Cellos - 16 players (BBCSO 10 / Appassionata 6)
Basses - 12 players (BBCSO 8 / Appassionata 4)

Insert chain for both Appassionata bus & BBCSO bus: 
1. FabFilter EQ2 for little low end roll-off, mids pull and high end boost, around 1.5db
2. Manley Massive Passive EQ for character, warming the low end and little presence
3. Avalon VT-737 EQ for sophistication and charachter also. 
All just a little touch.

Send chain for both Appassionata bus & BBCSO bus: 
1. Scoring Stage - Liquid Sonics - Seventh Heaven - 2.20sec (-7db)
2. Amsterdam Classic Hall, FabFilter Pro-R - 3.30sec (-6db)

Mastering Inserts:
1.Fabfilter EQ2 Low end roll off around 20Hz
2. Fabfilter EQ2 Mids pull
3. Manley Massive Passive EQ for little 47hz and 16k boost 
4. Avalon 747 EQ  for a velvety blanket.
5. FabFilter Compressor -1.5db
6. FabFilter Limiter  -11 LUFS

It took me around 50 hours from start to finish to create this mockup.
Where most of the time went into CC automation and tempo automation.


Be well,
Jeff Hijlkema

Samuel Barber - Adagio For Strings - Mockup with BBCSO Pro & Appassionata Strings

Spheres is a piece I made a long time ago, around 2000, with hardware synths (Roland JV1080 and Ensonic TS10) and with Notator on Atari computer. In a time without soft-synth compressors and eq... recorded on a DAT-recorder. Those were the days..

Samuel Barber - Adagio For Strings - Mockup with BBCSO Pro & Appassionata Strings

Jeff Hijlkema

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