Currently in a film scoring course where we're scoring a scene and has been given the offer to record our music with a string quartet. This video is perfect! Thank you!

Excellent video Christian. You have a brilliant way of explaining how your mind ticks and letting us in the end hear the result! Thank you.

That’s a really beautiful, inspired piece of score. Truly. That’s one to be proud of.

Thank your Christian for all your work. I greatly appreciate the fly on the wall episodes and how you are not afraid of using good samples with live musicians!

Thank you for your ever wonderful scores for Inside No. 9- the attention to detail you bring shows and enriches a great show

Every time I watch one of these, I’m immediately inspired to turn on my gear and put something together. Great stuff Christian!

My God this was useful. Fantastic stuff, Christian. I continue to be amazed with your generosity to this community and am deeply grateful. Thanks for this. Cheers!

wow, that final playthrough sounded stunning. lovely piece! i really liked how you integrated the bassoon and the celeste, not only as melodic elements, but as recognisable timbres as part of the thematic development. incredible to me that you did that in under a week.

I agree with many others, this is one of your best!! And the music you've created in this video is stunning. You seem to have a real talent for creating moving harmonies and it's inspiring to hear and see! I'll be going through this video to deconstruct what you've done here. Thanks as always!

Christian, again I am learning how to improve my skills as a media composer through your videos. This is one of your best yet, what makes it great is you can take away so many gems from this. thank you for Albion Series as always...

Absolutely brilliant and fantastic and wonderful and all those kinda superlatives. Thank you so much for giving such an insightful and detailed view into how you work. You really are the gift that keeps on giving.

Such a nice piece. Haven't had time to watch the whole video but as always really helpful! Thanks Christian.

Brilliant Christian. Dealing with these exact issues with strings on a project right now. The definition of “sucking” is something that my ears know and my head needed to rectify. As always, I love your alliterations . “This is the mother’s voice”. Love that poetry

Fantastic. Love tutorials, tricks and treats like this. Thanks Christian.

Brilliant advice Christian and a beautiful composition as well. Many thanks

Keeping myself challenged in scoring, sound design and mixing is all part of learning daily. Keeping muscle memory at it's absolute minimum when beginning a new project. Understanding the development of sound and instruments in samples as well as live players. I sort of keep the credo.... The day I stop learning, is the day I die. Thanks for this vid. Yet another lesson moving forward. And still very much alive.

It is such a privilege to see a true master at work. Thank you for sharing, very inspirational as always!

GOOD LORD so good!!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge CH, you're a hero!

Can only ever be a proper treat to watch a professional composer deconstruct a piece. Outstanding Christian, outstanding. More, more, more!!!

So good! Excellent music Christian. Good job at making the string quartet larger sounding too with blending the samples.

Thanks for this, Christian. This video led me to the Inside No. 9 series...i don't know how that one slipped passed my radar! It turns out it is also the first time I have listened to your music, aside from the context of Spitfire. I'm really touched by it, the variety, exploration and overall sound is amazing. Last night, I was blown away by the music of S02 E01, La Couchette. I felt the need to drop you a line to express my enjoyment of your work. Being a 'small ensemble' person myself, I also own several Spitfire products. Thank you, and keep up the great work!

Thank you once again for such brilliant insight into your process, what a time to be a composer with such a generous person making us all better..

Amongst all greatness on this video, the lighting of the image is fantastic. 👌👍

I come here for many reasons; your knowledge, tech ideas, synth stuff, samples etc. But this reminded me what a great musician you are.

Thanks for the time and effort you put in to this. Now going to rewatch the ep!

I'm a mixing and mastering engeneer from Brazil, and I found your videos just great! Thank you! I loved Pianobook too!

First thing is that was a lovely piece of music smartly arranged. Second thing is Tundra sounded bloody gorgeous! And the third and obvious thing is the live quartet was definitely the icing on the cake and the whole piece sounded well blended together. I do love the sound of your Schimmel and it fits well with the orchestra. Thanks for sharing this insight in how you worked the piece.

Very impressive video, presentation and composition. Thank you Christian!

Great video Christian!!! Thanks for your generosity!!

The music for this episode in particular was fantastic, can't believe you do it all in a week

Beautiful piece of music and great tips. Cheers Christian!

Really enjoying your videos, I discovered your channel a few months ago but usually watch on a smart TV so haven't gotten round to commenting before. I am not a media composer, but there are a lot of things to take away from your videos for someone who is involved in music outside of media composing (as well as providing interesting insight into that world). On another note, I also find the videos entertaining, and as someone of a similar age I can relate to a lot of your more light-hearted comments. Thanks

excellent video, beautiful music and a mastery in using and layering samples to create fantastic whole.

Seeing sample developers champion the cause and merit of live players is incredibly helpful to us (composers) when speaking with producers who may be on the fence about live recordings because samples can take a score so far. If the folks who made the amazing sounding tools swear by layering in living breathing humans, that's well worth some consideration. Thanks for this, Christian.

My favourite episode of the series so far. The music made me weep during its sad moments. I remember commenting on Reece's post when he killed her off and I said "noo, you can't do that" to find out they have brought both characters back, the characters I love most of all, they are weirdo's ha ha! Thanks for sharing this insight, it was like my eyes were glued to the screen picking up tips, techniques, but most importantly how emotional the music is to me. Series 5 has even got me looking at the back catalogue of the 4 writers behind the scenes during the League of Gentle days bonus DVD's extras.

I've only just discovered this channel, and it's brilliant. As someone who loves Inside No. 9, this video is fascinating to watch. Listening to the clean version of the music from 'Death Be Not Proud' for the first time really gave me goosebumps, and it made me think: Have you ever considered releasing all of the music from Inside No. 9 on a soundtrack? I'd love to hear the clean music from episodes like ' The Riddle of the Sphinx' and 'Misdirection'.

What a video! Love this breakdown. Cheers.

Never heard of the show before. Looked it up. Liked the summary and concept. Binged the first eight episodes last Saturday. Thanks for the hint and the music. 👍

Thanks Christian for coming to Edinburgh College and showing us this project. It has inspired me to look for musicians to sprinkle that magic dust on top of my own compositions.

Beautiful piece of music! A true inspiration Christian!

I've still much to learn with my orchestral programming chops, but watching all the CH and Spitfire videos over the last couple of years has certainly made an immense difference already. You've not only guided me through some of the subtle nuances I may have otherwise never known about, but you've also increased the inspiration level to eleven. Thank you.

Thank you sir! You are an infinite fountain of inspiration and wisdom.

I used to do this (rather amateurly I'm afraid) in the days before multitrack tape, for broadcast doccies. In a way little has changed except the technology. Craftsmen like yourself bring talent and artistry to the tv and movie business. It's the hard work dedication and love of what you do that gladdens my heart. Thank you for sharing your musical gold.

Beautiful piece of music, it carries so much emotion that I can tell exactly where in the episode it’s from

Excellent ensemble Christian; beautifully arranged!!

the passage with the vibrato in 23:01 is AWESOME.Good job mate , good job nameless violin player :P

Man I just watched the first 2 new episodes of Inside No.9 Again, your music is fantastic. Amazing String parts! And as per usual, Inside No.9 remains one of the best shows ever made. They are such dirty actors!

This 'real world' stuff is incredibly useful CH. Great Video. Thanks to the production company for giving you permish.

You darn kids with your samples! And yea, this is great info! :)

Beautiful and soulful music as always! You are a true maestro imho... reading sheet music or not! 🙏

Wonderful Christian, these kind of videos are really useful. Just wondered what episode this is so we can go back and watch it in context. What a show to work on, I've watched everything they've done since that first episode of League of Gentlemen. Their podcast on inside is also worth a listen.

5:34 I've always loved EXS24, the pitch shifting, the filters, there's definitely old school (e)magic still in there. I wish they'd update it with some more in-depth control of things like portamento and unison. Sadly, I really can't see Apple doing that now. Anyway, superb video Christian, very demonstrative of the wonderful philosophies of Spitfire Audio.

Piece starting at 19:37 ....Paul, just sooo damn beautiful. Confess that it did make me well up a tad..... along with the joy of Bernie kicking ass in Nevada today ;) THX THX THX

Thank you so much. I make dance music rather than scoring but all your stuff is starting to make my music sound from another world

There some truly awesome tips I hadn’t thought about, thanks so much! In the past I did the “mistake” of placing the live musicians louder in the mix but in hindsight I think that blending them more could have been much more effective. I’ll try it out next time.

Love my Tundra, thanks Christian, its like walking in to the opening bars of Nimrod

It is always amazing how even a single real human played instrument will lift a good synthetic/sample into the higher plains. Fake choir is a great example, where a few real voices translate the fake into authentic. Great video, and thank you for all you submit to No. 9 , it is a superb project and flagship show for the Corporation.

Another amazing video!

Really liked this. Thank you!

Your videos are very elegant. Thank you for the great content! I purchased BBC Discover. It's going head to head with Sonic Score's Amadeus, which I've loved for two years.

If it wasn't for you composing Inside No9 or Home i'd have never found these brilliant pieces of television. I also can't not call reverb "splosh". Keep it up my man

Bloody hell, I got here early today. Excellent stuff as per, Mr. Henson.

Such a Beautiful Piece. Keep Inspiring :)

Man, that is an Ace Cue. Well done.

Awesome stuff, thank you Christian! Exactly the kind of things I'm interested in. That's a real life situation, a quartet is often all the real strings I can afford. A little "whole milk" froth on my Spitfire cappuccino.

You have the best job Christian! :)

Great Tips and Explanation Chris!!!! I'm involve as a composer to do music for performing art pieces, so is a mix of a film and song kind of approach, can be great to do a video about it. hugs from sunny barcelona

I can only say, "Wow." And besides, I am very glad you said this is the way you're probably going to be going!

Could you make a similar video but with a synth heavy cue? I’d be interested to see how and where you’d distinguish between human and machine in an semi-automized scenario. Also, great production values on the video! Love it!

Wow, this is incredible Christian! Such a gorgeous composition, that live quartet really makes you weep. Thank you so much for sharing this tutorial with us. 2020 is off to a strong start already! A quick question: I agree with recording live players as much as it is financially possible for any media project. So when working on a full orchestral soundtrack in the adventure genre (John Williams, John Powell, etc.) with lots of melodic parts for strings, brass and woodwinds, which players (or sections) would you prioritise?

Beautiful score, Christian

Great video as always ! I want to orchestrate some of my piano pieces, and should stop watching and get into it!

Hi Christian amazing composition and what a great view into your way of composing, I like to thank you for sharing this. It is always great to learn from the best. I am very curious how this works for you under time schedule and then layering out everything in the orchestration, is it already inside your head how all instruments come together? Or skipping trough massive instruments to find the harmony that match a certain part of the track. One of the things I already learning is that I need to stack much for then I do now, and indeed need to use colors to define certain parts. So again thanks for those tips. Cheers Ray (Floatwithme)

This is awesome!

Brilliant.

The only time I've recorded with a live musician, aside from myself (me playing either guitar, bass, percussion, or piano), was a cellist for one part of a a film I did, but the director liked my demo, sampled cello better lol. I'm sure it was the way I mixed it, making the mistake you mentioned in the video

instructive video !

I’d love to see your workflow with Logic & Pro Tools. I cannot figure out how to get them to play nice

Very informative and entertaining as usual. I wonder what Bartok would have done with Tundra! :)

Great stuff! I was wondering how to create a realistic strings, and this samples combination with an actual quartet seems to work great. As for the stereo stems of the quartet including reverb, you have to know your project well enough to do that, otherwise this reverb can be a pain. Questions concerning piano: do you do your sustain manually or use a pedal? do you know of a script that can save you from the tedious task of doing it by hand? Really inspiring. Thank you for sharing. and... gotta to love the fairy dust! ha haaa :)))

Thank you very much for another high value video!! I am very curious how you are your legato get triggered if the notes are not overlapping? Does the reverb do all the work? it sounds very natural and you got me tricked (-: Cheers all the best

Great pragmatic tips for using a small number of live musicians to maximum effect.

Magical writing here, reminds me of the late Johann Johansson’s Theory of Everything score.

Great vlog entry. Question: when you do budgets, usually what's the percentage you separate for orchestration and live recording?

**PRO TIP - Something I’ve been doing if recording in a smaller or drier space is to also track “distance” mics some feet away in addition to the tree and/or the spots. When you drop the distance mic into a stereo (or surround) convolution reverb space, because it is new/different audio content from the main spot and tree mics, it works much better than simply slapping a reverb on your main mics. It’s a much more natural/credible way of creating the illusion of space and “bloom”.

Hi Chris, question here. When recording the quartet, do you have them record as they listen along to the samples in their ears or do they just listen to a click? Do you ever run into the problem that the recording and the samples don't match up either in pitch, style, expression, or other things of that sort. Thanks for all the info you provide us with!

This is amazing stuff even for a hobbyist like me.

Thank you for the good Tutorial

Hey Christian, I am curious how you got to the pace of producing one episode in one week? Did this speed come with routine? I feel like I need forever for my cues, the sketching goes quite fast but especially the orchestrating takes sooooo long

Amazing work and video, Christian. When I layout the various instruments in Logic, I use busses to direct the tracks as how I want to create the final stems. I noticed that you solo the tracks rather than soloing busses. Is there a downside to working with busses?

Could you do a "finishing video"? Meaning, could you walkthrough the final stages of mixing and mastering? What makes your tracks sound so professional? What compressors / limiters / reverb do you put on every track to make it sound like the real deal?

Christian, Im' watching all your videos. Really inspiring. I wonder what is your computer specs, there are so many tracks of orchestra libraries in there..

Fantastic video. Loads of takeaways. A couple of questions if I may. Am I right in understanding the whole episode is using compositions at the same tempo throughout? Additionally, does this process mean you’ve moved away from using Pro Tools and Logic as a combo? If so, does this method add flexibility? Many thanks, Rob

What specs for a mac do you need for Logic to play 100 tracks like this? When I get to 100 tracks and freeze / turn off certain tracks I can make do on my macbook pro but when I start adding flex time or enabling more tracks at once the project becomes unusable. My solution has been separate projects. Not even sure if it's ram or cpu. Anyway thanks Christian as always. I wish you could just use the quartet alone more because damn they played well and it sounds incredible!

Awesome as ever. Are you allowed to say what episode this is from ?

Thanks for the insights. You are a great musician and composer. One week to deliver? One week? How do you manage that? Everytime I see one of your videos, I think that all I make just sounds like crap.

Brave to go for the whole quartet recorded as one unit. Or is it experience and skill? I do like the piece and the mix, but could it be that the fellows in the quartet should be just some millimiter in front? The video is a treat, focused and relevant for all of us trying to learn the illusive art of composing and orchestrating. Many thanks C! MOMA-10 Soundcloud

I just watched it (with a 3 month delay)... brilliant! The 3 different layers represent actual line-up and position in space of a string orchestra, the best way to give a 3D sense to the score. Bartók's piece is "Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta", one of the absolute masterpieces of contemporary music and one of the best examples of non-tonal fugue (intro).

Many thanks Christian. In these kinds of projects, are the samples reverbs always sends? Do you ever use tiny amounts of insert reverbs at all?