KVR Audio

yairhol · Post by **yairhol** » Wed May 20, 2009 6:23 am

Hi,
I'm interested to know if anyone has some knowledge on Steve Jablonsky's score to the first Transformers movie.
Did he use virtual instruments or did he record a real orchestra?

Thanks.

koolkeys · Post by **koolkeys** » Wed May 20, 2009 6:27 am

With something of that scale, he no doubt used real instruments wherever possible. When you have the budget(which he would have had), you almost always choose real instruments. When you have the best players and the best sound stages available at your command, it's a no brainer to use them.

That doesn't mean that he didn't use virtual ones. I think that most do mix in virtual with the real. And especially for mockups.

So the answer would be: both, but real wherever it was possible.

tranel · Post by **tranel** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:31 am

But the most important question regarding this movie is: How much screen time will Megan Fox get?

This is a question of great concern to the male audience.

yairhol · Post by **yairhol** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:41 am

tranel wrote:But the most important question regarding this movie is: How much screen time will Megan Fox get?

This is a question of great concern to the male audience.

No it's not.
I'd rather they keep the movie without the usual sexy scenes they keep thinking they must include in every movie.
Terminator movies had no sexy scenes in them which I think was excellent.

tranel · Post by **tranel** » Wed May 20, 2009 9:53 am

yairhol wrote:
tranel wrote:But the most important question regarding this movie is: How much screen time will Megan Fox get?

This is a question of great concern to the male audience.
No it's not.
I'd rather they keep the movie without the usual sexy scenes they keep thinking they must include in every movie.
Terminator movies had no sexy scenes in them which I think was excellent.

I totally agree with you. What I meant was of course that if Megan Fox gets lots of screen time, it is very distracting to the male members of the audience who'd prefer to watch the robots fight it off without lots of unnecessary sexy scenes. Thus, the male audience is very concerned about this.

Anyway, back to topic. My guess is that the composer (Hanz Zimmer?) used a real orchestra when finalizing the soundtrack, there is just something so incredibly vibrant and dynamic about a real orchestra that's difficult to capture with software (IMHO).

KingofBeers · Post by **KingofBeers** » Sun May 24, 2009 4:15 pm

yairhol wrote:
tranel wrote:But the most important question regarding this movie is: How much screen time will Megan Fox get?

This is a question of great concern to the male audience.
No it's not.
I'd rather they keep the movie without the usual sexy scenes they keep thinking they must include in every movie.
Terminator movies had no sexy scenes in them which I think was excellent.

Terminator 1 had sex scenes (the creation of J.Conner

) , but I wouldn't call it "sexy" per say.

Cheers.

KingofBeers · Post by **KingofBeers** » Sun May 24, 2009 4:24 pm

O I forgot to mention the fact that alot of these modern scores are very hybrid affairs, and all sound almost the same (bar the actuall musically lines of course) .....heavy sampled percussion with live orchestra doing very minimal stuff..while being supported and layered by sampled Orchestras on top..., plus your standard sinewave and saturated lowend layering for anything bassy to get that power.

Cheers.

mtilli · Post by **mtilli** » Mon May 25, 2009 2:40 pm

Check out this link: http://www.scoringsessions.com/news/106/

RJcfc · Post by **RJcfc** » Wed May 27, 2009 9:42 pm

He would have used sample libraries such as, EWQL, Vienna etc to make a mock up of the score. Once the score has been approved by the director it would have then been recorded by a real orchestra. That's how it's done now-a-days with big budget films.

They also tend to mix samples with the real orchestra aswell. Mainly percussion from libs like Stormdrum 2 from East West.

Geoff242 · Post by **Geoff242** » Thu May 28, 2009 5:35 am

mtilli wrote:Check out this link: http://www.scoringsessions.com/news/106/

Wow, wouldn't it be just awesome to even just be the guy handing out the sheet music in something like that? It would be so cool to be involved in any way with one of these sessions.

Kraku · Post by **Kraku** » Fri May 29, 2009 9:04 pm

I remember reading from somewhere that Hans Zimmer has his own orchestral sample library which he's been building during the years and he usually composes using that. I've understood that he doesn't use real orchestra.

(not that this wasn't a bit OT)

Transformers Score - VSTi or real orchestra?