Hi, guys. Ian Vargo here from The Pro Audio Files and masteringinthebox.com. This one’s for you music composers out there.

I recently was able to get my hands on a copy of Hans Zimmer Strings from Spitfire Audio. Spitfire, of course, is responsible for having created some of the most comprehensive and thorough orchestral sample libraries and virtual instruments on the market out there. Team them up with Hans Zimmer, who is one of the greatest film composers, you can’t really go wrong.

So I don’t want to talk too much more. I want to show you a piece of music that I created using strictly Hans Zimmer strings. It’s about a minute and a half long, and then we’ll take a look at what I did.

[music]

So what you just heard is only about an afternoon’s worth of work, and I had just literally gotten the Hans Zimmer Strings, so I didn’t really have a chance to explore the plugin and see just how deep it goes, and it goes really, really deep, indeed.

We’ve go this easily navigate-able preset window, with over 200 presets. These are different instruments and groups of instruments played a number of different ways. So it’s really versatile and easy to find the kind of sound, and the kind of performances you’re after relatively quickly, which is always great.

The user interface itself is beautiful and intuitive. We’ve got this control over expression…

[Zimmer strings, adjusting expression]

We’ve got dynamics, which is currently mapped to my MIDI keyboard’s mod wheel.

[Zimmer strings, adjusting dynamics]

So you can hear there’s an incredible amount of detail in these performances. We’ve got a very lush and useable reverb. Check this out.

[Hans Zimmer strings with reverb]

And this is where it really starts to get nuts. We have over 20 different microphones. So what we were just hearing is the close mic’d signal. Let’s switch over to ambient, and then we’re going to add in a couple more. We have so many. Over 20. Let’s add in gallery and riser. Let’s play a note.

[strings]

We also have control over stereo width and left and right.

So what we’re seeing here in Pro Tools is sort of an unorthodox method, but I really wanted to put this plugin through its paces. Each of these different instrument tracks represent an instance of the Hans Zimmer strings that have a different style of playing or sound, which I performed on my MIDI keyboard, and then froze in Pro Tools, which is always a great option.

So for example, we’ve got the pizzicato Bartok here.

[pizzicato strings]

It’s a really unique and interesting sound. And what I really love about this is the ambient swells and effects that come with it. So let’s check out these viola effects. These are fantastic.

[viola effects]

So, I mean, you get the idea. It’s instant, if you’re working on a thriller or horror genre film, this kind of stuff is great. These are great compositional tools.

So I went through and created as many different varied sounds as I possibly could within a day’s worth of work with this plugin, and I am sure that there are still many deep, dark corners of Hans Zimmer Strings that I have not yet reached, but I am looking forward to going there.

Additionally, I reached out to Spitfire because I was having a little bit of an issue installing the library, and they got back to me almost immediately. So kudos to the spitfire team on awesome customer service, and on creating another great virtual instrument.

This has been Ian Vargo with The Pro Audio Files and Mastering in the Box. Thanks.