Scoring Session 101 - Part 1: Recording Order

Recording with a real orchestra has some pitfalls that you should be prepared for. Especially when you're not having a lot of experience leading a recording session things can become problematic and stressful quite quickly.

You should be aware that there also is a quite significant difference between giving some feedback on your music in a shared session over remote connection and leading a complete individual session on your own.

If you're doing this the first time, I would strongly advise to hand this job over to someone else. Usually, experienced orchestrators should be able to produce a session but there are also dedicated session producers who you could hire.

In this multi part series, we're going to have a look at the things that are important before, during and after a session.

One thing that should be done well in advance is to define the order in which you want to record the cues. This includes estimating how quick you will be recording as you also need to factor in any short or lunch breaks into what is the best recording order.

Defining a good recording order usually is a balance between three factors:

Stamina, Difficulty and Breaks

Let's break these down individually:

Stamina:

The usually defining factor regarding stamina is the brass section as they are the most sensitive about overstretching their stamina. Playing long and loud is physically very exhausting for brass players. Particularly the embochoure of the lips is very sensitive and there is only so much "loud brass playing" you can get out of your players before they need a lengthy break for the muscles to regenerate. But even when they are quite fresh you can not expect them to keep playing without breaks for an extended amount of time.

So it is really no good idea to plan several brass heavy cues close to each other in your recording order. Ideally, you should alternate brass heavy cues with cues without or only little brass to always give the brass players a few minutes to regenerate before going to the next cue where they need to provide some loud playing.

With the other players in the orchestra, it is not that much of an issue but of course there might be extreme cases. For instance several cues after each other that require extensive bow tremolos by the strings are no good idea. Also, with woodwinds, you would probably not want to put several cues  after each other that need them to play at high dynamics for considerable lengths.

Difficulty:

It is generally no good idea to record several cues that are very tricky for the orchestra to play after each other as it is also no good idea to record several cues of "the same boring long notes". After nailing a tricky cue, give them something easy to relax a bit and regain some energy. It is also psychologically helpful to give them the feeling of making progress after chewing for a while on just a few bars.

But also, giving them too much music that doesn't really ask a lot of them can make concentration suffer and potentially create boredom which will reflect in the interpretation. So always try to mix in a bit more challenging cue between cues that are very simple to play.

One exception might be cues that are very similar, for instance all emotional cues. It is usually a good idea to place them pretty close together as the musicians will be quicker once they get the hang of the music.

Breaks:

Scheduling around breaks needs you to have a feeling of how quick you can record. A rule of thumb would be around five minutes of music recorded in an hour of session time. Depending on complexity of the music this can vary but over the long run, you will usually find yourself at around that mark, usually a bit above.

The first cue of a new recording day should ideally be something medium complex that involves as many players as possible so that the engineers can set levels and the players can find their role in the line-up and space. Often some players might switch between different recording days so for everybody who's new that day, scheduling a "getting to know the situation" is a good idea.

Depending on session length you might have one or two smaller breaks in between each session. A good place to put difficult cues usually is after about one third of the first session each day when everybody is warmed up and "in the flow". Also, about the second third of the second session of a day is a good place to put more difficult cues. Don't put them right after the lunch break though as concentration is usually a little lower and takes a while to get up again.

Don't put tricky cues towards the end of a session or even worse the end of the recording day as concentration will be declining then already.

You see, considering all these factors makes creating a good recording order quite tricky and depending on the material that needs to be recorded it might not be possible to optimize it in every regard. However this should be the base of your considerations when planning a recording order.

You don't need to slavishly follow that order during the session though. If you notice that some cues don't go as planned (either much slower or much faster than you anticipated) it might be worth reconsidering "on the spot" to optimize the recording order for the new situation. This of course requires you to know the cues quite well so you can make informed adjustments. Just because you composed it doesn't necessarily mean that you remember every dialogue underscore you wrote under heavy deadline pressure so making yourself familiar again with the material before the session is a good idea.