Description
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BORN TO PROTECT

METROPOLIS ARK 1 is inspired by a cinematic monument from 1927 – The first ever epic science fiction motion picture of our time. It showcases strength and boldness in a powerful collection of samples designed specifically for epic music.
Born To Protect by Benny Oschmann serves as an official demo for Metropolis Ark 1 by Orchestral Tools, and uses its sounds exclusively.
Benny has kindly made his project files and fully notated orchestral score available for study purposes.
This project uses the SINE version of Metropolis Ark 1
The Project File
Access to all of the MIDI and CC data used to sculpt the final performance
Printed audio STEMS for each section of the orchestra, so you don’t need to own the samples to follow along
Track layout, signal flow, and routing optimized for ease of use and resource management
Available for Cubase Pro, Logic Pro, and Studio One Pro.




Notated Score
Included is the full orchestral score in PDF format.
Read along with the project and solo individual instruments or sections for detailed study of how written score can translate into a virtual performance.
Plugins & Production
See how this project used stock plugins to shape its sound with compressions, EQ, and multiband dynamics processing
EW Spaces II was used as the reverb plugin for this piece, and is the only 3rd-party plugin used. If you don’t own Spaces II, you can simply substitute it with your own choice of reverb and use the project as normal
Bypass plugins to hear the ‘before’ and ‘after’ to fully understand the importance of the production techniques used (even the subtle ones!)





Artist
WHAT YOU GET
- A project file pre-loaded with 62 SINE instruments from Metropolis Ark 1, ready for you to hit play
- A “LITE” version of the project file with all instrument tracks and mix group plugins disabled
- Audio STEMS – so you can still play back the project, hearing the sections, without even needing to own the samples.
- Fully notated concert score (PDF)
- MIDI File exported directly from the project
Instant download available after purchase
SOFTWARE RECOMMENDATIONS:
- SINE Player v1.0.5
- Metropolis Ark 1 (in SINE player)
- EW Spaces II
*If you don’t EW Spaces II, don’t worry. You can substitute with stock plugins or your favorite equivalent 3rd-party reverb plugin
HARDWARE RECOMMENDATIONS:
- 16GB RAM for the project with all samples loaded
- Intel i7 2.7GHz quad-core or equivalent
F.A.Q
Mostly, yes. It will be up to you to replace each instance of SINE with the Kontakt equivalent, but note that there are some minor differences between the two versions. Most notably, the volume of the kontakt instances will most likely be too quiet, so I would recommend increasing the expression (CC11) data in each midi track to compensate.
Orchestral Tools – The developer of Metropolis Ark – forbids the distribution of project files that include tracks pre-loaded with their kontakt instruments. We find this unfortunate, but thankfully the SINE version of Metropolis Ark is an improvement and just as enjoyable to use. If possible, we’d recommend updating to the SINE version (FREE for most previous owners of MA1).
Yes! You can simply use the “LITE” project files included, and use the Audio STEMs and MIDI tracks to follow along.
Note that it will not perform the same if you substitute instrument tracks for your own choice of sample libraries.
We offer a “MIDI and Score” option that you can use with any DAW of your choosing. It includes the MIDI file, Full PDF score, and Audio Stems for you to import into your own DAW.
Yes. In fact, I even made a spreadsheet for you: HERE
Bill Thompson (verified owner) –
I have posted elsewhere that I never really got along with ensemble style libraries. I just do not think that way, I grew up working with real instruments, and later multi-sampled (for lack of a better term) libraries where I had control over each section (or even each player). It is a more comfortable setting for me.
And yet I absolutely love the sound of Orchestral Tools and Project Sam libraries – so I bought a few, and struggled, and eventually moved them to an off-line drive to make space for other stuff.
I have no idea what made me think I could learn, but I am – learning. I am not there yet, but I find the two Ark projects to be remarkably revealing. Almost like sitting over the composer’s shoulder. In fact I am not only picking up ideas for production (which is the goal) but I am also getting a few pointers about harmony and composition. How can you not get excited about that?
So product specifics – the first thing that strikes you is that when you load the project it sounds a lot like the demo, and at least some of the differences are due to the difference between compressed and non-compressed audio. But mostly it sounds like the demo. You know you are starting on the right foot.
At the moment I am still figuring out how he is using different articulations and controllers – which is key I think.
Side note – the projects are arranged with a single articulation per track, which is one way to do things. I’m even beginning to understand why one would make that choice.
I prefer one track per instrument and using CCs to switch articulations, and one exercise will be to see if I can translate one to the other.
One caveat – the projects use EW Spaces for reverb. It is a lovely reverb, but I do not own it, so I had to substitute, which took some time. There is no solution, they can’t very well include setting for every known reverb plugin, but it was a bit of an obstacle, so I took off one star. That’s probably harsh, but there was no way to take off one half a star!
For the money I can not imagine a much better way to learn to use these libraries.
(and yes, I did copy this over to the Ark 2 page, because I feel the same about both.)
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