$19.00 – $29.00
$13.30 – $20.30
Complete project file for the official demo to Metropolis Ark 2 – Through the Dark Woods, by Benny Oschmann.
Available for Cubase, Logic Pro, and Studio One Professional. Includes Full Concert score for orchestra.
Metropolis Ark 2 opens up another layer of cinematic sound. Deep, wide, and low, all instruments and voices focus on the quiet, intense, and sinister sounds only found in the lower dynamic ranges, drawing their power from the unexplored reaches of orchestral composition.
Through The Dark Woods by Benny Oschmann serves as an official demo for Metropolis Ark 2 by Orchestral Tools, and uses its sounds exclusively.
Benny has kindly made his project files and fully notated orchestral score available for your study purposes.
This project uses the SINE version of Metropolis Ark 2
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.
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.
See how this project used stock plugins to shape its sound with compressions, EQ, and master bus processing
All plugins used in this project are stock plugins that are included with your DAW
Bypass plugins to hear the ‘before’ and ‘after’ to fully understand the importance of the production techniques used (even the subtle ones!)
Instant download available after purchase
There are no 3rd-party plugins used in this project. All mixing and production has been accomplished with stock plugins that included with your DAW!
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 be too quiet, so I would recommend increasing the expression (CC11) data in each midi track to compensate. There are also differences with how some instruments react to dynamics and MIDI.
Orchestral Tools – The developer of Metropolis Ark 2 – 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 2 is an improvement and just as enjoyable to use. If possible, we’d recommend updating to the SINE version if you haven’t already done so (it’s FREE for most previous owners of MA2).
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, a list of which instruments were used and how they were routed, and Audio Stems for you to import into your own DAW.
Yes. In fact, I even made a spreadsheet for you: HERE
Add Through The Dark Woods AND Born To Protect to your cart to automatically receive 15% off both items during checkout!*
*Does not stack with discount of greater value
| DAW | Cubase, Logic Pro, MIDI File & Score, Studio One |
|---|---|
| Sample Libraries | Metropolis Ark 2 |
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A real education, part 2
Bill Thompson (verified owner) –
Disclaimer – this is almost an exact copy of my review for “Born to Protect” which features Ark 1.
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 from the Ark 1 page, because I feel the same about both.)
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