Widely known as one of the most exciting composers in Hollywood today, David Buckley’s has forged a prolific career, scoring some of the most successful blockbusters such as Greenland, The Town, Blood Creek, The Nice Guys, Papillon, Parker and The Forbidden Kingdom. Starting as a choirboy on Peter Gabriel’s The Last Temptation Of The Christ, David has worked in almost every part of the film music industry, and we were incredibly excited to sit down to have a chat with him about his experiences.
DB: I had been exposed to film music as a child, when as a chorister at Wells Cathedral, England, I performed on Peter Gabriel’s score to The Last Temptation of Christ. I think I got a taste for it at this point; I loved seeing how music could be a part of a bigger emotional picture. Also during this time I was very fortunate to get to know two composers, Richard Harvey and Harry Gregson-Williams, both of whom helped me get where I am today. In fact, in 2006 I moved to Los Angeles to work with Harry, and a year after I arrived he became a ‘guarantor’ for the first solo feature film I scored, The Forbidden Kingdom. His job was basically to make sure I didn’t fuck it up! I was extremely lucky and surprised to get that job. I was very content at the time helping other people on their scores and wasn’t craving my own credits. But I guess I was in the right place at the right time, and the job went well, and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing yet!
DB: I do very little additional music these days, mainly because I have enough going on with my own stuff, but also, as you rightly say, it is a very different skill-set to writing under ones own steam. The usual reason additional music is required is that the main composer is under time-constraints, and needs some help getting over the finishing line. Given that, your job as an additional music composer is to blend into the musical environment already created by the composer. Your contribution should feel seamless and not distinguish itself as having a completely different sonic identity. Having done a bit of this for some extremely talented composers like Harry, Hans & Danny, yes, I am fortunate to have played in some truly impressive sandpits, but ultimately, it’s their sandpit, their work, their sound and their identity, and I'm just an extra set of hands to help get things done. Of course, it’s impossible not to bring some of ‘you’ into whatever you write, but you have to marshal your idiosyncrasies in order to blend. There is no time or space for ego in the additional music world.
DB: When I first started getting calls from my agent, seldom was anyone asking for me to do ‘my thing’. I think it was more that I was seen as reliable and able to produce competent music on time and on budget, and that I was a collaborator who would work with the film makers to realize their musical vision. As the years have passed, it’s nice to occasionally be singled out by a director because he liked what I did on x or y. That suggests to me that there is something that resonants at some level with some people, and that’s encouraging. I don’t think one ever truly discovers ones voice in any conclusive form, as it’s a long journey without an arrival, and unfortunately, that journey can be halted by risk-averse entities. The real gift in this industry is when you can build up trust and respect with film makers who give you the confidence to try and be yourself, musically speaking. But it requires collaboration. I was working on something recently where I was told, with apparent generosity, to just 'do my thing'. But that wasn’t really enough for me to know how to do my job, and ultimately we parted ways as there was just no synergy between us. It is interesting to consider why we write what we write, when given the freedom. I’ve always seen it as us being collectors of little musical fragments: some things we actively leaned in and listened to, and others we didn’t even know we heard. Every composer will have their own set of sonic particles, and every day that collection will develop. And when all those bits pass through your own emotional filters, an identity is born.
DB: While I was surprised to get my fist solo credit as a film composer, I was utterly shocked to find myself as the composer of the tv show, The Good Wife. I scored 140 odd episodes and am soon to start the 5th season of the its spin-off, The Good Fight. Mercifully, the show-runners are invested in every creative part of this show, and they support me as we go from episode to episode and season to season. Of course, there is a large body of work to fall back on should we need to, but the overall goal is to keep pushing and not give into the temp (even though it is by me). Yes, tv schedules are gruelling, but I think one needs to put oneself into a frame of mind where we can still enjoy the process and feel one is writing something meaningful. Getting into that frame of mind is not always easy, but I think it’s vital.
BW: God, that’s a tricky one, as I wouldn’t have the arrogance to say that to anyone! Alright, I think people should check out Danny Elfman’s Piano Quartet. I love the way Danny, as composer, pushes himself from rock musician to film composer and now classical artist. There’s some influence from Shostakovich, Glass and even Herrmann, but ultimately it's his own loud, clear, and inimitable voice you can hear. And it’s just bloody good music too!
For more information about David, visit this link
]]>One of the UK’s top cellists, Danny Keane has performed with some of the UK's finest artists in recent years, including Anoushka Shankar, Mulatu Astatke, Nitin Sawhney, Damon Albarn, Penguin Café, The Heliocentrics, Charlie Winston and many more. After recently recording the new Contemporary Soloists: Cello library with Sonixinema, we sat down to have a chat with Danny about everything music!
DK: My name is Danny Keane - I’m a musician, composer and producer. As a young man I studied at the Trinity College of Music in London and went on to work with people like Anoushka Shankar, Mulatu Astatke, Nitin Sawhney, Penguin Café and on a handful of film soundtracks. I have a very varied career, and I love it that way as every day it lets me explore new musical ground.
DK: Sonixinema approached me a couple of months ago as they had been looking for a musician to collaborate with on a new sample library. They had seen some of my videos on youtube of me performing various extended techniques, and I think that sparked an idea in them that led us to where we are today.
DK: My Cello was made in 1850 in a place in Germany called Mittenwald. I acquired it in 1994 and it’s been with me ever since. It’s grown with me as a musician which is a wonderful thing, so it responds to what I need it to do.
DK: Recording this library for Sonixinema is exciting because there are a lot of string libraries out there, but not many that feature a solo instrument, but also more importantly a solo instrument using extended techniques and different techniques. I’m lucky enough that in the various gigs and concerts that I do that I can improvise and when you feel that freedom, you discover different kinds of sounds and techniques that you can get out of the instrument. It’s been a real joy to come here and actually be able to record those and make a sample library out of that because every time you play these techniques you feel like they would suit certain films, soundtracks, moods or dramatic landscapes, and I think it’s great that now we can finally get these different techniques down.
DK: I think that often as a composer when you discover a new instrument, or even a new sound, you get instantly inspired so when you’ve got a sample library that can give you new thoughts, new ideas, new inspirations it can just then suddenly set things in motion. It’s much easier than being stuck in a room looking out of the window wondering “Where is my next idea coming from?”, so in that respect I think it’s really exciting, but also just to have a different palette to work opens a lot of doors musically.
For more information about Danny, visit www.dannykeanemusic.com
]]>A master woodwind player and modular aficionado, Jay Reynolds has spent years honing his craft, lending his talents as a musician and producer to multiple highly acclaimed albums. As a highly sought after session musician and soloist, we worked alongside Jay to produce something truly unique - a library that combines his love of both saxophones and modular synths. After recording the new Saxophone Explorations sample library, we sat down to have a chat with him about everything music!
JR: As far as getting started with woodwinds, I picked up l flute when I was 11 and then the saxophone two years later. I played sax through high school and majored in it for my bachelors degree. All in all, a somewhat typical trajectory. Getting started with electronic music and signal processing was a little more unique for me. When I was in elementary school, my family had one of those old Radio Shack cassette recorders with a built-in speaker. Somewhere around age 9 or 10, my friend Paul and I figured out that as you pressed down the play button—right before it fully latched into place— the transport would run twice as fast. That was fun for a second, making things play back at high speed. Then we noticed that if you had the record head engaged, it would record with the same accelerated tape speed. We discovered DIY varispeed recording! On cassette! Paul and I spent the next month capturing every audio source imaginable just to hear what it sounded like slowed down.
JR: Continuing that tradition, I had bought an original Digitech Whammy pedal back in the early 90s that I still have today. Tracks like a beast on sax and anything else for that matter. In fact I used it on some of the techniques in the Depths mood. So signal processing reed instruments wasn’t all that new to me. Around the same time I’d fallen in love with Jack Dejohnette’s album Audio Visualscapes, and I still feel like the sounds Greg Osby and Gary Thomas got on that project are second-to-none. It’s out of print now but I put it up on YouTube last year. Hopefully they’ll reissue it soon.
The very first Eurorack module I ran the sax through was Rings by Mutable Instruments. I had put together this little Lemon Jelly-ish sort of patch with my modular and was going to shoot a video of me improvising over it and I realized I wasn’t using Rings so I just spur-of-the-moment added it. It’s still one of my favorite ways to use that module. Of course I had it on a few of the techniques in the library as well. Maybe as many as a quarter of them.
JR: The original 4Track All-Stars album was the result of a few years in a basement in Cincinnati Ohio, mostly spent trying to make a Tascam four-tracker, a Fender Rhodes, an Arp Axxe, an Alesis HR16 drum machine, and a cheap Yamaha reverb sound like Dan The Automator. I was not successful in that specific goal, but I dove further into the idea of experimenting with parametric extremes. And after a while, with the help of a lot of really talented folks, it became a band and then a studio project in 2002. Fast forward to 2016 when my wife and I bought a house in Austin, Texas that had a really great-sounding living room. On a whim, I booked a couple of home-recording sessions with four people that basically split up into two different trios. I had a bunch of demos in Ableton that I’d collected over the years which I turned into extended and minimalist arrangements for the occasion.
Once everyone was set up, I handed out reference charts and we just kind-of Bitches Brew’d out: collectively improvising over the first and only takes of each song. After that I edited it all down to more manageable lengths while trying to keep the loose feel we had from the original sessions. A few of the demos were songs I’d co-written with other folks like Elizabeth McQueen, and in some cases those songs had vocals. So I managed to trick my bandmates from Asleep At The Wheel into participating, including singing songs like “Wishful” and “Let Me.” After a while of basically having everyone I knew come through and contribute, it became pretty obvious that this project was the next 4Track All-Stars album.
JR: I had a lot of fun making this sample pack. I think I over delivered by around 20%, if that’s any indication of how much I enjoyed the process. The biggest difference for me was working on recordings that aren’t overdubs, which is to say, not going to be layered with other horns or over a music bed. I noticed a lot of “bad habits” that don’t come up when there are other elements around the sax. Like how I exhale after a note. Or pad noise. Not key noise, but the actual sounds of the pads closing the tone holes. It was a little frustrating at first, but it eventually turned into a good kernel of focus. Tracking became very meditative. I feel like it really informed the process on my end.
JR: Aside from Audio Visualscapes, I’d direct folks to Ariel Kalma. Especially a piece called Ecstacy Musical Mind Yoga. The title is probably a little much, but it’s an amazing early use of sax and effects and I fall in love with it again every time I hear it.
For more information about Jay, click this link
]]>One of the UK’s top percussionists, Hugh Wilkinson has performed on some of the finest film soundtracks in recent years, including Ant Man, Shazam, Downton Abbey and The Bad Guys and many more. As a highly sought after session musician and soloist, he has become a regular on the London music scene, which has seen him garner recognition for his virtuosic playing and broad range of styles. After recently recording the new Bowed Metals sample library with Sonixinema, we sat down to have a chat with Hugh about everything music!
HW: I had loads of energy as a 7 year old kid and the drums seemed like a good outlet! I started out playing drum kit and orchestral percussion. I was 15 when I bought my first pair of congas and fell in love with Afro-Cuban and then Brazilian percussion. The endless possibilities of what you can do with sound and rhythm have kept me excited and engaged ever since.
HW: Studying percussion at music college and making contacts in London was a great start. I got to sit in and watch sessions with my kit teacher Ralph Salmins which was a real eye opener. I did my first pro session for a pop singer when I was 22. It was a Motown style track and I played tambourine and timpani. I still remember the buzz when I heard myself played back ‘inside’ the track in the control room.
I don’t have a specific favourite memory but I always enjoy working with composers who give you some space to get involved in the creative process. I have that kind of relationship with the film and TV composer Harry Escott who I have worked with for over 20 years. He’s a fantastic musician and is always open to new ideas (studio time permitting!)
HW: During lockdown 1.0 my home recording studio became busier than ever. So many people with projects that couldn’t be finished or even started in the bigger studios. Louis and I connected over email and started discussing what I might be able to offer for a Sonixinema sample library.
I’ve got a huge array of percussion instruments which would take months to record! Louis was keen to explore bowed metal sounds so we narrowed the list down to vibraphone, crotales, cymbals and waterphone for this library. Optimum mic positioning and dynamic control were high on the priority list for the sessions.
HW: To my knowledge, there aren't many sample libraries out there that explore extended techniques and alternative methods of playing percussion. I think this is one thing that Sonixinema have done better than any other developer with their wonderful Experiments Series. They've taken a deep dive into exploring the sounds that most people don't even know they can get out of percussion, and to me it's really exciting to show people what is possible.
Bowed Metals is interesting because we're taking essentially a selection of tonal instruments and playing them with a large bow - the type you would use on a Cello or Double Bass. This produces long, sustained and ethereal sounds. The vibraphone and crotales sound beautiful and delicate, the Waterphone sounds totally out of this world and the Cymbals have this amazing raw, sharp quality to them that really cuts through the mix. I think people are going to love exploring it.
HW: Larry Goldings - “Earthshine”. An album of 19 short pieces recorded during lockdown by a phenomenal musician.
For more information about Hugh, visit www.hughwilkinson.com
]]>One of the UK’s top violinists, Max Baillie has performed on some of the finest film soundtracks in recent years, including How To Train Your Dragon, Spectre, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Red Sparrow and many more. As a highly sought after chamber musician and soloist, he has worked with composers such as Steve Reich, Bkjork and John Williams, which has seen him garner recognition for his virtuosic playing and broad range of styles. After recently recording the new Contemporary Soloists: Violin library with Sonixinema, we sat down to have a chat with Max about everything music!
MB: My name is Max Baillie and I'm a violinist, and actually as a musician I do a lot of different things. I play classical music which includes contemporary classical music, I write, I collaborate with musicians from different musical and cultural backgrounds, and I love to mix those things up. Two of my own projects involve mixing baroque music with Scandinavian folk music and also classical music with Hungarian and Roma and Viennese cafe house music, basically exploring the links between those different genres. I do a lot of free improvisation as well and jazz based music. I do studio work for film, tv and pop and tour a lot, sometimes leading orchestras, I play in ensembles and play at chamber music festivals, so it's a real range and exciting mix.
MB: I began with the violin at aged 5, and I come from a musical family. Growing up, my biggest influence was my family. My Dad is a cellist and he played solo at The Proms six times when I was growing up, and we play together now. I've made records with him and we play a lot of chamber music as a family. I have two older sisters who both play, and they kind of led the way for me, and my mother plays violin as well. I also had many other influences, I was always drawn to other kinds of music, not just classical. I had a lot of cassette tapes that I used to love listening to of all sorts of different genres. I was inspired by a really diverse set of people - the Talking Heads, Bobby McFerrin, Ella Fitzgerald and lots more.
MB: As a violinist, one needs to inhabit many different styles, so if anything, over the years i feel that I am better able to dive into one style or another. One thing I really like to do is explore the space where two different styles align. I've slowly improved and my technique gets more refined and that frees me up to really inhabit one particular style and be really fluid with it.
MB: I call it mine but actually I'm just a custodian, and I am the guardian of this instrument for as long as I'm lucky to have it. It's been around a long time before me and I'm sure that it will be around long after I'm gone. It's made by a french luthier, Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, who's the top or at least one of the top 19th century luthiers. It was made in 1845 and I've had it for 6 years. It was kind of a love at first sight thing - I saw it on a table at an auction house, when I wasn't even looking for a violin, and it was kind of a whirlwind story but eventually I put myself in a lot of debt, had a bit of help and then that's where all of my pounds went for quite a while. I feel very lucky that it sort of belongs to me, but as I said i feel more of a guardian - we're good pals.
MB: I first heard about this project through Danny Keane, who made Contemporary Soloist: Cello library by Sonixinema. Danny is an old friend of mine and we've done a lot of playing over the years together. Anything that he is interested in, I'm also interested in.
For more information about Max, visit www.maxbaillie.com
]]>Michael Johnson AKA Dogsbody Sounds, is a creative sound designer and musician based in Liverpool. Combining his years of experience as a musician, sound designer working , with his sonic explorations into the world of modular effects and experimental recording techniques, he has created a sound which is unlike anything else out there. In 2020 he released an album under 4Track All-Stars titled "5123" which was the result of years of experiments and some improvised sessions at his home in Austin, Texas. Most recently, he collaborated with the Sonixinema team to release a sample library titled Saxophone Explorations. It features a range of abstract saxophone textures combined with experimental modular effects.
DB: My passion for music came from my dad. During the 70's and early 80's my dad was a radio and club DJ around Liverpool. He was also an electronics engineer which meant the house was full of old electronics and audio gear when I was growing up. By the time I was old enough to start learning music my dad had moved into working full time in electronics to support me, my mum and my four sisters, but he never lost his passion for music which he past on to me. He still collected records and always hoarded all this old audio gear. Some broken, some just about working and some of it in working order. So as a kid I grew up surrounded by this chaos of old reel to reel tape machines, four track cassette recorders, digital recorders, mixers etc. Along with thousands and thousands of records in different formats.
There's a room in the house filled with his records and audio gear, I spent most of my youth in this room, creating sounds, creating bad music and just experimenting with sound. I was a sponge absorbing all this amazing music as a kid, in a time before the internet and Spotify existed. To have access to all these records was like having a living physical Spotify in your house, which I was super lucky to have.
When I left school I went on to study Music Technology at college where I met like minded musical friends and started a journey of playing guitar and singing in bands for 10 years. During this time I was always the person in the bands fiddling around trying to make weird sounds or making microphones and making sure we always recorded rehearsals and had time to experiment, I didn't enjoy performing live, I was always wanting to record new stuff and create, I was far more interested in the production side of music and finding out how things worked and how artists got the sound on their records rather than gigging and rehearsing to play the same songs over and over. When I was in my mid twenties and life and circumstance started plucking away band members one by one I was left wondering what I was going to do with my life. I was on this creative journey for the long haul but never thought I was strong enough to do it my own before, so I decided to go back into education and studied my undergraduate in Audio Production at SAE and then straight after that I did my Masters in Sound Design at the National Film and Television School. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship from BAFTA during my time at the NFTS and even spent four months working as a sound designer at Intel in San Francisco after I finished. After this I moved back home to Liverpool and began working freelance doing sound for film and television, which I still do today as well as music and experimental sound design. I've been fortunate enough to have worked on two features with cinematic releases so far and for companies like Netflix. The future for Dogsbody Sounds is looking bright, creative and exciting. I'm planning on releasing Sound FX libraries and music with Dogsbody as well as more sample libraries with Sonixinema in the future.
DB: It was a pretty natural progression, I've always been drawn to analogue sounds from my childhood, making strange sounds and creating sounds that don't sound over polished or sound lo-fi is something I love doing.
DB: I loved the process, it took me back to my childhood, I had so much fun. I wanted to capture the full sound of the instrument so I used a lot of microphones for such a small instrument, setting them up at different distances then mixing the different microphones together to get a full bodied sound, I even used contact microphones to get a super detailed and up close sound. Then I put these recordings through various forms of tape. Using three Reel to Reel Recorders, VHS, two Cassette Recorders and a Dictaphone.
With my own music I usually experiment with tape but not to the extent that I did with Electric Organ. It's definitely something I'm going to carry forward and do a lot more with my own music as well as future sample libraries. I think just making my own instruments in Kontakt using tape processed sounds for myself and my own music is something I will be doing a lot more. It's a way of making something really unique sounding and once it's in Kontakt it really opens up what you can do to the sound creatively and the sounds become so much more flexible.
DB: Yes I have a few ideas that I'm excited to put into motion, one is an experimental genre based instrument that I'm planning on building and sampling but will take some time to put together. Another is a library of various toy instruments which I plan on putting through tape and FX pedals to get something original, but the next instrument I have in the pipeline which is currently on its way from Japan is a TaishoGoto Harp, also known as the Nagoya Harp. It was created by Gorō Morita in Nagoya Japan in 1912 and was popular in the Taisho era. It's almost like a small acoustic guitar, it's a long hollow box with strings and typewriter keys that when pressed, produce the notes. It can be plucked, bowed, hammered or strummed. As well as capturing its unique sound I plan on seeing what other sounds I can get out of it. With it also having a pickup the DI can be used with guitar pedals and other plug ins as well as using an Ebow. So there will be a lot of experimenting to do with this instrument to get as many great sounds as possible and create a really unique sample library.
DB: As my next release will likely be the TaishoGoto Harp, you should check out a track called Bohai Dreams by Toby Darling, it's not a well known composition but it's a beautiful track. You can find it on YouTube, he performs a version of it using the TaishoGoto Harp and acoustic guitar and it's beautiful, go check it out. Also one of the main influences on me sampling the Electric Chord Organ was my love for Daniel Johnston, I'm sure most people are familiar with his music but if not go check his music out.
If you want to learn more about Dogsbody Sounds Sample Pack, Click Here
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Ruby Lulham AKA Clariloops, is quickly becoming one of the most unique voices in modern music today. Combining her experience of performing as a classical clarinetist, with her explorations into an ambient electronic space through the use of guitar pedals, she has created a sound which is unlike anything else out there. The project started as a way to add creativity into her classical clarinet practices and quickly snowballed into a stream of commercial releases including her first album "Mindful Movement" and her brand new release "Sun/Rain". Most recently, she collaborated with the Sonixinema team to release a sample library as a part of their new Community initiative, titled CLARILOOPS. It features a range of textures, loops and one shots curated and performed by Ruby, inspired by her work with clarinet and guitar pedals.
If you want to learn more about Clariloops, Click Here
RL: I started playing clarinet at the age of 9 when I was able to join my school’s band program. Before that, I had tinkered around on the piano and taught myself some basic music theory but I ended up choosing clarinet as my primary instrument because my mother still had her high school clarinet in the top of a cupboard at our house. It seemed like the logical choice! Throughout my
schooling, I always had excellent clarinet teachers who provided the perfect amount of pressure to improve as well as freedom to explore! I learned both classical and jazz improvisation and ended up studying a Bachelor of Music (Classical Performance) at Monash University.
From quite a young age, I’ve found joy and inspiration in exploring music with people as well as alone. Creating and sharing a musical experience with a group of musicians has always invigorated me because there are always new things to discover from others. I’ve also found a lot of joy through different stages of my life in getting lost in a musical work of my own making while
recording or producing music on my computer. I feel like I’m constantly learning, being inspired and getting more and more into music every day.
RL: I had a bit of a crisis of confidence a couple of years ago. Having finished a music degree and actually getting a full time gig (hooray!), I realised I’d never fully ‘resonated with’ classical music. I could certainly imitate it all well enough to get through a degree and get a job but I didn’t ever completely fall in love with it in the way that my friends had. Instead of throwing in the towel and
giving it all up, I really started to seek out what I liked about my instruments and about music in general.
I started working out how to connect my instrument to effects pedals in March 2020. At the time I was following a lot of ambient guitarists on instagram and youtube. I figured if I could get my sound to travel through some pedals, there’s no reason I couldn’t make some nice ambient music like all these cool guitarists! That musical and technological exploration is what brought my love of music and of clarinet back to life. It got me thinking about new things that I could do to explore composition, improvisation, sound design, music production and everything in between.
RL: It was a bit different! I tend to choose a key that I want to record a project in and float around that in order to create a sound world that is really immersive and distinctive. For the sample library, I wanted to record things in a lot of different keys and registers on the clarinet to provide artistic freedom with the sounds. I also recorded each sample as ‘clean’ clarinet sound with no effects, as well as with effects. I use a lot of effected clarinet in my own music but will never get over the beauty of the clarinet sound without effects on it. I loved this project because it was very fun to be inspired by something completely different and record every weird and wonderful idea that popped into my head!
RL: Inspired by the weather in Melbourne over summer, the music on this album depicts those sunny days that become muggy, humid, full of tension, and end with big fat raindrops bouncing off warm concrete. Everything I compose starts on my pedal board which consists of some reverb pedals,
delay, a harmoniser, and a loop pedal. All the tracks on this album started out as layers and layers of material inside a loop pedal. With all of my music, I tend to record a lot of experiments in similar keys and then ignore the project for a month or more. When I came back to this one, I wanted to explore more, both compositionally and instrumentally. I started adding a lot of sounds from my
Organelle, a small synthesiser by Critter and Guitar which was become and endless source of inspiration and fun for me. The album has become an exploration of how clarinet and synthesised sound can work so well together, weaving in and out to create this sound world that, to me, reflects the feelings I get on rainy summer days.
RL: Nat Bartsch is an Australian pianist and composer who’s music makes me feel every emotion at once. I got to see her do her first post-covid show in a small jazz bar in Melbourne a month or so ago and it was one of the most stunning things to watch - this quite simple, minimalistic music being played with such vulnerability. Truly stunning! If you’re going to check out one thing by her, it would be the track ‘Forever, And No Time At All’ from the album Forever More.
If you want to learn more about Clariloops, Click Here
For more information about Ruby AKA Clariloops, visit www.clariloops.com
]]>Lester Barnes is a force to be reckoned with. Having scored over over 650 episodes of television including dramas, documentaries and children's shows, his music has made a gigantic mark on media across the globe and earned him a BAFTA and 4 Emmy Nominations. As a modular enthusiast and collector, Lester has created one of Europe's largest modular racks, which takes up all 4 walls of his London based studio. After spending weeks sampling a set of earth shattering super saw samples with all 114 oscillators at his disposal, he joined forces with Sonixinema to create MONSTA - the first release in our series of libraries from The Community.
LB: My Father is a jazz pianist and when I was about seven years old he bought home a Moog Prodigy synth to gig with. It blew my tiny brain that this machine could make such cool sounds and I was addicted to electronic music form that moment on. I went on to study piano and sax in London through the formal classical tradition as well as jazz and rock but making music was the thing I most loved and synths were my addiction.
LB: I have scored quite a lot of cartoons ( will be almost 800 individually scored episodes by this time next year ) but it was never an area of music that I intended to work in ! A cartoon series takes many years to develop and get funded, during those years the composer is often brought in early to start developing the sonic landscape and the musical identity for the show. One of the first parts of an animation production development is guided by a book known affectionately as ’The Animation Bible’ - this is an in-depth document that describes visually and in words what the show is all about, the characters and their personalities, looks, likes, typical movements, environments, ethics and aims of the show, episode ideas, etc it’s an A to Z of what the show is all about. Using this and talking to the producers, I would start to sketch out character themes, musical cues for key areas the show focuses on ( be that a city theme or a desert Island theme, bad guys snooping around theme etc ) - that starts with building a unique template in Logic ( I always start from scratch with a new show and create a template that is unique for that particular show) - calling up instruments that together can start forming the musical identity of a character. Create a few short demos and variations - send them to the producers for comments. This goes on and on until a full set of musical cues is formed. These are just pointers to how the scores will develop and also cement the musical identity with everyone. Once the animatics start to roll out, it’s all hands on deck to get the work done in time!
LB: I grew up around mainly digital synths during the late 80’s and 90’s ( DX7s, M1s, D50s … later Roland JDs etc ) - whilst these synths were good, they lacked the analogue sound that I loved and they lacked physical controls to let you grab a dial or slider and instantly change and create your own sounds. I was too young and penniless to be able to jump in and buy the then discarded analogue synths that were being sold off cheap so players could replace them with shinny new digital synths but I stayed avidly reading the music tech magazines and interviews. It was many years later in the late 90s that I dipped my toe in the first small Doepfer modular rack (this was actually a modular vocoder system which I still have ) but this didn’t really have the correct set if modules to get me started with modular synthesis. During these years I’d been in contact with Bob Williams from Analogue Systems, he was a collector of modular gear and one of the worlds big suppliers of vintage modular gear (providing systems for many of great composers, bands an artists ) - He had just developed his own Euro Rack modular range complete with beautiful hand built walnut cabinets - He sent me a few photographs of his new systems in these gorgeous cabinets complete with separate sequencers cabinets … my jaw dropped. I ordered a complete system and Bob came to Soho to set it up with me. That was 1998, before modular really took off. As the years went by, my addiction became more pronounced!
LB: I was looking around the studio and wondered: ‘What would it sound like if I patched all of this gear together into one massive unison monophonic sound? Could it even be done? Every wall in my studio is covered in modular gear supplied with it’s own 100amp mains and 8kWatts of air conditioning for when it’s all powered up - It took three solid days to to patch up 110 VCOs to separate chains of VCFs, VCAs, EGs to output channels and to supply each bank of voices with CV and Gate from my logic session so that when I hit a key… all twenty channels of audio and voltages get to the banks of voices and to the 110 VCOs and we get sound! - I couldn’t believe how huge the sound was. It was gigantic with only half of the VCOs playing!? Later that evening I realised that it would be such a waste to break down the patch having spent so much time making it - so I decided to save it and try to make a sample preset from the it. Two weeks of sampling every chromatic note form A-4 up to C5 with about twenty minutes per note to go around the room and fine tune the VCOs to get just the right amount of drift and madness for each note ( analogue gear drifts a little and with all of those VCOs there was a need to tweak them for each note. ) With four passes per note and 20 channels of Audio per note I ended up with over 5,000 samples but no idea how to make a proper sample instrument - Then Sonixinema came into my life and with your help MONSTA was born. (Modular Oscilator Network System Totally Analogue)
LB: Supersaws have been a common mainstay in music and EDM for decades but they traditionally come form digital synths like the Roland JP8000 (which is one of the first to have a supersaw as a waveform choice) There is a big sonic difference between a digital and analogue and when it comes to sounds that need to be full and meaty, analogue gear blows away the digital emulation. It’s a bit like trying to multitrack your own voice to create the impression of a choir, you can layer up loads of multitrack layers but the result will always be a bit sterile as all you’ve done is clone your self. There’s not enough subtle variation in timbre to make it sound right. That’s a very different sound to having 20 individual people each with their own individual quirks that create a glorious choir. Analogue modular synth sounds have a ‘life’ to them. There’s an element of variation and uncertainty that creates colour. The way VCO signal levels hit filters and mixers further changes and warms those sounds, the drift in subtle tuning creates further unique tonal changes too. Four unison french horns sound very different from one horn. Twelve unison french horns sound even bigger. 110 Unison modular VCOs is immense, 440 is Brutal (and Monsta can deliver that ! )
For more information about Lester, visit www.lesterbarnes.com
]]>One of the UK’s top composers, Dominik Scherrer has created award-winning music for some of the finest film and television dramas in recent years. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Starz/BBC’s critically-acclaimed series The Missing, and recently won his second Ivor Novello Award for his score on Netflix’s Requiem, which he co-composed with Natasha Khan. Dominik first won the prestigious British Ivor Novello Award and received a Royal Television Society (RTS) nomination for his riveting score on Ripper Street, and earned two additional Ivor Novello nominations for Amazon’s The Collection and the British crime series Agatha Christie’s Marple. After recently scoring the new hit TV show The Serpent for BBC and Netflix, we sat down to have a chat with Dominik about everything music!
DS:
DS: It’s the projects and soundtrack that I want to be distinctive, rather than my style. I am a strong believer in originality. It helps to connect a soundtrack with the drama and take the audience to a world where they haven’t been before. I the score is a pastiche or to clearly in a already know style, you kind of turn off the listener’s brain.
DS: Starting on a series is the hardest. I try and start early, normally just after the read-through, which normally happens 2 days before the shoot starts and all the actors read through the script in realtime. I gives you a good idea of timing, and also how quick a moment in your life the normal episode length of 60 minutes really is. It gives me a sense of the tempi, and the scope of themes we will need. I started to bring along manuscript paper to these read-throughs and have written down tunes while the actors are still reading from the script. Further down the line, I just take one episode at the time. They have their own flow of narrative, their own themes. It’s nice to focus on just 60 minutes and create a dramatic flow. But it never really gets easier. You just have to make these stories work.
DS: When you’re stuck, there is nothing better than listening to Tchaikovsky, Bach etc to engage the mind. Or look at some scores. Watching a great film, or going to see the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, which is very close to my studio.
DS: I just heard a lovely song right now on the radio: By the River by Pi Ja Ma. Not sure who this is, a new French artist I think. Soulful song with a 1960s vibe. Check it out.
For more information about Dominik, visit www.dominikscherrer.com
]]>Laura Karpman is a five time EMMY winning composer based in Los Angeles. A bold, incandescent talent, she creates powerful, imaginative scores that push the boundaries of storytelling. Her award-winning music, spanning film, television, theater, interactive media and live performance, reflects an audaciously creative, prodigious, fresh spirit. Laura collaborates with the most creative filmmakers of our time, including Misha Green, Steven Spielberg, Alex Gibney, Kasi Lemmons, Rory Kennedy, Sam Pollard, Laura Nix and Eleanor, Francis Ford and Sophia Coppola.
LK: I have always found it necessary. But I do feel that there is a certain modernism and maximalism that I take across all my projects. I love harmonically complex music! I do also love exploring the music of personally unfamiliar cultures, so I have always embraced and appreciated those tasks!
LK: OK Very late 80’s :) Yes and no - I am working harder now then I ever have - there is so much content which is such a blessing! And of course the technology has RADICALLY changed. Certain things have gotten easier - digital recording, for example - but even that has its consequences - sometimes I fell like a digital audio editor rather than a composer - but maybe those two tasks have merged.
LK: I always start with a theme or a group of themes which I often write at the piano, the old fashioned way, with pencil and music paper. My scribbles serve me well for an entire project!
LK: The Alliance, and my advocacy is for emerging women as well as established ones. I think we have all been sidelined for a really long time. Now there seems to FINALLY be an awareness of this and that awareness is helping all of us tremendously. I think its an eco system problem. If there are too few women on top doing the projects with more visibility, there are no role models, not only for younger composers, but also for the decision makers. They especially need to know there are capable women composers available!
LK: God, I love what Anna Meredith is doing. And just yesterday I was listening to Gil Evans.
For more information about Laura, visit www.laurakarpman.com
]]>Emiliano Melis is an experimental music designer based in New York City. His works are a mix of melody, tape loops, and improvised electronic sounds - a fusion of classic analog synthesizers and contemporary digital instruments. Over the years he has collaborated with many musicians as a remixer and producer, and with international artists as a composer for for videos and sound installations. He has also composer music for short films and TV shows featured on MTV, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. He was the musical brains behind Sonixinema's new sample library, World Of Tape, which features a collection of over 100 contemporary tape loops and textures.
EM: I was born in Turin, Italy. I studied piano and guitar but I’ve always been interested in modulating and creating unique sounds through effects and machines, and that curiosity became soon a real love for synthesizers and pedal effects. I grew up listening to different kind of music. My background is various and it ranges from rock to electronic, ambient and experimental. Artists like David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails. Brian Eno and IAMX inspired me and influenced me as musicians and composer.
EM: It started when I was a kid, at the end of the 80’. I remember how exciting was playing and overdubbing music layers using a basic keyboard and two analog cassette recorders. I was very intrigued by that lo-fi tape sound and that creative process was the unaware beginning of my sound experimentation.
EM: Instagram gives me the opportunity to combine my music with my passion for photography, details and aesthetic. I really enjoy creating and sharing videos representing short sound installations. It was unexpected to see many people joining me and following my sonic adventures on Instagram, I feel so grateful and I hope to keep entertaining and inspiring them with my compositions.
EM: After many years working as a composer and musicians is very important and essential to keep my music identity in everything I do. The process behind composing a song or creating samples for a library is basically the same for me. I always try to turn feelings and ideas into sounds, melodies and beats. I really like doing sound libraries because it's exciting to think that my sounds and samples can inspire and being used by someone else in their own compositions.
EM: Talking about scoring and composers I truly suggest to listen to Hildur Guonadottir, I really like her sound, and of course Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
For more information about Emiliano, visit www.emilianomelis.com
]]>Anthony J. Resta is a Composer/Producer/ Multi-Instrumentalist based in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. He is renowned for embracing both modern and vintage methods in creating vast and unique soundscapes. Gold and Multi-Platinum awards for soundtrack work include the films Twilight , Scream 2, Scream 3 and Varsity Blues. Other highlights include producer of the year HMMA (2015 Hollywood music and media award), a score for Elton John’s “Border Song” with the Atlanta Symphony featuring Elton John, and scoring of Cuban percussion for Ken Burns’ Unforgettable Fire. Anthony has worked extensively with musicians in Hans Zimmer’s camp including “Game of Thrones” solo cellist Cameron Stone II.
AJR: I have always been inspired by artists pushing boundaries. As a youth i was fascinated by Frank Zappa and Bartok, prog bands like Yes, King Crimson, and of course the Beatles’ sonic adventures. I do purposely avoid generic music and with passion. at all costs possibly even;) I think there are ways to be accessible and adventurous simultaneously.
AJR: Since moving to La six years ago its gotten even crazier in diversity. Im doing more scoring and composing/ sound design for film and TV. Throwing convention aside seems to be in vogue these days even in pop music. Look at Billie Eilish for instance. She doesn’t fit any mold but is a fast rising star. I've had several peers ask me if i worked with her because of our similar approaches to work.
AJR: I studied piano and flute as a kid then started banging on guitars about 15 years ago. Guitar is now my favourite oscillator. My floor has become a modular synth for guitar. I love making sounds that don't sound like either guitar or synthesizers. I've long involved stereo signal paths to two different amps via tape echos etc. One note can become a hundred different things in the span of five minutes. It's endless and it thrills me daily.
AJR: I quit my last day job in 1987. I would have never dreamed that I would be doing this for decades. My modus operandi has always been to find the deepest passion an artist has for something, something they have not dared to even dream about creating themselves. When you transport them to that magical place they come back. I make it about THEIR creative journey THROUGH me to a higher place, both sonically and musically, and this feeds back to me.
AJR: I would recommend checking out 'When I Was Older' by Billie Eilish.
For more information about Anthony, visit https://www.bopnique.com
]]>Jeff Broadbent is an multi award winning composer whose passion for music has been heard around the world in numerous video games, films, television programs, and trailers. His adrenaline-fueled action music can be heard in blockbuster movies and trailers such as TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, and THE LAZARUS EFFECT. Jeff has won four Hollywood Music In Media Awards, a Game Audio Network Guild Award, seven Global Music Awards, a Telly Award, two ASCAP Plus Awards, and has been a finalist for the NAVGTR, Game Music Online, Radio Rivendell, and Soundtrack Geek awards. Jeff is represented by COOL Music LTD in London and Los Angeles.
JB: For interactive media, one of the primary differences from film is that film is linear and scored to picture, whereas for a video game, you are composing pieces of music that work for different locations in the game, or different game states. So whereas for a film you'd be scoring directly to picture, in video games, you'd be composing looping pieces of music that play at specific moments in the game. And the music is specifically tailored for these unique uses. For example, I'm currently composing music for a fantasy MMO video game, that has different environments and regions. Each of these regions has its unique set of melodic themes, as well as instrument combinations, so they all sound distinct and recognizable.
JB: I loved working on Extinction! One of my favorite things as a composer is to work from a creative and unique sonic palette and instrument choices. I really like to approach every project like this, where there is no "default" set of instruments you use, but rather, you select whatever instrument combinations work best for the project, and start from a blank slate.
JB: Tina is an amazing musician! I knew about her previously from her work on many films and video game scores. Early in the project I knew she would be great to perform on the main theme and credits cues. I contacted her, discussed the project, and we proceeded from there!
JB: I love working on both well-known franchises as well as new IPs! For existing franchises, it is very important to understand the music that came before, and to be creative, while still matching the compositional style and influence of the previous music. For example, on Transformers and Marvel projects, I would listen extensively to previous music from the franchise, to understand general melodic/harmonic/rhythmic/
JB: A fairly recent score I heard that I thought was excellent was the score to Hereditary, a horror film. I loved the unique usage of wind instruments in this score, something that has been somewhat forgotten to a degree in modern film scoring. A cue that plays near the end of the film, called "Reborn", I thought was perfect for this scene. It was a very disturbing and dark moment in the film, yet punctuated by music that played against this disturbing nature, in almost a regal and triumphant way. This illustrates the concept of music being tailored very specifically to the needs of the story, and in a sonically creative way. I don't want to give any spoilers, but feel free to listen on iTunes/etc!
For more information about Jeff, visit https://jeffbroadbent.com/
]]>One of the leading emerging artists in the British music scene, Nainita Desai has worked on countless film and television scores for some of the largest broadcasters worldwide such as the BBC, HBO, ITV and Channel 4. A BAFTA Breakthrough Brit and Music & Sound Award winner, Nainita has garnered a reputation for having an incredibly creative and eclectic musical output, composing scores for OSCAR, BAFTA and EMMY nominated projects and working with some of the finest orchestras across London and Europe. Recent projects include feature films Darkness Visible, Untamed Romania and Extraordinary Rituals for BBC's Natural History Unit.
ND: Becoming a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit was certainly a proud moment for me – receiving acknowledgment from the industry including BAFTA, an institution I’ve looked up to my whole career. But above and beyond that, it’s always been achieving personal musical goals that I’ve been most proud of.
One of the most personally rewarding projects I’ve ever scored was the BBC film, City of Dreams - A Musical - a unique hybrid documentary musical where actuality and interviews were interwoven with bespoke songs written for the contributors to sing and perform. It’s a ground breaking film that made music an integral part of the documentary narrative. There were a lot of firsts for me on that – writing lyrics – which was new to me - as well as working on an International shoot handling various contributors, orchestras, and musicians.
Another wonderful experience was scoring the natural history feature film Untamed Romania, where my score was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Wales – a great 75 piece band !
On a ‘story’ level, being involved in documentaries about strong social issues, true crime, and political subjects that promote discussion, debate and change, is incredibly rewarding. Films such as For Sama that premieres at SXSW, profile of female Syrian camerawoman Waad Al-Kateab, BAFTA nominated series Catching a Killer and Raped-My Story, The Life After set in Northern Ireland, Searching for Mum about adoption, are all remarkable stories to have been a part of. The films are so powerful, there really is no need to manipulate the audience with over emotional music.
Conversely, the music can’t be so bland so as to not have any impact at all, so it has to be finely crafted around the dialogue and story, but still retain a distinctiveness and unique identity that handles the subject matter in a sensitive and respectful way. Being part of telling important stories and issues is one of the most rewarding aspects of what I do.
ND: Early on in my career I focussed on purely writing and developing my musical skills. I’d work intensely during a project and then find myself out of work when the project came to an end. I realised that networking AND writing music at the same time was essential and a tricky balancing act I needed to learn.
Now I spend 50% of my time networking unless I’m seriously up against deadlines. I have endless to do lists broken down into monthly, weekly, daily and hourly tasks. Urgent email requests or phone calls mean my schedules are constantly re-writtten. I mix in the morning when I’m more alert. I tend not to work past 11pm at night unless I have to.
When I’m locked in the studio, I’ll only work on 1 or 2 projects in a day so that I stay in the zone when writing on any one project. It sounds like a very ordered regime but I do balance it out with plenty of chaos. Chaos and Order are really important to me in achieving an equilibrium and work flow.
ND: Very much so ! I recently scored a theatrical feature doc Untamed Romania that was released in the cinema. The score was recorded by the 75 piece BBC NOW Orchestra at Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff. I would create sketches that were developed into mockups that were then approved by the team. They had to sound as good as possible to get passed the director. Non musicians tend not to have the aural vision to realise what a piece will sound like when finished and recorded, hence the huge industry built up with sample libraries and demos to convince them to a) trust you that it’s all going to work out fine and b) allow them some creative authorship in the writing process!
I recently recorded the score for Telling Lies, an Interactive movie / narrative video game for Annapurna Interactive with the London Contemporary Orchestra. That process involved some improvisation with the orchestra while recording at Angel Studios. It was an incredibly liberating process where you’re delving into the unknown. Two features I scored recently Darkness Visible and Enemy Within, were all scored in-house bringing in a handful of the best soloists to enhance a sample based score. I do like to mix things up sometimes by bringing in musicians early on in the process to play on rough ideas. I’ll record lots of semi-improvised playing - it’s a way of building up a custom library of sounds and experiments that act as temp tracks, that then get further developed during the edit. Once we reach picture lock then it’s a case of refining those tracks that have been used as temp and writing more new material to picture and finally bringing in musicians again to play on finalised tracks.
I have to adapt and frequently work in the box due to various reasons - either I have to hit the ground running on a project if I’m brought in late into the process, or have demanding clients that want many rounds of changes to a tight schedule, or working to a tight budget. In all the above scenarios, I still have to produce the highest quality ‘demos’ or in many cases the finished product.
I’m really keen to break down technology barriers and find a way of injecting human expression into the writing process in as fast and organic a way as possible. I was an early adopter of the Roli Grand Stage and have controllers such as the Touche Expressive, the Jouee, Roli Rise and blocks. Using instruments in an unorthodox way can inject a fresh way of writing instead of the default mode of just sitting in front of the keyboard and mac. I may record the guitar viol or sing to start the musical process.
Something that I learned from working with Peter Gabriel and the Daniel Lanois school of writing is to ‘capture the magic’ of performance without letting technology get in the way, so I tend to have the record button on all the time with live improvisation to picture when composing, and then edit and fine tune later on.
ND: Of course it depends on what genre you are working in, and having a unique sound that you are known for or being a ‘jack of all trades’ both have their merits. Embracing writing in many styles of music has been my strength in terms of developing my skill set, sustaining a career, and helping me find my own voice. It’s given me a solid foundation and helped me realise what I naturally gravitate towards stylistically through that process of trial and error.
If you’re developing a career as a composer for drama or features, it’s never been more important to have a distinct musical voice. That’s something that comes after some time of creative self discovery. It gives you an authenticity and creativity integrity that film makers are often looking for.
ND: When it comes to film scores, I tend to not listen to scores without watching the films. The music has to help tell the story, so if you are not watching the film when listening to the music, it means you are only getting 50% of the intended effect. Some films and scores combined that have made a big impact on me include Taxi Driver, Gladiator, Schindler's List, Blade Runner (1982), American Beauty, the Piano, the TV series The Handmaids Tale, Pi and The Fountain by Clint Mansell amongst countless others. Other recent artists I’ve recently been listening to include Colin Stetson, and Adam Ben Ezra – great instrumentalists pushing the envelope with their instruments.
For more information about Nainita, visit www.nainitadesai.com
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CC: One of the earliest phases in my music career, pretty much straight out of college, before I got involved in the record industry, was a three-year stretch working as a programmer for a television composer in NYC, doing programming on scores for tv series like the original The Equalizer. I did all the drum programming and sound design, and did most of the mixing of the scores. Whether on records or scores, I’ve always done pretty dark, sound-design-heavy music, especially during my time in the band Nine Inch Nails, and that approach was a natural fit for the kind of horror and thriller movies and tv series that I’ve become involved with. So it was kind of a smooth transition for me to move from records back to scoring, and my early experience on scores at the start of my career really helped me make the switch since I already knew the terminology and workflow. I’ve always preferred long nights experimenting in the studio over touring and playing live, and film scoring fits that description for sure.
CC: Being able to make sounds I’ve never heard before is a huge part of my inspiration. This approach helps me make a connection between the emotional themes in a film and the emotional reactions that a sound can evoke, over and above what the actual musical content is. I often form a stronger reaction to the unique or interesting sound of a new instrument than I would to just another chord progression. I think of some of these sounds as if they were an abstract expression like laughter, as opposed to more ordinary orchestral music that, to me, feels more like speaking actual words, like a language. If you can get both sides of that equation working then I think you’re on to something. I don’t have much interest in working solely with a normal orchestral palette for the same reasons that I never had much interest in making records with just guitar, bass, and drums.
CC: The biggest difference is that the form that a film score takes is completely dictated by the timeline of that film, without any of the considerations that come into play when making a record, where you’re thinking in terms of how long the intro will be before the vocals come in and stuff like that. I really like the process of weaving the music together around the shape of a film, even if it’s lopsided and asymmetrical. That’s often more challenging and rewarding to me than working in the song format that many records wind up having, even the less traditional genres that I usually worked in. Film can also be a much more free-form arena to work in from a sound design point of view, and lets me focus more on creating wordless moods without being distracted by the lyric content.
CC: Throughout the SAW franchise there had to be a balance between maintaining the textures, sounds, and moods that became trademarks of the movies while still raising the stakes with each sequel. Over the course of the eight movies there were certain sounds, melodies, and chord progressions which just had to be there or it wouldn’t sound like a member of the family, so I had to keep those elements intact without letting things get stale, and find a way to follow the flow of the stories, introducing new material that still felt familiar in a way. For me this meant thinking of it as though I were using a zoom lens; as if for the first film the musical camera had already been pointed at a dark corner, and for each successive sequel I was zooming in further and further, revealing more detail in the crust and filth of that dark corner, as opposed to re-focusing the camera on a completely different spot in the room. As the franchise evolved, with different directors taking control, I let the scores be influenced by their individual visual styles. James Wan’s style on the first film was pretty dark and gritty, so I used lots of muted, dusty tones, while Darren Bousman’s style had a gothic element to it, so I found myself using more choir and orchestral sounds. On the latest film, JIGSAW, the Spierig brothers’ style was more crisp and legible, so I used less of a blurry sound and focused more on sharp sounds. None of this was really an overly conscious decision, it’s always a reaction to the imagery that I’m seeing on the screen.
CC: My favourite record of the past few years was David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, which really resonated for me for a lot of reasons. As far as scores go I keep listening to the score for Tom Tykwer's The International, by Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, and Tom Tykwer. For my money it’s the perfect thriller score and still sounds fresh. Reinhold’s score for the series Deutschland 83 is also really interesting as well. Other scores I like to listen to are Andre Despot’s scores for The Ghost Writer and Syriana, both of which are some of my favourite movies ever.
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NW: I'd say the question should be “What's not good about it?” – The first time I worked here, I went home with the abiding feeling that somebody with quite a lot of money had a terrible day in a studio somewhere, and went home and said “Right, I am going to design a studio, I'm going to leave no stone unturned, I'm going to build the best studio ever built”, and I think to some extent they very much succeeded, I think this place is just incredible for a large number of reasons. It's very well thought out, very well designed acoustically, and the attention to detail here makes a big difference.
NW: Precisely, the equipment speaks for itself really! The intergration of the old valve and vintage equipment and the modern contemporary technology is all just very well thought out. Everything works, it's very comfortable, the mic cupboard is basically an Aladdin's cave for an engineer. It's sounds like I'm promoting British Grove – I'm not, but it's just an amazing studio!
NW: Well one of the exciting things about this opportunity was to exploit the extensive selection of microphones that British Grove have, and to be slightly experimental! We had a great opportunity to record a multi track which is relatively wide, and experiment within that. Me and the guys from Sonixinema discussed early on about the perspectives that we wanted to record, and we decided that there would essentially be three - the first being a fairly traditionally spaced close pickup, then a mid pickup and a far pickup, and within each of those I wanted to present some contrasting techniques and colours.
NW: For the close pickup we've got a Coles 4038 ribbon microphone which is being recorded as a mono signal, then there are two AKG 451s which are spread out in a sort of approximation to a top and bottom drum micing technique – so on one of them the phase is flipped to get the low end and that's summed to mono so that's the second close pickup In mono. Then there are two close stereo pairs, one which is a stereo ribbon mic called the R88 which is made by AEA, and the other one is a pair of Neumann U67's – and that's just the close pickup!
For the mid pickup, we've got our safe pair which is a pair of schoeps MK22s in ORTF formation, then the fun pair is an AKG C24 set up in MS mode which is always nice, so we can use either one or both of those in conjunction. Like I mentioned earlier, we are recording them to multi track so ultimately in the final analysis probably one or the other will be the actual mid pickup. For the far pickup we have two different sets of omni's, one which is a pair of Neumann KM53s which are small diaphragm valve condenser mics, and one which is a pair of Neumann M50s – so as your can see it's a pretty luxurious array of microphones to be recording with, but since we're here!
NW: I think there are two aspects of being a recording engineer, one is the sound that you capture and reproduce and the other is the actual management of the process. Largely the performer is concerned about the sonics, but they're probably more concerned about being made comfortable so that they can do what they do and focus on being able to perform as best they can. That's really the sort of latter part of the engineers role also, to facilitate that performer to do what he or she does almost transparently really.
In the instance of one player performing a percussion instrument, there are relatively few parametres – I don't have to worry about complicated headphone balances, separation or any of those things that you would do in a group recording context, but still we need to think about Joby's physical ability to play. Although I have a huge cage of mics around him, he still has to be able to perform without thinking about that. Generally speaking it's about making him feel like he can do his thing in his own time, and my end of things don't interfere with that!
For more information about Nick, visit www.air-management.co.uk/roster/nick-wollage
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JB: Superball is plastic toy ball with a stick shoved in it, and you can use it on many percussion instruments just to create friction. Generally large instruments work best so that's what we're doing today - we're recording Thunder Sheets, Tam Tams, Gongs, Taikos, Timpani, and various other effects. It creates this sort of moaning, wailing sound so you get contact and friction but you don't really get the regular attack or pitch of the instrument.
JB: It's just a different sort of vibe, you're adding a bit more mystery to the sound really. It's everything 1960s, early 70s Sci-Fi – that where we tend to hear these sort of eerie, otherworldly sounds and of course we hear them much more common place today in lots of big budget Sci-Fi films, but it's been around for quite a while. Interestingly you also find other instrumentalists using Superball as well, so it's not just percussionists that use this technique nowadays.
JB: It's not something that we use every day, but when you want something a bit mysterious and ominous it can provide an incredible effect. Tam Tam is probably the principle place where it's asked to be used as it provides such a great colour. I remember performing on the score for Alien vs. Predator about 10 years ago, and the composer suggested that we try using Superball on other instruments. We spent a day in the hall at Air Studios experimenting with Superball on just about anything we could find, and it lead to some amazing discoveries!
JB: Good question, because Superballs are kind of these weird, rare things! My mate, Mike Balter who is over in Chicago, makes these wonderful things as a part of his collection of sticks. They come in various sizes – they're not very large, but they're really good because they always work which is fantastic!
JB: When I first started using Superball in a lot of my solo projects, I was using it on Thunder Sheet which is a 6 foot by 4 foot sheet of metal. I discovered that often if you want to get the low end out of percussion instruments, you actually just need a bigger mallet - you need more mass. I went to Toys R Us and bought a whole collection of these much larger Superballs, which are basically kids toys for about one pound each. I just drilled in to it, stuck an old stick in to it and superglued it all together! I found that the mass and density of these much larger mallets which I made myself just brings out the low end in Thunder Sheets, Tam Tams and other large instruments.
For more information about Joby, visit www.jobyburgess.com
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