Troels Folmann is one of our favorite composers at CDM. The fact that he’s a game composer both incidental and essential — it’s not that he’s scoring a Tomb Raider title that matters, it’s that game composition requires a new, fluid way of thinking about form, and Dr. Folmann (he did a dissertation topic on the subject) is up to the challenge.

Digging through recent entries on Troels’ blog is definitely a source of weekend inspiration. I’m fond of found samples, but I tend to record sound making things around the house up close with a mobile recorder for a more intimate sound. Troels drags them over to a concert hall and uses the natural reverb to turn a candle light holder and Coke bottle into something that sounds like massive, tribal percussion. To keep himself disciplined, he limited himself to objects in a random photo. Here’s what it sounds like:

To add to the ambience, he uses the Timefreezer plug-in ($99 for Mac, Windows, Mac Intel, the lot). As the name implies, it “freezes” samples of sound as an effect or instrument. I’ve done some similar things as DIY patches, but it sounds like they’ve done a nice job of implementation.

This approach to sampling percussion with natural reverb, and making an art of the samples, is part of why they pay Troels the big bucks. Be sure to hear his percussion demo for more of the sounds. Little wonder that he blogs the meditation on autism that’s been making the YouTube rounds: sampling sounds requires an almost extrasensory focus on the world around us that we spend most of our time shutting out.

So there you have some fiddling with household objects. What about this “future of adaptive music” business?

Contained in the Apple Final Cut Studio 2 announcement is a new version of Apple’s video-savvy sound editor, Soundtrack Pro. Unfortunately, Apple still hasn’t restored the a la carte, Soundtrack-only purchase option — you have to get Final Cut Studio to get Soundtrack Pro 2. But the new release does build on some of the unique interface ideas of the first version, while adding the key capabilities the first version lacked — namely, usefulness for actually creating soundtracks. And look closely at these screen shots, and you just might see something of the next Logic. (Yeah, I know, you wanted solid information, but it wouldn’t have made sense to talk about a music product like Logic at a broadcast production show like NAB, where Final Cut Studio 2 was launched. When Apple’s ready, I’m sure we’ll hear from them.)

The big news here: Apple is certainly making an effort to push how we edit, in terms of spotting for video and interfaces for surround and effects. We’ll have to see if they pulled it off, and if these paradigms can effectively “trickle up” to their flagship DAW — and whether other developers can push even further in the same direction.

New in 2:

The Call of Duty series is perhaps the most widely acclaimed WW2 franchise in video games. Developer Amaze Entertainment recently partnered with Activision to bring the series to the Sony Playstation Portable system and provide players-on-the-go with a taste of first person, WW2 combat. Several recent reviews cite the audio, in particular, as one of the strongest aspects of the title. One reviewer said, “..this game sounds every bit as good as Call of Duty 3.”

CDM recently had the opportunity to speak with some of the audio designers for Call of Duty: Roads to Victory for PSP. Mark Yeend is the Audio and Music Manager for Amaze Entertainment, Drew Cady was the lead sound designer, and composer Noel Gabriel, whose scores for Amaze have been recently compared to (confused with?) Hans Zimmer.

Audio Impressions had a working demo of their flagship orchestral library, DVZ. Well, ok—just the strings were demoed, but the full package with over 600 instruments is scheduled to de-vaporize and ship in March.

Audio Impressions > Products > Realtime Instruments (DVZ)

DVZ (pronounced “di-vi-zee”) promises a unique experience for those yearning to achieve new realism for that film score sound. The string section emanating from their NAMM booth did indeed seem to hit the nail on the head.

I was particularly impressed that it sounded so good being played straight from a keyboard. Part of the reason is that there is an algorithm that senses how fast notes are being played, so you can get articulations that make more sense without needing to be programmed after the fact through sample switching or tweaking attack and release times.

So what else is innovative about DVZ?

Thought every twist on Tchaikovsky had been exhausted in holiday seasons past? Think again: San Francisco-based composer Flip Baber (aka johnnyrandom, pictured) writes to tell us about a compositional challenge that made him turn bike parts into instruments:

I was recently approached by award winning advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to do a composition for their client, Specialized. Specialized is a bike manufacturer and they needed some Christmas music, but with a twist: They wanted me to create the music from only bike sounds. They didn’t even know if it was possible, so they left the song choice up to me to see what I could come up with. Since Jingle Bells is a little overdone this time of year, I thought Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” would be a great alternative. At first I didn’t think it could be done, but as I recorded sounds from my road bike and mountain bike it started to take shape. Here’s the instrumentation and score:

Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Glockenspiel & Clarinet melody = spokes.
Cello & Violin pizzicatos = plucked derailleur cables.
Triangle = disc brake hit.
Percussion = shifting, coasting, finger over turning spokes, chain pulls, braking, clipping into pedals, back-spinning, air out of tires.

Even knowing what’s being used, it’s pretty unbelievable once you actually hear the results:

MP3, Specialized Nutcracker Suite

Johnny Random composer site (reel, bio, more music)
Specialized Bicycle Components

Updated: Specialized has posted the video that goes with this. Watch through to the end for a sound-by-sound rundown of what each sample is.

Alternative transportation never sounded so sweet; perhaps bicycle part instruments will be the next big thing. Proof there’s little you can’t do with digital sampling. Flip says the visuals are on the way; stay tuned and let us know if you’ve got any questions for the composer. Updated: Flip fills us in on some of the details on the recording process …

The music technology blogosophere continues to expand, now with an excellent new site dedicated to film scoring. The site also has a bonus: its name begins with the word “Create”, which means it can join CDM’s unofficial “Create [Stuff]” network!

Create Film Scores

Jerome Leroy, an L.A.-based music systems technician, is editing the new site. Jerome tells CDM he works as a studio technician and technical assistant and had a specific “thirst for film music tech news” that led him to start his own specialized resource. We’re of course always happy to see the community of practical sites for digital musicians growing, so this is great news — welcome, Jerome!

Among the early articles is a great piece on assembling farms of Mac minis to help process samples for Vienna Instruments and their massive Symphonic Cube package. The minis are a little underpowered in the hard drive department, but thanks to a cheap price and fast processor, they can be an economical way of adding necessary sample-processing power. The article also details composer John Frizzell’s setup, which originally, like a lot of film composers, used a Mac as the main machine and PC slaves for GigaStudio; Frizzell has sinced switched to an all-Mac rig of three G5s. Jerome says this is the first of a series; we’ll be watching:

Mac minis as VSL Farms: An Overview

Related: CDM’s resident game composer talked to Tomb Raider’s Troels Brun Folmann, who uses a similarly massive computer farm for his music. His setup: one master computer, eight sample slaves, all PC. (His sample library of choice is East West’s Symphonic Library XP rather than Vienna’s.)

CDM Interview: Tomb Raider: Legend Composer Troels Brun Folmann on Adaptive “Micro-Scoring�

Got a sampler farm of your own? Let us know about it. (Don’t worry, we won’t get into pissing contests over who has the most computers — for those of us who don’t need to use enormous orchestral libraries, one machine often does just fine!)

Film/TV composers have a particular interest here on CDM in that they tend to think creatively about style, instrumentation, and sound in their work and have to meld one technology (music) with another (film). It’s Friday night, so having resisted this long, I can no longer avoid mentioning Galactica. Composer Bear McCreary, who has scored the Battlestar Galactica TV series, has a blog going in which he talks about his music and some of the instruments featured in the show’s eclectic (and often surprisingly ethnic) sound textures:

For tonight’s episode, McCreary blogs his featured violinist, Paul Cartwright, whose electric violin is largely responsible for the signature sound of the show. CDM readers I think will especially like his bag o’ covet-worthy gear, including a tube amp and set of stompboxes any guitarist would love to have, let alone a violinist. The small tube amp is especially interesting to me, because one of the challenges of electric violin is softening out the tone, both to distinguish it from just sounding like a guitar or, at the opposite extreme, being too harsh. I love the analog approach, and there’s still plenty to be learned if you’re a computer-toting violinist (and, of course, I wouldn’t be the person I am if I didn’t point out computers can be great fun with violins, too).

Bear McCreary blog (erm, blog in a sort of mid-90s, stuck in frames sense — no RSS — but well worth reading!)

Bear McCreary is an interesting composer in general, a young, rising star in a hyper-competitive field.

It’s impossible to continue just to make music and ignore the serious threats to our security and the safety of passenger aviation. Tightened security has focused primarily on threats from the past, and reactive measures that can only prevent existing, known dangers. You know where I’m going with this: we need to evaluate screening methods and other security provisions to respond to the significant issue of snakes on a plane. I just can’t believe no one is doing anything about these motherf****** snakes.

Cult-hit-before-it-was-even-released movie Snakes on a Plane has none other than Trevor Rabin composing the musical score, as if I needed an excuse to bring up Snakes on CDM. Rabin has had an incredible history as a musician. Born to noted classically-trained parents, he went on to co-found the wildly successful Rabbitt, recorded a significant anti-Apartheid anthem, played with Yes, and wrote their #1 hit Owner Of A Lonely Heart. He even worked with Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and Rick Wakeman. Now, like some other former rockers (Stewart Copeland comes to mind), Rabin has become a successful film composer, with a distinct action-movie tilt. (Armageddon, Bad Boys II, Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds — no chick flicks in there, really.) Pictured: both “Rocker Trevor” and (from SoundtrackNet’s great story on Snakes) “Composer Trevor.”

And Rabin is a Mac guy. His studio Jacaranda Studios is powered by Power Mac G5s and, evidently, too much cool gear to list. Various reports suggest he uses both MOTU Digital Performer (like Copeland) and Pro Tools (probably because the studio guys require it). It’s funny, even though audio often gets bounced to Pro Tools for compatibility, film composers really largely prefer Digital Performer to anything else out there, and it certainly includes the most film scoring functionality. If you want to get inside his studio:

Home Recording visits Trevor Rabin

Trevor Rabin Scores Snakes on a Plane [SoundtrackNet]

Don’t try to get in touch with me at 10 pm tonight, incidentally, because I will be at the first show. (Check out the official site for a fun Flash feature that lets you record custom Samuel L. Jackson messages for your friends.) And will I be disappointed when the movie is awful? Absolutely not. I’m betting on it.

Watch a behind the scenes video of film/TV composer, producer, and electronic musician James L Venable as he’s working on the final touches to the score for “Clerks 2″, in theaters now:

“Music Lessons” with James Venable, via Train Wreck: Video Chronicle of Clerks II Production

Venable is best known for the D&B inspired theme for “Powerpuff Girls”, as well as various Kevin Smith/View Askew scores starting with “Clerks: The Series”.

Pretty phat pad, check out special apperances by the JP-8080, Pod XT, [Logic Pro], and racks upon racks of gear.

Not to mention Scott “Snowball” Moser rockin’ the kalimba (thumb piano).

Check out this studio:

Ed: Brilliant composer, dream gig, dream studio, gear p-rn — what could make us happier? Adrian thought the software was Cubase SX, but it’s definitely Logic Pro 7. (I have to get that right; it’s my primary DAW aside from Ableton Live.) Logic looks like it’s primarily being used just to track external MIDI gear, from what I can see, and Venable appears to be checking scored ideas against both a paper manuscript and (in some instances) the notation view in Logic.

Any more gear spotting? (You know you want to.) -PK

Rivalries are good: they keep software developers competitive, leapfrogging each other in features. They keep the pressure on, and having seen what happens when one company gets a monopoly (Microsoft Office, I’m looking at you), progress generally slows. Notation users have benefited from the Finale/Sibelius rivalry, and that competition continues to produce better and better notation software. Finale 2007 looks like it will continue that trend.

Now, I’ve gotten in trouble before when I’ve said Finale was blatantly copying its music notation rival Sibelius. But I don’t think anyone can argue with me this time. The major features in Sibelius 4: parts linked to full score, and integrated video support and film scoring features. The major features in Finale 2007, based on a marketing email I just got from Finale:

1. Parts linked to full score
2. Integrated video support and film scoring features
3. Intel Mac native support

Sounds familiar, huh? Now, honestly, these were really features that both packages would inevitably add, so I’m glad to see Finale continuing to level the playing field.