Sonozine #005 Summer 2015

SON ZINE
Media composer trade magazine
SUMMER 2015 | #005
Feature
Exclusive interview
Tutorials
William T. Stromberg’s
Thomas Newman:
Crafting soundscapes with samples
‘Trinity And Beyond’ score
Teardrops on tap
Kontakt 101: Freqently Asked Questions
2015
#05
TEARDROPS ON TAP
WHAT’S NEXT
04
14
Son Thomsen gives the inside
story on the production of
several upcoming Sonokinetic
sample libraries
We drop the bomb on William
T. Stromberg and John
Morgan’s soundtrack to ‘Trinity
And Beyond’
CEO editorial
06
Thomas Newman
CHAIN REACTIONS
TRACK TECHNIQUES KONTAKT 101
Score review
In this exclusive interview, Reuben Cornell talks to the Academy
Award winning composer about the film music industry,
sampling and composing
21
16
Soundscapes
Reuben Cornell on creating
soundscapes with samples
ON THE COVER
OTHER
03 Editorial
22 Colophon
Thomas Newman
STUCK ON YOU
With Sonokinetic being
a ‘boutique’ company,
everyone who works here is
constantly switching between
different roles. This keeps life
interesting, and it’s endlessly
rewarding being able to
choose which occupational hat
to wear at any given moment.
Sometimes, though, it would
be nice to be able to just put
on the working hat at 9am
and the family hat at 5pm,
leaving the former in the
Top 3 stickiest
tracks
18
Kontakt FAQ
An ‘under the hood’ to
answer some of the most
general asked questions
about handling samples in
Kontakt by Ken Black
office – maybe even for the
whole weekend! I’m sure many
composers feel the same,
what with working from home
becoming the default for more
people every year, particularly
in our business. And even if
you are working in a separate
office or studio, your work no
doubt follows you home on
one or more devices.
On the one hand, it’s great
that technology allows us
to do that; on the other, I
Our highly personal ranking
of the greatest film and TV
tunes that you just can’t get
our of your head
think it’s important to pace
yourself and remember what
it is you’re doing it all for.
After every hectic release, we
promise ourselves, and each
other, that we’ll make sure the
next one is less stressful; but
when that deadline looms, all
bets are off and the process
enters full-on mode again.
wait for it to be over so I can
get some sleep-in mornings
and carefree summer picnics
in the park. For now, though,
only one thing matters and
that is that our next product
is the best it can be when we
release it, so I’d better take
off my writing hat and get on
with it.
Right now, Sonokinetic is in
the middle of one of those
periods, and though it’s
thrilling and exhilarating, I can’t
Now, which particular
production hat should I wear
for the next part of my day?
Son Thomsen
WHAT’S
NEXT
TENSION
AND RELEASE
REINFORCING THE FOUNDATIONS
As you might have noticed, the pace of Sonokinetic releases
has slowed a bit of late, with some of the products we’ve been
promising (Africa, Tutti Vox and others) having not yet landed.
There are a few reasons for this, the first and foremost of which
are the level of quality that we strive to reach and the increasing
ambition of our ‘big’ releases. You’ve come to expect a high
standard from us and we’re not prepared to settle for anything that
doesn’t meet it – indeed, we plan to keep raising the bar.
Also, Sonokinetic is currently experiencing some growing pains –
or, rather, a metamorphosis of sorts. One thing that’s been at the
forefront of our minds of late is the need for a transparent update
path for all our products, and a way for customers to easily access
the latest versions of the Sonokinetic software they own. To that
end, we’ve been working on a user backend that will enable us to
more easily provide updates for our expanding product portfolio,
and make accessing those updates easier than ever for you.
Speaking of updates, we have some coming soon. Free updates
to Grosso and Minimal will bring them up to par with Capriccio in
terms of functionality. These are major rewrites that have taken
quite a chunk out of our development schedule, but they’ve proved
to be very much worth the effort, making our orchestral line-up
even stronger than it was already.
We’ve also been working with Native Instruments on ways to port
more of our products to the Kontakt Library format. The first ones
to get their own Library tab will be Tutti and Da Capo (the latter will
soon be seeing an extensive update, too). These Library licences
will come at a small cost for existing customers, but they are, of
course, entirely optional.
Score writing for a new orchestral project to be recorded in Zlin
in summer is also happening right now, and in the fall we’ll be
recording for a product in a new part of the world that could
kickstart a whole new line.
In order to get all that done without anyone dying from exhaustion,
we’ve streamlined our virtual production system. We expect to
reap the rewards of that process with future projects and get
our release schedule back to a more consistent level. For now,
though, I hope you can understand that all of these ‘under the
hood’ changes have inevitably slowed us down to some extent, and
appreciate that it’s necessary for us to do these things now so that
we can continue to provide you with quality Sonokinetic products
moving forward.
2015 has been a very exciting and turbulent year for us so far, and
I can’t wait to share Tutti Vox with you. It’s a truly unique and very
exciting library that I think will inspire, aid and embellish many a
track in the years to come.
Son Thomsen
CEO, Sonokinetic BV
TEARDROPS
ON TAP
Thomas Newman is Hollywood’s go-to
composer for emotive scoring using
unusual sounds. Reuben Cornell caught up
with him for an exclusive interview
THOMAS NEWMAN
IS A PROLIFIC GO-TO
COMPOSER FOR EMOTIVE
SCORING USING UNUSUAL
SOUNDS. REUBEN
CORNELL CATCHES UP
WITH HIM AND ATTEMPTS
TO HOLD IT TOGETHER…
Welcome, Tom. What are you working on at the moment?
“I’m leaving next month to start work on the next Bond movie,
‘Spectre’. Then I’m finishing up on a documentary about Malala
Yousafzai, the young Pakistani Nobel Prize winner. Two very different
styles of movie.”
Speaking of styles, are you aware of having a specific sound?
“I always start with a musical vocabulary, be it large orchestra, small
ensemble or even electronics. Then I decide how much of each to
use. Even with ‘traditional’ music, I try to work out how can you fool
the ears with a modern choice of sounds. It’s important to figure out
how not to sound anachronistic up against an image. It’s the image
itself that tells us so much about what’s allowable. Oftentimes, I’ll
put any number of things up against an image and judge my passive
reaction, just to see what works and what doesn’t. If your mind is
open, it’s relatively easy.”
Would you say, then, that you start more with a palette of sounds
than a melody or any specific instrumentation?
“Kind of. I work things from many angles. Sometimes I sit at a piano
and try and hammer out a tune. For some reason, when I’m trying to
write melodies, writing at the piano seems more approachable for me,
as opposed to going to a sequencer. However, when it comes to color
and sounds, I’ll go to a computer and try things, put it up against an
image and see what sticks. It’s a big puzzle.”
You mentioned the piano, but do you have any other ‘default’ sounds
or instruments that you turn to when you start writing?
“Not really. I don’t approach a new project saying, ‘I’m gonna always
start here’. The most fun you’ll ever have on a movie is when you
begin, because anything goes. It’s not until further down the line
[that] you’re stymied by the opinions of others. I try to keep a really
open mind until something forces me to close it. For example, it
usually closes when I hear temp music. With temp music, you already
have a sense of expectation, or, at the very least, you’re being made
aware of emotional and dramatic tone, which ultimately you might
have to follow, whether using the same musical vocabulary or not.
That can be a challenge.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT
managing relationships
“It really began with Andrew Stanton, the director.
Apparently, he wrote a lot of the script while listening
to my music. I don’t think it was especially his desire
to use a ‘different’ style so much as saying, ‘I like what
this music does and how it makes me feel’.
We’ve spoken to many composers for Sonozine and
they all seem to have different relationships with
temp music. Do you prefer to be given direction with
it, or would you rather be left to your own devices?
“That’s a complex question. I think when you begin
any creative collaboration, everyone wants to be
open and hear whatever you bring to the table. But
it could be that there’s already predisposition. A
director is looking at his movie, the composer’s not
on board yet and temp music is a wonderful way to
preview the style and aesthetic. The downside is
that it can become limiting.
“So, on the one hand you hate it because you’re
being told what the movie wants to be. On the
other, you appreciate that you’re at least being told
something truthful about the direction that the
movie’s taking. In some instances, you really have to
empty your mind of what the temp track is doing if
you want to travel to a different place.
“That can sometimes mean days of work that’s
rejected in a moment because my suggestions
aren’t doing what the temp was doing. At least if
you follow the temp, the director can see that you’re paying
attention and not willfully doing whatever you like.
“Also, if something is working, I don’t want to make it
work less well! So it’s all a big risk, but that’s the price of
doing business and collaborating with others. It’s all about
managing relationships.”
So there’s a lot of trust between director and composer?
“Certainly. The movie is a huge deal for the director and
the stakes are so high for everyone that this often makes
for a more conservative creative environment. Sometimes
you have to do what’s prescribed so that you’re given the
freedom later on to do something that’s less prescribed. That
takes time and energy, and it can lead to discouragement.
So the challenge for a composer is suffering through all that
and still remaining open, creative and eager. That’s the mark
of a good director, in encouraging that process rather than
putting up his hand and going, ‘Hold on – don’t do that’.”
‘Finding Nemo’ was the first animated movie you ever
scored. Did Disney need any persuasion to take on your more
esoteric ideas, rather than continuing with their previous
‘Disneyfied’ sound?
“Beyond that, they did have to vet me. I think Pixar
had a policy at the time that the composer goes in six
months before the release of the movie and scores
10-12 minutes. Stanton gave me some pretty tough
sequences for this and I think they wanted to see if I
could handle those moment-to-moment story beats.
I was less familiar with that type of scoring, so it was
trial and error and a little terrifying. At the time, I said,
‘This is gonna be my first and last animated movie’, but
I guess that didn’t happen.
“It really rocked my way of working, too. In live action,
you can preview a repetitive cue and ask a director
if you’re in the right ball-park. With animation, those
moments are much shorter – maybe 5-10 seconds – so
you’re forced into fully fledged writing right out of the
gate. It’s much higher energy.”
Have you started work on the sequel, ‘Finding Dory’?
“That’s coming up towards the end of the year, I think.
In terms of work experience and approaching risk, my
two previous Pixar films [‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘Wall-E’]
have been career high points. I’m really excited to do
another one.”
Your writing style really suited ‘Wall-E’ – especially the
first 30 minutes, which are almost like a silent movie.
“Yeah, but it was still tough. It’s about looking at what the music
is saying and how it’s saying it. It all comes back to the images,
I suppose. You and I could watch the same images and put two
completely different pieces of music up against it.
“The process is pretty remarkable, but then when you get into
a room with a bunch of other people, there are lots of different
opinions about the direction you should take. It’s all so subjective
and open to interpretation. If someone doesn’t like something
there’s not much you can do to convince them otherwise.”
You recently scored ‘Finding Mr Banks’, also for Disney. How did
you handle establishing the synergy between your score and the
‘Mary Poppins’ songs?
“That was always going to be a hurdle. When I spoke to the director,
I said I really didn’t want to do an adaptation score, and he said he
wasn’t interested in that either. Now, when someone says something
like that, you know they believe it in the moment, but you wonder if
they still will believe it later on. But he kept to his word.
“Because there was a lot of emotional content common to both the
characters in the movie and in ‘Mary Poppins’, the music did need a
common association and feeling. For example, I mirrored the waltz
of ‘Chim Chim Cheree’ in my score with a solo violin and celesta. The
two pieces really felt like they could’ve been born in the same place
with the same kind of vibe.
“It’s like anything: you see what works and what doesn’t. That’s why
I never want to drown in my own intent. I want to have intentions,
but I also want to make sure that I don’t stick to them just because it
took time and energy to create them. I try to listen back to my music
as passively as I can. If a piece isn’t working, it shouldn’t matter that
it took me six hours to create. Many times composers just want to
but in fact is too technically complex
when you put that score in front of
a real player. I sometimes think that
samples can teach you untruths
about what things sound like when
they’re played live.”
Are you using any Sonokinetic
sounds in your work?
“Yeah. Some of your more exotic
sample libraries have really
fascinated me. I also use the
sweeping stereo sound effects
that you guys do, which are
beautifully recorded [Tutti and
Project Infinity].”
What’s missing from your sample
arsenal at the moment?
“Sometimes I think that the sound
in between a staccato/spiccato and
legato string would be really useful.
Where you can use the samples in
faster passages like a legato, but
get more emphasis note-to-note.
You should get the feeling that the
bow hasn’t left the string. I find that
my fast string pieces somehow
widen out and I can’t get the melodic
emphasis I want. Something more
forceful would be great.”
Surely you can afford an orchestra to
just play it for you.
“Ha ha. That’s true, and that’s
guided my use of string samples
in the past. Almost all the time, my
sampled sections will be replaced
by live strings.”
love a piece of music because it took a long time to
write. You should always be open to revising it, or even
throwing it out altogether!”
‘The Good German’ is another very different sounding
score to your usual style. Am I right in thinking you
were brought onto that project quite late?
“I was. I had worked with Steven Soderbergh on ‘Erin
Brockovich’. He’s courageously hands-off when it
comes to post-production. It’s not for any lack of ideas,
just that he really likes to let a composer bring his best
to the movie. He did say to me that he really wanted a
Max Steiner/Alfred Newman kind of sound.”
Presumably you drew on your father, Alfred Newman’s,
legacy for that?
“I did to a small degree. Actually, maybe a not-so-small
degree – ha ha. Even though my father died when I
was pretty young, I spent enough time around scoring
stages to understand what it was like to be on a
podium and conduct music which is more outwardly expressive.
“The opportunity to write in a more chromatic, harmonic style was
also welcome. I always felt drawn to this, even though I normally
have a more drone-ish, repetitive style.
“It was challenging and I was a little scared by Soderbergh saying,
‘Well, we can always fall back on Max Steiner if we need to’. But
he really wanted an original score and it was good fun to do it, and
have a huge brass section playing wildly chromatic music.”
Let’s get technical for a moment. What kind of sample libraries are
you using?
“I have an assistant who helps me in gathering different sample
libraries. I’m a much better person when a sound is shown to me,
rather than hunting for sounds myself, which I do find frustrating.
Mostly, when I’m writing, I’m impatient to hear sound coming out
of the speakers as quickly as I can.
“Where it’s tough is when you’re using samples that imply a certain
idiom of instrumental writing, which somehow the ear believes
Are you using commercial libraries in
your orchestral mock-ups, or do you
have a Zimmer-style bespoke library
at your disposal?
“I use my own samples a lot and I have
for decades, but they’re much more
‘garage’ sounds; smaller instruments
like mandolins. If you listen to some of
my early ’90s soundtracks, like ‘Flesh
and Bone’, there are some cool struck
and bowed bronze bowls.
“The sounds I create myself are typically
more intimate. I’ve never gone out and
sampled anything bigger, like a brass or
string section.”
Before becoming a composer myself,
I used to DJ a lot, and I regularly
played Jakatta’s ‘American Dream’,
which samples a couple of cues from
your ‘American Beauty’ score. How do
you feel about that track?
“That was so weird. I remember picking
up the CD and reading the sleeve notes,
and my credit was in such tiny print. The
rest of the track was just a vocal and
drum beat. It’s flattering and strange
all at once, I suppose – the issue of
ownership and where one track stops
and the other begins.”
What are your thoughts on the movie
soundtrack industry at the moment?
“In terms of the state of the business, it’s
really hard to know.
I keep thinking, ‘If I stay interested, remain creative and
take joy in what I do, then there’s value in that’. Where that
value lies in terms of monetary worth is getting harder and
harder to understand. I don’t know much about going on
Twitter and having a public face, as I’m already out there.
“All I can really say is: Continue to have shrewd ears; refine
your thinking and be open to mistakes you might make.
Ask yourself if you like the music you’ve written as much
as you can and don’t settle for anything less than the best,
in your opinion. My advice to composers would be just
that. As I say this, it all sounds like hideous platitudes, but
what can I say?”
I guess it’s difficult to put yourself in the shoes of
someone who’s just starting out.
Finally, out of all the pieces of music you’ve ever written
which stands out for you the most?
“One thing you can do is find a director to work with.
Steven Soderbergh would always say, ‘Find your posse’.
Get together with a group who are like-minded, where you
can help each other.
“There was an end title that had to be written for ‘Lemony
Snicket’, and we were really late in the process with so
much still to be done. The director, Brad Silberling, wanted
to just track a previous piece from the film. My music
editor saw the problem before me, spotted the oncoming
train and told me there’s no way we had enough music to
track through the entire credits sequence
“I think if I’ve learned anything, it’s what it is to be a
collaborator. How do you make something as great
as possible, considering how quirky people can be –
particularly when they’re defensive about what they do
and their values? How do you get beyond all of that to the
truth in someone, where someone can be expressive?”
What film do you wish you had scored?
“Oh, wow! There was a Peter Weir film back in the ’80s
called ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’. I so loved his use
of music in it.
“Oftentimes, that can be misleading, because you think
that someone else’s taste in music that aligns with your
own means you could write music for that person one day.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but I just remember
some of the music in that film being so beautiful up
against the image. That’s a really whimsical answer.”
“I had one little idea running through my head that
evening, which I liked and developed into a new cue. I
played it to Brad at 9am the next morning and he liked
it too. So I got to work, leaving some areas blank, and
that afternoon we recorded it at the studio. I literally had
an evening and a morning to do a whole new cue, but I
managed it in the end.”
That’s quite a workflow!
“Sometimes it works out like that. A lot of times, when
you’re relieved from your obligations and the challenge is
so ridiculous, it frees you up to try anything. To pull it off
and actually like the music was enormously satisfying.”
Thank you to Thomas Newman and his team.
Reuben Cornell
@reutunes
MUSICAL
CHAIN REACTIONS
TRINITY
AND
BEYOND
We at Sonozine have a tendency to write about music,
films, TV shows and videogames that are close to our hearts.
We want to show them off to you and tell you why we love
them and why we’re so keen for you to check them out. And
it’s no different with this issue’s film score review.
We like to keep our reviews positive and not deviate into
criticism or the bashing of anyone’s creations, but even
if we did want to take the boot to William T. Stromberg
and John Morgan’s score for 1995 documentary movie
‘Trinity And Beyond’, we simply wouldn’t be able to. It’s a
remarkable piece of work, worthy of nothing but praise and
commendation.
Stromberg and Morgan are very intelligent composers
with lots of experience in their field, including the scores
for ‘Starship Troopers 2’, ‘Bugs’ and ‘Army of the Dead’. In
my opinion, their ‘Trinity And Beyond’ composition stands
as a masterpiece, coupled to a flawless performance by
Stromberg’s favorite ensemble, The Moscow Symphony
Orchestra. The MSO are an incredible group of musicians
with whom Stromberg & Morgan have developed a very
communicative and creative relationship, which you can
really hear in the performance of the ‘Trinity’ score.
Many composers use this technique, and for most it’s a key
consideration when they start on a new project. Stromberg
and Morgan are no exceptions, and here they’ve
masterfully crafted a few very memorable leitmotifs.
They’re up to the task of playing extremely
complex and difficult compositions, which
was clearly a requirement for this particular
film.
The three things I love most about the ‘T&B’
score are:
1. The leitmotif-based themes
2. The orchestration
3. The performance
Leitmotif is a short, constantly recurring
musical phrase associated with a particular
person, place, or idea. A musical motif is
defined as a short musical idea; melodic,
harmonic, or rhythmic, or all three, a
salient recurring figure, musical fragment or
succession of notes that has some special
importance in or is characteristic of a
composition: the smallest structural unit
possessing thematic identity.
Opening track ‘The Monument Site’ sets the tone and
serves as an overture, briefly pre-visiting some thematic
events from later on in the film and establishing the grand
aural scale of the orchestra and its symphonic choir. If you
don’t get goosebumps from the Wagnerian leitmotif for
the chain reactions on screen at 1:17, you’re not listening
hard enough. This is followed by a beautifully composed
and arranged passage that’s so colorful it reminds me of
Debussy’s ‘La Mer’.
‘Newsreel’ is a kaleidoscope of musical colors thrown onto
one canvas, with an occasional reference to Gershwin’s
‘An American in Paris’. The brass section is really impressive
here – I love the sound of the powerful but not overdominant French horns and trombones. The song also
includes a beautiful transitional phrase with another
leitmotif in the brass section for the imminent nuclear arms
race at that point in the film.
In ‘Fat man and Little Boy’, the most striking element is the
orchestral percussion. The tam tam in combination with
the brass emphasizes the incredible power of the atomic
bombs on screen. There’s also another leitmotif here,
which strikes me as a thematic blend of Russian, Asian and
western music. And the tambourine at 0:36 is so tasteful…
Finally, the masterful composition and orchestration at
1:09 perfectly demonstrates the fact that Stromberg and
Morgan learned from the best.
That’s just three of the 26 tracks that make up the ‘Trinity
And Beyond’ score covered and I’m running out of space!
Given a (much) higher word count, though, I could easily
keep this up for every one of them – it’s a truly sublime
piece of work.
If you’ve yet to see ‘Trinity And Beyond’ or hear its
soundtrack, I strongly suggest you find the time to do so.
It’s a hugely impressive film with an equally impressive
soundtrack.
You can buy it at the Screen archive website, iTunes Store
or Amazon, or check it out on Spotify. Anyone into film
music really can’t afford to miss it.
Rob Vandenberg
TRACK TECHNIQUES
own. The sounds of nature, people, machinery
and weather lend themselves really effectively
to sound design.
Once you’ve decided on your building blocks,
there are lots of simple techniques you can use
to transform them.
My first suggestion is the classic reverse,
flipping a sample using the audio editor
in your DAW. This works especially well
with long, evolving sounds, like the foley
mentioned above. It’s also worth trying with
traditional orchestral samples, such as those
in Sonokinetic Vivace, where the long releases
become tension builders when reversed.
Reverb and delay effects can help to obscure
the original source of your samples, especially
if you use long wet settings and mute the dry
signal entirely. Tape delay is particularly useful
here, as it changes the timbre and pitch of
the signal. Use EQ generously to change the
defining frequencies of your sounds.
A steep high- or low-pass filter setting can
brighten or deaden a sound. Don’t be afraid
to automate band-pass or notch filters as
your sounds play back to add interest and
movement. Slowing down, speeding up and
timestretching will change short samples into
long ones (and vice versa).
CREATING SOUNDSCAPES
Try messing with the timestretch/flex
parameters in your DAW for a more granular
effect. I must give a special mention here to
the free ‘Paul’s Extreme Sound Stretch’, which
timestretches the source to an absurd extent
while still retaining its musicality.
USING SAMPLES
With a firm eye on the genre-blending
soundtracks of Thomas Newman, this
issue I’m taking a detour from orchestral
sounds and looking at atmospheric
drones, acoustic washes and other
creative soundscapes. These evolving,
multilayered textures are ever-present in
more left-field movie scores.
products from Sample Logic and various
Zero-G collections, including Outer Limits,
Dark Skies, Alien Skies and Critical Mass. If
you’re considering buying a soundscape
sample pack, make sure it includes stems
of all the sounds, so you can mix and match
parts from different soundscapes to create
unique atmospheres of your very own.
Although soundscapes are sometimes
heard alone, they usually form the
bedrock of a cue, over which more
traditional instruments play. Here, I’m
specifically looking at crafting your own
soundscapes from samples that you
already own. Of course, there are plenty
of commercial sample libraries out there
packed with prefab soundscapes if you’d
rather someone else did the legwork
for you, though. Among my favorites
are Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2, many
I tend to look at developing original
soundscapes as a two-stage process. The
first stage is selecting samples to process
and mangle; the second stage is bringing
those various elements together to create the
cohesive final soundscape.
Start by selecting some base samples to
process into more interesting sounds. You
can begin with absolutely any samples at all
from your own collection or grab a portable
recorder and venture out to capture your
Distortion and bitcrusher effects can push
mellow sounds into more aggressive territory.
Of course, you can combine any (or all) of the
above techniques to affect even wilder changes
in your sounds. For example, try taking a short
percussive sample, slowing it down, then
applying a long reverb.
All of the above effects are available in the
stock plugins included with your DAW, but
there are many third-party products that take
sound sculpting to a new level. I’ve mentioned
iZotope Iris 2 in previous editions of Sonozine,
as it’s a great spectral filtering plugin with
awesome functionality. Also notable is Zynaptiq
Morph 2, which takes the attributes of one
sound and applies them to another, blending
the two together.
Don’t be afraid to experiment, using plugins
in ‘wrong’ ways. For example, running a vocal
soundscape from Sonokinetic Tutti Vox
through a guitar amp plugin, or orchestral
sounds from Sonokinetic Tutti through
a vocal processing plugin, will both yield
surprising results.
A quick tip: When designing soundscape
elements, I like to record my main mixer
output constantly as I do it. That way, every
‘mistake’ I make is captured, so I can go back
and plunder them for more inspiration at a
later date.
To combine the separate elements of your
soundscape, you’ll probably need some
additional processing and EQ. Solo each
element and run it through a spectrum
analyzer, looking for frequency clashes
between them. As a general rule, I only allow
one element to dominate the sub-200Hz
range, applying a low-cut filter to the others.
This will usually prevent phasing issues and
result in a clearer sounding bass aspect
to the overall mix. Above 200Hz or so, you
can mix as many elements as you like. Add
interest by automating them to fade in and
out. Also, make sure any looped elements
have smooth loop points or crossfades.
I generally route every element of my
soundscape to a separate buss channel,
where I can add a little bit of compression
and reverb to ‘glue’ them together. Setting
up channel routing in this way proves
handy when you want to combine your
soundscape with other instrumentation or
dialogue/FX in an audio mix. For example,
use EQ automation on the buss to cut the
bass of your soundscape if it competes for
space with instrumentation like contrabass
or low brass. Likewise, a notch EQ filter can
reduce the amplitude of the mid-range
frequencies, enabling dialogue to be heard
more clearly.
The great thing about mixing soundscapes
is that it’s such a creative process. Here
I’ve offered some basic tips and tricks but
remember, there are really no rules in
music, so if it sounds good, it is good. Have
fun and go crazy!
Reuben Cornell
@reutunes
Reuben Cornell
KONTAKT
101
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Any performance engine needs a good tune up from time to time and Kontakt is no exception.
Kontakt is one of the most efficient if not the most efficient sampler available today, but if you
don’t do the occasional maintenance it can soon drop its performance.
Every library has been developed for Kontakt on either the Mac or the PC platforms, and whilst any
library will run on both platforms, by default, on installation, the library will load and perform best on the
platform it was developed on. Therefore, to ensure that the library is performing at its best, you should
re-save each nki (instrument) or perform a batch re-save
In most modern day Kontakt libraries, the
graphics that are shown on the library UI
are located within an nkr type file. On the
first load of a library, Kontakt creates an
associated nkc file which is basically a cache
file that will improve the load performance.
Occasionally, the nkc file can become out of
sync with the nkr file and you will see what
looks like a scrambled UI in Kontakt. To
resolve this issue simply delete the nkc file
and then reload the library again and a new
nkc file will be created.
One of the regular questions we get in support is how do I add such and such a library to Kontakt, it is
giving me a “no library found” error.
You can only add a library to the Kontakt library pane if it has been encoded by Native Instruments for the
free Kontakt Player. We specify on our Instrument product pages if the library is compatible with the free
Kontakt Player or if it requires the full version of Kontakt. Those instruments that require the full version of
Kontakt cannot be added to the Kontakt library pane.
We hope this provided some useful background information to some of the less obvious details of
Kontakt, and that it may help you resolve any issues you may encounter a little bit quicker!
Ken Black
When a library is indicated as being compatible with the free Kontakt player, such as our Grosso,
Capriccio and Tutti Vox libraries, you get a library pane graphic in Kontakt, but you also get encoded
samples that are collected into nkx type files rather than being individual wav or aif type files.
You can view a Sonokinetic Kontakt Player Tutorial on YouTube here
When you first load a free Kontakt player library, Kontakt will create a cache file (nkc type) for each nkx
type file. This process can take some time, but once it is completed, the library then loads quickly from
that point forward.
We always recommend that free Kontakt player libraries are first run with Kontakt in standalone mode
rather than within a DAW. Occasionally, it may appear that Kontakt has stopped responding during this
first load, but it is important to be patient, and let Kontakt do its processing.
If you do run into problems during this first load, exit Kontakt, reboot your computer, and Kontakt will
be forced to re-generate the cache files.
The Business of Music Licensing
Generating Revenue through
Your Music by Emmett Cooke
S O N O K I N E T I C P R O K O N TA K T C O U R S E
WWW.NATIVE-INSTRUMENTS.COM
BML
THE BRITISH MODULAR LIBRARY
THEMES
T H AT S T I C K L I K E S U P E R G L U E
C
ertain movie and TV themes, once heard, just won’t leave
your mind. They keep you awake at night and have you
humming all day long. Here are our three favorites…
MAHNA MAHNA
3
Mahna Mahna… Merely thinking about Jim Henson’s
Muppets may well be enough to lodge this brilliant song
in your memory for days. No need to start up the Spotify
– just hum it once, and you’re hooked. It was nabbed from a
1968 Swedish documentary – ‘Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso’ – and
reinvented on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1969 by Mahna Mahna
and his backup singers.
GONNA FLY NOW
2
A worthy second place for this classic Philly-steps-climbing
trumpet ensemble theme by Bill Conti. The whole original
‘Rocky’ soundtrack is worth a listen, in fact, being, in our
opinion, one of the best sports film soundtracks of all time and
setting the tone for every movie in that particular genre ever
since. “Adriaaaaan!”
TWISTED NERVE
1
Be warned: one listen to the Quentin Tarantino-rebooted
‘Kill Bill’ whistle, originally written by Bernhard Herrmann,
is enough to have it stick in your head for a very long time
indeed. Composed for 1968 Brit thriller ‘Twisted Nerve’, it
not only gave Tarantino the perfect theme for Daryl Hannah’s
monocular assassin, but also found a place in popular US TV
series ‘American Horror Story’.
BUILD
YOUR
ORCHESTRA
W W W. S P I T F I R E A U D I O . C O M
OUR TOP THREE
PUBLISHER
Sonokinetic BV
EDITORIAL STAFF
Rob Vandenberg (Managing Editor)
Son Thomsen (Editor)
Ronan Macdonald (Sub Editor)
CONTRIBUTORS
Reuben Cornell
Ken Black
Marie-Anne Fischer
Sonokinetic BV (Art Director)
Sonokinetic BV (Advertisements)
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SOME OTHER INFORMATION
Special thanks to Thomas Newman and his
team for contributing to this issue.
Sonozine is produced by Sonokinetic BV
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For editorial comments, submissions for
future articles, requests for interviews and
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