St. Elmo’s Fire?

I do a lot of orchestral / film music mock-ups to test out my sample libraries and my ability to transcribe music into midi. I wanted a different challenge, specifically to see if I could re-create many of the great sounds of 80’s outboard gear (the gated snare drums, the DX7’s) using only my plugins….

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“Leaving Home”

When I have some free time I like to mock up famous soundtrack cues and see just how close I can make them to the original.  Here is a cue from the 1978 “Superman” where Clark leaves the farm after his father’s death (I mocked up the previous cue here).    Why do I always go back…

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Buckbeak Takes Flight

I like to do a heroic mock-up now and then to keep me on my toes (see many other examples here), and when Pro Tools 11 came out back in April I wanted a big project to stress test the new format. I chose “Buckbeak’s Flight” from John Williams’ score to “Harry Potter and the…

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The Young Person’s Guide to Cineperc

Here’s a mock-up I did for Cinesamples CinePerc library in which I used each of the four divisions of the library — Core, Pro, Aux and Epic — in turn. For inspiration I relied on Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” and Handel’s “Sarabande” from his Suite in D minor HWV 437…

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Goldberg Variations Variations

I recently had to create some radio source music for a film, and the director specifically wanted Bach’s Goldberg Variations. My first recording here is the famous theme, played on my piano in my living room. Goldberg Aria Here is another take of the same piece: Goldberg Aria Take 2 And here is Variation 19….

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The Piano in Blue

I just ran across this post on the Cinesamples website and thought I would promote it on my own: The Piano in Blue Mike Barry was kind enough to be my “ears in the booth” at a recording session at the now-defunct Clinton Studios. As you’ll see from his story, at least a part of…

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The Wonderful World of Mock-Ups

What is a mock-up? It’s a recreation of a live recording using samples of other live recordings.  In other words, it’s Frankenstein’s monster.  However, it’s also a great way to study a composition and learn the strengths and weaknesses of libraries. Here, then, are a few of my mock-ups: 1) For a class on mixing…

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