Now available: EastWest Partners SSL to Bring FX Global Suite for Play 4

EastWest has just released Play 4, the newest sample player engine for all its sample library products.

EW QL Symphonic Orchestra running on Play 4. The original 'skin' layout has been preserved,
along with a new look on the interface

What's new in the upgrade includes an improved streaming engine, improved overall performance, efficiency, a brand new mixer page, background loading, and more advanced instrument properties.

The all new mixer page on Play 4

Best of all, Play 4 would be available to existing Play users free-of-charge! That IS good news.

More information from the original sounds-online forum post, posted by Doug Rogers himself :)

Along with Play 4, comes the very exciting collaboration of EastWest with SSL, the very famous manufacturers of hardware consoles that have been processing audio signals for countless chart topping hits for the past decades. Now the same precision and signature audio processing power is has been integrated in software form, at a fraction of the original cost of SSL's standalone audio software plug-ins.

On top of all this, EastWest has added 726 additional reverb presets that comes with the SSL/EW  FX Global Suite. It really is value for money, at the current price of US99/EU99. Once you have paid for the license to use the EW/SSL processing tools, it will be enabled for all the sample libraries that run on the Play 4 engine.

These sound sculpting / dynamics processing tools of the SSL/EW FX Global Suite for Play 4, are implemented as channel fx/signal strips in the form of 'fx drawers' that are pulled down on top of the mixer view. Effects settings are stored per-channel. For every effects settings that is set up, the user can save these as presets that can be called up across different instances and projects.

The SSL/EW Global-FX drawer, and the comprehensive interface,
all fitting snugly into a single page of interface. Effects setteings are stored per-channel.

I have just installed and fiddled around with the Play 4. At present I am most impressed by 2 main features: The mixer, and the background loading feature.

The Mixer. This adds quite a bit of flexibility to the audio workflow of the project. If you look at a single mixer strip in the any of the new mixer view images, you will not see no functions that are 'new', nothing that you could not do before. However, the mixer view consolidates the midi/audio routing, panning, levels, so you can see them in the context of a levels and panning, as a mixing engineer does.

Also, if you have any of the Platinum/Diamond editions of any of the products that use mic positions (such as the ew symphonic orchestra, ew pianos, and the ew hollywood library series), each if the mixer strips will allow you to expand that single strip that will now function like a group buss, and expand out into individual mic positions as sub-strips, so you can have further controls over mic positions levels and panning. I feel this feature is really unique, ties up very well with the features of each of EastWest's library, and plays into the strength of the Play engine (pun intended). Well done, guys!

Background loading. Play 4 now has the ability to load an instrument in the background. This is true even if you are replacing a current instrument channel. In the past when loading an instrument, the play engine freezes up and the loading process takes prevents the user from doing anything. Now you can continue playing and enjoy the existing instrument while the new instrument is loading. Only upon the completion of the load, will the existing instrument be removed, and the new instrument samples will sound. Again this is true even if you are replacing your only instrument channel in the Play instance.

The images below show the background loading status bar at the bottom of the interface while loading. The GUI is completely interactive and functional while the loading is taking place, and you can still play the previous instrument even while it loads.

Background instrument loading in the mixer view

Background loading in the player view

All in all, the direction that EastWest is heading is very promising. I can see the beginnings of the counterpart of Vienna Ensemble Pro that Vienna Symphonic Library has developed. All that EastWest needs to do is add more features like group busses, aux routings and the ability to load audio and instrument VSTs to their mixer capabilities, and they would be on par with VSL's Vienna Ensemble Pro (except for the ability to operate in a network host/slave situation like VE-Pro does).

My Upcoming Gig for the NKF Sit-a-thon Charity Event

Cool guys with playing cool instruments,
during one of our many rehearsals.

This coming Sunday 28 July 2013, in support of the NKF charity Sit-a-thon event, I'll be appearing with the Accenture Band outside of Ngee Ann City Singapore.

We'll be playing some of the very recently popular tunes, so drop by and groove yourself to great music in support of a great cause.

WHY HANS ZIMMER GOT THE JOB YOU WANTED (AND YOU DIDN’T)

Yesterday this article was pointed to me by mr Alvin Yap who crawls the internet forums in his free time :)

This article was on a website called Soundtracks and Trailer Music

It is entitled: Why Hans Zimmer Got the Job You Wanted (And You Didn't)

It is written by Michael A. Levine, providing an Interesting Insight into Hans Zimmer (his work attitude and personality). It is a combination of musical skills, sensitivty and understanding of dramatic storytelling, business sense, ability to deliver and meet deadlines, and finally, understanding who the real clients are and treating them right.

Most of all, Hans Zimmer works really hard, and takes his career seriously, investing lots of time and money.

Thanks, Soundtracks and Trailer Music. This site will surely be another good place to hang out and to enrich myself with.

Interview with Film Composer James Bernhard

New from the Cakewalk Blog.

Great interview with Film Composer James Bernhard, a Sonar user incidentally. He has a strong perception of what is right, and what isn't for him. Coupled with these nuggets of wisdom and experience, are also very handy tips for aspiring composers for Film and TV.

 I like the questions asked by the interviewer from Cakewalk :)

 I am wondering why composers are secretive about the sounds, libraries and gears they use?

I like it when James say that in today's world of music, a demo track is often required to be broadcast quality, available to be used at an instant's request.

I also like the fact that he prioritises quality over speed. He rather have it right, than to have it fast. However, I also appreciate a lot of people in a situation when they are cornered into just meeting deadlines or budgets. At this point in time I can only draw on my professional experience as a CG / VFX artist. I hope I get to experience a full swing project cycle of stress, deadline versus budget kind of struggle, as a composer one of these days.

Thanks for the great interview, Cakewalk!

Wrath of the Machine

This is a piece of music I wrote for a short film that has just finished production. Watch it in my previous post, and read about my experience/challenges working on it.

Below is just the audio track. I named this piece Wrath of the Machine, because it is somewhat linked to the story. Curious? Watch it here!

Listen to this on Soundcloud.com

Some Stats:
Start-end dates: 1 Dec 2012 - 28 Mar 2013

DAW - FL Studio 10 / FL Studio 11

Virtual Instruments used:
- Kontakt Factory Library
- VSL special edition (strings/brass)
- Rhodes Premiere Acoustic Bass
- Pianoteq Piano

Short Film: Exit

Exit

Here's my soundtrack on an excellent short film that just wrapped up and got posted online. Music was written to the timing of the visuals.

My composition supplied music to the most part of their project, about 2/3 into the project. At the end during the credits roll, the team edited my piece back in again.


Exit from Rebel Banana on Vimeo.

This is my first track written to visuals. Project from start to finish was 1 Dec 2012 to 28 Mar 2013. During this time there were only 2 rounds of iteration.

For a version with just the music, read my next post here.

The team knew what they wanted, and Andrea, who liaised with me, was very concise in expressing what the team wanted, and the mood they were going for at each part of the story.

The music that the team envisioned was largely influenced by their liking for the music from Team Fortress 2, and even from The Incredibles by Disney.

I was quite apprehensive at the beginning, since this was a genre quite different from my usual style. However, the cinematic flavour that the music had to have was something I could rely on.

The visuals (storyboard/animatics) and their edited pacing were locked down very early in the production. This story has strong and definite moments. Using the cinematic feel as an anchor and some research into similar styles of music I managed to come up with the skeletal version of the structure.

This was just the second idea I set out to write.

In my first idea (which the team promptly rejected), I interpreted the mood as a lonely, with a tinge of eerie feel. However I had a flute part going in there that had a line with a thrill at the end. Somehow I liked it so much that I carried it over to my second idea, which ended up in the final version.

Thinking about the circumstances and the barriers that come up against good coordination and effective communication makes it even more surprising as to how smoothly the music production went.

First thing I would like to highlight, is the fact that, I have never met with any of the team members in person.

Second fact: to date, even after the production has ended, I have never had a voice conversation with any member of the team.

Third fact: The team and myself reside in different countries. They were studying and doing their production in Malaysia, while I am living in Singapore.

Now you can perhaps understand why I feel that it is a miracle that the music could be completed to their satisfaction without much hassle.

Our main communication tool was e-mail and messaging through Facebook. As I have mentioned before, Andrea is a very organised and responsible coordinator. She made sure I had references and instructions. As per our agreement, she did an overlay of textual instructions on their existing storyboard just for music. One thing I have to admire her for, is the fact that she used a generous amount of musical terms (Italian terms) in the instruction overlay. I have never told anybody this, but on my side I had to go and do a search on the meaning to many of those terms that she used :)

The smooth workflow that came about could also be partially due to my understanding of drama, storytelling and understanding of the idea and the team's angle in the story. As a visual effects artist that has worked on Hollywood films myself , I believe the understanding of that film language is paying off in that way.

There was a point in time where I was giving them a work-in-progress version that was still a way off from being finished, (it was half the length of the final soundtrack, but the main themes were already in place). Because of the instruments used and the fact that they thought what I showed them was the finished product, they were suggesting something very close to restarting from scratch.

I did something quite unconventional, to try and salvage the situation (and to aggressively sell my existing idea). Therefore, from all the visual effects breakdowns that I am used to doing, I gave them a walkthrough of the various parts of my arrangement played back against their visuals, mostly melodic tracks versus percussive tracks.

To my surprise and relief, they found that it was still on the right track. In the end I figured they liked the percussion track that gave the rhythmic drive to push the action along. In my mix (which was not yet balanced for all the instruments in the piece), my melodic instruments have overpowered the percussive, therefore the rhythmic driving probably wasn't there.

Finally, I have just been informed that this piece of video has been featured in the Staff Pick videos, recommended by Vimeo staff! It is very exciting, and I congratulate the team for the work well done!

If you enjoy it, do share your comments with the team on the Vimeo page! Also, you can visit their Facebook page here: facebook.com/exitRB.

Against the Flow - Mma idea03 20130601 Trial01 010

Listen on SoundCloud.com 

Here's a piece done for a martial arts school video as a speculative test. It has a driving feel with elements of sound design.

I hope you like the piece!

Start-End Dates: 20130601 - 20130606
DAW: FL Studio v11
VI libraries Used:
- heavyocity Damage
- NI Kontakt Factory Library
- SampleLogic cinematic guitars
- Image-Line Slayer

DSP plugins used
- NI solid bus comp
- NI RC24 (reverb)
- NI solid EQ
- NI EQ3 (inside Kontakt)
- VSL hybrid reverb
- izotope Ozone 5