Artist Interview1. Digital Audio Workstation (DAW/s) of choice?
Why media music? What got you into pursuing this line of work? Feel free to mention any specific films, games, television shows or other forms of media that played a role in shaping who you are as an artist.
Cubase, Logic Pro X, Pro Tools
2. Your top five favorite media composers?
Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, John Powell, Cliff Martinez, Germaine Franco.
3. Your top five favorite film, game and/or TV scores?
The Double Life of Veronique by Zbigniew Preisner, Drive by Cliff Martinez, Gladiator by Hans Zimmer, A Nightmare Before Christmas by Danny Elfman, How To Train Your Dragon by John Powell.
4. Describe your general workflow, how do you like to write and produce music?
Get in early, compose a score suite, edit a temp score with the suite, rescore and conform the score suite to picture.
5. Define your sound. What makes you unique?
Crafting new sound palettes unique to each project as time allows. Constantly experiments with new workflows to inspire new ideas.
6. Outline (simply) your approach to scoring to picture? How do you create collaborative interplay between your work and your clients needs?
Communication, planning and productive experimentation.
7. Describe your typical process for composing from brief to final delivery.
Generate ideas in a score suite away from picture, score the biggest moment of the film first, then go back to the opening and work my way in order as best I can and as senses become available.
8. What was the theme/concept behind your Artist Series album?
The sonic interplay between synths and orchestral elements.
9. What made you want to explore this theme/concept?
Collaborative discussion with my composing partner Nikhil Koparkar and our general love for hybrid music general.
10. How do you do to manage your time, when working on multiple projects at once?
Google Sheets and Notion.
11. What piece/s of software / hardware do you recommend to other media composers?
Macs for UI, PC for sample servers, Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, Cubase. Pick your poison.
12. What lesson/s have you’ve learned in the last year that you’d like to share with your fellow composers?
Manage your files, own your work and protect your copyrights and manage your track metadata.
13. Anything else that you would like to share about yourself and your approach to this craft?
Complete madness most of the time. Not sure why I do this, but I keep coming back to it, so I must like something about it.