Scoring to Picture
Music plays an extremely important role in TV shows, animated series, movies, movie trailers and advertisements. Sound FX and soundtracks are created to accompany various projects internationally and act as enhancers of visual sceneries across all types of visual media. In this blog post we will discuss several successful techniques that are used in the process of scoring music for the picture.
Mix Sampling with Synthesizing
Nowadays, sampling is a common practice when creating different musical orchestrations. There are plenty of software VSTs available, if you want to include a specific classical instrument like clarinet into your project. You can also sample clarinet from real live orchestra. When composing and playing same clarinet note repeatedly (while using specific clarinet plug-in VSTs), listeners may understand that’s not how a real instrument sounds. In order to give extra sonic textures to classical instruments like clarinet, you can mix in analog synthesizer patches which will back up the monophonic notes and add stereo fullness and extra depth to the bottom end.
Give Narrative Flow
Soundtracks that are composed for two dimensional (2D) animated films are different than those composed for three dimensional (3D) ones. In 2D, music is generally dry, light and sudden – reflecting the reality of the picture. In 3D, music is richer, sonic textures are deeper and more layered and there is more reverb. When composing music for a 3D project, you have to take into consideration the reality of the picture as well and look closely at natural physics and weight of the characters and compose music accordingly. Furthermore, there is a notion of a space in 3D, which can be filled with sounds. On the other hand, these notions of space and physics are absent in 2D therefore composers need to musically exaggerate the animated movements.
Keep Things Simple
It is easy to get lost in the options and tools available for music producers / composers and countless hours can be spent in selecting the right VST or setting up the gear, synthesizers and standalone samplers to play in sync. At the end of the day, everything boils down to the final three or four sounds we pick for the project. One wise person once said “From limitations come freedom” and it’s true because the lesser options we have the more innovative we become.