The wife* and I purchased a house in mid December of last year, the culmination of months of online searching and real world touring. There were all kinds of practical reasons why we needed to do this (our now 16 month old daughter becoming self-propelled, record low interest rates, wet bars, etc.), but we all know the real reason anyone buys a house: larger, dedicated studio space!

After getting moved and settled in, I set to work on turning the back bedroom into my new recording/composing studio.
The room has a walk in closet, perfect for isolating computer noise and storing extra equipment.

A Closet, I mean "equipment room".

A little paint:

Before And After

I went with Shadowater colors, of course.

The dimensions of the space weren't bad, acoustically speaking. There was some obvious flutter echo among other things, so I worked with Auralex Acoustics to make the room sound better and bigger than it actually is. Here's what they came up with:

We could have foam EVERYWHERE!

No, seriously. Everywhere.

A couple weeks after placing the order with Sweetwater Sound, two giant boxes arrived on the door step, and with it, several days worth of physical labor (not to mention the requisite candy).

A more civilized solution

The standard installation method for the acoustic foam is to mount it directly to the walls with Auralex's TubeTak liquid adhesive. We plan on being in this house for the foreseeable future, but I (not to mention my wife) wasn't too excited about permanently modifying the walls of our new investment, so I watched an episode of Macgyver, then came up with the idea of gluing columns of foam to 4' X 6" strips of peg board, which could then be hung like picture frames onto the walls. For the ceiling and corner bass traps, I went with industrial strength velcro. The room sounds great, now.  Looks pretty good, too:

Success.

Front of House

Wall of Sound

*The wife took the great pictures, too.

There are three parts so far, but I'm focusing on Part 2, What Directors Want From Their Composers. Built from an anonymous survey of a handful of directors, it offers some great insights into their mindsets and approaches to music in their films and touches on everything from what they look for in potential composers to the drawbacks of temp scoring.

Filled with direct quotes and pretty pie charts, it's a great read, not just for film composers, but for anyone interested in the collaborative creative process.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a little guitar improvisation I recorded while working out a tone for the second track of CG. It's called 'When In Doubt, Improvise'. Thanks for listening.

Trailer shops cue music: Unique sound brands movies

Trailers for big, glossy tentpole movies typically deliver a booming symphonic score or operatic choral sounds to convey an epic feeling, though the downside to such larger-than-life bombast is the ring of overfamiliarity. The teaser trailer for "Battle: Los Angeles," on the other hand, broke with convention by using the sparse, eerie tune "The Sun's Gone Dim and the Sky's Turned Black" from techno musician Johann Johannsson that played over wordless human action. It's among the nominees for a Golden Trailer award.