How to filmscore in Digital Performer

[Armageddon]

Huh? Why not? Done it plenty of times with great results. Again, I think it boils down to how you use the tools. Would I mix a WB feature that way? Of course not, I probably wouldn't be anywhere where near the session. LOL. But is DP capable of post sound? You betcha! Just think of DP as the supermarket of the DAWs...

Read again: I never said DP wasn't capable of doing post sound (technically, any multi-track DAW that can sync to video is capable of being used for post sound; I once even witnessed a Tascam 688 MIDIStudio eight-track cassette recorder being used to post a film!), I just can't imagine doing it. I actually know people who have posted relatively simple broadcast quality sound jobs with DP, and now, with Final Cut Pro integration, I'm sure it's even easier. However, ProTools and, to a lesser degree, Nuendo are better suited to the task. Logic doesn't even factor into that equation. That's no slight against DP, but it started out life and probably still remains a composer's tool, while ProTools was always a straight-up audio rig geared towards post sound and multitrack audio recording/engineering. The fact that you can engineer and mix a professional audio project inside DP, and, to a lesser extent, compose music inside of ProTools shouldn't be overlooked, but even as a die-hard "DP for everything" advocate, I would have to reach for ProTools, or hire someone with a ProTools rig, if I wanted to post sound for a movie, TV show or video.

It's probably an unfair and outdated assessment, though, because DP's audio capabilities, especially for a native DAW, are getting better and better all the time, while Digidesign has decided to shore up ProTools' MIDI capabilities. At this point, I would at least feel comfortable (especially considering DP is the only DAW I now use) to mix songs/albums inside of DP, instead of the old days, where I'd want to use DP for composing only and actually mix the audio in ProTools or something else. Eventually, I'm sure both programs will get to the point where they're about equal on the audio and MIDI fronts.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

So where specifically do you feel DP is not as good' as PT for post? What does PT do inherently 'better?' Seriously, I'd like to know.

[Armageddon]

So where specifically do you feel DP is not as good' as PT for post? What does PT do inherently 'better?' Seriously, I'd like to know.

Specifically, a TDM/RTAS system isn't using native resources (i.e. - your computer). Also, its handling of audio is inherently better. Better audio editing capabilities, better integration of soundbites and regions, better HUI control. Not that DP can't do these things, mind you, but ProTools does them better, faster and more efficiently, and in the context of performing audio post-production on film or video, it's the better tool. That's just my opinion (and the opinion of a lot of post-production engineers). DP started out life as a MIDI sequencer, ProTools started out life as a post-audio rig.

Conversely, as a music production tool, DP completely beats it out. You're not dependent on a large number of tracks that require complex editing and organization, nor are you editing 90 minutes of continuous audio with a vast multitude of changes, ambience tracks, foley, hard effects, dialogue, ADR and music. If you're just mixing a song, or a score, the innovations that make ProTools better for post-production audio are almost negligible and the qualities that make DP the best composing tool on the market shine through.

In the context of scoring a film, especially since the introduction of V-Racks in 5, DP is damn near flawless. It's almost too easy to set up markers and score right on the exact frame you're trying to hit, the V-Racks allow you to have a common set of instruments for an entire score and the MIDI automation is so good with the VIs, you damn near don't have to sweat even dumping audio until a two-track mixdown. It's easily the best native DAW on the market, as well. Logic may handle AU plugs a little better ... but unfortunately, it's handling them inside of Logic.

Once again, I would venture to guess that, by DP 8, especially with the innovations 7 already has in place, it will be an overall better program than ProTools. I think 6 and 7 both prove that MOTU is planning on shoring up its audio capabilities to give ProTools a run for its money, as it should.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, I don't agree at all, but that's OK. Again, I've done features and other projects with many tracks, FOley, SFX, dialogue - the usual suspects, and hardly a glitch. ANything I've wanted to do, DP did and does. Maybe you just have a better imagination than I do. LOL.

[Armageddon]

Well, I don't agree at all, but that's OK. Again, I've done features and other projects with many tracks, FOley, SFX, dialogue - the usual suspects, and hardly a glitch. ANything I've wanted to do, DP did and does. Maybe you just have a better imagination than I do. LOL.

Again, you're misreading me. I'm acknowledging that DP does all these things, and certainly better than, say, Cubase or Logic ... just not as well as ProTools does. Not yet, anyway. As it stands right now, I would rather use ProTools for post audio and DP for music. Each program has specific strengths. Lots and lots of people produce MIDI compositions and finished music on ProTools, too, but DP is specifically geared towards that and accomplishes it better. However, either program can be used for both. And really, it boils down to personal preference and workflow. Whether ProTools is better at post sound or not, DP is certainly a cheaper solution that ultimately gives you the exact same results. It just depends on how you want to get there.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I guess I don't think of it as cheaper as much as simply less expensive. Whatever works for you is what's right - 'if it sounds good, it is good.'

[wurliuchi]

Excuse me for going completely off topic:

Last week I was hunting around on Netflix and found some wonderful footage of Ellington and Basie. I've been in heaven ever since playing it on my Roku player. It's all available for Instant Play. I think it's footage they each did for one of the major movie studies or television networks. It's just them and their bands doing song after song. It's really great. The players are extraordinary, of course, and we get to see and hear their playing styles close up, a lot of solos.

If you have Netflix you should check it out. They have a bunch of older jazz/swing stuff available for instant play.

Now, if someone could come up with a VI library that sounded like Ellington's or Basie's or Chick Webb's bands... I think I'd have a stroke.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Are we o/t? LOL! I can't think of a better example of writing great music than the Duke. I was lucky enough to see him perform live in the 1960s. Memories for a lifetime! He roc... I mean, swings.

[wurliuchi]

I can't think of a better example of writing great music than the Duke.

Because there isn't one.

I was lucky enough to see him perform live in the 1960s. Memories for a lifetime! He roc... I mean, swings.

Oh, you lucky dog! I'm envious as can be. It's one thing to hear them over the TV or stereo, but there's nothing like a Big Band swingin' live, and Ellington's! Damn! How I wish I experienced that. I bet you can still hear it in your head.

I was always pissed off that I missed the Savoy Ballroom days. Maybe in Heaven.

[Armageddon]

I guess I don't think of it as cheaper as much as simply less expensive. Whatever works for you is what's right - 'if it sounds good, it is good.'

'Scuse me ... "less expensive". "Cheaper" didn't sound right to me, either, in retrospect. Actually, truth be told, it's more like "ProTools is grossly overpriced".

[James Steele]

Now type in logic or Ableton and you get tons of videos. Not all good but some very nice. I remember a while back mike Patti posted some vids of him using DP. I just wish their were more vids of real pros using DP in action.

Here's the problem: the real pros that I know that are scoring for TV and film are 1) using DP and 2) part and parcel with their status as real pros don't have time to be posting videos on YouTube on how to film score with DP. They're too busy working on paying gigs.

If you want to learn, I'd suggest diving in by working on a student film or something, or practicing with some sort of captured footage of a TV show or movie and replacing the music with your own and then asking questions along the way at this board when you get stuck perhaps. There are also some books I believe with general principles that can be applied to DP.

[Armageddon]

Here's the problem: the real pros that I know that are scoring for TV and film are 1) using DP and 2) part and parcel with their status as real pros don't have time to be posting videos on YouTube on how to film score with DP. They're too busy working on paying gigs.

If you want to learn, I'd suggest diving in by working on a student film or something, or practicing with some sort of captured footage of a TV show or movie and replacing the music with your own and then asking questions along the way at this board when you get stuck perhaps. There are also some books I believe with general principles that can be applied to DP.

I'm still not clear on whether or not he's looking for help scoring with DP, or just scoring in a DAW, period. Again, when you go to the MOTU home page, they have video tutorials for sale right there (maybe he's looking for free ones?). At any rate, the method I described using is also laid out pretty cut and dry in the DP manual -- that's where I got my information from when I started out.

[dexterflex]

Thanks guys,

I guess Im just trying to find out how to score in a DAW in general. I have tried scoring short videos. And I think it turned out well. But soon I would like to try and score a movie and perhaps get paid one day. I guess besides just watching a video and writing music that you think fits best seems is step 1. Just curious for those of you who score music for paying clients what features of DP do you use? I have studied music at University and understand composition. But computers + composing to video is not something I have studied.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

FWIW, not many of us have "studied" it either. For myself, I started scoring movies professionally in 1988 using onboard sequencers on an Ensoniq EPS, and SQ-80 (in tandem) with a Mirage for percussion, a Proteus/2, and a cheap Boss mixer to add some reverb. There were no safety recordings. The technician came to my studio and recorded live from my rig in real time. We took the PCM Beta tapes to a video studio and married the two in painstakingly long sessions.

Think about that - onboard sequencers. A distinct disadvantage in that if I hit a wrong note, I'd have to scroll thru the score event by event to manually change or delete the note. Music paper would have been faster, but paying an orchestra was about $150k per week in those days and there was 4 hours and 30 minutes of music to sync. That would never have flown on our budget and synths were used.

Around mid to late 1989 I finally got an Atari ST and Editrack and I was in DAW heaven - except for syncing to wanky SMPTE code and plotting tempo changes in a wankier JL Cooper PS-100. PS was right!

I did score a couple of smaller films back in about 1977 on a TEAC 2340. Piano & percussion with SFX (always a part of my arsenal).

The process? Always the same. Watch the picture. Watch the picture. Watch the picture. Watch the picture. Watch the picture. Watch the picture. Watch the picture. Watch the picture.

Think.

Write.

The DAW is only a conveyance. It will get you where you want to go, but you have to know where you want to go - and not everybody is going to agree with you.

[Armageddon]

Thanks guys,

I guess Im just trying to find out how to score in a DAW in general. I have tried scoring short videos. And I think it turned out well. But soon I would like to try and score a movie and perhaps get paid one day. I guess besides just watching a video and writing music that you think fits best seems is step 1. Just curious for those of you who score music for paying clients what features of DP do you use? I have studied music at University and understand composition. But computers + composing to video is not something I have studied.

First of all, most film projects begin the scoring phase with a spotting session, in which the director, producer and whoever else is in the position of making creative decisions on the movie will either sit down with you and the movie and make a spotting list of all the places in the film they want music, what kind of music they want and even specific instruments they want used, or they will just send you this list. Sometimes -- and this happens a lot, anymore -- they will actually temp score their project with stock music, indicating where they want the music to go and what kind of music they want in a specific scene. This gives you an audio/video reference to go by as you're scoring. Sometimes, the post schedule is so tight, all of these decisions are either left up to you or your task is to create music beds which will then be edited into the movie as needed.

As for beginning the process in practice, you can download or make a QuickTime video of your own, load it into DP using the methods I describe earlier in this topic and you'll be all set. DP handles these tasks so well, your main hurdle will just be to compose the actual music for your practice piece. In reality, scoring a feature-length project is no different from scoring a short subject. Unfortunately, getting on here or any composer-heavy forum and asking "How do I score a movie?" is akin to getting on an audio forum and asking "How do I engineer music?", because there's a million different answers to that question and a million different ways to do it. Like I said, the technical stuff is covered here, the rest of it is remembering that your score is just one component in service to the movie/show/video. Pick ten movies whose scores you remember liking and watch/listen to them very carefully to see what you liked and how the score works with the images and story you're watching. That's really all you can do.

I've worked on movies for about twenty years and taught myself both how to play keyboards and how to score movies without any formal training (so you're one up on me!) at a young age ... and all I did was emulate film composers whose work I admired.

I personally just sit down with the workprint and a legal pad and ... well, I hum. I'll write down the start and end SMPTE numbers and hum my way through a cue. I'll then write down what I feel is the best way to approach the piece, as well as make up my own spotting list of where the hits, zingers, time changes and overall moods of what I think should go where. Then, when I open up a cue project in DP, I just go through and lay in markers according to those notes I made. I even type in specific notes as the marker titles, like "BIG HIT!!!" or "Solo Strings 80 bpm" or whatever. You can adjust the timing of these markers any time you want, but now, you have a basic layout of that one cue. You can start the video and just play along with the movie on a piano a few times to get the composition started in your head. Or flip through various sounds in a VI workstation and jam along to see what works. DP is amazing at all these things, so don't be afraid to dive in and experiment with these features.