The Score

Andrea Baroni (aka Bluegestalt)

By Emmett - November 29, 2008 - 13:17 Eire

Background

I studied piano and music theory in a music school here in Italy from 9 to 16 years old.
A couple of years ago I followed a course at SAE in London, mainly focused on the modern techniques of music production.
Then read some books about harmony, orchestration, etc…

“Do you think this influences your compositions in any way (positively or negatively?)”

I think you can make great music even without knowing nothing about theory, or without being able to play a single note on any instument.
But, as always, knowledge is power, and it gives you more control. And your music gains more possibilities.

“What would you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses?”

I think that my music is always based on a good melody, even the more aggressive songs. I’m not speaking of memorizable hooks or mind-piercing tunes (I’m not so good in creating “commercial songs” or potential hits… ).
I’m speaking of notes that can touch the listener, that can create an emotion of any kind. I like experimental sounds or songs, but I always end up in putting some melody even in those songs.
I can always improve my mixing and production skills, even if I think I have improved them lot in the last years. And I really would like to master the orchestration techniques more.

I think to be quite sentistive and communicative, and to be able to catch the right feeling for a piece, but I would like to be more confident with musical theory (especially harmony) and with the technology I use, to be more self confident and to be able to try different paths (more corageous).

“Who would you consider to be your musical influences?”

My love for music started when I was just a child, but my “conscious listenings” started about at the age of 15, with metal and rock albums (mainly prog bands).
Now I like every different style of music, but I love more the kind of music that makes you think, or the one that can touch you in any way. I like the music that is made with the heart, and not the one that is made looking at the wallet. I know… it’s good to make money with your music, but the creative process for me should always be “artistic” based, and not “marketing” based, even if you do something just for a stock market like AudioJungle. If you do the other way for me you’ll end up only in creating soulless music.
Anyway, some of the artists or bands that influenced me most are:
Vangelis, Kevin Moore, Joe Hisaishi, Pain of Salvation, Mike Oldfield, Fates Warning, Anathema, Arjen Lucassen, Thomas Newman, Michael Nyman.

Hardware/Software

“What equipment do you use?”

A short list of my equipment:
MacBook Pro 2.0 Ghz, Logic Pro 8, Yamaha 01v digital mixing console with MY16-MLAN card, ADAM A7 studio monitors, Yamaha Motif ES8, Access Virus Ti Polar, sE microphones, some other keyboards and a lot of software instruments.
For a full list just go to My Site

“Whats your main DAW, and how do you find it?”

Logic Pro 8… I think it’s the best DAW around. It can scare you at the beginning (even if the version 8 is much more simple and user friendly), but it’s well orgranized, powerful and sounds great (in my opinion!)

“What VSTs do you use, and what are your favourite ones?”

My favourite virtual instruments, apart from the ones that comes with Logic, are NI Battery, EastWest Orchestra Gold, Quantum Leap Pianos, NI Absynth and FM8.

“Do you play any instruments? If so, what do you play and for how long? How have they influenced the type of music you make today?”

Piano and keyboards since tender age. Can play a bit of drums and didgeridoo…
I would like to learn violin and guitar.
I love the piano sound… I have to resist to the temptation of using it in every song…

Yea I’m the exact same. Every song I make usually starts off on piano. The piano sound just has something about it thats mezmorising.Whats your favourite instrument that you own, and that you would like to own and why?

Except from my piano? (I have an acoustic one… but in my songs, for practicality and quality, I always end up using samples)
I love my Motif and my Access Virus.
I would like to have a real Moog, a real Hammond organ, and some of the Clavia synths.

How do you find the Access Virus? I have a Virus Ti Keyboard myself, and although it set me back a hell of a lot (I’m still paying it off!) I think its amazing. I have yet to get through the amount of presets on it - let alone creating new sounds.

It think it to be the best virtual analogue synth on the market, even if sometimes it can be a bit upsetting.
It sounds really great, but being a sort of “dedicated computer” it has the typical flaws of computers. It gives you a lot of power, but the more you overload the more you are dangerously touching the limits. So, for example, a couple of times it crashed, or “freezed”, while I was playing (I admit that I was trying some cpu-hungry sounds, like many oscillators layers with effects applyed). So, used to other traditional synths, where you can be relaxed on what you do, here you have to be aware of the limits and the resources of the machine (just like a computer… ).
The TI interface works fine, but its latency it’s not so good. And you can only plug the Virus to a built-in usb port of your computer. This is not worrying if you have a desktop computer, but if you have, like me, a laptop, I have problems from this, because usually I have to plug my iLok, the external hard drive, the mLan on the firewire, and then the Virus (and the MacBook Pro has only 2 usb ports… )

“Whats your favourite piece of software and why?”

Logic is my favourite. Reason is great but I’m not using it in everyday jobs.
Not speaking of musical software my “all time” favourite remains Photoshop… is one pieace of art software!

“Whats your favourite piece of hardware and why?”

I enjoy so much using my Mac.
Speaking of musical hardware I think that my mixer has been a good choice for my present budget, and the mLAN board is a very good and powerful interface.

Style

“How important do you think it is for a composer to have his own style and why?”

The style is very important. It’s the soul of an artist. You can always recognize the influences of an artist, just like you can recognize the father and mother features in a child, but the mix of this influences should always create an unique style… or otherwise you’re just copying and “saying” things that others have already said, even if you are as good as them.

“Are you a multi-genre composer? Or do you like to specialize in one particular area?”

I like to challenge myself in making songs in different genres.

“What appeals to you about creating your style of music?”

If the question is: “why you do the music you do” well… I really don’t know
It comes from within. I hope to have now a style of mine, but maybe I’m not the best judge for this.

Composition

“What types of media have you composed for and which is your favourite?”

Apart from the music I create for my band (Icycore) or solo albums, I created music for videogames, multimedia applications, a couple of videos for a cultural heritage program and a couple for theatre plays.

What sort of work did you do for the video games? Did you do sound effects aswell, or just music? What process did you go through in creating music for these types of media (ie. layout themes, find sounds you like etc.)

Being also a developer (expecially for Adobe Flash) many of these videogames were flash-based web games. For them I created some small loops that could fit the menu titles or the background in-game music.

I also like to create sound effects (I’m currently selling some of them also on AudioJungle), and for these I can start from synth sounds or from real world sounds (more fun!), recording them in my studio or around the world with my M-Audio Microtrack.
A more challenging and interesting job would be making music for some big project, where the music is very similiar to film music (but without the worry of synchronizing everything precisely with the action on the video).

Let’s hope for the future… in the meanwhile I’m making good practise with orchestration techniques for that!

“What is your process for composing, especially if you are composing for a particular film/game?”

For a film or game I try to capture the atmosphere of that creation, to understand what music should comunicate in that particular situation, if it has to lead, to accompany the action or just to work as a subtle background.
And then I start to sketch down ideas on my keyboards, sometimes with the video running in the background.

“Who would you consider to be your musical influences?”

My favourite soundtracks composers are: Hisaishi, Newman, Shore, Vangelis.

[flashvideo filename="http://sonicoctave.com/FGCMusic/NeverSungHeroIntro.flv" /]

“Have you had any large clients, and if so, who were they?”

No large clients at the moment… let’s see what future brings (Hollywood, here I am! )

“What form of marketing/promotion do you use, if any, and which was the most popular?”

I usually promote myself with: personal website and blog, myspace and Lastfm. Even stock websites like Audiojungle are good for that

I have heard of a few people using Lastfm to promote their music - how do you find it? Have you got any jobs from it, or any feedback from people by using it?

I started using LastFm from a couple of months, so I’m not really an expert.
I had the luck of being already present on their database as an artist (you can’t subscribe as an artist just like MySpace, you can only subscribe as a listener), because of the Commodore 64 music remixes I made for remix.kwed.org, so I was already on their database.
So I was able to “claim” myself as that artist and so to manage my page, inserting a bio, photos and other music.
It’s a compltely different approach from MySpace, but I think it’s really worth a try, because people can add your music to their own radio stations, and then they will listen to your songs very often (royalties will be payed to you).

“What project have you enjoyed working on the most?”

I love creating albums…. for me it’s the most “artistic” form of expression in music (if you don’t have a deal with a major… that could be very remunerative but also frustrating).
My albums are often concept albums, because I like telling stories and giving a background to my music.
Recently I finished working on my new solo album (Traces Of Humanity), and that has been for me a marvelous journey (I also dared singing! )
Speaking of soundtracks: I enjoyed working for the theatre… listening to your songs in the big dark theatre hall is only second to playing in a big live.

“Theatre music is an entire genre/style in itself. How did you get into it? What is it about composing for theatre music that you enjoy?”

I’m not really into it yet…
It happened to me to work for the theatre just a couple of times. The first time I worked on some video projections that was meant as a support for the main representation (the video for the project “Never Sung Hero”, in the flv I have sent you). In this case it was not so different from working for a movie, because in the end I was composing for a video (even if it has been a nice experience seeing it together with the play and the “real” actors).
In another job I had a collaboration with a theatre company, where a friend of mine was working.
It has been a great experience, but due to time limits I had no time to compose something praticular for the play, so they used some songs from my portfolio (one of these was “Understanding”), and adapted a bit their scenes to these songs (or in another situation we closed a song at a certain time).
Anyway… I think that working for the theatre could be a difficult but exciting task at the same time. You cannot compose only in your studio with the video running in the background of your daw. Of course you can film the company’s trial reharsals, but often a mutual adaptation is needed, to find the right times and inspiration, since theatre is also “improvisation” and things are not always so precise. So maybe you can compose something and then check how it fits with the scene… and the acting itself can be different with your music. There’s a lot of energy when you are phisically on the stage, similar to the energy of a live concert, but with the typical magic of theatre.

“Have you ever had a client who was hard to deal with, and if so, what did they do and how did you deal with it?”

Luckily not with music.
I dealed with difficult clients in other multimedia projects, and the best thing to do is to put everything on the contract… even how many times a thing (in this case a music or a graphical layout) can be revised or changed.
Anyway, the difficult clients are the ones that don’t really understand the efforts behind your work, or that pretend to know your work better than you, not listening to your guide lines. Or the ones that will pay you with some months of delay…

If you have had freelance music projects - have you used contracts for them?

No. In the bigger projects for which I needed a contract, and for which I created the music, I was also involved as a graphic designer or as a developer, so it was an unique contract, where I also added the work for the music or the sound effects.

“Do you have any tips for people starting up in the music industry, on how to market themselves, get jobs, and get started off in general?”

I wish I have some really good ones, to share also with myself…
No, seriously speaking: never give up. Enjoy the positive reviews and learn the best lesson from the negative ones. Promote yourself in any way. Always improve your skills and do your best in every work… you will be repaid for that, even if not immediately.

“Do you ever get writers block, and if so how do you deal with it?”

Sometimes. When it happens I try something completely different, or at least a different approach.
If even this does not work I stop for a while… have a cup of tea or coffee and search some inspiration from the things I love most… or from things never seen before that can stimulate my creativity.
It’s important not to persist too much or you will get frustrated. Enjoying the most what you do is the key to never have writers block in my opinion.

“Do you find that when you’ve finished a song, your sick of hearing it?”

No… I can listen to my songs million times

“How long do you typically spend on one track?”

It can be from a couple of hours for simple ones to even a month (not continuously of course!) if I’m not convinced, or if I want to do something more ambitious.

“When creating a track, do you know how long it will be before starting it, or do you tend to just “see how it goes” and let the track make itself?”

I prefer to let the things flow…
But when you have precise limits (ie: for a soundtrack) is good to keep an eye on the timeline and to create something that can fit the needs (so don’t be too pretentious).

“Is there anything you wish you could do musically, but can’t now?”

Learn to play guitar, violin and improve in the orchestration techniques.

“How would you define success?”

I would be happy to make a living with my music, and to be able to let it reach as many persons as possible.

“What ultimately are your goals?”

Improve my skills. Create some really good songs. Work to a soundtrack for a “big project”.

“If you could change one thing in the music industry, what would it be and why?”

Everything. Music industry is really screwed up for me.
It’s only focused on how much money you can make. Quality, or artistic purpose are really secondary.
As Terry Pratchett once said:
“You will have to look a long way before you find a bunch of scum-suckers more greedy, humourless and deserving of death than the suits in the music business.”

“What are your other interests outside of music?”

Visual arts, programming multimedia applications and games, writing and reading, travelling… and a lot of other things!

“Over the past while, I’ve done a few things that I’ve found useful such as keeping notepads everywhere to jot things down. Have you picked up any habits over the years that you’ve found useful?”

Nothing in particular. I care mainly on keeping everything tidy inside my computer… I really hate losing files and works! So in my opinion it’s a good practice to name things correctly and make backups frequently.

“If you were stuck on a desert island with 3 tracks, what would they be?”

Mmm… a difficult choice. What comes to my mind now:
Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray (even if this is a looong song.. )
Anathema - Inner Silence
In Flames - My Sweet Shadow

“What is the most stupid thing you have ever done?”

Many…
Maybe not focusing earlier on my goals (and not studying outside of Italy).

Music

“Can you talk to us about how you created Killing the Machines”? ie. what software, what steps did you go through, did you use any cool effects, processes, instruments etc.?”

As DAW I used Logic 8, as I usully do.
Hardware used: Access Virus Ti Polar, Motif ES 8
Plug-ins used: Battery 3, Stylus RMX

The idea was to create something bad and fast, something with a sci-fi and futuristic feel that could remember a bit the soundtrack of Matrix.
I started with the main lead sound, created with the Virus, that works as the main theme of the track. Then I creted the drums with Battery and added a more “chaotic feel” with some Stylus RMX patches. The other sounds and pads comes from the Virus. The strings in the end are from the Motif. To add a bit of interest I created a break down, playing with the Logic filters (mainly EQ).
Mastering has been made by me using Ozone 3 and Sonnox Inflator.