# The Charlie Clouser Wormhole



## robgb (May 11, 2020)

I've just gone down a Charlie Clouser wormhole on Spotify and YouTube and have to say I really love his hybrid approach to scoring. Love the SAW stuff and WAYWARD PINES (which is based on a book series by an acquaintance of mine)... Great work.


----------



## doctoremmet (May 11, 2020)

Cool. Did you include his NIN stuff? And did you by any chance catch this friday’s AND saturday’s Nerding For The Weekend on @christianhenson ’s YT channel? Loved his insights and contributions there as well.


----------



## robgb (May 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Nerding For The Weekend on @christianhenson ’s YT channel? Loved his insights and contributions there as well.


Just found this and put it on my watch list.


----------



## doctoremmet (May 11, 2020)

Off the top of my head I think I heard him say his current template includes 786 instances of EXS24.


----------



## charlieclouser (May 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Off the top of my head I think I heard him say his current template includes 786 instances of EXS24.



Yup. 768 is the current number (!!!). Before the Logic v10.4.8 update I was using v10.2.4 for many years, and that had a limit of I think 256 Instruments and did not do the "load empty tracks as disabled" thing, so when I finally did the update I just wanted to see how far I could push it and see if everything worked - and it does. I got to 768 by just making 16-channel bricks until I got exhausted. I still lay everything out in bricks of 16 out of an attachment to 16 MIDI channels I guess. So I wind up with 16 low drums, 16 ambient textures, 16 short strings, etc. Sometimes I'll leave a couple of slots in a brick empty in case I need to load a wild-card sound in that category and I don't want to have to decide what to delete in order to make room. But I always keep sounds in their correct brick, otherwise finding where something is in a list of 768 would be a nightmare, since Logic doesn't have any sort of "find" command for tracks.

An empty template loads in less than five seconds, and even my biggest cues only use a couple hundred instances at once, so those load very quickly as well - usually less than ten seconds. This is in large part due to EXS's "Keep common samples in memory when switching projects" feature which, when enabled in the EXS Options menu, compares the current project to the incoming one and only un-loads and re-loads any EXS instances which reference different instruments between the two projects. So even if both projects use hundreds of EXS instances, but were built from the same template with instruments already in place, Logic can load the new project in only the time it takes to compare the two projects and verify that the EXS instances all reference the same Instrument files. 

For me this makes loading even quicker than off-loading everything to VEPro in Kontakt (if VEPro is set to Preserve + NOT De-Coupled) since it takes Logic longer to "push" the plugin settings that are saved within the Project out to the VEPro instances than it does for it to just compare+load EXS. Of course, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison since there's no way to use EXS in VEPro, and Logic does load Projects very quickly if VEPro is in Preserve + De-Coupled mode since it doesn't have to push any settings out to VEPro, but I haven't compared the two scenarios in a while. A long time ago when I had a 256-EXS template, I converted all those EXS Instruments to Kontakt Instruments and duplicated the all-EXS template as an all-VEPro+Kontkat version, and it was.... messy... but that was in the era before VEPro v7. 

Moving forward, since Kontakt v6 is so locked-down, with no direct import of foreign sampler formats like EXS, and no way at all to export/convert Kontakt v6 instruments to anything else, my motivation to use Kontakt for anything other than playing purchased libraries has dropped even further. I can still get EXS into Kontakt v6 by converting/importing into Kontakt v5, then saving out, and THEN loading and re-saving in Kontakt v6, but it would be a herculean task to do my whole EXS library.

I do still use Kontakt (v5 when possible, v6 only when forced to) directly within Logic, and my template does have 256 Instrument slots dedicated to VEPro v7 just in case I feel the need to have a slab of Kontakt instances that are persistent between Projects. (Well, it's actually 16x sixteen-MIDI-channel Multitimbral Instruments, with each 16-channel brick returning audio to Logic as a single stereo pair, so it's far less ideal than 1-to-1 Instrument tracks within Logic.) In general, compared to EXS, Kontakt is still an absolute PIG, and unless I absolutely must use it to take advantage of legato transitions, multiple mic positions, or sophisticated instruments that can't be simulated in EXS, I stay away.

I did use a few Kontakt and Omnisphere elements in my last score, but I immediately started finding issues - Omnisphere patches with arpeggiators exhibiting tiny clicks on the attack of the first note, tempo-synced Kontakt instruments not tracking host tempo changes precisely, things sounding just a little different the next day, etc. - so I just started bouncing all of those to audio and working from that. In fact, I moved to just using Kontakt almost like I use Ableton - I'd load up some patch with a grab bag of tempo-synced elements, stick dummy note-on events to trigger the elements in the correct key I wanted in each section that had a different tempo, and then bouncing it to audio right away. This is massively inconvenient and a huge time-suck, but at least it gets rid of all those inconsistencies, and the results will be "portable" across the decades. That's a big thing for me as I often need to pillage cues from many years prior in the case of a long-running franchise or tv series. When a Logic project only contains EXS, audio, and stock plugins I can load projects from 20 years ago and everything is there and sounds as expected, and this gets much more tricky / impossible if there's lots of Kontakt, Omnisphere, and third-party plugins involved. On this last score I did load a Logic project from 2004 and was able to use it immediately, although in the end I did move the elements over to live in the new template which had my current stem i/o configuration. I used Logic's Media Browser to Import all the tracks from the old project and add them to the current one, and then moved those elements to the correct brick within that template. Everything came across intact, even automation of volume and plugin parameters - and it was almost all EXS stuff with only a half-dozen audio tracks. I was able to edit the MIDI performances as needed, creating new parts that still had the "charming but crude" mix from the original, and add new parts using sounds from my current template, with everything now broken out to 7x stems instead of the original three. Amazing. I could never have done what I wanted to do just by working with stems or even individual tracks bounced to audio - I need to get inside the MIDI tracks.

And thanks for the kind compliments on whatever the hell is on Spotify. If they have Childhood's End on there that has some cool stuff in it too as I remember. If you want to go really far back, look for my remixes of NIN's "Heresy" and "Ruiner", Marilyn Manson's "Lunchbox" and "Cake and Sodomy", Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans", Splattercell and 12 Rounds remixes, and the White Zombie remix album "Super Sexy Swingin' Sounds". There's tons more but I have no idea if it's on Spotify. Even though that's all pre-DAW, pre-plugin stuff that was mostly mixed on a Mackie 8-bus (with no compressors!), there's some cool grooves in there.


----------



## doctoremmet (May 12, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans"


Man, I love your work on this mister Clouser. Respect and thanks from The Netherlands. Also thank you for taking the time to chime in. Even as a small-timer hobbyist Ableton user I totally recognize the agony of inconsistencies after saving & reloading projects...


----------



## KEM (May 13, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Yup. 768 is the current number (!!!). Before the Logic v10.4.8 update I was using v10.2.4 for many years, and that had a limit of I think 256 Instruments and did not do the "load empty tracks as disabled" thing, so when I finally did the update I just wanted to see how far I could push it and see if everything worked - and it does. I got to 768 by just making 16-channel bricks until I got exhausted. I still lay everything out in bricks of 16 out of an attachment to 16 MIDI channels I guess. So I wind up with 16 low drums, 16 ambient textures, 16 short strings, etc. Sometimes I'll leave a couple of slots in a brick empty in case I need to load a wild-card sound in that category and I don't want to have to decide what to delete in order to make room. But I always keep sounds in their correct brick, otherwise finding where something is in a list of 768 would be a nightmare, since Logic doesn't have any sort of "find" command for tracks.
> 
> An empty template loads in less than five seconds, and even my biggest cues only use a couple hundred instances at once, so those load very quickly as well - usually less than ten seconds. This is in large part due to EXS's "Keep common samples in memory when switching projects" feature which, when enabled in the EXS Options menu, compares the current project to the incoming one and only un-loads and re-loads any EXS instances which reference different instruments between the two projects. So even if both projects use hundreds of EXS instances, but were built from the same template with instruments already in place, Logic can load the new project in only the time it takes to compare the two projects and verify that the EXS instances all reference the same Instrument files.
> 
> ...



That’s actually really interesting to me, going back to cues from over a decade ago to use in modern scores within the same franchise, I can just imagine biting my tongue and holding my breath hoping they won’t crash before even opening, but with the way you’re working, it sounds like you’re template is much more future proof because you’re not constantly running programs that won’t interact with older versions of themselves and what not. Do you ever just save MIDI files to drop into new projects, or did that never even cross your mind from not knowing if these would become long lasting franchises and not just one time things?


----------



## Ashermusic (May 13, 2020)

Charlie is sui generis, period.


----------



## charlieclouser (May 13, 2020)

KEM said:


> Do you ever just save MIDI files to drop into new projects, or did that never even cross your mind from not knowing if these would become long lasting franchises and not just one time things?



I don't ever save just the MIDI files, since the actual notes in my compositions don't mean much of anything without the exact sounds they were triggering. And it doesn't make much sense to use Logic's MIDI Apple Loops feature, even though that can recall a MIDI performance AND the sound it was associated with, since a single track / riff from any of my scores is, again, pretty meaningless all by itself.

So for me it's all or nothing. If I can load up an entire cue, with the whole set of sounds (both the ones that were used AND all the ones that I didn't use but were in that template), then that is useful to me. Any less and the usefulness decreases or disappears. 

On the very first tv series I did all by myself, it was at the dawn of software instruments, and I was still using a lot of hardware synths. What a freaking nightmare! I had to save patches / multis in each hardware synth, insert program change events and / or detailed track names to insure that the correct patch was associated with any given MIDI track, and in most cases had to print each hardware synth performance as audio. Recalling, modifying, and re-using cues was an absolute horror show. So as soon as I could start migrating to using software synths and EXS-24, I jumped in with both feet. That series only lasted for a single season, but the following year I started another series that ran for seven seasons, so I was very glad that I switched completely to using ONLY the stock instruments and plugins within Logic. We had certain cues that would appear, in one form or another, in almost every episode, but needed to be tailored specifically for that episode in ways that would not be possible when working with audio. For instance, there was always two or three "vision" cues where one character would go into an explanation of some mathematical theory, and VFX would take over with a "Beautiful Mind" or "Rain Man" type sequence with graphs, numbers, and gears flying around the screen to illustrate the workings of that character's mind. We had a few master versions of those cues that we'd load up and re-configure each week to suit the various lengths and visual effects - usually two or three per episode, 20+ episodes per season, for seven seasons. So it would be silly to start from scratch each time - we DID want the particular sounds used as the "slide in swoop" and "ending bang" for those cues to be familiar each time so they'd act as a signal that we were zooming into "math brain mode", but I needed the flexibility to change tempo, re-arrange the music, add or subtract parts, etc.

The only third-party plugin of any kind that I used during those years was TC Electronic's MasterX5 running on their now-discontinued PowerCore DSP platform. The loss of that plugin when the platform was discontinued still stings a bit, but I can get things sounding almost exact by using Waves L3-LL MultiMaximizer and / or Ozone in place of MasterX5.

On my archived versions of the score from the very first SAW movie, I made the mistake of deleting all instrument tracks that were unused, so when I load one of those up I do get the entire original cue, complete with effects and automation, but I don't get all the sounds that were just sitting there waiting to maybe get used. I stopped doing it that way on the second SAW movie, and now I make sure that all zillion EXS Instruments and the Samples they require are saved with the projects before putting it on the shelf. Of course this can make the Projects slow to save and their folders get quite large, so here is how I do it:

- While working on the score I leave Logic's "Include EXS Instruments and Samples" feature turned OFF.

- When the score is delivered and "done", I load up each cue one by one, turn ON "Include EXS Instruments and Samples", and save the cue, waiting as it takes a couple of minutes to copy those files to the Project folder. After a cue has finished copying those elements, I turn that feature OFF again and save the Project again. This insures that if I load up the cue at a later date and bump Command-S it won't repeat the whole tedious copying process.

- After I've done this for each of the 40 or so cues in a film, I create two folders in that film's master Logic Files folder and name them something like "SAW9 - EXS Instruments" and "SAW9 - EXS Samples". I then drag all of the Instruments and Samples from each cue's individual folders into those "master" folders, telling to Replace as duplicates are detected. For the Instruments, I leave the originals in each cue's Instruments folder (since they're fairly small), but for the Samples I remove them from each cue's Samples folder so that I wind up with only a single copy of all the EXS Samples. 

- At the end of all this, I then copy that film's "master" EXS Instruments folder back into my normal EXS Instruments library, in a subfolder called "z Project-Specific Instruments". I put a "z" at the beginning of that folder's name so that it appears at the end of the list, because when Logic is searching for the EXS Instruments needed by a Project that it's loading, it will search the normal EXS Instruments library in alphabetical order, so what winds up happening is that it will load the "normal" copy of any required EXS Instruments, and if it can't find the correctly-named Instrument file there, it will then look downwards into the "z Project-Specific Instruments" folders. That way, I can insure that I'm usually working from the "normal, everyday" version of any EXS Instruments, but if I've deleted or renamed any of those over the years, the one that's needed by an old cue I'm trying to load can always be found in the "z Project-Specific Instruments" folder, which also contains any single-purpose Instruments that were created or modified for a film that I do NOT want in my "normal" library. Sometimes if a round-robin or velocity split is bothering me and I need to make edits inside the EXS Editor window (by messing with key zones, groups, etc.) for a particular cue, but I do NOT want to mess with the "normal" version of that EXS Instrument, I will save the modified version of the Instrument with a new name into that "z Project-Specific Instruments" folder, so that I can always get it if I need it, but I don't accidentally start using the "round-robins disabled" version of an Instrument in my templates, etc. - and other cues won't load that version by accident since I've given it a modified name.

When Logic loads a Project, it will look FIRST in that Project's folder to see if the required EXS Instruments documents are located there; if they are not found Logic will then look in your normal EXS Instruments directories, searching them in alphabetical order. It only identifies EXS Instruments by name - there is no hidden meta-data that would tell Logic which of a few identically-named Instruments it should load, so it is very dangerous to have multiple, identically-named EXS Instruments that are, in fact, different under the hood. But, knowing this, you can use this to your advantage to force EXS to load different versions of an Instrument depending on where they're located, but it's always safer to make sure that if you make ANY changes in the EXS Editor window that you save that Instrument with a new name. Also keep in mind that this is only the case for changes made to the Zones and Groups inside the EXS Editor window - ALL front-panel settings like ADSR, Filter, Mod Matrix routings, etc. are classified as recallable plugin settings, and are ALWAYS snapshotted to the current Project and saved with it (and these can be copy+pasted as well). So there is no need to save a new version of an EXS Instrument just because you adjusted the filter or ADSR settings.

The Samples that are required by any EXS Instrument can be located just about anywhere - if Spotlight has indexed that volume then they will be found, and you will never see Logic throw a "where is this sample?" dialog unless it REALLY can't find the sample. It will, however, throw the "I found multiple copies of this sample, which one do you want to use?" dialog when multiples are located. So some level of good organization, naming, and general file hygiene is require for samples, but it's not as finicky as it is with Instruments. 

Now, I do not know (yet) what may have changed with Logic v10.5 and the new Sampler that replaces EXS-24. You can bet I will be doing some very careful testing to see what (if anything) has changed with respect to how Logic deals with these types of files going forward. 

I'm sure that many users would prefer to never need to save a Sampler Instrument file again, assuming that just saving the Project should save any and all complex Sampler zone maps inside the Project - and in the case of the new "Simple Sampler" this appears to be the case. But I want Sampler Instruments that I make for one Project to be available in other Projects, so I suspect that my workflow won't change all that much - although it will be nice to have the option to just throw together a quick one-shot Simple Sampler track and not worry about whether or where the Instrument is saved.


----------



## robgb (May 13, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> If they have Childhood's End on there that has some cool stuff in it too as I remember.


It's there. Love it.


----------



## gussunkri (May 13, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> I don't ever save just the MIDI files, since the actual notes in my compositions don't mean much of anything without the exact sounds they were triggering. And it doesn't make much sense to use Logic's MIDI Apple Loops feature, even though that can recall a MIDI performance AND the sound it was associated with, since a single track / riff from any of my scores is, again, pretty meaningless all by itself.
> 
> So for me it's all or nothing. If I can load up an entire cue, with the whole set of sounds (both the ones that were used AND all the ones that I didn't use but were in that template), then that is useful to me. Any less and the usefulness decreases or disappears.
> 
> ...


EXS Ninja indeed...


----------



## David Kudell (May 13, 2020)

Don’t miss Charlie’s episode of Orchestral Tools LA Creatives!


----------



## Nova (May 13, 2020)

I've followed Charlie since he joined NiN (die-hard NiN fan here...first show I saw was opening for Peter Murphy in '90). Every time I run across a post of his I'm like 'that's Charlie F'ing Clouser'.


----------



## doctoremmet (May 13, 2020)

Nova said:


> Peter Murphy


Now there’s an artist whose music I’d love to hear today. Time to get my copy of “Should the world fail to fall apart” out of its sleeve. Thx for reminding me. I always end up playing some Bauhaus, but he’s done some excellent stuff on its own. “Rollcall!”


----------



## doctoremmet (May 14, 2020)

@charlieclouser


----------



## Mornats (May 14, 2020)

I had a listen to Childhood's End whilst working earlier this week and found it rather relaxing and calming (for the most part). I'm not sure if that was the intended effect or if it says something about me. Lovely score regardless.


----------



## Ray Toler (May 15, 2020)

@charlieclouser - Thank you for your ongoing generosity! The musician/producer in me has gotten more from your amazing posts here and on GS than from perhaps any other source in my career. Not just the "this is how I do it" stuff, but acquiring a deeper confidence that the "unprofessional hacks" I'd worked out in my workflow over the years were perfectly valid and, in fact, sometimes used by people making the music I loved. That is just as empowering as discovering that the superstar you idolize also suffers from imposter syndrome.

And the fan in me loved your work even when I didn't know who you were. Your work on _I'm Afraid of Americans_ and _Supersexy Swingin' Sounds_ remains in heavy rotation on my playlists. My brothers and I still hold your version of _More Human Than Human_ as one of the greatest remixes of all time.

So, again, thank you. I hope to be in a position some day to pay it forward!


----------



## charlieclouser (May 15, 2020)

Ray Toler said:


> @charlieclouser - Thank you for your ongoing generosity! The musician/producer in me has gotten more from your amazing posts here and on GS than from perhaps any other source in my career. Not just the "this is how I do it" stuff, but acquiring a deeper confidence that the "unprofessional hacks" I'd worked out in my workflow over the years were perfectly valid and, in fact, sometimes used by people making the music I loved. That is just as empowering as discovering that the superstar you idolize also suffers from imposter syndrome.
> 
> And the fan in me loved your work even when I didn't know who you were. Your work on _I'm Afraid of Americans_ and _Supersexy Swingin' Sounds_ remains in heavy rotation on my playlists. My brothers and I still hold your version of _More Human Than Human_ as one of the greatest remixes of all time.
> 
> So, again, thank you. I hope to be in a position some day to pay it forward!


----------

