# Hi from Cymru



## Bunford (Dec 10, 2011)

I'm Bunford. I'm from Cardiff in Wales (Cymru) and just got into scoring for TV and music. When I say got into, I don't necessarily mean 'making'.

I've been involved in sound for a while. I've been in several reasonably successfuly indie bands, worked in recording studios and worked as an audio technician for installation systems. I'm a guitarist of about 22 years (since I was 9), can also play bass and having bacis knowledge of piano chords, but intend to develop my piano playing skills.

I've also used sample based technology to make electronic based music using sample libraries and Ableton Suite. However, I gather that Cubase and Kontakt is the way to go in terms of film scoring?!

However, I'm now getting into my 30's and developing a huge addiction to film scores and would like to move my musicality in that direction.

As an initial stage, I'm just looking for pointers as to what direction to go and would appreciate any help for a beginner composer/scorer. I'm also looking for some HD quality video slips of 2-5 minutes of various styles that I could score to practice on. Anyone know of anywhere without having to try and edit video clips myself?

Cheers all!


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## DynamicK (Dec 11, 2011)

Welcome to the forum. 
As for finding clips to score, search on YouTube....I found quite a few clips with just dialogue. Lookout for film scoring competitions...again Google it to find. 
There are quite a few threads on here asking the same question.....the search function isn't the best, but these questions have already been asked a few times.


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## noiseboyuk (Dec 11, 2011)

Hello Bunford, welcome to VI Control!

Cubase seems to the most popular DAW and there are some good reasons for this. However it's certainly not the only game in town, and there are composers here who use Ableton quite happily. Daniel James here (check out all his fantastic video tutorials on youtube if you have a spare week!) is an Ableton user, but has recently bought Cubase and is slowly migrating across, so I believe. But the point is - it's a perfectly good DAW to make a start with, and perhaps one less thing to learn is no bad thing when starting out. Most of us end up wrestling with (and resenting) the technology... I'm all for an easier life where I can!

Kontakt is I guess virtually the one essential component in the virtual composer's arsenal. It's pretty much the only game in town for sample libraries that isn't tied to one developer. It's really efficient, and well liked. I actually think the built in library is better than many here give it credit for, its orchestral section I think is better than Garritan for example, though not as good as the VSL special edition (Kontakt's samples come from VSL, but are fairly limited). In the main you'll want to move on of course, but even now I use bits and pieces from the core library (and of course use the Kontakt engine itself for almost everything). Native Instruments have some good sales, unfortunately you've just missed one... might be worth seeing if something comes up over Christmas. Komplete (which includes Kontakt 5) is a very very good compendium when starting out - again, Daniel has done a fantastic tutorial that uses ONLY stuff from Komplete - just shows what can be done.

Have fun, lots of friendly people here don't be shy of asking questions!


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## Bunford (Dec 12, 2011)

Thanks for the reply,. VERY useful (and welcoming ).

I've taken the plunge and bought Cubase 5 off eBay as I found a cheap ish deal as 6 is now out. I've used Cubase in the past, using Cubase VST5.0 back in the day, and dabbled a bit with a friends SX3.

I am also keeping my eye out for Kontakt, but may just bite the bullet and buy Kontakt 5 along with a sample library, such as one of the orchestra libraries to completement and add more choice to the Kontakt stock library.

Is there anywhere I can find film scoring specific tutorials on using Kontakt, and probably tutorials on the best/general orchestra setup for a film score template (or any templates for Cubase/Kontakt combos to download anywhere)?


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