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Alan Silvestri interview by NI

little Silvestri anecdote - a year ago, on piano day, I posted a snippet on instagram of me playing the theme to Welcome To Marwen. We'd just seen the film and I thought it was a really lovely theme so quickly played it from memory and posted it. The next morning, I had an instagram private message from Alan Silvestri saying how he really liked my playing - and a video of him playing the theme himself on his piano at home. From one of my film music heroes that was a pretty special thing to see. What a gent!
 
Noticed Alan is using a Nektar P6 Panorama keyboard, which has never had much love. I have Nektar T4 which is okay but, I never really took to it that much.
 
Noticed Alan is using a Nektar P6 Panorama keyboard, which has never had much love. I have Nektar T4 which is okay but, I never really took to it that much.
Since orchestral composing is largely about independent lines, if you are putting things together in an old-school manner, most instruments do not have an 88 note range. Unless one needs real-time KS or is keyboard composing, 4 or 5 octaves is usually enough. Liszt used a 3 octave keyboard to compose... dude had no issues with his orchestral writing.. I''m seriously thinking of just moving down to a Arturia Keylab 49 or 61Mk2 when my Kurzweil dies.. and buy a Nord Grand just for composing on the old-fashioned way.
 
Since orchestral composing is largely about independent lines, if you are putting things together in an old-school manner, most instruments do not have an 88 note range. Unless one needs real-time KS or is keyboard composing, 4 or 5 octaves is usually enough. Liszt used a 3 octave keyboard to compose... dude had no issues with his orchestral writing.. I''m seriously thinking of just moving down to a Arturia Keylab 49 or 61Mk2 when my Kurzweil dies.. and buy a Nord Grand just for composing on the old-fashioned way.
Yeah, if I had a real piano on hand for proper playing and recording, I'd just be using a 61 key controller maybe for sample stuff.
 
The last thing I'd expect from Alan Silvestri is to load up Damage.
I'm assuming that given it was for NI, he was going to showcase the NI / Kontakt instruments. You can get some sneak peaks at some of the other stuff he has though. Plus, since he's writing for the Avengers, probably can use those Damage drums!

Here's a screenshot of his track archive presets for example - lot of EWHO in there (do you think he's preordered Opus :dancer:):
Screen Shot 2021-04-13 at 2.53.56 PM.png
 
Silvestri is a class act. I dig a lot of his scores. I love that he's got a pretty low tech set up. Just shows you don't need a massive studio with gear to write excellent music.
Pencil, paper, and a digital piano is kind of all everyone needs really -- if they intend to recording everything live.
 
What a graceful and articulate interview. We truly live in the future.

It's like being invited to a church on the perfect musical Sunday with the perfect weather to see what happens inside, with the windows open to the sky, and the music pouring out. Universal Awesome.
 
Pencil, paper, and a digital piano is kind of all everyone needs really -- if they intend to recording everything live.
I would assume he still needs to provide mock ups. My guess is everything is under the hood so to speak. I was reacting to the lack of outboard gear and massive controllers/ipads/etc on his desk.
 
I would assume he still needs to provide mock ups. My guess is everything is under the hood so to speak. I was reacting to the lack of outboard gear and massive controllers/ipads/etc on his desk.
Yea. Most likely. One powerful computer filled with RAM - and bob's your uncle.
 
Wow, Alan Silvestri himself sharing his process. Very grateful for his openness and for sharing all this.

Such simple setup and he is actually using a simple Nektar p6. Loading as he goes with track archives. Such simplicity.

It makes me feel how much I am overthinking the keyboard gear thing. Maybe I should do like dcoscina and simply do the whole thing in a tiny keyboard.
 
Wow, Alan Silvestri himself sharing his process. Very grateful for his openness and for sharing all this.

Such simple setup and he is actually using a simple Nektar p6. Loading as he goes with track archives. Such simplicity.

It makes me feel how much I am overthinking the keyboard gear thing. Maybe I should do like dcoscina and simply do the whole thing in a tiny keyboard.
I wouldn't overthink your overthinking. Everyone's different including A-list composers. He may not need a super fancy 88-key controller for his note input but he does have a real acoustic upright in the same room and a Grand Steinway in his house somewhere else so he's not doing all his writing on a Nektar and I'm sure he's not doing too much initial sketching and piano-based noodling on it either.

But I do find it interesting that he's running Cubase on a Mac and from what I can tell he's running everything in VEPro on the same machine. likely with hundreds of gigs of RAM. Interesting that this is John Powell's set up now too (though with Logic). Everything local in one machine but hosted in VEPro running in the background.
 
Wow, Alan Silvestri himself sharing his process. Very grateful for his openness and for sharing all this.

Such simple setup and he is actually using a simple Nektar p6. Loading as he goes with track archives. Such simplicity.

It makes me feel how much I am overthinking the keyboard gear thing. Maybe I should do like dcoscina and simply do the whole thing in a tiny keyboard.
For me at least it’s very liberating to have the tech remain as transparent as possible. Too many gadgets and I find I get hung up on the tech and not the music itself. Staffpad was a revelation last summer as it removed almost all artifice from the compositional process as far as getting ideas down.
 
I wouldn't overthink your overthinking. Everyone's different including A-list composers. He may not need a super fancy 88-key controller for his note input but he does have a real acoustic upright in the same room and a Grand Steinway in his house somewhere else so he's not doing all his writing on a Nektar and I'm sure he's not doing too much initial sketching and piano-based noodling on it either.

But I do find it interesting that he's running Cubase on a Mac and from what I can tell he's running everything in VEPro on the same machine. likely with hundreds of gigs of RAM. Interesting that this is John Powell's set up now too (though with Logic). Everything local in one machine but hosted in VEPro running in the background.
I should get back into VEP as it’s very powerful. But I seldom have the track count that warrants it
 
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