A common and most dangerous mistake to make in your composition is adding too many elements to your music. Here's why...

In this tutorial, I give you 4 Tips on writing Happy Adventure Orchestral Music by ear in the style of How To Train Your Dragon / Sonic The Hedgehog & more

Using inspiration from other genres are a great way to add interest and uniqueness to your music. This is just something I’ve picked up along the way listening to a lot of neo-soul jazz&hip hop, and I think you’ll have a lot of fun trying it out.

So here’s a pretty long (but hopefully rewarding) tutorial on writing different chord progressions for your melody, or theme. Here, I’ve composed a basic melody and went through an entire sketching process of writing progressions from: 1 chord, 2 chords, 3, 4, 8, a 16+ chord progression; downward and upward motion; and finally, extended chords.

This video is part of the Cinematic Synthesis: Digital Sound Creation course.

Hey all, Alex here! Today, we’re going to dive into an orchestral tutorial on how to make melodies sound great in any type of arrangement or mix.

Hey all, Alex here! Today, I want to start talking about how to write great melodies that sound efficient, remarkable and easy to remember plus a bit of counterpoint and harmonization basics. This is a set of basic, yet fundamental skills to have as a composer.

There are some melodies that just tend to stick in your head immediately after you hear them, while others tend to be forgotten minutes after they enter your ear.

Four Strategies to Get Unstuck and Find Inspiration

At Evenant we’ve been long-time fans of Ashton Gleckman’s Behind the Score series on YouTube, where he explores and analyzes various film scores from a wide range of composers including Hans Zimmer, Rupert Gregson-Williams, James Horner and more. In this BTS, we explore Hans Zimmer’s iconic score for Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

In the Behind the Score series we explore and analyze various film scores from a wide range of composers including Hans Zimmer, Rupert Gregson-Williams, James Horner and more. In this BTS event we explore Hans Zimmer’s score for Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel.

In this new tutorial, I’ll continue on from the first part of my walkthrough and process behind providing adequate music to support the visual narrative of your project; whether it’s an indie film, feature length, or video game.

Hey all, Alex here! Today, we’re gonna do an in-depth analysis of my cover of Hans Zimmer’s Dream Is Collapsing, written in a Bloodborne / Dark Souls apocalyptic style.

In the Behind the Score series we explore and analyze various film scores from a wide range of composers including Hans Zimmer, Rupert Gregson-Williams, James Horner and more. In this BTS event we explore Alexandre Desplat’s small and intimate score for Tom Hooper’s the Danish Girl.

Hi everyone! In this video tutorial I will walk you through my process of composing and orchestrating dramatic/emotional cues fit for Film and TV underscoring. By using a more intimate template of ensemble strings and winds, you can create solid mockups to support characters and events within a story; complimented by a short theme and various key changes to create harmonic movement. Let’s dive into it!

Ever wanted to compose the next big Hollywood studio opening logo? We’ve all heard them: from Universal’s classic (and recently revamped epicly-charged theme), to Warner Brother’s homage to Casablanca. Today, composer Daniel Beijbom walks you through his own take on a logo title theme.

Film music comes in all shapes and forms. Films may contain scenes of happiness, joy, sadness, mystery, horror, intense action and much more – all requiring different types of music. But what makes happy music happy, and what characterizes say, action music? In this article we’re going to look at some usual characteristics of music used in intense action scenes in films, and how you can use the same techniques for creating your own cues.

In recent times film scores have often relied on textures and unique sound pallets more than the traditional leitmotif of earlier scores. This article will explore unique sound worlds that make scores stand out by studying two of the most exciting and distinctive composers of today. Ludwig Göransson and Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Hey all, Alex here! Today, I want to start talking about how to mix orchestral music, starting from the very core: understanding the mixer and learning how to organize it in an orchestral setting for improved workflow.

In the first part, we looked at how we can use atmospheres and pads to create a new sense of depth and interest in your cues. This time around, it’s time to add some more impact and energy to otherwise calm and static musical passages.

In this 4 part tutorial series, I will take you through some practical and easy, yet super effective steps to make your themes more interesting, more cinematic and powerful.

Here are 9 mixing mistakes I’ve noticed many beginners do while starting to produce music (and I must admit – I did all of them myself!). I will also include ways to rectify these problems so that you can start becoming a better music producer, and also some audio and visual examples.

In this video walkthrough, I explain how I apply reverb to make my orchestral tracks sound bigger and more lush by giving you an in-depth view of how I’m using it in an orchestral track I composed.

In this video tutorial, I’m showing you what it is that makes up huge cinematic hits. It’s all about layering and complementing different sound elements into one big hit. Once you know how to properly layer and construct your hits, your music will get much more massive!

10 Quick and Effective Mixing Tips

Things have truly changed in the music industry since the rise of powerful computing and the accessibility of having a personal computer in your home and while travelling.

Check out Alex Moukala’s latest video on how to mix orchestral music.

Learn the importance of programming dynamics and harnessing the power of the Mod Wheel in order to make your orchestral mockups sound more realistic.

In order to make your orchestration second nature, repetition is key. Keep practicing, so that once you get it, you wont sweat the small stuff.

It goes without saying but using good quality samples is the first step. Luckily there are great quality sample libraries out there and they are cheaper than ever.

Hey all, Alex here! Here’s a tutorial of my orchestral track inspired by Ramin Djawadi’s Paint It Black & Cuphead, written with FL Studio 12! If you want to learn How To Orchestrate By Ear, even without knowing music theory, this is the tutorial for you.

In this video, I will take you through 3 of my top beginner tips for achieving bigger, cleaner and more powerful orchestrations in the style of Two Steps From Hell and Thomas Bergersen.

Have you ever wondered what makes Ravel’s, Debussy’s or Tchaikovsky’s orchestration so beautiful and constantly interesting? What makes for an alluring orchestral sound that draws the audience to the edge of their seats?

One of the biggest issues for a lot of new composers is creating realistic and great sounding mockups of their compositions. Strings in particular seems to be an area where a lot people have a hard time achieving a realistic result. In this article, I will show you 5 steps with techniques that you can use to create more realistic and organic sounding harmonic content, using string libraries. For this tutorial, I will use a slow, emotional string theme as an example.

I have been getting a lot of questions on the subject of composing and orchestrating for brass, so I decided to do a short tutorial on a few proven and effective ways on how to incorporate brass into your compositions.

In this tutorial, I analyze Final Fantasy XV’s Apocalypsis Noctis and share some knowledge on how to write realistic and interesting orchestrations. FLP & Orchestral Stems included as a download!

In this video tutorial, Alex Moukala will take you through 4 of his techniques to make your cinematic tracks and arrangements more interesting and evolving from beginning to end.

I’m back with another video tutorial! In this 1 hour video, I’ll explain the basics of how I go about orchestrating and structuring my compositions. If you’re struggling with writing a full-length track, or with making your orchestra sound more interesting and massive, I hope this can be helpful!

I’m back with another video tutorial! In this 1 hour video, I’ll explain the basics of how I go about orchestrating and structuring my compositions. If you’re struggling with writing a full-length track, or with making your orchestra sound more interesting and massive, I hope this can be helpful!

A lot of composers producing orchestral music would like to have a realistic sound and achieve great results with their mockups. They want to sound as close as possible to a real orchestra. By achieving more realism in your mockups, you instantly get a better and more convincing sound.

3 Beginner Orchestration Mistakes

The string family is the largest family in the entire orchestra, with up to 60 players in the ensemble. It consists of 4 instruments of different sizes: The violin, the viola, the cello and the contrabass/double bass. In addition, the harp is also considered a part of the string family. However, given the different nature of the instrument, we will cover the harp at a later time, focusing only on the 4 other string instruments in this article.

The orchestral sample library world is a big one. There are tons of libraries out there, sampled and scripted differently for different samplers like Kontakt and Play.

Being a cinematic music composer, getting a realistic and dynamic orchestral sound is often key. A big part of getting that sound is how you record and program your MIDI to properly fit your sample libraries and V.I.’s (Virtual Instruments) and how you work with your V.I.’s (along with having great orchestration and composition of course).

Most composers cannot afford to hire a full orchestra and a studio for every track they make, especially when they are first starting out. However, modern technology has given us a massive amount of amazing sample libraries, allowing us to mimic the sound of real instruments and orchestras from our own home studios.

Get a collection of over 200 epic samples, ranging from hits and risers to tonal transitions, impacts and more. We use these every day in all of our work. We love free resources, so we put together these high-quality samples, used in everything from cinematic music to hip hop, in campaigns for BBC, UFC, NFL – you name it.

On our latest Evenant trailer music tutorial, we invite composers David Yousefi and Rene Osmanczyk to dive deeper into their process behind this epic, western-styled trailer piece titled “Outlaw”.

Based on my experience as a trailer music composer and music supervisor for a trailer music company, I want to share five of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of new trailer music composers do today. Make sure to avoid these common traps if you’re trying to get into the industry!

Here’s a tip I think you will enjoy if you’re a trailer music writer, or want to start writing trailer music for trailers and TV-spots, but want to know how to increase your chances of getting a placement.

Here are 10 tips to help you compose better trailer music and get your tracks placed in Hollywood trailers.

The trailer music industry is quite a new thing. A relatively small number of people has ever heard of it before, but slowly and steadily more and more music producers seem to draw their attention to it.

Today we have a very exclusive feature on the topic of trailer music for you guys. Nick Road, a well-known and successful trailer music composer from Ukraine has shared his top 5 trailer music tips with us. Nick’s music has been featured in many Hollywood movie and game campaigns such as Civil War, Deadpool, X-Men Apocalypse, Daredevil, San Andreas, Batman: Arkham Knight, and more.

There are a number of “pay to play” websites online which allow you to pitch your music to libraries or opportunities requiring music in return for a fee. I personally avoid these: at best they are slightly dodgy, and at worst, massive scams.

A little while ago, I was having lunch on the beach of Koh Lanta in Thailand with LA based composer and songwriter Phillip Lober. His recent placements includes The Jungle Book, Pete’s Dragon, The Avengers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to mention some of them.

In an industry of a lot of music, and competition and struggles to sound as big and professional as possible, it’s not uncommon to feel that trailer music can be hard to write.

Alright boys and girls. You know what each trailer sound is made of. You’ve realized that the only way to get to the industry standard is to carefully layer sounds of different nature. Let’s dive in and see this in action as we look at the creation of a killer drone.

This video is part of the Cinematic Synthesis: Digital Sound Creation course.

RECORDING SOUNDS OF WINTER Trailer Sound Design: Norwegian Mountains

And I’m not talking about making a hit trailer track either, but rather how to create powerful impacts and hits for your tracks! Good hits will help your track become much more powerful, hard-hitting and licensable. No editor wants to use weak hits in trailers – it’s all about getting those big, rich and juicy hits for the cut points.

Starting your own business for the first time can be an intimidating task. It’s not easy to build your first business when you have no previous experience. I remember when I started my first business venture, I had absolutely no experience with sales, product development, customer service or marketing.

Running several businesses and working as a freelancer across multiple fields the past years has taught me a lot. It’s been a road of trial and error as well as experimentation. Lately, I’ve been asking myself which tips I would have given if I were to go back in time and meet my younger self.

You wake up on a mattress made in a German factory solely occupied by robots which work 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. They never make a mistake, get tired, go on a lunch break, or ask the boss for a vacation.

Want to learn a cool and useful skill? In this article, I’ll share with you 4 main steps for efficiently learning any skill. Let’s check them out!

In this article, we thought to share these words by highly talented and productive graphical designer, sound designer, composer and former Marine – Darin Leach from the US.

First impressions are impulsive, decisive, unfair perhaps, yet crucial to the day-to-day decision-making that occurs behind closed doors for independent producers and directors. When they’ve set out to find a new composer, they’ve got to quickly sort from hundreds of options and create a shortlist of 4 or 5 candidates whose “sound” could be ideal for their project (that is if they don’t already have someone in mind from a previous collaboration).

As a composer today, you have to wear a lot of different hats. You usually have to practice a fairly wide set of skills, from composition, to orchestration, mixing, making realistic mockups, social media, networking, and so on. On top of this, you’re usually required to dive into a world of confusing technology, computers, and digital tools that you’ve never seen before.

As a composer who works with Hollywood Trailer Music labels, I often get asked by aspiring producers & friends how I went from not having any musical knowledge at all to reaching the level I’m currently at in three years.

With technology advancing at an incredible pace year on year, its now easier than ever for anyone to compose music in their bedroom. This lower entry level into the music industry means its now bursting at the seams with everyone fighting for their voice to be heard. It can be hard to cut through the noise and get the right people to hear your tracks.

10 Business & Productivity Books Every Composer Should Read

One of the hardest things as a composer is staring at an empty project in your DAW. Sometimes you may feel a total absence of inspiration, like you aren’t capable of writing anything whatsoever.

One of the things I know a lot of people struggling with, including myself in the past, is finding a good workflow. Proper workflow can truly boost your inspiration through the roof and make you finish some amazing music in a couple of hours, while a lack of it might give you a lot of trouble, killing your motivation and the will to create music in the first place.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions simply because they don’t stick. There are numerous reasons and studies for why 92% of resolutions fail. In my observation most goals set in the spirit of the holidays often introduce new habits without building a system to support and sustain the habit.

Let’s face it: high productivity isn’t something you can just easily order on command or wave a wand to magically achieve, and then spit out tons of paintings and studies daily.

What’s up Evenant! This week, we had the pleasure of hanging out with composer Nicolas Felix! Nicolas is a trailer music composer who has worked with many well-known publishers, including Brand X Music, Dos Brains, C21FX , and is currently working at Chroma Studios.

We are extremely excited and fortunate to have the pleasure of hanging out today with epic-music composer and producer, Ivan Torrent! Ivan has worked with a myriad of top-notched production companies, released two studio albums to date, each having garnered millions of views on YouTube, and has emerged as one of the most outstanding epic-music composers within the last several years.

Interview: Bill Brown (CSI: NY, Wolfenstein, Captain America: Super Soldier)

In 2015, we had the opportunity to speak with Gabriel Mann, the man behind the music of Modern Family and Rectify, among many other projects, about his musical journey in general and juggling scoring dark dramas and comedy.

Today we’re here with Christian Baczyk and Kevin Mantey, founders of End Of Silence, a music library focusing on high end music and sound design for Hollywood advertising campaigns.

Today we’re so fortunate to be able to get an interview with Jason Yang, a YouTuber and fantastic violinist who toured with Madonna during the MDNA World Tour, and has an impressive 32 million YouTube views, and almost 200.000 subscribers.

In today’s interview, we have talked to Steve M., or Denotin, a YouTube video creator and animator from Germany. Steve makes his living creating Minecraft episodes on YouTube. His episodes has been seen 140 million times, and Steve has gained several hundred thousands of subscribers on YouTube and is making a solid income from it each month.

Hey everyone, today we’re taking a look at the sample library Cinematic Studio Solo Strings (CSSS).

LOUD, HUGE AND AGRESSIVE STRINGS A look at Trailer Strings – By Musical Sampling

I’ve been an avid user of Cinematic Strings since I bought Cinematic Strings 2 a couple of years back. It’s been in pretty much every project I’ve needed strings for, and I will probably keep using it. But this time, Cinematic Strings decided to throw another symphonic strings sample library at us, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that. Cinematic Studio Strings enters the arena of strings libraries, and it’s one that kicks ass.

Last time, Musical Sampling brought us Adventure Brass; a bold, super playable brass for a more traditional cinematic setting. This time around, they present us with something much more bold: 10 horns. 10 trombones. 3 cimbassi + 3 tubas + a mother-load of processing – they gave us Trailer Brass.

Hybrid Tools Vol: 3 is the third installment of the modern, high-tech sounding sample library line Hybrid Tools for Kontakt from 8Dio. This series is all about powerful sound design, brutally smashing kits and potent musical production tools. This time around we’re looking at new and exciting cutting edge sounds contained within loads of patches all wrapped up in a powerful engine called CHAOS (more on why later).

This time around, Spitfire Audio has created a drum kit library in collaboration with Hans Zimmer for the second part of their HZ Percussion range