William Arnold

William's Payne

I was recently hired to write an additional cue for a movie called William's Payne, which was written and directed by Shila Jones.  Here's a description:

In this contemporary and very sexy drama—William’s Payne will dispel the myth that men do not feel as deeply or suffer the loss of their lover, as profoundly as women do. As William (played by Lawrence Saint-Victor of Guiding Light) struggles to cope with the loneliness and confusion Mia has left him with, he ends up hurting and pushing away the only people left in his life who care to help him. Now isolated from his from his family and friends, the only person left for Will to hurt is himself… For those who have ever wondered what men really feel or do when they have lost the woman they love, they can find the answer here, in William’s Payne.

You can listen to my musical contribution, Payne's Chase, by clicking on the appropriate play button in the column to the right.

Episode 1 of Wed-Locked

The first episode of Wed-Locked has been released!

New Sneak Peek

Here's the latest sneak peek at Wed-Locked, the new web series I composed music for:

Wed-Locked

Here's a sneak peek at Wed-Locked, a new web series I composed music for. Follow this newly married couple on their first hysterical year of being married.  Wed-Locked features The Guiding Light’s very own Karla Mosley and Lawrence Saint-Victor, directed by Christina Faison. “Getting Married Is Only The First Step”.

Berklee Orchestration Class

I recently completed an orchestration class through the online program of Berklee College of Music. Here is part of the description of the course from Berklee's website:

Orchestration skills are an increasingly hot commodity. Placement on television, in video games and animation, and other modern revenue outlets require a detailed understanding of orchestral writing and production techniques. In this 12-week course, students will learn traditional orchestration techniques as well as emerging issues specific to today's technology. The course begins by covering the technological considerations required to create modern day orchestral sounds: sample libraries, sequencing techniques, and different types of hardware set ups. From there, students will learn the characteristics and idiomatic writing techniques for each orchestral instrument family: strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion, as well as approaches for writing for full orchestra.

The course was awarded "Best Online Course" for 2009 by the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA), a membership association of higher education institutions that promotes excellence in continuing higher education. I would like to take Berklee's follow-up course in early 2011.

Composing with "C"

I've been participating on a new website called SCOREcast, which is geared toward film music professionals. This week, one of the regular contributors challenged us to write a one minute cue with the limitation that the only pitch we can use is C. You can listen to my "entry" below:

Cs the Day

Vienna Symphonic Library

I added the Special Edition of Vienna Symphonic Library to my composing arsenal about two months ago. This outstanding collection has made a tremendous improvement in my ability to emulate orchestral sounds!

Omnisphere Added

I am very happy to have added Omnisphere by Spectrasonics to my "rig." Here's some info about it from the company's website:

After many years of development, Spectrasonics is proud to release the brand new flagship virtual instrument Omnisphere. This epic ‘Power Synth’ breaks completely new sonic ground by combining a wide variety of hybrid realtime synthesis techniques, an epic library of remarkable ‘Psychoacoustic’ sounds, and many innovative features that have never been seen before in any hardware or software synthesizer. The new instrument is the first to be based on Spectrasonics newly developed STEAM Engine.

Omnisphere offers a host of hybrid synthesis and new control capabilities including Variable Waveshaping DSP synthesis, Granular synthesis, Timbre Shifting, FM, polyphonic Ring Modulation, high-resolution streaming Sample Playback, Harmonia™, Dual Multimode Filter structure, Chaos Envelopes™, an advanced Unison mode, and the innovative Flex-Mod™ modulation routing system - to name a few.

The huge core library of Omnisphere is filled with years of creative sampling experiments and thousands of inspiring patches. Spectrasonics has pioneered several brand-new types of sampling for the core library of this instrument, including unique “Psychoacoustic” sounds and soundsources created with a new Composite Morphing Technique (CMT) - which morphs the harmonic characteristics of one instrument to another. As a bonus, a section of the core library is also devoted to representing the best of Spectrasonics award-winning sample libraries. When all of these organic core library soundsources are combined with the synthesis power of the STEAM engine, the sounds become “alive” in a truly dynamic and expressive way.