Episode 85: How to Write Music for TV (Inside the World of TV Composers)

Big‑league scores don’t appear out of thin air—they’re built through craft, collaboration, and choices that balance art and business. I sit down with George Warren and Nico Pacella; two composers from Hans Zimmer's award winning Composer Collective, Bleeding Fingers, to trace how high‑impact music for TV and film gets made. From spotting sessions and temp tracks to the custom sounds that turn a scene into a world; Nico and George break down when they write to picture and when they build suites in advance, how they bank ideas for later, and why sound design has become core to storytelling rather than a post‑production afterthought.

We dig into the tools that keep them fast and focused: Cubase for composition, Pro Tools for picture chase, and an iPad running TouchOSC to surface articulations and track groups at a tap. One bends a saxophone through Serum’s granular engine to craft pads and pulses you can’t buy in a pack—clean, licensable textures that stand out in a saturated market. The other anchors cues at the piano, moving quickly from harmony to emotion while staying out of the menu maze. Along the way, we talk about temp love, clearing samples, and how Extreme Music handles registrations and global royalty collection so the writing can stay front and centre.

Their paths show how education, mentorship, and humility shape a modern composer. Classical performance gave technique and taste; graduate training added hybrid orchestration and scoring workflows; assisting seasoned composers delivered the lessons that only deadlines can teach. The advice is candid: build a reel that proves your range, network with genuine intent, be the collaborator people want in the room, and treat your career like a marathon. Diversify across libraries, games, ads, and series, protect your headspace from social media comparison, and create sounds no one else owns. Subscribe, share with a composer friend, and leave a review telling us the ideas you've gained for your next cue.

https://bleedingfingersmusic.com

Transcript

Welcome And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to you. You're listening to the music business lovely with me, Johnny Elliott, a podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book, The Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, and ebook. I'm a music creator as a writer-producer with various credits. I'm a consultant, an artist manager, and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of this community. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. Okay, I have two fascinating guests with me in this week's episode. Um just to give you a little bit of context before I kind of introduce them and set this episode up. Um I'll just say this, right? So there are a few goals of why I do this podcast.

Who Are Bleeding Fingers

SPEAKER_01 1:05

One of them is to try and simplify the music business so that it doesn't scare people and they can enter it and walk proudly through the doors and kick it down and say, Hey, I'm here, this is what I do, right? The other part of it is to kind of introduce people into different career pathways that they may not have thought were possible, right? Now, one of the themes that I've kind of started to do in this calendar year so far in 2026 is to talk to uh various different composers, predominantly multimedia composers, film, television, adverts, all that kind of stuff. Um and this week I have two really, really high-level guests, right, from Bleeding Fingers. So let me just tell you a little bit about Bleeding Fingers. So if you think about film music, television music, one of the first names that kind of pops to mind uh is Han Zimmer. Now, Han Zimmer set up his own uh award-winning collective of highly exceptional, sonically diverse composers, right? He also he set this company up alongside uh Russell Emanuel and also Stephen Kowski, and they have a partnership with Extreme Music, which is basically the production arm music of Sony Music Publishing. Now Bleeding Fingers has created original music for all sorts of productions. I'm just going to list a few here because I could be here for an hour listing all their credits, but here's just a few, right? So Tattoo is Tattooist of Auschwitz, which is uh on Sky's Peacock, uh Planet Earth 3, BBC, Beckham on Netflix, uh The Blue Angels on Amazon, Frozen Planet 2, BBC, uh Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV uh Plus, The Simpsons on Fox. Trust me, guys, this list could go on and on and on and on. What we're talking about here is the kind of the really, really upper tier of kind of um supreme music making and sound design for the really, really top-notch stuff that you see on TV, right? So just imagine right how good you've got to be in order to be a part of that collective, right? So that is why I'm talking to the two guests I'm talking to today, because they fit that bill, right? They are two composers that are a part of the uh bleeding fingers collective. The first is Nico Pacella. Um so Nico is from Italy, he's now based in Los Angeles. Um he's a saxophonist and uh uh a wind instrument specialist, uh various percussion instruments, obviously plays piano, uh, sound designs and all sorts of different things. Uh he was educated at the Berkeley College of Music, uh, in film and video game scoring. Uh he went in on a scholarship and then went from there into bleeding fingers. That is how good Nico

Meet Nico And George

SPEAKER_01 3:31

is, right? He has a lot of different musical influences, he's a very, very humble guy. Also sat alongside Nico in this interview is George Warren. Uh George is an American, he's from Williamsburg in Virginia, educated at Eastman School of Music, and then at NYU, New York University, where he did his masters. Um he's also a fascinating guy, and just think about how good he must be, right? So he was kind of like a you know a freelance, he'll talk about this in the interview, but he was a freelance composer, did various different bits and pieces, and then was invited into this collective. So we're talking about very, very high-level composers and uh and two really, really nice guys, true gents, who are very grateful for where they're at. And uh yeah, they're already doing great things, and it you know, they're both young guys as well, so it makes me think, wow, what is ahead of them, you know. So so anyway, so I get the chance to talk to them, I ask them about their creative processes, um, what got them to where they are now, what their plans are moving forward, etc. So I'm gonna hand over the interview and uh take note and enjoy. George Nico, uh, welcome to the music business buddy. Um, I'm really, really glad that you can uh they can join me for uh uh this chat today. First and foremost, how are you both?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Great, yeah, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, thank you to be here.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah. Oh no. The pleasure is mine. Um I uh there's loads of things that I would love to ask you about, but I'm mindful that you know that we're gonna try and keep this to sort of 30 minutes or so, so I'll try and be concise. Um, I I would like to ask this question uh to get things rolling, because it's a question that I'm sure many composers would like to ask you.

Life Inside The Composer Collective

SPEAKER_01 5:10

What is it like to be a part of the composer collective? Uh Bleeding Fingers.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Sure. Um I've been at Bleeding Fingers since uh 2022. Um and it's been such an incredible experience. Um, I've learned, I would say, everything I know about this job. Uh I learned it here. Um I worked for Kara Talby, who's a senior composer here. And uh now I'm a composer of my own and uh working on incredible projects with incredible people. And uh yeah, it's great to just be around inspiring composers.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah, I I've uh I'm new uh next to Nico. I've been here about eight months and uh was a freelancer uh before this. And uh it's it's uh it's amazing to come to work and get paid to write music all day, uh every day. It's it's kind of a blessing. And um and to be able to collaborate, you know, with Nico, this is this is really the first time uh uh that I've experienced uh working in tandem, you know, splitting a project down the middle and uh and and um it's been an amazing experience. We're it's it's great to have uh collective of people that you can go knock on their door and you know ask them to come sing for you or you know, can I borrow your guitar? And it's uh it's it's an amazing environment.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Um that's lovely. Because, you know, I I've spoken to you know uh quite a lot of composers um on the pod, uh recently, um uh even more so, especially, in fact, and um and generally, you know, it is a freelancer's marketplace, isn't it? You know, um so that's that's the background that you come from, George. Are you were kind of were you working kind of predominantly largely on your own um before before the move?

SPEAKER_02 7:10

I I was doing yeah, I mean I I well I was doing just about anything I could to pay the bills and um and stay, you know, tried stay staying within uh this industry um as best I could. But yeah, I was writing additional music, uh writing for libraries, uh orchestrating, assisting. I assisted one uh person in particular, a great deal named Alex Hepas, who's just a phenomenal composer as well as person. And um and uh so that you know all of these experiences really kind of helped to um get me better, get me to a point at which I could take on, you know, a job like this. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Good for you. Well done. That's inspiring to hear that. Good for you. It's it speaks volumes about what you're capable of and how hard you've worked to get there. That's really good. Um well I mean this is this is a question for for for both of you. Um it's in regards to like the collection of your composer royalties and and and your neighbouring rights. Do you have like a contractual relationship with music publishers

Freelance To Studio: Career Paths

SPEAKER_01 8:24

yourselves, or do you have like your own publishing setup, or is that automatically kind of contracted through um is it Extreme Music? I I think Extreme Music are in partnership with Bleeding Fingers, right? Are you signed to them as well?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, so um the good I guess the good thing for us because we don't have to worry about it, um, but yeah, the good thing is that a lot of the uh registering of the works and the collection of the royalties is handled by Xtreme Music, which is the they publish our music uh on their website.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

So oh wow, okay. Oh, that's the dream, right? Is to not have to worry about anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, I mean for us, you know, we we're very busy writing music every day, so it's truly a privilege to not have to worry about that and just focus on the creative side. But it is very important and it's important to be aware of how uh how things work. Um yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah, that's it, that's a good point. Um, I mean, it's an interesting one because you know there's a lot a lot of composers that would that would uh you know that like the sort of freedom of being able to do you know work uh on single song assignments, for example, or per project, or look after their own publishing or whatever. But really, um, you know, largely that can often be um about, you know, hey, I need to ensure that there's a rigorous collection for everything that I'm working on here. Um and you know, uh having uh the power of you know extreme, I mean, they are specialists in production music, and they've got boots on the ground globally because there's so many different nuances to collections from you know, if you think about how collection uh is done in in Italy, for example, Nico, you know, it's there's different nuances,

Royalties, Publishing, And Extreme Music

SPEAKER_01 10:23

right, than there is in North America. Um, again, there's differences in Germany and Japan, and you know, um, so by having a company that acts on your behalf globally, you know, it must take a lot of pressure off your shoulders in some respects.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, it does. Yeah. Good for you. That's good. Um now I would love to uh to understand a little bit about your creative processes. Um, although I I I I guess there are, of course, you know, various different approaches to doing what you do, and it might be that your creative processes vary dependent upon the project that you're working on. So if I just kind of use a little bit of context, if I take an example, um so the work that you did on the NBC series The Americas, Nico, or the work that you did, George, on HBO's the regime, um, did you compose the music to the visual or was or or composed the music independently from the visual that was then licensed further down the line? What was it like on those particular processes for you?

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Well, really, any any project that I've ever worked on, it's it's not only different project to project, but uh day to day, like um depending on whether or not we have picture, um, when we you know spot with the client or whatever, we could be I I've I've been in situations where I've been writing away from picture. Um, you know, I'll create like suites based on ideas, characters, um, script lines, whatever. And uh, and then I'll have like a body of work that I could kind of go off of, you know, if if if elements of it work. Um but oftentimes it's you know, we'll have the picture and and and you know, it again day-to-day can be totally different. Uh I I've I've been in situations where I'm watching the picture ten times in a row, getting ideas in my head, and you know, I'm starting to put those ideas to work uh at the keyboard. Um other times I'm like watching it and I'm improvising, you know, right in real time, and um or other days I'm just searching for sounds, trying to create sounds. It it it varies. Uh you know, it's it's very improvisatory or improvisory, whatever the word is.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

It's uh that that's a big word. Have a have a house point. Um George, you said something very interesting there about the the sound design aspect of it. Do you sometimes feel like there's a certain pressure on you to have to create because let's face it, the sound design can be a very different process than the actual process of composition, structural arrangement decisions. Um do you do you kind of spend time just independently away from composition just on designing and choosing new sounds to select?

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Yeah, I think we both do. That's a that's I think a big part of um a lot of the composers here do that. You know, it's to I think I think it's a big part of um of uh being current and trying new things, trying to create new sounds is is now I think a really uh crucial part of the compositional process for um a lot of modern composers because it's it's uh you know you can only use one, four, five so many times with string ensemble, you know. Uh but yeah, it it's it's I and I I pressure, I guess we do have pressure to do that, but but moreover, it's it's kind of a it's an opportunity to create new sounds, you know, things you've never heard before.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Um good point. Yeah, yeah, that's that's good to hear. Um and Nico, what about your approach

Writing To Picture Versus Away From Picture

SPEAKER_01 14:20

to uh to to the Americas? I've watched that and I love it by the way. I absolutely love that TV show, and I had I'd watched it before I knew I was going to be talking to you. So, you know, when I was reading up on you, I was like, oh great, wow, that's so cool. I love it when that happens, you know. Um what was the approach like for that? Were you writing to the visual, or was it a case of that being a separate process and you just concentrate on the music standalone?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah, no, it it would be the first case. So we would get um sequences. Um, the way the series is structured is every episode um um goes over a certain region in the Americas, and one sequence might be about a specific animal, and the next scene you just move to a different completely different place. Uh but for each sequence we would get the footage with some temp music, which is that's uh it can be a blessing or a curse. It's very it varies a lot. Um but it uh to me personally it can it helps me get an idea, a better idea of what the director or the client is going for in a specific sequence. Um and then based off of that um you can um you start coming up with ideas, and the cool thing about the series is that every the approach for the series was that every animal or every character that we see in the series needs to have its own theme. So um we really, really developed so many themes for each character of the of the series and got to develop them throughout um whatever was happening on the screen. So a very Pixar approach, uh if you will. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Okay, wow. Um are there times where you kind of start the ideation process of a new creative idea, um, but then perhaps don't necessarily have the right sort of project for it? Um, if so, do you kind of finish that idea and bank it and return to it once the right project comes up? Or are you sometimes left with, hey, I've got ideas floating around here and I don't know what to do with them? Like, how do you manage that process?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

In my opinion, uh, or in my experience, um I've always felt um anything you create is going to be pre-purposed somehow. Um, usually I try to figure out if the idea that I'm developing is the right one early before I spend a lot of time on it. Um but by the time the idea is finished, it's either gonna be the right one for the project or it's gonna be the perfect one for the next one. Um but yeah, the ideas tend to be finished. Um so there's we I personally don't have a lot of stuff uh that's like in progress left there. It's it's finished and then it might be the perfect uh thing for the next project or the next pitch. That's interesting. Yeah, I'm totally different.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Oh really? That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Tell me more, George. Well, only because I I I usually uh I I feel like my I can be pretty chaotic when I'm writing, and uh sometimes I'll I'll start something, you know, away from picture and I'll kind of like it, and then you know, five hours in I hate it. And then two years later I'll

Sound Design As A Compositional Tool

SPEAKER_02 18:03

think back to like if some but I always save them. I save them with a date too. I've got like a bunch of folders of things that I've tried in the past. Um and uh and I I do use them sometimes rarely, but sometimes I'll be you know I'll be stumped on a scene or a track or whatever. And um is that like one weird sound that I got like last November from you know for whatever that might might work here. And uh and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But yeah, I've got folder after folder of things that I've just you know and like it's not worth it. And then sometimes they they turn out to be themes of the project or full-fledged, you know, pieces of music that I end up loving. Um, but yeah. Uh there's a lot of unfinished.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

You know, it's just you made me think of something. I don't know if you do this as well, but sometimes I just hum something on the phone with voice memos. Yeah. I have loads of those. Oh yeah, yeah. But never like on the on cubase. Oh, I think. They're all on my phone. On your phone, I gotcha. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Ah, okay. So um with with that in mind, it's really interesting to hear the differences between you in that respect. Um, so uh Nico, let's take, for example, one of those ideas that you've you know that you've hummed into your phone. Um, do you kind of like bank those somewhere and then like do you ever kind of put aside time to kind of go, let me just have a look at some of these? Uh or is it just something that if it doesn't hit you and stay with you, that you kind of just can it?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

I um I I should go back and and look at all of them because I have a lot. Um, and I I should set aside some time to make sure there's still good ideas. Um, but yeah, I I see more of a it's a resource, you know, like sometimes you You know, it's hard to be creative every day. Um, so if you're really stuck, just you know it's worth going through them and see if if you can just use one of them or maybe it sparks um a new idea or it unlocks whatever scene or sequence you're working on. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, that's that's a good point. I suppose also the uh part of what is informing the process is also the need for what you are processing, because if um if, for example, if you're solely in the lane of um you know bespoke uh composition and scoring, that's very different from

The Americas: Themes And Temp Tracks

SPEAKER_01 20:42

say working on library projects where you're kind of more speculatively creating something that may or may not be useful ten years down the line. Um so you know, even though it's still composition, they're quite different paths in in many ways, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah, different processes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

I would love to ask you about both about your music education because I read a little bit about both of you on the uh the Bleed and Fingers website. Um so how um it's probably a silly question, this. The question is, how important was it in setting you up in your career route? Um, I mean, it's it is that a silly question? You know, did it did it it seems a lot of obvious yes to me, but uh I'm interested to see what you think. You know, what was that kind of if you compare, you know, what you learned in your music education uh to where you're at now in your careers, you know, how important was it?

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Very I I pivotal um every step of the way, even you know, even the bad aspects. Um not that there were many, but um uh I I went to school first. I got my bachelor's in um piano performance. I I was like dead set on becoming a performer. Um I was a performer at that point and really loved it, but um uh it got me, you know, I got a great education from Eastman in both piano, music theory, composition, uh great foundation for um for a lot of those technical aspects of of of writing and understanding music, um as well as you know, virtuosity and all that, but uh but it also taught me about what I didn't want to do. Um I you know, inadvertently, um I realized that performance wasn't for me and that what I loved was the music itself, but I just hated being told how to play. Um you know, I I I would kind of I couldn't help but make uh whatever I was performing my own. Um and I realized that that wasn't, you know, that that that wasn't really right. What you're doing when you're performing is you're you're polishing an artifact. It's not yours. It's it's uh you're keeping an art form alive. So that's why I decided to write music and then uh NYU helped to provide other fundamentals. That was, you know, the the technical aspects, uh scoring, uh to picture, um uh hybrid orchestration. I got a great great education there and all and and all that. Um and uh and then honestly uh assisting people was that was an incredible and I mean I know that's not really you know that's not um uh going to a university, but it was it was probably some of the most important education I had received. Uh was was watching how professionals, you know, did this, did this crazy job, and uh

Idea Banks, Voice Memos, And Reuse

SPEAKER_02 24:01

learning about how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Um yeah, yeah, that was I think every step of the way, yeah, it was uh when when it came to kind of watching others do what they do, uh George, did you have ever have any of those kind of Eureka penny drop moments where you kind of go, Oh, that's how I do things, that's reassuring. Did you ever have any moments like that?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah, yeah. Um I mean it well, I guess more I think, and especially in the case with with Alex, um uh the the fellow I mentioned before, um, you know, he was he he is amazing at what he does. He's he's not only an incredible writer, but he's very, very efficient. He's he's fast. I mean he he takes the time that he needs to develop ideas and and whatnot. But um he's just you know he's done this a lot and uh for for for many years and um and is a true master. So uh it was more a case, I think, uh at least regarding him, of uh of me just being like that's how I want to do it, you know, like I want to be able to get to this level of of efficiency and writing and um talking to directors and like the whole gambit. Um it was more that. And that's why I said that's why I call that an education in and of itself, because it was you know, he he's a true mentor, and finding a relationship like that is um, I think very beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, absolutely, and and and more rare than perhaps people think as well. Um you know, that kind of mentoring and and uh uh and and also you know it kind of helps your ideals a little bit there. You mentioned a little bit um uh about how realizing that being a performer was not necessarily for you, you know. If you wanted to kind of if you were playing a song and you go, let me just tweak this and play this how I think I should play it. You know, there's that that's the composer bug in you there, right? So it's good that you found the path that that that you're on now. Good for you. Um what about you, Nico? Um, the role of your music education in in setting you up, what was it like?

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yeah, I have to say a lot of what George uh just said um resonates with me. I think realizing um I'm I wasn't a performer, that's I had the same experience. Uh I went to Berkeley, uh Berkeley College of Music in Boston. Um and I went there as a saxophone performance major. Uh oh, I didn't know that. Okay, yeah, and alto is my main instrument. Um a lot of people think I play piano for some reason. But yeah, I just a composer for you. Yeah. Wow, yeah, yeah, it is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, but yeah, I I went there as a performance major, and I went there with a mindset like you know, coming from Italy,

Education That Shapes A Composer

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Milan, it's it's not a big city, it's a big city in Italy, but it's not a big city. Um, and I thought, I, you know, I think I got this. Like I I'm gonna go there and I think I'm gonna be okay. And then um I remember the first week um just walking through the hallways in the practice rooms, and I got in a practice room and I didn't even open my instrument, I just started listening because I could hear what everyone else was practicing, and I just remember thinking, Where the hell am I? Um humbling experience. Yeah, truly, truly humbling. I think I'm not the only one that had this experience. I know um, I believe it was Alan Silvestri who had uh basically the same experience. Granted, when he heard someone play, he went and checked who it was, and and he wasn't famous or anything yet, but it was Michael Brecker. So one of the most legendary like jazz saxophone players. Um but yeah, that moment for me was like, okay, um, I'm gonna be here in college four years, and it's gonna take me four years to get to this level, and then who knows if like they they might not make it. So what says you know, who's gonna say that I'm gonna make it? Um luckily that same semester, first semester, I was enrolled in an intro to film scoring class, and I already I mean I I loved film, I've always loved film. Um but when I took that class, I realized okay, this is uh it's not only a job that exists, because in Italy there's not a lot of exposure. Um maybe now I think there's more courses and universities that do that, but um in 2018 I I studied at scientific high school. I you know I had no idea this was possible. But also, more importantly, I found out that like I could do it, you know. So yeah, from from that moment on I I never looked back.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah. That's extremely inspiring. Um, I mean it's it's very courageous, you know. Um uh well it's a very courageous and ad, you know, admirable path for for for for both of you. Um, you know, then I mean Nico, you've mentioned that I mean, you know, about I mean 2018, it's not that long ago in some ways, right? Yeah, you know, and there's quite a lot to change for you. Yeah, yeah. Um and um, you know, there must have been like a we must have those moments, right, where you kind of you feel slightly daunted by others around you and you go, wow, they are so good at what they do. And it kind of in a really humbling way you use the word humbling, George, I think. In fact, it is humbling, right? You know, um, to go, right, I've just kind of had my ass kicked there a little bit. Um that's good. That's going to, you know, um, it's going to make you better, it's going to improve you, you know. No doubt. Um, and it happens here, you know. Right. Well, it must do, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

I've listened to like one of the first cues that Nico that I heard of Nico's was uh for you know the project we're working on now. I remember listening to that and be like, holy shit. Like, how am I gonna top that? Or you know, just being kind for the podcast. No, no, it's it's true. I told my wife about it. I was like, I like this is I'm I'm really in for it now. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Well, you just remember that you're both there on merit, and there'll be many people that listen to what you do and go, oh my god, I want to cut my fingers off. I can never do what they do, you know. So I I I I I guess we all have those humbling moments at different points. Um may I ask you about the um about the tools that you use because I know that there's a lot of uh composers and producers that listen to the show um that that that often want to know you know what what tools people are using. Um so um your favorite kind of software uh composite, you know, are you using sort of Pro Tools, uh Cubase, Ableton, and what kind of go-to tools are you using within that? Um I guess that's gonna kind of vary a little bit between you. Nico, let's come to your good self first.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Um, yeah, so software, I guess the DAW would be you know the main one, Cubase in in my case. A lot of people here actually use Cubase, either Cubase or Logic. Um and then uh I will say actually I'm trying to use more and more uh my saxophone into my writing. Um, it's it's funny because I just said like I realized I wasn't a performer and I felt like I separated myself a little bit from the instrument. I wasn't practicing a lot, I still don't practice enough. Um, but now I'm trying to bring it back in in an experimental way, just like textures and try to play the instrument as it was not meant to be played to create more interesting sounds. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Ah, that's interesting. So is that like certain situations where it might be that the source sound was a sax, but by the time you've kind of processed the sound, it sounds like something different and synthetic.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Right, yeah, a little bit of sound design as we mentioned earlier. Um I will also mention uh serum 2. Um both. It's a very, very powerful tool, and I I feed uh the saxophone through serum 2, create new like pads, granular synthesis, it's really a powerful tool. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Ah, very good.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Okay. He's made yeah, such awesome sounds. Um yeah, all just with the saxophone.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

And what about yourself, George? What are your kind of go-to tools at the moment?

Mentors, Humility, And Growth

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Um, also Cubase. I uh chase a picture with Pro Tools um because I just I hate importing it into Cubase. So I have another machine that runs Pro Tools in the background. Um and then um I'm still a pianist. I try to put in piano to most of what I do. Um and uh um I I have a little iPad that does uh it runs Touch OSC. And I've I have a template that I've just been building on to for like the past three years that uh works with a generic remote in Kubays. And that has like I was saying about efficiency, and um that that has brought my my personally, I mean every everyone has their own process. Not everyone uses you know things like this. Not everyone, you know, needs to. But for for me, I'm you know I I'm I'm the type that I don't like thinking a whole lot about things other than like music. So if I have a button to press that shows me all my violin ones, you know, or shows me all the data, or like things like that. It just helps my brain. Um so uh so that that's a big that's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Um interesting. Well it makes your process more efficient, I guess, as well. And yeah, you know, uh because you know, otherwise it's easy to procrastinate, isn't it? You know, um so so that anything that stops that or you know slows it down is good. Um that's really, really interesting to hear. Um yeah, especially on the sound design side as well, because I guess there's a certain pressure on you both, um, you know, and all your colleagues to to have to um you know steer away from things that you can't use on a licensing level, right? So certain like for example, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day um who uh composes to score and he said, Oh, you know, I came across this great sound pack, but it's absolutely brilliant, but you know, I I can only use it on a temp level because you can't use it, you know, for certain things that are going to get commissioned on certain channels or whatever. And I'm like, Oh, okay, I never knew that was a thing. Um is that a battle for you sometimes? Is that something that you come across, or do you feel like you can kind of pretty much use whatever you want?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

I think there's a distinction to be made in our case. Uh when we you mentioned this as well, like temp. Uh, when we are pitching for something, I think um it tends to be okay for us to use um samples or uh libraries that um like I might I might not be clear on whether I can use it or not in the project, but for the pitching prox uh process, I think it's uh it's important to use all the tools at your disposal and then um figure it out later. You know, get the gig and then figure out what you can and cannot use. Um for library

DAWs, Instruments, And Workflow Hacks

SPEAKER_00 36:30

music, I think it's it that's a different uh different case. Also, we the stuff that we have on our machines tends to be cleared beforehand. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Ah, that's a game changer. Okay, yeah, that's that sounds a lot of uh because it's just better to fix that in advance, isn't it, rather than having to then worry about it further down the line and go, oh, you know that great sound we've got, we can't use it because of this. Yeah, damn, you know. Um that's great, but of course, you know, the the more innovative you can be the better, right? I mean, you mentioned there, Nico, about using your stacks to kind of create pad sounds, um, you know, granular synthesis and stuff. That's great, right? You nobody else has got that, and not in the way that you've done it, that's cheaper. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Uh yeah, plus pick anything signature or like that's gonna stand out, be in the foreground, that's gonna be custom made. Um, we I think everyone here is pretty big on that.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Um that's good, that's a good culture to be uh to be around. Um final question for you both. Um I'd like to ask you about any tips that you could give to emerging composers, people that see themselves, you know, moving into where you are uh in their future, you know, whether that be in the field that you're in or whether that be more on a library level, or maybe that might be more for ads or for video games or whatever it might be. Um are there any particular tips? Uh perhaps if you could spend, let's say, a few minutes with a much younger version of yourself and just sit there for a few minutes and go, these are the things you need to know. Like what would be those things that you would share?

SPEAKER_02 38:11

I had a fellow uh tell me when I was at uh NYU, I think the best advice that I I at least for me that I was given was um network like crazy and that 80% of this industry is how you shake the other person's hand. And I mean you need to have you know, you need to have a solid reel. The you have to know how to write, the production has to be, you know, perfect. Uh but that's sort of that's the bar that has been set. It's that you know that it's it's a very saturated market. There are a lot of people who are really good at this. So um it's uh if if if you if you've made it, you know, to into a room full of um full of professional composers, you know, you're it's assumed that you're sort of you're no you're you're meant to be there or whatever. Uh so yeah, the next thing is are you a good hang? And do you who have you met and like who do you know? And uh yeah, it's it's uh it seems to be the the case, at least in my experience, that um you just have to be try to be in every room that you can be, meet as many people as you can, reach out, ask for advice, ask for um uh a chat, you know, a coffee, a whatever from d people you admire, people who are one notch up the ladder from you, people who are, you know, if maybe aren't, um d uh or even your idols. Um I think that that's just uh You know, there are so many people who uh I know who I've went to school with friends of mine who are far better than me. And uh I I I I think you know luck plays a huge role in it. But I you know I've also been pretty relentless in um in my networking, and I I think that that has at least made a partial difference. Um and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

That's that's sound advice, yeah. Much uh much appreciated. Uh uh and what about yourself, Nico? What would you have said to uh you know 2017 Nico in Milan? Um, you know, studying science and uh going, I don't know about this path over here, I'm gonna end up over here doing this. What would you have said to yourself? What advice?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Um well, first I would like to add, like I completely agree with everything you just said. I will add, try to do it in a genuine way. Yeah, like that's like it's a given. Do it in a genuine way. Because especially nowadays with like social media and

Licensing Limits And Custom Sounds

SPEAKER_00 41:10

like you're exposed to everyone's success constantly, because no one is gonna post about their failures and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

So that that creates that's the thing. Yeah, you don't see people posting about failures, do you? Yeah, I'm I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start. I I have loads of failures, I'm gonna start posting about them.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Um, but yeah, that creates huge pressure and anxiety, especially like if I put myself on uh in the shoes of a student um graduating now in the age of AI, it's uh it's very stressful. So to network um in this environment, I would feel certainly feel like I'm desperate to make the connection and it becomes everything is amplified. I thought I'm getting stressed out just now thinking about it. So it's incredible. Um so try to do it in a genuine way, and then I will add like it's gonna be okay. Every not um not success doesn't look the same for everyone, and there's many ways to get to the same result. Um I'll tell you this story. When I graduated, I was extremely lucky I got this assistantship here at Link Fingers. Um, but some of my classmates also applied and didn't get it, and I truly think some of them had a better reel than me, they had better credits, you know, by then. Uh for whatever reason, I got the position. Um, and then two years later, they joined the company as well. So they went completely like a different route, but we ended up in the same place, basically at the same time, both like composers. So there's not you know only one way to achieve success, whatever that might look for you. Um just focus on it's a marathon. So try to make it sustainable for yourself mentally and financially. Uh expose yourself to all the different income streams, uh, so library music, video game music, like it's all there's a world out there of opportunities. Uh and then yeah, network genuinely. Try to make friends.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh sound advice. Um, I know that you it, you know, you mentioned there about social media, Nico. I know that it's um I've spoken to a lot of uh you know young young music creators that really struggle with that concept of kind of overly analog comparing themselves, let's say, to other people and their successes and kind of going, oh, you know, I don't feel good about myself or and I'll and I'll I don't know I'm 46 years old, right? So I'll say, ah, ignore it. You know, it's easy for me to say, right? Because I didn't grow up around it. Um, but um, yeah, that is that is very, very, very good advice. Um, guys, it's it's been a pleasure talking to you here today. Um, may I

Advice For Emerging Composers

SPEAKER_01 44:16

just say this as well that you know, obviously you're both, you know, immensely gifted and talented people, but that didn't come out of nowhere, right? You both worked like hell and made a lot of sacrifices to make this happen. Um, and I think that says a lot about you as people, just as much as it does say about you as composers. I think you're a fantastic influence, fantastic role models uh for that next generation coming through. And I wish you nothing but love and luck going forward in all your projects, all your ideas. Uh, you're you're both uh fantastic acquisitions for bleeding fingers. I'm sure they're well aware of that, which is why you're sat in those chairs. Um, and I just wish you good luck and thank you for joining me here today.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Thank you so much, Johnny.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Top fellas, very, very, very good, very insightful, very modest, um, very, very hardworking. You know, you could just see um the in the studio environment that they were in that you know that they really relish being around so many other people that are doing what they do. I think when when you're a composer, it can at times, if we're not careful, feel like a kind of sense of solitary confinement. Uh, it clearly isn't for those guys. They are like-minded, they're around like-minded souls, and they all bring the best out of each other and make uh you know utterly outstanding music. Uh so anyway, I hope you enjoyed that today. I know I certainly enjoyed talking to them and listening to them. Um, anyway, wherever you are, guys, just keep believing in what you're doing, right? And just remember that there are absolutely stacks and stacks of pathways to glory for what you want to do in your career. Never forget that. Okay, that's enough from me today. Have a great day, and may the force be with you.