Symphony of Samples: My Journey into the world of Virtual Instruments

Over the last 12 years ,I have traveled the world recording and producing industry leading virtual instruments, many of which you hear everyday on Blockbuster Film and AAA game soundtracks. Here is a little overview of what I have worked on. In the near future I may be doing a deeper dive into some or all of these as well as updating you on my latest. Here we go!

Sampling Journey?

Like a lot of composers, Hans Zimmer has been a huge? influence on me.

In particular, it's Hans' collaborative approach and dedication to creating customized sounds for his productions that have inspired me the most. Reading the article written by his tech Mark Wherry from this issue of sound on sound on creating a new custom virtual orchestra while Scoring Pirates 3, was really eye-opening and inspiring for me, and it was one of the biggest reasons that I got as deep into sampling as I have.?

Here's a little overview of the products I have worked on over the years.

Impact Soundworks – Bravura Brass, Furia Staccato Strings

Bravura, was the first large commercial product I worked on, consisting of 30 days of recording brass musicians at Bravo Recordings in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was a very grueling, yet educational experience. This product more than any, other taught me the importance of accounting for the physical limitations of wind and brass musicians and factoring in errors and the unexpected.

8Dio – Symphonic Shadows, CASE, Estonia Grand, Steinway Grand

My first company "Private Labs" specialized in the creation of custom aleatoric orchestral scoring tools for film and game composers, I sold this catalog of products to 8DIO, and we reimagined it as “Symphonic Shadows“ – which went on to be a top selling product for them. I also went on to produce another collection of Aleatoric instruments for them “CASE” (Strings, Brass and Woodwinds), as well as the Estonia Grand piano and 1969 Steinway D Piano.?

Sonuscore/Best Service?– Origins (4-10), Mongolian Voices, Lute & Theorobo Phrases, Ancient Duduk Phrases, The Orchestra Complete, Elysion, Dhol Ensemble, The Score

Sonuscore is by far my longest standing partnership. I started off by working with them on the origins series for which of which I produced volumes 4 through 10. This series saw me recording instruments from all around the world including Armenia, Georgia, Portugal and Iran. My team, and I have also contributed heavily to the very popular phrases series, recording the entire Duduk phrases library in Armenia.

I’ve worked with them on updates for the orchestra complete since version 1.1 and I’m very proud of my contributions, especially in version 3, which included many woodwind soloists which I recorded in Armenia.

UVI – Quadra, World Suite 2, Augmented Orchestra?

In my opinion one of the most innovative and creative music technology companies out there, I am really proud of my work with UVI. Together we brought composers World Suite 2, which I worked on for over a year, sourcing recordings from Georgia, Armenia, Iran, and Latin America.

The Augmented Orchestra was also a great opportunity for me as my first full-fledged, mult-sampled orchestral product. UVI gave me the freedom to completely design all of the orchestral content, while they brought to life an incredible sound design engine, as well as some very inspiring sound design elements of their own. They also brought me to Budapest to oversee the nearly one week of orchestral recordings. I also did some work for them on the Quadra series, sourcing recordings from musicians in Armenia and beyond.

Sample Logic – Drum Fury 2, World AI, Vocal AI, Synth AI, World Fury

Producing Drum Fury 2, gave me the opportunity to work with percussion on a scale that I hadn’t previously, in addition to really honing my sound design chops. We recorded musicians in Georgia, The US, England, and Armenia to put this collection of massive apocalyptic percussion and drum sounds together.?

World AI and vocal AI were also two large scale projects with recordings sourced across many borders. Logistically, this was one of the more challenging products I have worked on, but I think the result is self evident, and there are some truly inspired and unique sounds. Both of these collections feature some of the rarest, and most unique voices and instruments in the world.?Much of the content that I recorded for this ended up in world fury as well.

Like Drum Fury, Vocal AI gave me the opportunity to exercise and develop my percussion recording and sound design capabilities, while Synth AI provided me a nice playground for me to get deeper into synthesis. I worked with a couple of excellent sound designers on this to put together one of the most complete collections of analog and digital synth sample libraries ever made.

Orchestral Tools – Sine Factory: Ratio, Gearbox, Fromby, Strand, Manifold, Clutch, Crux, Roads, Mistral

I recorded instruments for SINE Factory in some of the most iconic studios in LA, like Sunset Sound and 64 Sound. Despite being free instruments, the level of quality and attention to detail is as high as any other commercial release I’ve worked on.?

Output Audio – Arcade?

My first foray into loop based libraries, I contributed lots of folk instrument content to arcade sourced from Georgia and Armenia. This includes everything from plucked instruments, winds and percussion.

Slate Digital – Seismic?

Seismic was a loop pack I created for Slate Digital, recording top session musicians in LA and Armenia.

Sonora Cinematic – Verticale, Mezza Coda, Atlas Flutes

Every time I sample a piano, I swear it will be my last time, but whenever the opportunity presents itself I can’t turn it down. What makes pianos challenging is the length of the notes. You have to stay completely still in silence for up to 40 seconds, or you end up having a choice between re-record or spending additional time later in RX, cleaning up the sound. I’m not sure if there’s a single piano I’ve recorded where I haven’t fallen asleep at least once during the recording process! For the Verticale Piano, we recorded an old Petrof upright piano for 5 days at a school in Tbilisi.

Libre Wave – Kazbek Winds

This was a fun little library, I worked on with long time collaborator Tamta Mandzulashvili who also contributed Georgian instrumental and vocal recordings on products for UVI, Sonuscore and Sample Logic with me.

Audio Artistry - Monolith

An ambitious collection of bass instruments were compiled for this. I recorded everything from bass clarinet and bari sax, to prepared piano, rare folk instruments, and even voices. To the best of my knowledge there still isn’t a product that features such a wide variety of low end sources.

Hidden Path Audio - Battalion

Battalion was a very ambitious scoring brass library that I created with my friend Jonathan Kranz of HPA. We recorded a variety of traditional and aleatoric articulations with brass ensembles and soloists over 3 days (triple sessions), in a larege scoring stage, and topped it off with sound design from modular synths and other sources to bring this product to life.