Some composers live a career behind the scenes – Charlie Clouser is not one of them.

While he currently spends his days and nights creating high-visibility soundtracks (the entire Saw series, Resident Evil: Extinction, “Numb3rs,” “American Horror Story”), he’s spent his time in the spotlight. Clouser was keyboardist/programmer for Nine Inch Nails from 1994-2000, and contributed synth work and remixes to myriad other elites including Marilyn Manson, White Zombie, Prong, David Bowie, Snoop Dogg, Rammstein, Jamiroquai, Deftones, Killing Joke, Esthero, and Meat Beat Manifesto.

So you want it dark, otherworldly and done right? A lot of movies, TV series, and video games do, and considering his resume its no wonder Clouser frequently gets the first call. But he’s not just resting on his laurels – he’s built up an arsenal of gear, instruments, and time-saving techniques that’s incredibly deep.

What is Clouser’s ingenious three-computer workflow? How does he take advantage of his space for homegrown reverbs? What is the tool he uses to take both hardware and software synths to the next level? Why do guitars matter so much in his sound design? How can cheap gear make your sound stand out? Just what is the TV-in-the-next-room technique? And what’s the most brutal part of Charlie Clouser’s job?

Absolutely essential advice for any composer – or sonic adventurer – follows. Miss this at your own risk.

Composer Crib

Composer Name: Charlie Clouser

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Location: Somewhere in the canyons above Malibu, just outside Los Angeles.

Soundtracks Served: Film and television

Clients/Credits:

Films: The SAW horror movie franchise (all seven films), Death Sentence, Dead Silence, Resident Evil Extinction, etc.

Television: “Numb3rs” (CBS), “Las Vegas” (NBC), “Wayward Pines” (FOX), etc.

Latest Project: Childhood’s End – six hour miniseries airing December 14-16 2015 on SyFy.

IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0167197/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

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Big Premiere: I’ve been in this location since 2006, but in terms of workflow my setup is about the same as I’ve had since 2003 or so, other than the usual upgrades to computers and such.

NINspiration: My years with Nine Inch Nails were in a great decade in the record industry, the mid- to late-1990’s. Trent had one of the biggest setups around, with a big SSL 4K console, dual Studer 24-track machines, lots of high-end outboard gear and dozens of synths. Between his setup, and all the guys in the band, it seemed like we had every synth and guitar pedal there was.

That decade was when we started to see some of the early software processing tools. We started with TurboSynth, then got into software like HyperPrism, AudioMulch and the first versions of Reaktor, which allowed us to really mess up sounds inside the computer – this was before the modern era of plugins, but some of those early software tools were really groundbreaking, and it was a great time to be involved in using that technology.

One thing that I took away from those years is that although Trent is obviously extremely talented and very knowledgeable about the technology, he’s not afraid to trust his ears and use crude or cheap tools if they sound interesting to him. That was always my thinking too, but working with him really reinforced that for me. Those years definitely widened the scope of what I thought possible, and since then I’ve been trying to use the techniques that I refined during my years of working with NIN in my scoring work.

My scores for the Saw movies have a lot of sounds that have a more gritty, industrial edge than a traditional orchestral score would, with heavily processed guitars, circuit-bent keyboards, and stuff like that.

That’s the kind of sound I was into before joining NIN, and I guess that’s why I was a good fit and why Trent wanted to bring me into his world for a while. I’m naturally attracted to dark and aggressive sounds, and I guess that’s why I wound up doing a lot of horror movies, because those sounds can work well in that context.

Room Cue: My current studio is the least custom setup I’ve ever had, actually, in terms of physical build-out. When I moved to this location it was because I found a house with the architectural style I liked in an isolated location that’s a little outside the chaos of Hollywood.

This house has a 22-foot high concrete and glass space with a very asymmetrical shape that gives me a great reverb character for recording – at around 2,000 square feet, drums sound massive in there, but smaller instruments have a nice, bright, live sound as well. The sound of the reverb in that space is bright and very dense without being overly long, and there’s alcoves and a suspended catwalk that allow for some interesting placement of microphones and instruments to achieve a wide variety of reverb characters.

My main composing studio is not too huge, about 16 x 24 feet, with some additional storage rooms, but it’s a totally separate structure to the main house which makes for good isolation. When I bought this place I was in the middle of three ongoing projects, so all I really did was set up some bass traps and wall treatments, lay down carpet over the concrete floors, drag the gear in and get to work.

After a little bit of fiddling with the placement of the subwoofers I wound up with a neutral sound that gives me solid and powerful bottom end even at reasonable monitoring levels. Mixes that I do here seem to translate very well to the big dub stages I’m generally delivering to.

Workflow Requirements: I use three main computers in my scoring rig – one each for Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and VideoSlave.

The Logic machine is a loaded Mac Pro 12-core cylinder with three BlackMagic MultiDocks that each hold four 2tb SSD drives, so that’s 16tb of sample library storage and 8tb for projects. This machine has the new MOTU 112d and 1248 AVB interfaces connected via Thunderbolt, so I’ve got something like 136 channels of digital and 8 channels of analog I/O, but not all of them are in use all the time.

I’m running Logic X, with the usual massive assortment of plugins from Waves, UBK, SpectraSonics, U-He, Native Instruments, and many others. Some favorites are Granite, which is a granular sample-mangler, GRM Tools, Iris and Ozone from iZotope, and some cheaper and weirder plugins from companies like SineVibes, Audio Damage, Togu Audio Line, and my old friend Steve Duda’s wild Serum virtual synth. Utilities like AudioFinder, Space Designer Manager, and the discontinued Redmatica sampler tools are pretty indispensable as well. I mix all of my own scores right inside Logic, using mostly Waves and UAD plugins as well as a lot of the stock Logic plugins.

The Pro Tools machine is a Mac Pro 6-core cylinder with one BlackMagic MultiDock, and it’s running Pro Tools HD Native Thunderbolt with an Avid MADI interface and an Avid Sync HD box. It’s connected to the Logic rig over MADI, so I’ve got 64 channels going back and forth between the two. I use Pro Tools primarily as a layback recorder – basically a mixdown deck – so I can print my mixes in one pass with up to 64 channels at once. This lets me print up to ten stems in one pass when I’m working in surround, which I do for film projects, or even more when I’m working in quad or stereo.

Printing my mixes to Pro Tools makes it easy to transport sessions to the dub stage, and it also lets me hear how one cue will overlap with the next and have one long session that represents the whole film or TV episode, so previewing cues and rough mixes is simple. I also use Pro Tools as the medium for capturing anything I record at other studios, so any orchestra or other live recordings done across town are done in PT and then I bring the sessions here, maybe do some editing before bouncing them over to Logic in slightly condensed form where I can further manipulate the audio, overdub, and mix.

The Pro Tools machine sends LTC timecode from the Avid Sync HD interface over a good old XLR cable to a Unitor MIDI interface on the Logic machine, so Pro Tools is always the timecode master when the two are running in sync, and word clock comes from the Sync HD over to the MOTU interfaces on the Logic machine for audio clock sync. My old rigs had Pro Tools HD3 with 192 interfaces, but the new native systems are great and I’ve had no issues with them at all. I don’t use any plugins on the Pro Tools machine, it’s just a big multitrack recorder and editor for me, so I don’t really miss the DSP power of the TDM cards.

The third computer is a Mac Mini with internal SSD, running VideoSlave software from Non Lethal Applications, which is a sophisticated timecode-slave video player software. It can load up a bunch of QuickTime movies into a playlist and will play the appropriate one in response to incoming MIDI Time Code, which comes from the Logic machine over Ethernet using the “network session” function in Apple’s AudioMIDI Setup application.

The video comes out of the HDMI port right on the back of the Mac Mini to my big screen, and audio comes out of a basic two-channel audio interface and goes into a pair of inputs on the Logic machine, so I can hear the dialog, SFX, and temp music tracks from the video. Having the video offloaded to a separate computer means I never have to mess with importing video into my Logic or Pro Tools sessions and lightens the load on those machines somewhat. I started using this type of setup many years ago, when computers were much slower and I needed to squeeze every bit of performance out of the Logic machine. These days that’s not such a big issue, but I still prefer the convenience of a dedicated video slave computer.

I also have some of the older silver Mac Pro towers, two are 8-core and two are 12-core. These used to be my main Logic and ProTools machines in two different rooms, but now they’re running Vienna Ensemble Pro to host large orchestral libraries in Kontakt and East-West’s Play sample players. These machines all have internal SSD drives and connect to the Logic machine over Ethernet only, so they don’t have audio or MIDI interfaces connected.

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