Composing music in our modern time has become a process that requires much skill and competence of many area's of soundtrack creation. Gone are the days of slaving over a manuscript with pencil and eraser, scribing out one's ideas in this Neolithic way. Speed has become a paramount in the art of scoring music for film in the twentieth century, so much so, that it has become necessary to employ technology to aid us in our plight.

Here at Barrington's facility we have tried to utilise the space as a fully functional scoring suite as well as a well equipped multi-track recording studio. We have facilities to score, prepare, record and master a film soundtrack in house, with a seating capacity of 60 musicians. Remarkably, all this has been designed around Barrington's home, making it the most unobtrusive and advanced home studio in the world.

The Process

The system used for scoring music to film, television programmes and adverts is one that has become a well oiled process, perfected through years of experience. Once the film has been locked off onto VHS tape, that is to say no more edits, length or scene order changes will be made, and has been striped with a visual and audio code, it is then ready for Barrington to apply his craft. Using an Emagic Logic sequencing system, Barrington begins to write the music for the film using the audio and visual code from the tape to synchronise to, making the music he writes completely accurate, frame accurate in fact.

Of course some kind of sound would be required during the demo process, for the benefit of the director/editor/producer. At Barrington's studio we are equipped with an enormous quantity of digital sampling memory using Akai samplers making it possible to house one of the most significant set's of orchestral samples in the industry. These samples were taken from a full symphony orchestra contracted for the sole purpose of sampling. Differentiating these samples from the real thing has been a tricky task for some people in the past. However, although these samples are indeed superb and could be used instead of the real thing, Barrington maintains his life long principle that his film music should always be performed by real musicians, making each soundtrack a performance in it’s own right.

Once the score has been completed, Barrington then asks the producers/directors and editors to come down to the studio to preview the score. It is at this point were the said people can make their suggestions and amendments. Once approved, we can then go on to prepare and print the scores, formatting them for live players. The quality of the music we output is of publishable quality.

After all this we can then go ahead and record the score using the fabulous talents of the London Metropolitan Orchestra. Once completed we can then digitally master the soundtrack directly onto CD, ready for the dubbing theatre