BEHIND THE SCORE: THE IDEA
The blank page. The unmoving cursor. The opening note. Every composer knows the challenges of starting a new musical work. How do you capture that initial spark before the inspiration fades? How do you quickly sketch out the kernels of ideas swirling around in your mind? With THE SCORE, we built a tool to ease the composing process and put the focus back on fun and inspiration.
WHAT IS THE SCORE?
At first glance, THE SCORE seems difficult to describe. It is a massive project. It’s a virtual instrument that provides the user with an all-encompassing instrument palette. With pristinely recorded sections and various instruments around the world, that in itself would make it a powerhouse. But it doesn’t exist as a mere software sample library. It’s a true composing assistant, a tool designed to help you transfer your abstract musical ideas into your DAW as quickly and easily as possible. If want to put it simply: With THE SCORE, you can dive right into the cinematic world and play your own soundtrack!
THE SCORE provides the tools to effortlessly jot down musical ideas the moment they strike, and then further develop them. It’s a kind of compositional sketchpad, yet also so much more than that. Tilman Sillescu, the co-founder of SONUSCORE and soundtrack composer himself, wanted a tool where he could get his ideas down as fast as possible whenever a motive, melody, or chord progression pops into his head and he feels inspired. We’ve touched upon this concept in various of our products, from our ORCHESTRATOR featured in EAST/WEST’s HOLLYWOOD ORCHESTRA OPUS EDITION, to our own THE ORCHESTRA COMPLETE series. But these tools still had different foci, and so Tilman’s sketchpad vision was never fully brought into realization until now, with THE SCORE.
“The idea was to make it easier than ever before to sketch out ideas.”
“The idea was to make it easier than ever before to sketch out ideas,” Tilman explains. “We decided to have 10 instead of 5 slots like in THE ORCHESTRA COMPLETE to create richer and more complete arrangements. We also recorded broader sections, with various articulations for high and low string, brass and wind ensembles. With 10 slots, this allows you to map a large 80-piece orchestra, trailer percussion, synths, and world instruments to a gigantic full soundtrack. It’s a treasure box with all you need for a trailer that you can control with one hand on your keyboard: Play sounds, intervals, chords with the right hand and control intensity with the Mod Wheel. You can jam, innovate, change presets, test ideas, change accents, and more. It’s all there in your box before moving it into your DAW. You can polish it how you like, swap sounds – it’s quick and easy to get ideas down.”
THE SCORE is the all-in-one tool Tilman has been looking for: a compositional sketchpad that also is a gigantic, all-encompassing library for creating blockbuster soundtracks.
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A PALETTE OF SOUND
Tilman sees the composer much like one would see a painter. And of course, every art, from painting to composing to writing, does have similar processes and a great deal of crossover. They all start with a blank canvas – the untouched white space awaiting the painter’s brushstrokes in the same way the empty DAW or untouched staves pull at the composer’s expression, and the blinking cursor mocks the inkwell of the writer’s depth of inspiration. There is the same combination of preparation, experimentation, and spontaneity as the artist lays down those first strokes or musical passages. Just as a painter mixes unique shades on the palette, the composer blends notes, chords, and instruments together to create sonic colors.
It’s in this general language of art, using ideas like “sonic color” or “sound palette” that we at SONUSCORE often speak, and especially with THE SCORE. You don’t just have “notes” and “keys”, but also “colors” and “stories” and “palettes”. You see these themes repeatedly in our products. THE SCORE is a canvas, and we’ve designed it to help you focus on different aspects of the broad palette of sound you’re working on.
“We aim for it to be a liberating instrument that encourages you to explore new compositional possibilities, act on creative pulses, and turn promising sketches into fully realized scores.”
“Our focus wasn’t solely orchestral, but rather getting a broad brush of orchestral sounds, percussion, synths plus world and modern band instruments,” Tilman says. “It was our dream to fit the whole palette into one affordable virtual instrument. More than 50% of the content is newly recorded material. It’s not just combined with existing libraries, but we did new orchestral recordings in Budapest to get those section sounds rather than individual instruments that take more slots.”
In that endeavor, we wanted to bring you as wide a selection as possible, with 160 different instruments covering orchestral, band, world, synths, and more, over 50% of which are new recordings made specifically for THE SCORE. It’s a huge palette to choose from, so we made it easier by including 120 Stories to explore as starting points. We’ll get more into these in later blogs though.
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THE SCORE is truly an exciting new tool for composers and musicians of all levels. With its inspiring design and expansive sonic palette, it makes musical creation more intuitive and enjoyable than ever before.
Whether you’re an amateur composer or seasoned film-scorer, THE SCORE gives you the tools to quickly turn inspiration into full-fledged compositions.
If you’re ready to supercharge your compositional process, check out the main product page to find out more about it, or click the link below and unlock your scoring potential today!
