Round Table with Hans Zimmer, Dave Fleming, Ben Wallfisch and Steve Mazzaro | Steinberg Spotlights

In this informal roundtable discussion, heavyweight film composers Hans Zimmer, Benjamin Wallfisch, David Fleming and Steve Mazzaro discuss the process of creating music for movies, celebrate Cubase and talk about its positive impact on their work scoring for film. They talk about their collective Cubase history and how the evolution of Steinberg’s best DAW software enhances the workflow of music composers in the high pressure world of the cinema score. All four of these industry-leading composers are dedicated Cubase users, with this Steinberg Spotlight video highlighting why they consider it to be the movie industry’s premier music composition software.
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[@priyonjoni]

Hans Zimmer is definitely one of my biggest inspirations to writing music. I’m not even a film composer.

[@f.herumusu8341]

I also like most of Hans Zimmers Soundtracks. But ... I think there is a reason for his typical and nowadays famous sound: He has, unlike all other movie composers, no rigid musical education. Other composers come up with very sophisticated chord progressions, showing that they have a deep understanding of musical theory. Not Hans Zimmer, he layers simple lines and musical textures to get a result. Listen to "Journey to the line": kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJ_SoHqFnbF8mq8 IMHO a great example that musical talent can find a way to express yourself, even without strict education.

[@VFXCommander]

@@f.herumusu8341 Couldn't agree more. People like to show off their certificates haha.

[@ShaniArshadMusic]

It’s always inspiring to listen to Hans

[@nativeVS]

I'm looking forward to hearing that string quartet.

[@acryjo]

Sure. Hope you will enjoy my country in Western heavy-metal psychedelic string quartet.

[@TheStudioexpresso]

"technology influences the way you compose." -- Zimmer. Makes one wonder how Bach would have composed today! Still, just tools..."it's the extension of the paper." -- Wallfisch. Brilliant! Thank you for your musical expressions

Great point. Bach was also tackling a new technology back in the 1720s, the Well Tempered Clavier. I too wonder on occasion what he'd think about music and technology today.

[@J-MLindeMusic]

The looks of the program actually were one of the biggest deciding factors for me when I was choosing a DAW to use...nice to hear that mentioned here.

[@user-id4sx9oi7l]

Every time i see this room,i get a vibe of BATCAVE.

[@ryevick]

Very wise words I wish I had learned early in my youth. "You have to limit the possibilities, otherwise life will just slip away." Hans Zimmer

[@cosmokeys9898]

Wallfisch's Shazam was a fabulous score and very much a departure from the static element that these chaps were discussing. Big fan of Ben's.

[@BryanHoltComposer]

RETROSPECTIVE RECORD!! Life saver. Amazing conversation here. Thx for being this to us Steinberg!

[@JulioCesar-ky4qm]

When hans speaks everyone is silent, respect for hans is notorious.

[@itsaashish]

Why doesn't this video have more views and likes? This is Music Gold!

[@2JohJoh2]

Hans is talking about how easy it was "conducting"(sic) music in Cubase - hence the frequent use of tempo shifts in his earlier days - , and that this was lost now (@ around 11:00) . What kind of feature(s) did Cubase have back then that are not available anymore ?

[@VFXCommander]

Steinberg, you should do a review with Harry Gregson-Williams. This guy don't receive too much love around here. He's a genius! He created iconic themes that we can't forget.

[@steinberg]

Hello, the question is, does he uses Cubase? ;) We have another one with Alan Silvestri as well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faOnonp7htqrbck kzbin.info/www/bejne/gXKxXoWFi7GNsLM

[@gregondo376]

We are very familiar and are big fans of Harry's work and support of Cubase. He was scheduled to be in this roundtable but had a last minute schedule conflict. We are working on doing a video of him.

[@VFXCommander]

@@steinberg He does! When he was working under Hans Zimmer, he made sure that Harry would not leave until he master Cubase. I saw his interview once talking about it.

[@VFXCommander]

@@gregondo376 Oh, so you work for the company? If you do, please we would love to see you do that with him. He's a really cool guy and there are many topics he should talk about including Chicken Run, Narnia, Shrek, Sinbad and his upcoming film Disney's Mulan reboot.

[@loukes116]

What an enlightening conversation!

[@isitthatway]

Loved the magic moment 18:47

[@danpoolemusic]

12:53 that awkward painful pause after Hans says 'he used to have friends' :(

[@VsevolodPankratov]

Thanks Steinberg for the video! Benjamin and Hans inspire me. Rather, you would have the opportunity to ask them our questions.

[@dafingaz]

Great group!

[@f.herumusu8341]

Interesting: Hans Zimmer did go from a Fairlight CMI (depending on your options between US$ 25 000 to 1 Million) to an Atari ST with Logic (US$ 1000 for the Hardware and US $ 300 for the software). When I heard that I thought "Wait, Wait ...." but with some US $ 2000 samplers at that time you get much better results. Another fun fact: Both, Steinberg (Cubase) and Emagic (Logic) were sited in or around Hamburg, Germany. I work as a teacher in that area and worked as a musician before becoming a teacher. I had two children of leading Logic/Cubase devolpers in my CS courses. I just thought "You better give good lessons now ..." ;)

[@clutchsharp2343]

Steinberg please can you fix your drivers for some of the interfaces like UR12. I cant go 30 seconds without audio dropping out. The problem is well addressed and nobody cares... Even support does not answer the tickets. I was fine with the problem until I realized that Steinberg does not care.

[@critney_]

That was interesting - thx for the video!

[@ookamimusic4019]

Such an inspiring Talk. It is so refreshing to hear from Hans that he undergoes the same Up's and Down's during his process of writing. It is easy in our Days, to get the feeling; that to be a Successor, you have to be flawless and on point, in every aspect of Your Art, at any given moment.

[@f.herumusu8341]

That modular synth in the "library" is just braggy ;)

[@duudleDreamz]

Hans + Cubase rock!!

[@ramzeebutt6285]

Genius with Cubase

[@nine96six]

12:29 for merge tempo from tapping

[@AndreasvanHaren]

I like the wallpaper in the background... would look cool in my little bedroom studio ;)

[@L.PAudioWorkshop]

Its not a wallpaper. The wall is full of REAL hardware. Look at this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4DcY3alpqambZo

[@cbdmusic]

@0:57 What is Ben talking about here? I know what expression maps are, but how can they show you on an ipad what articulations are available to you on a specific track? Is it possible to get expression maps to talk to Lemur or OSC? That would be way better than NKS.

[@MichaelGraybill]

I believe they are referring to custom software a number of them use, and I think it runs on windows tablet pcs. Think Junkie XL shows off this software in his KZbin video series. Would love to know more about it tbh, I get the impression it's a fairly private club that has access to it. Obv it can be used in conjunction with Lemur or Touchdaw and friends for a beautifully tailored work flow.

[@cbdmusic]

@@MichaelGraybill I think I found it. I mean they could have some custom RCP software going as well, but for the lay-people @MIDI Kinetics has a Lemur ipad app called composer tools pro that is able to comunicate with Cubase and change your visible keyswitches. Looks pretty rad.

[@damianwiecha8380]

CUBASE,ABLETON PERFECT DAWs

[@issiewizzie]

Apple Logic developers I hope you are watching this

[@cosmokeys9898]

LPX is been very actively updated but I am mostly using Cubase because of the Chord track which Apple dropped after LPX 9

[@issiewizzie]

@@cosmokeys9898 love the chord features

[@AndreasvanHaren]

I am using both programs and keep coming back to Logic after working in Cubase for a while. Still, Cubase is nice to work in as well.

[@benj7911]

I made beats on fl studio for a couple years on and off and never really learned more than the most basic functions to make a standard 808 beat with maybe some custom sounds, but I'm sitting here buzzed watching this nodding my head in agreement with what they are saying and I have no idea what they are even saying 75 percent of the time.

[@jasoncarter3604]

haha

[@MrAviraj7]

I hAv my ur 22mk2 cubas 5 . But sometimes by default asio dupex selected then I want swch my driver ur22 but I can't .. device COULD NOT OPEN massage show...... How to fix

[@DataScientist268]

Cubase 😍😍😍

[@themonth]

i took hold of the devilish door of possibilities by arrange stuff on "Caustic 3" on my cellphone and then take those tracks to cubase and flash it out. As a newbie, Cubase can be overwhelming.

[@BenniG90]

Wo bleibt denn hier die Frauenquote? :-D

[@hilelpaley900]

so fan to watch

[@CosmicTeapot]

I'm their biggest fun

[@nine96six]

Line tool (parabola sine ....)'s Period? is not musical on changed tempo. plz. fix them. for glorious cubase's time warp algorithm. thanks.

[@honigdachs.]

"Heavyweight film composers"! Two of them certainly are, haha.

[@acryjo]

"Cubase has controller" #butHow

[@5amJones69]

I'll let you know when I figure it out... Also endless macro possibilities?! WHERE?!!

[@sotahayashi-9633]

わお

[@Herfinnur]

I don't know whether only I am hearing and seeing this, but isn't Hans just, like: "the Jeremy Clarkson of composing"?

[@ilo0076]

Maybe Hans Zimmer can tell me what that skull means

[@MrAviraj7]

Sir/madam plz help me out

[@5amJones69]

This was so awkward. haha

[@joel.ds.m]

How?

[@CosmicTeapot]

​@@joel.ds.m I'm guessing Sam's referring to all the little moments where they go "yea..." and fall silent for a few seconds. Also, that bit where the guy from Steinberg's crew asks Hans if he thought he could produce music as quickly and efficiently without Cubase and he immediately responded "Yes, I'd just write the melodic sketches and the harmonic fillings and then give it to a team of orchestrators to complete". I actually laughed out loud, I imagine that was NOT the answer the guy was expecting. Mad props to Hans, even though he was probably being paid to promote Cubase and could easily have not said that, he gave his honest answer to the question regardless of whether it was what Steinberg wanted to hear or not.

[@thedankatheist3466]

For the longest time I thought Hans’ name was spelled with a “z”

[@DavidComdico]

When Hans said, "it opens the devilish door..." I looked down at the like count and noticed it was 666. I clicked to make it 667.

[@trevormadsen]

Why Japanese subtitle?! Weird!

[@steinberg]

Hello, you know you can disable the subs at the bottom of the video, right? Why, because our colleagues from Yamaha Japan Kindly added Japanese subtitles for our Japanese viewers. ;)

[@trevormadsen]

@@steinberg It is not about me. I am thinking about thousands of Steinberg fans and users on the planet who can`t comprehend English conversation and they usually watch English subtitles of the videos. I am sure Japanese fans can read English, but the other fans can`t read Japanese.:))

[@marmelade5118]

@@trevormadsen Then you question should be: "Can we get english subtitles?"

[@trevormadsen]

@@marmelade5118 Yes!

[@CosmicTeapot]

@@trevormadsen There are always auto-generated english subtitles available, although they do tend to make mistakes here and there... but it's better than nothing :)

[@Dzineboy]

I’m curious how much they got paid by Steinberg to promote Cubase over Digital Performer and Logic Pro X? Composers that score for smaller budget movies, television and games will immediately pick up on the sentence repeated throughout this interview, “You can’t orchestrate in Cubase”. What a colossal failure by Steinberg and the reason they continue to loose composers to Digital Performer and Logic Pro X.

[@FreakieFan]

Why cant you orchestrate in Cubase?

[@clutchsharp2343]

Just please get your stuff together as a company.

[@tehxperience]

that table isnt round at all! disliked unsubbed

[@andrewci4455]

but hans Zimmer uses pro tools (i saw it in masterclass)

[@CosmicTeapot]

Most professional film composers use Pro Tools in tandem with another DAW like Cubase or Logic. Pro Tools is the remnant of the older generations of composers/studio engineers since it was the best software for this purpose back then, but the game has changed in the past 10 years or so, and they still haven't introduced a lot of highly necessary features their competitors have had for years now (especially regarding MIDI programming). For now, the newer generations of film composers still have to use PT in order to work with the more senior studio employees who have used it for decades and can't be bothered to learn to use a new DAW (which, to be fair, is quite understandable considering the time it would take to reach the professional level of mastery they have with PT)... but if Avid doesn't make a big comeback with the next couple of versions, PT will lose its status of industry standard and vanish from professional studios within the next decade at most, as the older generations of this field retire. Pro Tools still does offer a couple of powerful functions the other DAWs don't have yet with regards to film scoring, but they're catching up very quickly so it shouldn't stay the case for much longer.

[@Neocortex_x]

guys, just buy reaper yourself and you would not be needed even to discuss something.

[@HammyHavoc]

Reaper leaves a lot to be desired for MIDI versus Steinberg.

[@Neocortex_x]

@@HammyHavoc I compose orchestral music, trailer music. Reaper has all that needed.

[@HammyHavoc]

@@Neocortex_x I compose music for picture and video games, and I'm telling you, Reaper leaves a lot to be desired for MIDI. It's better than Pro Tools, but it's poor by 2022 standards. The take comping system is also poor, even people on the Reaper forum agree about this lol.

[@Neocortex_x]

@@HammyHavoc I spend 5 years in Cubase and 10 years in fl studio. I can tell that reaper is far ahead. Sadly that you are missing of something and have to pay for those griddy bastards still.

[@HammyHavoc]

@@Neocortex_x I don't use Cubase or Nuendo. Reaper doesn't even begin to compare in terms of MIDI. There's not even an articulation system dude. It is so lackluster.

[@ryevick]

Off topic but I'm looking for the best price on Steinberg Cubase Pro 10.5 Crossgrade Thanks everybody... and Happy New Year!!!

[@JulioCesar-ky4qm]

When hans speaks everyone is silent, respect for hans is notorious.