Superman

[Blastissimo con Forte]

There is a really cool tuba solo in the original superman movie. Anyone know who played that? Amazing sound

[Dylan King]

Tommy Johnson told me maybe ten years ago that there were perhaps 25% of the studio calls in Hollywood compared to the sixties, seventies, and even eighties. And it is diminishing more and more all the time.

Many scores are being sent out to other states and countries for more economical production. The pay scale here in Hollywood is just so high that only the A-list movies can still be recorded. With the union fees, and guys asking for double and triple scale, it just can't be done as cheaply anymore.

As far as I know, the LSO is still the cream-of-the-crop when it comes to movie scoring, and I believe the pay scale for that particular orchestra is similar to a Hollywood band. I still think no group sounds better than the LSO recorded at Abbey Road. especially considering that Abby Road is on an energy line that directly intersects with Stonehenge and many elaborate crop circles. And no band locks better in tune with a bigger sound thatn the LSO.

A friend of mine, Scott Smalley, who is a major orchestrator in many Hollywood films has a theory that the music recorded at Abbey Road directly effects the occurance and patterns of the crop circles. Intersting stuff for another post perhaps.

Getting back to Bloke's comment though. So many scores are getting contracted out to other orchestras these days that studio work in L.A. is becoming a dying art. I think between Tommy and Jim they pretty much have it covered, although James Van-Houten, Doug Tornquist, and Fred Greene get some work here and there so I've heard.

And don't forget the amazing new samples that are available to composers. For about $8,000 I have an entire 100 piece orchestra at my disposal played by the best musicians Vienna has to offer. It has as many articulations as one could hope for. The entire Vienna library, that I've now bit the bullet and paid for, takes up over 250GB of hard drive space, and sounds fantastic. Of course, to me the tuba, trombone, and trumpet parts still sound a little stuffy, so I'm always overdubbing the brass parts.

I hope this has been helpful.

-MSM

[LoyalTubist]

I'm not sure if it's still true, but none of the orchestras in London have regular contracts as we do here in the United States. They work day to day, week to week, paycheck to paycheck (or is that paycheque to paycheque?) Anyway, players can change at any given time. They don't get paid as well as American musicians but, because anyone's spot could be changed at any time, they give it more than 100%.

I heard about this twenty years ago. Maybe it has changed.