John M Davis

I have a real problem with the blank page. I would never make it as a writer. That empty expanse of void waiting for words… I feel that here but I’m not a writer so I just blather and I don’t worry too much about it.

Music, my “thing”, is a different story. When I open a new, blank, project I freeze up. I load a piano and plonk and then go do something else. So that brings me to the point of this post: scaffolding, or what most digital audio workstations (DAWs) refer to as templates.

I usually have a pretty good idea of the type of project I want to take on. Lately, I’ve been studying the music of Trevor Gureckis. I was especially taken with his score for the M. Night Shayamalan series ‘Servant’. His use of sparse instrumentation: solo strings, odd percussion instruments, and the occasional synthesizer is appealing to me and a departure from the more lush instrumentation I’ve employed in the past.

So I started hearing that type of instrumentation in my head as I was conceptualizing my current album project. With those sounds in my head, I built a template using a similar virtual ensemble plus my ubiquitous piano. That template has become the basis for several pieces that are in progress now.

Obviously, using a template like this saves me a ton of time. It also provides me with a ton of focus. I don’t spend much, if any, time configuring virtual instruments or even deciding which instruments to use. When I start a new composition, my “ensemble” is ready to play and I can just get going on the fun part: making the music.

Setting Up

As I mentioned earlier I start by thinking about what kind of music I want to make and generally what instruments I want to use.

For this template, I knew I wanted to use solo strings so I set up a string quintet with two violins, a viola, cello, and double bass. I loaded up patches in my sampling software that covered my most used articulations: legato, pizzicato, etc.

From there, I grouped the solo strings channels, color coded them (I really like green for strings for some reason), and added a reverb send to make them sound the way I like. I also pre-mapped the knobs and sliders on my MIDI controllers so I didn’t have to stop to do those mundane tasks while in the throes of creating my latest master.. well, piece.

I continued like this setting up and grouping percussion, a set of different pianos I like, and some synthesizers I like to use. I saved the whole thing as a template so when it’s time to start a new piece, I can load up the band and go.

Doing this sort of set up takes some time and some thinking ahead. Invariably, I’ll think of something additional I might want to add but that’s ok, it’s easier to add and configure a single instrument than setting up the whole shebang every time. The reduction to my cognitive load allows me to start new compositions and freely experiment quickly so I can get in the zone, stay in the zone, and focus on the whole reason I went down the creaky stairs to my studio in the first place: makin’ music.

If templates are your thing, let me know in the comments. If you find templates don’t work for you, I’d love to hear about that too!