The fast-paced world of music for film and games has always appealed to Samir El Borno, and lately his efforts seem to be gaining attention. His Ivorysound group has recently been recognized with the prestigious Hollywood Music In Media award.
Their trailer for the game Ravaged received the award for Best Score for Movie/Game Trailer during a gala ceremony at the Henry Fonda Theater.
“One of my partners, Lex van Dawn, and I created a track for a remix competition,” explains Samir.
With more than 200 entries from around the world, their track was one of only 15 to go on to a second round of judging. “A week later, they picked the best five. We were totally thrilled to still be in the running. Then they called us the next day and told us we’d won. That was unbelievable!”
A self-confessed veteran of the DAW wars, Samir has logged hours with almost every major workstation. But for some time now, his DAW of choice has been PreSonus Studio One. He was immediately impressed with its simplicity.
“I always get inspired by stuff that allows you to create complex workflows but keeps everything simple,” he explains. “Everything is drag-and-drop and keystroke and macro assignable – it’s so intuitive. That’s how I like to work, just intuitively, from my gut. I know at least four or five DAWs really well, inside and out, but I never had a feeling of inspiration like this, being able to work so quickly.”
That point was proven shortly after winning the award, says Samir. “The client wanted us to make a couple of changes for the final version. When we went back to work on it, we had a massive hard-drive crash. Usually we’re really good about doing backups but of course the one time we should have, we didn’t. And we only had three days to get back to them with the changes.”
Cool heads and Studio One’s fast workflow prevailed. “We had to find a way to work around the issue,” says Samir. “We pulled up a few of the bounces we had done and imported them into a new project, just as a starting point, and we rebuilt the whole track. We had to make it sound just like it sounded before but with the new changes they had requested. Studio One made it possible for us to put it back together quickly.”
Although he has been a Studio One user since version 1.6, Samir points to some major upgrades in Studio One 2 that really won him over. “I was totally excited to see they’ve implemented a Track List feature and folders. That’s something I’ve been wishing for, and something that’s missing from other DAWs.”
For sound design, the Studio One workflow is ideal, he explains. “If you’re working on complex stuff with a lot of MIDI and instruments, and you’re using plug-ins and re-rendering sounds, Studio One gives a good overview of what’s going on.”
Of course, the most important thing is the sound. “Studio One really sounds better,” he agrees. “You can have a lot of tracks, a lot of stuff going on, and it still sounds transparent.”
Samir sums it up: “I like the pressure of a deadline – it inspires me. With Studio One, I can work fast and get a lot done quickly. With these new features, now Studio One can really be the only DAW I use.”
