Hello everyone, hope you’re doing marvellously properly.
We’re in London visiting Daniel Sonabend, a composer, producer, sound artist and somewhat fantastic bass participant. Daniel is a kind of musicians whose work sits superbly between worlds. His music blends a deep jazz background with up to date composition, experimental manufacturing and an actual love of texture, whether or not he’s writing for movie, tv, albums or set up artwork.
His latest credit are vastly spectacular. Daniel scored the Netflix Authentic characteristic movie Le Masque for Ardour Footage, the three-part mini-series Cursed Gold for BBC Studios and Disney, and BBC’s documentary sequence Chilly Case Investigations: Fixing Britain’s Intercourse Crimes. He additionally co-scored the award-winning documentary characteristic Piano to Zanskaralongside Ernst Reijseger, who many will know from his work with Werner Herzog.
Past his personal scores, Daniel has contributed extra music, preparations and specialist performances to a exceptional vary of tasks, together with Earthsounds for Apple TV+, narrated by Tom Hiddleston, The Louis Theroux Interviews on BBC2, and the BAFTA-nominated rating for BBC’s Home of Maxwell. As a collaborator, his work has appeared on main display screen tasks together with Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Marvel’s Loki, Crime 101 for Amazon, Obi-Wan Kenobi for Disney+, The Crown Season 6, the BAFTA-winning documentary Gun No. 6, and the Emmy-nominated Amazon Studios movie Wildcat.
He has additionally labored on award-winning quick movies and model campaigns, together with John Lewis’ Moz the Monster, directed by Michel Gondry, which featured The Beatles’ Golden Slumbers carried out by Elbow.
So, sure, Daniel is quietly concerned in loads of music many individuals have heard, even when they might not but know his identify.
A Studio Constructed for Curiosity
Daniel’s studio is small, cosy and completely full of devices, synths, oddities, tape machines, pedals and superbly uncommon sound-making gadgets. It’s the type of room the place each object has a narrative, and extra importantly, each object appears able to changing into the centrepiece of a rating.
He does probably not have a reputation for this explicit studio. His earlier room was known as Modal Studios, and it was round thrice the scale of this one. When he moved right here, he needed to squeeze every little thing in. What he misplaced in house, he appears to have gained in immediacy. Every part is inside attain, organised in what he jokingly calls an “organised mess.”
That makes full sense while you see how he works. Daniel’s course of is constructed round exploration. He may begin on piano, double bass, a synth, a do-it-yourself steel instrument, or one thing he picked up from a market stall as a result of it made a superbly unusual noise.
For a movie composer, that type of curiosity is extremely helpful. Typically the sound that defines a rating isn’t the plain one. Typically it’s a tiny Turkish bağlama, a kalimba mounted right into a drum head, a waterphone, or a plucked steel object that was virtually dismantled earlier than Daniel realised it had an unlimited sub tone.
From Tel Aviv Jazz to London Movie Scoring
Daniel’s musical background is simply as layered as his studio. Drawing from his Iraqi, British and Jewish heritages, he grew up within the Tel Aviv jazz scene, rapidly changing into a sought-after arranger, producer and instrumentalist.
He went on to review on the Rimon College of Jazz and Modern Music, then on the College of Westminster beneath acclaimed composer Shirley Thompson OBE and avant-garde musician Steve Beresford. There, he grew to become recognized for his distinctive strategy to sound design, orchestration, texture and emotionally forward-thinking composition.
Daniel moved to London round 14 years in the past. He’s half English, with household in North London, so the town felt like a pure place to land. He initially got here extra as a participant, working as a bassist in bands and jazz ensembles. Over time, he moved into manufacturing, then composition.
That journey is smart while you hear him discuss. His background as a participant remains to be central to the best way he composes. His manufacturing mind is at all times energetic. His sound-design instincts are in all places. Relatively than separating these roles, he lets them feed one another.
The Double Bass as an Total Rating
The 2 greatest devices within the room are Daniel’s double basses. One is a costlier German bass, the opposite is a Hungarian pupil mannequin that his companion present in an vintage store for round £100. Naturally, a budget one has develop into considered one of his favourites.
It has a rougher, extra uncontrolled character, with what Daniel describes as a Hungarian gypsy high quality. For pizzicato, jazzier components and extra characterful enjoying, he usually reaches for it over the costlier bass. The German bass, against this, is the one he tends to make use of for extra managed bowed components, particularly when recording for movie scores.
What’s fascinating is how Daniel treats the double bass much less like a single instrument and extra like an entire sound design system. He makes use of pickups, microphones, contact mics, pedals, mono results chains and stereo results chains, creating a number of layers from a single efficiency.
Which means one take can develop into a number of completely different textures. A dry mic sign may work in a single scene. A contact mic layer by results may work in one other. An enormous stereo processed layer may carry a distinct emotional second totally.
In Daniel’s world, a single double bass efficiency can develop into a palette.
It jogged my memory of Ry Cooder’s work on Paris, Texas. One instrument, used with absolute intent, can create a complete environment. Daniel clearly loves that type of minimal, spacious, emotionally targeted scoring. He mentions movies like The Revenant as examples of the type of wide-open visible world the place a single instrument can carry monumental weight.
Recording the Double Bass
Daniel retains his recording setup pretty easy, or at the very least easy by his personal requirements. He’s fast to say he doesn’t take into account himself a recording engineer, nevertheless he has clearly spent years refining what works for him.
His principal microphone for double bass is a Coles ribbon mic, often positioned between the tip of the fingerboard and the bridge. That provides him the woody, heat, muffled, vibey tone he likes. He says that mic alone can usually be sufficient.
For extra element, particularly bowed textures, he provides a pair of Neumann KM184s. These seize the air, bow noise and ghostly element that may make a double bass really feel really cinematic.
That element issues. Once I report double bass, I wish to hear what makes it completely different from an electrical bass. I need the bow. I need the wooden. I need the physicality. In any other case, why not simply use a daily bass guitar?
Daniel clearly feels the identical approach, nevertheless he additionally needs choices. If a cue wants low finish and heat, he can lean on the Coles. If it wants air and pressure, the 184s give him that further layer.
Bizarre Devices, Great Outcomes
One of many nice joys of Daniel’s room is the quantity of unusual and characterful devices dotted round it.
There’s a bass ukulele, which sits someplace between an electrical bass and a double bass. There’s a sardine tin instrument from Barcelona, which produces a tiny, barely gamelan-like metallic scale. There are a number of kalimbas, together with one mounted right into a drum head, which grew to become the principle instrument in a magical realism movie a few younger woman escaping into an imaginary world.
There’s a Turkish rebab, which immediately pulls the music eastward. There’s a tiny Turkish bağlama, barely unstable in tuning, nevertheless superbly characterful. Daniel used it on an ITV sequence with composer Alex Baranowski, the place it grew to become probably the most fascinating sounds within the rating.
There may be additionally a waterphone, or hydrophone, an instrument crammed with water that produces eerie, whale-like tones when bowed or struck. Daniel purchased it for a museum set up undertaking about water, and it ended up changing into central to the rating.
Then there is without doubt one of the strangest devices within the room, a do-it-yourself plucked steel object constructed with an engineer pal. It got here out of the method of dismantling one other instrument, and when Daniel plucked the steel tines, he was shocked by the quantity of sub. He informed his pal to not contact it, added contact mics, and now it’s getting used as a bass sound in a characteristic movie rating.
That’s the magic of Daniel’s strategy. He’s not merely accumulating odd devices for adornment. This stuff find yourself in actual scores, usually changing into essentially the most memorable sounds.
Synths, Tape and Sound Design
Daniel additionally has a beautiful assortment of synths and processing instruments.
One standout is the Korg ARP 2600 mini. Daniel factors out that the smaller model makes use of the identical oscillators as the unique ARP 2600, providing you with that iconic sound in a way more inexpensive and moveable format. He loves it primarily for the oscillators, and like every semi-modular instrument, it invitations getting misplaced. You sit all the way down to make one sound and all of a sudden twenty minutes disappear.
There may be additionally a Selina string ensemble, an previous string machine with brass and string sounds that don’t sound remotely life like, and that’s exactly the purpose. It has a darkish, barely forbidding character. At one level I stated it gave the impression of a Stanley Kubrick film, which felt about proper. Daniel makes use of weights to carry down notes, then processes the sustained sound by pedals and results, turning it right into a shifting texture.
His tape machines embrace a Revox, which he sees virtually as an instrument, particularly for tape loops and processing. There may be additionally a Roland RE-201 House Echo, which he makes use of extra as an embellishing impact. The excellence is fascinating. The House Echo provides one thing. The Revox turns into one thing.
For preamps, Daniel retains each a Neve channel strip and a Chandler TG channel. The Neve is smoother, whereas the Chandler is punchier. Naturally, he discovered it inconceivable to decide on, so he saved each.
Daniel’s Path Into Movie Scoring
Daniel’s path into movie scoring began with pupil quick movies. He met a director at college, scored his first two shorts, and the work grew from there.
He later labored extensively with Natalie Holt, changing into her first assistant years earlier than her profession exploded with tasks like Loki and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Daniel contributed tape loops, unusual textures, double bass, synths and different left-of-centre components.
That has develop into a part of his id. He usually will get known as when a composer wants one thing uncommon, experimental or barely exterior the plain musical language. He won’t at all times be the principle composer, nevertheless he’s usually the individual introduced in so as to add flavour, environment and character.
On the identical time, Daniel is cautious to maintain his personal tasks alive. He believes it’s important to maintain making music that reminds you of your individual sound and id. For those who solely work on different individuals’s briefs, you may lose observe of what you truly wish to say.
Installations, Scent, Nature and Sound Artwork
Alongside his movie and TV work, Daniel has composed music and sound artwork for award-winning installations, usually centred round themes of spirituality, scent and nature.
His set up work has been introduced world wide, together with on the Museum of the Future in Dubai, Palais de Tokyo, the Grand Museum of Fragrance in Paris, The Royal Academy of Arts in London, De Electriciteitsfabriek in The Hague and The Louvre Abu Dhabi.
That facet of his work makes excellent sense after spending time in his studio. Daniel is clearly enthusiastic about sound as an atmosphere, not simply as accompaniment. He thinks by way of house, texture, reminiscence, environment and bodily sensation. That’s the reason a waterphone, a bowed bass harmonic, a Revox tape loop or a contact mic on an odd do-it-yourself instrument can develop into so central to what he does.
Present Tasks
On the time of the interview, Daniel was ending a characteristic movie with the working title Masks, a coming-of-age drama with some humour and loads of emotional depth. He scored the entire movie, and the masters had simply come again from our mutual pal Matt, who dealt with the stereo mastering and 5.1 stem grasp combine.
Daniel had additionally just lately performed double bass for a Sky sequence, recorded work for a David Attenborough gorilla documentary on Netflix, and continued contributing to different composers’ tasks.
Alongside all of that, he’s releasing an album with Sandscape, his collaboration with singer-songwriter Eliza Shaddad. Sandscape is an Arab/Jewish experimental electronic-jazz duo, and their debut album Phenomenology is due for launch in June 2026.
The album is constructed across the philosophical concept of lived expertise. It explores uncertainty, dread, restoration and launch, making a journey the place expertise comes first and that means follows behind.
The undertaking started round 2017 as a songwriting experiment and slowly advanced over a number of years. It began with greater than 20 items, grew to become a 12-track album, and ultimately settled into eight tracks. Daniel describes it as an area the place he and Eliza might do the issues they weren’t essentially commissioned to do elsewhere, a sandbox for extra experimental work.
The Studio Philosophy
Probably the most inspiring issues about Daniel’s room is that it’s not constructed round perfection. His audio system should not positioned in some impossibly excellent acoustic configuration. He makes use of Focals that he is aware of properly, checks issues on Sennheiser HD 650 headphones, and is completely comfy finalising mixes on headphones when wanted.
He additionally has an RME UFX III interface and loves TotalMix for zero-latency monitoring. He has even mapped TotalMix to a small Novation controller so he can experience and modify monitoring whereas recording with out counting on Logic.
This can be a deeply sensible studio. It’s about immediacy, character and realizing your instruments. It’s not about having the largest room or the costliest setup. It’s about with the ability to attain for one thing, seize an concept and observe the sound wherever it leads.
Daniel’s monitor stand even permits him to rotate the display screen vertically, which is ideal for orchestral scoring. He can view the rating in portrait orientation whereas protecting the movie operating on one other display screen. Once more, it’s sensible, private and utterly tied to the best way he works.
Remaining Ideas
Daniel Sonabend’s studio is an excellent reminder that music-making is not only about gear, though there may be loads of gear right here. It’s about curiosity.
A £100 Hungarian double bass can develop into a favorite instrument. A damaged guitar with steel hooked up to it could find yourself on a David Attenborough rating. A tiny bağlama can develop into the defining sound of a tv cue. A plucked piece of steel can develop into the low finish of a characteristic movie.
Daniel’s work sits someplace between composition, efficiency, manufacturing and sound design. That’s more and more the place fashionable scoring lives. The composer is commonly additionally the producer, the sound designer, the performer and the engineer of their very own sonic world.
And in Daniel’s case, that world is stuffed with double basses, tape loops, unusual little devices, philosophical albums, stunning textures and the type of completely happy accidents that solely occur while you encompass your self with issues that make you wish to discover.
You’ll find out extra about Daniel and his work right here:
Instagram: @dansonabend Web site: www.danielsonabend.com
Daniel’s band undertaking, Sandscape:
Instagram: @sand.scape Purchase the album: https://sandscape.bandcamp.com/album/phenomenology-2 Stream the album: https://sandscape.ffm.to/phenomenology
Take a look at Daniel’s work by the hyperlinks above, and as ever, have a marvellous time recording and mixing.
