I present now an interview with Paul Shillito, creator of many classical synthesizer recordings on available on YouTube. My personal favorite is Paul’s rendering of Debussy’s Arabesque No. 2:

SMC: When did you first get interested in electronic classical music?

PS: If first got interested when I was about 12 years old, I used to hear the Golliwogs Cakewalk by Tomita played on the radio, the I heard more from Pictures at an Exhibition, that was the first LP I bought, quickly followed by Snowflakes are Sancing and they are still amongst my favorite albums of all time.

SMC: What is your motivation for making your own electronic classical recordings?

PS: I just love the synth sound, I was in to electronics at the same time as I really got in to Tomita, Kraftwerk etc, first I made a phaser from plans in an electronics magazine then I built a synth loosely based around a minimoog for my school metal work project. Again the sounds that Tomita made where my inspiration, I was fascinated by how he got such weird and yet fabulous sounds. Many years later when I could afford real synths I made my first attempts at electronic classical music and found that I liked this more than trying to make my own and the results sounded much better too, so I gave up on being a composer and became really an interpreter and arranger of the sounds around the music.

SMC: Who are your favorite artists/albums in this genre?

PS: Again Tomita, I didnt really hear Wendy Carlos until much later and by then I was pretty much a fully paid up Tomita fan. As for the albums, really its all the earlier albums up to Dawn chorus, after then he really disappeared from the music scene in the UK, also I was less inspired by later attempts as they to be trying to sound too much like a real orchestra when I think Tomita’s strengths were strange and unusual sounds of those early albums.

SMC: Who are you favorite composers?

PS: Debussy, Satie, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Holst, Prokofiev, Sibalius, Satie, Tchaikovsky, Khachaturian lot of these were done by Tomita which what really sparked my interest in them. There are lots of individual pieces I like from many different composers, I suppose Im a bit of a pick and mix enthusiast in the end.

SMC: What is your synthesizer(s) of choice when making music?

PS: Well at the moment it has to be the Spectronic Omnisphere which is where I start but as I have added more soft synths many of the Arturia synths like the CS-80V, Jupiter 8V, Moog Modular 2V, Minimoog 2V are my next choice but also the gforce range like the M-Tron Pro, Virtual String Machine, IMPOScar etc, it just depends on the sounds Im looking for.

SMC: What DAW do you use, and why did you choose it?

PS: Cubase 4, I have used it for the past 10+ years so Im used to it and I like the range of options it gives, I have tried Sonar but didnt really like it, cubase does all what I need really.

SMC: Can you walk us through your recording process? How do you begin a piece, choose synths and voicings, etc.?

PS: I’m not good enough of a player to play in the music so I use midi files, try to get hold of ones played live for keyboard based pieces and for orchestral works I try one that are as accurate as possible to the original score. Then I normally adjust the tempo of the piece to that which I think is the most suited for my listening. Really from then it going though chopping up the tracks in the phrases and applying the synth patches to them seeing what works and what doesnt, this can be very time consuming often I can start a piece with one idea and end up with something quit different because of what I call happy accidents, patches that shouldnt work but do, so the piece can almost sometimes develop by its self. Once the sounds are sorted they are recorded one track at a time as an audio track with effects applied in cubase then the final mix is created from that these separate tracks. So its pretty much like normal mutlitrack recording, I dont create the whole thing from midi tracks and play them live in one go, there is usually too much chopping and changing for that. And even a powerful Quad core PC that I use, it has not got enough grunt the play the soft synths all at once with without glitching or falling over.

SMC: Do you find it tempting to try to duplicate the exact sound of the people who inspire you, or do you try to break new ground?

PS: I prefer to use new sounds though they well sound similar my idols, there is a softness of the analogue emulations of older style soft synth like the Moog Modular, CS-80V, Jupiter 8V, which I like. I sometimes find modern style soft syths often sound too clear, to digital for what Im looking for.

SMC: When recording a new piece, do you use the synth’s preset voices mostly, or create new ones? How much time do you spend creating new patches for your synths?

PS: I start my just working my way through the patches that came with the synth, both factory supplied and those after market ones, there are just so many that I can usually find something close to what I want then I may or may not tweak it but often I add or change the effects to get a different sound.

SMC: What advice can you give to people wanting to make their own arrangements?

PS: Just go and do it, get some decent synths, the sound you can make with them will be worth the cost, I havent come across much that is free that is worth more than the stuff which is paid for, and experiment, make something that I not what is expected, otherwise if you just going to make a copy of an orchestra, piano or organ then there nothing unique about it and the real thing will always sound better. You have an opportunity create some not heard before, so now is the time to do it and stand out.

Thanks, Paul for taking the time to chat with us!

Richard deCosta