LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: While most composers tend to focus their energy and develop their networks within a single media form, Tyler Bates has established a successful career cutting across media. He has produced significant work within the film, television, video game, and record industries, including compositions for the films Hobbs & Shaw, John Wick 1,2,&3, Deadpool 2, 300, John Wick, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1 & 2; compositions for the TV shows The Purge and Californication; ABC’s Stumptown, compositions for the video games Far Cry 6, God of War, Killzone 4, and Army of Two: 40 Day, and record productions, including Bush’s new hit single Bullet Holes, tracks with Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains, Chino Moreno of Deftones, Jason Aalon Butler of Fever 333, Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells, and two Marilyn Manson albums (The Pale Emperor and Heaven Upside Down) and twice toured with the band as lead guitarist. As if that weren’t enough, Bates is currently scoring the new Cirque du Soleil show, R.U.N, opening at the Luxor in Las Vegas this fall! Bates composes, records, and mixes on ATC monitors. He has long relied on ATC SCM100ASL and SCM150ASL monitors in his main studio, and he has ATC SCM20ASL monitors in smaller studios on his compound, where his associates work in all facets of music production on his myriad projects. Bates worked closely with Sweetwater in Fort Wayne, Indiana to facilitate his most recent purchase of ATC SCM20ASL monitors for one of his studios.
“My good friend and engineer, Robert Carranza, is responsible for introducing me to ATCs,” Bates said. “We worked on ATC SCM25As in his studio, and they sounded accurate and felt very natural to me. I immediately switched my monitors from another premium brand speaker to ATCs after that session. The consistency has been incredibly helpful in our collaborations, as we file-share sessions on various film, television and album projects, including the past two Marilyn Manson records, both of which Robert mixed.”
Bates and his team do not rely on just one creative process – every project is different. Instrumentation is different. Some projects involve full orchestral recordings. Others are built up from programmed electronic and non-orchestral sounds with the addition of solo instruments and vocalists, many of which are contemporary and musically unconventional. The process Bates used with director James Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 has attracted a lot of attention. Bates wrote several of the key musical moments first, and Gunn filmed the scenes to match them. Half of the cues on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 have over five-hundred audio tracks!
“When writing music for film and television it’s important that I hear depth and clarity at low volume because I’m usually blending synthetic and natural instruments. And when you engage in this work process for 12-14 hours per day, you can’t work at high volume until your critical listening for the day is done.” Bates said. “Over the years, I’ve worked on several brands of monitors. Some sound great for orchestral music, but not necessarily great for rock records or electronic music. Of all the monitors I’ve had in my studio, ATCs perform the best for the scope of my work, allowing me to create inspired music at any volume, regardless of instrumentation or genre. With ATCs, I tend to have greater confidence in the accuracy of how my mixes translate for all media, especially because my work is a convolution of different media and musical styles. I find that whatever model ATC’s I work on, the final product translates accurately, whether it is an album or a dubbing stage for film or television.”
Bates recently purchased a second pair of ATC SCM20ASL monitors to match the sound of his other rooms. “My associates and I regularly work on various details of the same sessions, so consistency is paramount in keeping continuity in all of the work performed here,” he explained. “We all love the warmth and purity of our ATCs, and although I work at moderate to low volumes most of the time, it’s always fun to crank up my ATC SCM150ASLs to near dangerous volumes! I love it!”
ABOUT TRANSAUDIO GROUP TransAudio Group, founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has quickly become the premier U.S. importer/distributor and/or U.S. sales and marketing representative for high-end audio. Success hinges on TransAudio providing dealers and end users with a higher standard of product expertise and support far beyond the norm.
PHOTO CREDIT: © 2019 Piero F Giunti
