Brian H. Kim's Workstation Setup

Most composers in today's era of film scoring write their music on a DAW, a digital audio workstation. Some composers use great programs such as MOTU Digital Performer, Avid Pro Tools, and Apple Logic Pro X. What Brian H. Kim uses to compose the music for the show is a software called Cubase by Steinberg.

https://brianwithanh.tumblr.com/post/148993139396/another-1k-followers-hey-look-at-that-another

https://geektyrant.com/news/brian-h-kim-talks-about-composing-scores-for-tv-and-film

Courtesy of a few interviews from blogs including Geekytyrant and Beyond the Cartoons, as well as his own Tumblr blog, you can see he writes the music in Cubase while using a Mac Pro to a 2 desktop setup. The keyboard you see is a Roland A88 keyboard which is used as a MIDI controller in order for the music to be created while recording in Cubase. If you look real closely, he also has an iPad running TouchOSC which works as another wireless setup controlling any type of instrument track effects such as making the strings louder or quieter.

In a interview which got deleted, Kim also says he has an additional PC with tons of RAM and many virtual instrument libraries.

https://www.instagram.com/p/lY4Q6Wzal5/

From Instagram, this is one of Brian's early Cubase templates while composing additional music for a sitcom called "How I Met Your Mother". If you notice, you can see one of his instruments is outputted into a program called Vienna Ensemble Pro. The way it works since Brian is using two computers and he uses MIDI Via Lan, which connect the computers together through a device, when he plays a virtual instrument onto the keyboard, it all triggers back to Cubase. It works since some of the synths/samples are on his PC alongside his Mac Pro.

And here is a stitched together image of Brian's recent Cubase template from 2018 from a posted video of him how he scored a scene from a Season 3 SVTFOE episode.

It is very huge consisting of over 500 instrument/MIDI tracks. Of course, most composer use Kontakt by Native Instruments as an instrument interface. For Kim's setup, the Kontakt instruments are also hosted in Vienna Ensemble Pro featuring instruments from 8Dio, Spitfire, Native Instruments, Audiobro, Imperfect Samples, Sonicouture, Spectrasonics, and ProjectSAM. Also plugins from Universal Audio and drums from iZotope, Fxpansion, and That Sound Drums. A lot of instruments and sounds means tons of variety and range of genres for the composer to create.

For composers working in TV, they organize different instrument groups in stems or buses, different tracks which are sent while post-production is happening. There are also a couple of reverb and effects tracks to which are routed into the stems. It does sound complicated, but the final result sounds amazing.

Besides virtual instruments, Brian H. Kim also has a couple of audio tracks used for vocals, guitars, and basses all performed live.

Overall, there is a lot that goes into making music for film and television and Brian H. Kim is just one of them with his own unique setup.

Why Analyze SVTFOE? (And More On The Blog)

Why am I analyzing the music to Disney's animated series, Star vs. the Forces of Evil? Over the years watching it, this show has evolved and changed along with the characters but every that goes into each episode along with Brian H. Kim's musical score, always hits the right notes.

Because of the show, I have grown an interest in virtual instrument software and digital audio workstations such as GarageBand and Logic Pro X. Also, I'm now able to see the comparisons and contrasts between different scoring styles of various film and TV composers.

Throughout my blog, alongside mentioning Brian H. Kim and his various styles throughout the show's score, I would often mention three composers that often appear on my musical radar.

John Williams - classical-style composer, known for using leitmotifs (a musical statement/melody representing an idea/character), uses complex and polyphonic textures, such as melody and countermelody at the same time.

Hans Zimmer - modern-style composer, often associated with the use of the D minor musical key, known for using ostinatos which are repeated musical fragments, (even from broken chords, or arpeggios), simple/repeated rhythms, and sometimes the melodies aren't recognizable. However, Zimmer creates many unique soundscapes through is own synthesizer sound creations and sound design alone. That is what Kim is doing with SVTFOE.

Randy Newman - film composer from a pop artist background. An odd choice but I see that he balances between the two composers' styles I mentioned (not intentional). I'm more familiar with his use of mickey-mousing (synchronizing the actions to the screen) and musical onomatopoeia (which instruments imitate an action such as bass drum/timpani hits sounding like a giant's foot steps). If you listen to Newman's music, you often hear motifs/melodic fragments while often providing harmony, texture, rhythm (even when it is an ostinato) to each music cue. For the record, Newman doesn't create musical soundscapes but is more traditional with his choice of a large orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMEOxlCrMis (Here is a video from Inside the Score as he explains the musical onomatopoeia concept.)


Starting off from the first episode, we will explore each musical cue as Brian H. Kim helps creates Daron Nefcy's magical universe of magic, everyday situations, good vs. evil, comedy and drama, and development from Star Butterfly, Marco Diaz, and all beloved characters on Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

Welcome to SVTFOE Music Analyses!

In October of 2014, a young composer, Brian H. Kim, (a Yale graduate and an assistant to composer John Swihart to some shows like How I Met Your Mother and Switched at Birth), has started writing the musical score for a Disney animated series called Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

I love the show so much along with the background music. 

How do I describe it? 

I like how Brian creates different leitmotifs (short musical themes for the characters). And I also like how he sometimes uses the technique of mickey mousing (syncing the music to the right specific action you see on screen.) It also captures the tone “perfectly” and I like when he decides when it’s right to add or not to add music to any scene he watches in a spotting session. 

I just like to say to Brian H. Kim himself, keep making music and keep making our fans excited, happy, and even sad at some times.

Now, I decided to run this blog showing every musical moment from the show. From choice of tempo to choice of instruments and synthesizers, this blog will take on an awesome cohesive musical journey. I hope you enjoy SVTFOE Music Analyses.