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Composer/musical creator Duane Neillson is the man behind the music on hit TV shows including “Dr. Phil”, “Entertainment Tonight”, “Insider”, “Rachael Ray”, and a host of other productions for CBS/Paramount and Warner Brothers.
But it wasn’t that long ago, four years to be exact, that he was toiling away at a day job and dreaming of a career in music. Neillson finally took the leap, trading an office cubicle for a full-time music career. As a long-time Reason devotee, Neillson used the software solely to create music for the Emmy Award-nominated sitcom, “Everybody Hates Chris”, allowing him the flexibility, and the inspiration, to create under what are often deadline-driven conditions.
“I chose Reason for “EHC” specifically because of my ability to tailor the synths and loops to match the theme and musical decade of the show, which is ‘80s Hip-Hop and R&B tracks. Sometimes I’ll get a call or an email at the end of the day, and the producers will need an idea, or more often a few different ideas, for first thing in the morning. And it isn’t a problem. The volume of choices available to me within Reason, even before taking into consideration the thousands of Refill packages, is pretty amazing! Reason does the job perfectly. Even using the mastering suite within Reason helps me get that fat, funky hard edge, which I couldn’t get from any other music applications that I use. And Reason really is an inspirational tool, as well.”
Neillson cites a host of other features in Reason that help streamline his burgeoning musical tasks. “What I love most, other than sound quality, is having total recall; the ability to automate basically everything and with Reason and specifically, the ease of use and ReWire integration with my main host recording applications. And even though my tracks are fairly sparse, they can become heavily processed with effects, e.g., compression, EQ, reverb, delay, etc., so Reason’s CPU efficiency is invaluable.”
Propellerhead ReFills figure significantly into his work, be it Reason Strings, Reason Pianos or Reason Drums. Neillson says his favorite Reason rack device has to be the Dr. Rex loop player. “I’ve literally done entire cues, with almost nothing else. I do my drums, bass, key/synth, horns, guitars, vocal snippets, scratching, whatever it is. That’s where I tend to start at least for the music I do for “EHC”. A lot of the time, I might go back and play the parts on a similar sounding synth or live instrument, but in most cases, it’s 95% Dr. Rex for the initial creation, and very often the final product.”
For more on Duane Neillson, and to sample some of his musical compositions, go to: duane neillson
