Danny Elfman

guitar used in Oingo Boingo's Dead Man's Party video

In 2005, Elfman recalled: "I compose at the keyboard and I have a work table with a big keyboard and screen with a sequencer. I'll create these huge templates and use a program called "Performer", but then I send it out to a guy who puts it into Sibelius for generating the parts. It just looks like notes with no dynamics or anything before it is put into Sibelius."

When Elfman was interviewed about his digital workstation that he used to record by journalist Rick Clark in 2001, the composer recalled using the Avid Pro Tools 5.1 (2001) version of the software.

During an interview with the Vienna Symphonic Library in 2014, Elfman uses a Kurzweil PC2x MIDI Masterkeyboard. The official YouTube channel commented on the video, saying it is a PC2x model.

For his performance with the band Oingo Boingo in the mid 1980s, Danny Elfman used a vintage 1964 Fender Jaguar in "Candy Apple Red" finish.

Seen onstage with a Paul Reed Smith Custom 24. In a Guitar World interview that was published in June 2021, Elfman says “For a long time, the guitar I played on stage was a really heavy guitar, beautiful, this Paul Reed Smith [Custom 24], but the one I grabbed when I went north to my out-of-town house, which was where I holed up for what I thought was going to be a couple of weeks and turned out to be a year, and so I grabbed of course a nice, light favorite.”

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/danny-elfman-big-mess

"Typically, I'll bring a rig with an Apple Power Macintosh 9500 running Mark of the Unicorn's Performer, two Emulator EIV samplers with 128 MB of RAM, and two Roland S-760 samplers. Sometimes, I'll also bring my other Emulator samplers: two 3XPs and two ESI-32s. The S-760s are playing guide stuff — the orchestral string and horn mock-ups that I've sequenced at home — that I can refer to, but these tracks seldom end up as a part of the final score. The EIVs and the 3XPs are the machines actually laying down what will end up on the final score as the drums, percussion, and so on."

“Then we moved to the Kodak Theatre for a month of final mix sessions with Vikram [Kirby, from Thinkwell Design & Production], who helped me set up the various automated mixes and channel assignments,” Elfman says. “The first shock there came when I realized that, because we weren’t running timecode, we could not use Pro Tools automation, with which I am very familiar. Instead, the show is made up from a series of prerecorded cues replayed from a large Ableton Live system,” which also provided stop/start timing cues to the various lighting systems and video playback servers. “So, instead of having a continuous timeline, with events synchronized at timecode points, we had to mix in [snapshot-based] sections with level and panning changes being triggered as scene transitions that occur at those prescribed cues. To say that it was a complicated mix would be major understatement.”

"EastWest/Quantum Leap instruments have become an important part of my sonic template. I am using EW/QL Pianos and Silk in my scores and I am using Stormdrum right now on Terminator."

For his performance with the band Oingo Boingo on April 25, 1987, Elfman used a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Combo Amplifier.

The Samson S-Direct Plus box can be seen on the left of Elfman's studio rack during the 2015 "Exilarte" interview.

"I will say that I'm constantly changing my rig, but the most common, long-lasting staples from the beginning that I have been using are the E-mu samplers, which I've been using since their very first E-I, the Macintosh, which I've used since the Jurassic version, and Mark of the Unicorn Performer, which I've used since its earliest incarnation. My extensive personal sample library of percussion is all laid out for the Emulators, but recently I began converting some of that library to use on the Gigastudio as well."

The MasterClass course "Danny Elfman Teaches Music for Film" features direct insights and instruction from Danny Elfman, as showcased in the official trailer on YouTube by MasterClass.

"EastWest/Quantum Leap instruments have become an important part of my sonic template. I am using EW/QL Pianos and Silk in my scores and I am using Stormdrum right now on Terminator."

In the 2014 interview with the Vienna Symphonic Library, the Shure SM57 Instrument/Vocal Microphone can be seen at Elfman's workplace in his Malibu studio.

During the 2015 interview for "Exilarte" magazine, the Furman PL-PLUS Power Conditioner/Light Module can be seen built into Elfman's studio rack.

In this interview, Danny Elfman talks about using Vienna Symphonic Library.

Danny states in this interview that he used "the first Mac" when composing the score for "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure;" the first Mac is the 128k.

"Typically, I'll bring a rig with an Apple Power Macintosh 9500 running Mark of the Unicorn's Performer, two Emulator EIV samplers with 128 MB of RAM, and two Roland S-760 samplers. Sometimes, I'll also bring my other Emulator samplers: two 3XPs and two ESI-32s. The S-760s are playing guide stuff — the orchestral string and horn mock-ups that I've sequenced at home — that I can refer to, but these tracks seldom end up as a part of the final score. The EIVs and the 3XPs are the machines actually laying down what will end up on the final score as the drums, percussion, and so on."

"Typically, I'll bring a rig with an Apple Power Macintosh 9500 running Mark of the Unicorn's Performer, two Emulator EIV samplers with 128 MB of RAM, and two Roland S-760 samplers. Sometimes, I'll also bring my other Emulator samplers: two 3XPs and two ESI-32s. The S-760s are playing guide stuff — the orchestral string and horn mock-ups that I've sequenced at home — that I can refer to, but these tracks seldom end up as a part of the final score. The EIVs and the 3XPs are the machines actually laying down what will end up on the final score as the drums, percussion, and so on."

Danny Elfman discusses his use of Omnisphere.

"The Boys Choir is amazing. We used them in Good Will Hunting. Very Impressive."

"EastWest/Quantum Leap instruments have become an important part of my sonic template. I am using EW/QL Pianos and Silk in my scores and I am using Stormdrum right now on Terminator."

During an interview with Adam Weissler in 2002 at Elfman's Malibu home recording studio, the Quested VS2108 Powered Monitors (1st Generation, "Red/Pink Logo") can be seen.

Yamaha O2r mixers can be seen in Danny Elfman's studio.

In this picture from a club date, Danny has a CE1 on the floor

In this Instagram post, Danny shows some of the guitars he will be using for his 2022 Halloween night show at the Hollywood Bowl.

In this Instagram post, Danny shows some of the guitars he will be using for his 2022 Halloween night show at the Hollywood Bowl, including a Schecter PT FR-S

In this Instagram post, Danny has a refinished in red sparkle early 60s Jazzmaster, he's had it since the early 80s, marking this as originally made in America since the reissues we're not available until 1986.

It is not block nor bound, therefore it is pre 1965 and has a rosewood neck, marking it earliest a 1959.

"I’d also created a large sample library in Kontakt. If you look at my template right now you’ll see that I’ve got a huge library of strings, brass, woodwinds and orchestral instruments, but when it comes to all of my prepared piano, percussion and weird sounds, I was definitely using a lot of my own stuff for some of the songs. I’d record guitar, chop it up in Kontakt and turn it into an instrument by putting it through different effects and treating it as if it were a sample. When it came time to record the album, even though I used two wonderful guitarists, I still kept a lot of what I would call my ‘fucked up’ samples that I didn’t feel there was any way to replace."