Simon Franglen

Featured in this January 24, 2018 Facebook post by Sonixinema.

Simon Franglen, known for his work on The Magnificent Seven and Titanic, had some kind words to say about Hybrid Scoring Collection: Strings

“I see pioneering spirit in Sonixinema instruments, they have different style to anything else. It’s never about the number of GB in a library, it is always about the life in each instrument. Great work.”

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

[Spectrasonics] Ominsphere, Stylus RMX. I used Trilian a little at the end; it hadn’t come out until I was getting to the end of the project. [FXpansion] BFD, I was using BFD2 on some of the stuff. I like [Native Instruments] Battery, especially for drum work. It’s very nice the way I can build things in that. And there’s some little boutique ones like [FXpansion] Strobe. I used a bit of [Native Instruments] Massive. But it wasn’t really a synth score.

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

[Spectrasonics] Ominsphere, Stylus RMX. I used Trilian a little at the end; it hadn’t come out until I was getting to the end of the project. [FXpansion] BFD, I was using BFD2 on some of the stuff. I like [Native Instruments] Battery, especially for drum work. It’s very nice the way I can build things in that. And there’s some little boutique ones like [FXpansion] Strobe. I used a bit of [Native Instruments] Massive. But it wasn’t really a synth score.

Mentioned in this October 26, 2020 OWC Radio interview.

Okay, I have to ask, I don’t have the equipment you have, but I’m looking at four different computers in front of me. What are all those different computers doing for you on a daily basis? What do you use them for?

So I have them running samples. So I write in Pro Tools, which is unusual. Most composers tend to write in Logic or Cubase. And I have to say, I really, really like Logic, and especially with the way that it integrates with the new Mac Pro, it is amazing. And then, what I use is a thing called Vienna Ensemble Pro, which is a piece of software that allows me to network together and feed sound from them. So I have one computer, for instance, that has all of my string libraries. And then I have another computer that has my brass and woodwinds, and another computer has all my percussion in it and another, and so on. So that I’m using different libraries so that the central computer, the Mac Pro 2019, is acting sort of like an input machine. And everything else is being served off the different machines. I can do it all internally in the Mac Pro. I find that serving it off different machines just seems to work better for them. The new Mac Pro is ridiculous. And when I have driven it with hardware, I’ve got to a point where I’ve had 270GB worth of data taken out of material with samples. Then the Activity Monitor is still only at 40% with 700 or 800 tracks. It’s ridiculously powerful.

Quoted on the product’s official testimonial page.

crusher-X is spectacularly great. I’m finding new ways to use it every day. I’m especially finding the link with my ROLI and LinnStrument extremely creative.

Quoted on the official product page.

"I bought IRCAM Solo Instruments 1 as soon as it came out. It was the solo instruments library that dared to go places that others dared not. IRCAM Solo Instruments 2 is the sequel that is somehow better than the wonderful original, and I can use my MPE controllers now. Unique!"

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

Between the three people who provided synthetic [parts] on the film, there’s not a single hardware synth used. It was entirely soft synths. Probably the vast majority of what I was using was 
[Native Instruments] Kontakt 4.

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

[Spectrasonics] Ominsphere, Stylus RMX. I used Trilian a little at the end; it hadn’t come out until I was getting to the end of the project. [FXpansion] BFD, I was using BFD2 on some of the stuff. I like [Native Instruments] Battery, especially for drum work. It’s very nice the way I can build things in that. And there’s some little boutique ones like [FXpansion] Strobe. I used a bit of [Native Instruments] Massive. But it wasn’t really a synth score.

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

[Spectrasonics] Ominsphere, Stylus RMX. I used Trilian a little at the end; it hadn’t come out until I was getting to the end of the project. [FXpansion] BFD, I was using BFD2 on some of the stuff. I like [Native Instruments] Battery, especially for drum work. It’s very nice the way I can build things in that. And there’s some little boutique ones like [FXpansion] Strobe. I used a bit of [Native Instruments] Massive. But it wasn’t really a synth score.

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

[Spectrasonics] Ominsphere, Stylus RMX. I used Trilian a little at the end; it hadn’t come out until I was getting to the end of the project. [FXpansion] BFD, I was using BFD2 on some of the stuff. I like [Native Instruments] Battery, especially for drum work. It’s very nice the way I can build things in that. And there’s some little boutique ones like [FXpansion] Strobe. I used a bit of [Native Instruments] Massive. But it wasn’t really a synth score.

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

[Spectrasonics] Ominsphere, Stylus RMX. I used Trilian a little at the end; it hadn’t come out until I was getting to the end of the project. [FXpansion] BFD, I was using BFD2 on some of the stuff. I like [Native Instruments] Battery, especially for drum work. It’s very nice the way I can build things in that. And there’s some little boutique ones like [FXpansion] Strobe. I used a bit of [Native Instruments] Massive. But it wasn’t really a synth score.

Used for the Avatar soundtrack, as stated in this March 19, 2010 Electronic Musician interview.

So you were doing a lot of sample manipulation: repitching samples and changing their timing?

Absolutely. There’s a bit where you see all the “wood sprites,” as we called them, floating down onto Jake. He’s in the night forest. And I remember taking a lot of things like vocals—I had some ethnic vocals—turning them backward and putting them through [SoundToys] Crystallizer.

Used to mix the The Magnificent Seven soundtrack, as stated in this October 20, 2016 Audio Media International article. Franglen is also quoted on the official product page and the plugin appears in this photo from this January 6, 2020 Avid interview.

Audio Media International, October 20, 2016

We looked at the options and decided, having built guerrilla studios in the past, that mixing at home was possible. There we used Neumann KH420 mid-fields, each sitting on top of Neumann KH870 subwoofers for an amazing 7.1 rig combination. We then used KH310s for the sides and surrounds.

Avatar was the last film that we mixed in analogue as a crew but since then everything has been entirely in the box. I used an Avid C24 as a mix controller and was taking sounds that the live players were generating and manipulating them through Pro Tools. I used quite a lot of plug-ins, including [The Cargo Cult] Slapper for multi-channel delay and the VSM plug-ins, which I really like. We needed a bit of a contemporary sound so we also used a whole host of different reverb plug-ins along with delay and compression.

The Cargo Cult Slapper product page

Slapper is immensely deep, exquisitely beautiful and sounds like it could go on forever. I find it to be the most musical echo I own and it's just as useful in stereo as in Atmos.