 The EVI maestro, Nyle Steiner.
Steiner's breath-controlled Electronic Valve Instrument - which he designed - was the
workhorse for the expressive elements of the score. On single melody lines and multipart
clusters, the EVI brought a "human performance" quality to synth sounds that would have
taken significant programming time to emulate via sequencing.
"Nyle was playing his brand-new prototype on this project," beams Walker. "Akai licensed
his previous version, but this was his own hot-rod version of the EVI. It's like the difference
between an Indy racer and a car you can buy in a showroom."
Steiner had no sequences to rely on for note information, so his parts had to be notated on
sheet music. he usually had a double-stave part notating the melodies he played solo as well
as the overlapping lines he played when he had to double what the keyboards were doing.
Steiner also had to adapt his playing style somewhat, reducing his usual vibrato to match the
techno feel Walker envisioned for the synthesizer cues.
"I assigned Nyle the majority of the melodies, choirs, and strange pitch-bending types of
colors," says Walker. "The 'Surgeon General of Beverly Hills' sequence has an amazing low,
demented-cow kind of sound that is quintessential Steiner."
This excerpt is taken from Electronic Musician Magazine, October 1996
The full article is an amazing look at the creative process of scoring a feature film, I highly
recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in this field. This excerpt is reprinted
here simply to document the EVI's use in film and for the wonderful photograph by Dana
Ross depicting Nyle's prototype EVI. |
