Originally from London, composer Reza Safinia has found a niche in L.A. combining orchestra with industrial ambience and electronica. Beginning his career as a record producer and engineer, Safinia has worked with artists spanning from pop (Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears) to underground (Freestylers, Ms Dynamite).

Safinia's work is a great example of how composers are successfully fusing electronic music with traditional film scoring techniques. His latest film scores include “Filly Brown”, which premiered at Sundance, and “Snap”, a psychological thriller which premiered at SXSW.

Tell us about your studio setup. What hardware and software do you use?

"M audio converter, Logic, MacBook Pro spec'd to the max, Mackie hr848s, Mackie 1604, Avalon 837. That's it, I'm minimalist!"

What technical specifics can you provide about the score for Snap? What synths, plugins, etc were used?

"Used a ton of Native instruments instruments and effects, largely Massive and Reaktor. I've also used a fair amount of Audio Damage stuff, and of course Waves for processing...I really love Reaktor it's never ending how creative you can get with it. I also used EastWest pianos."

Composer Rick Sakurai has been playing instruments for as long as he can remember, developing his guitar, piano and trumpet skills in local bands.

After attending Berklee College of Music, Sakurai began composing and songwriting professionally. He founded Crayon Music Studio and now works with some of the world's most recognizable brands.

How did you get into composing?

"After I graduated with a degree in Contemporary Writing and Production, I honestly didn’t know where to go with my career. I was 22 and married, and had been gigging and writing as much as I could, but I didn’t feel hopeful in making a career writing hit record songs. It was kind of a weird time for music in general, with the economy doing so horribly at the time.

So I moved toward composing for advertisements. I thought, advertising needs music, and ads will never disappear from this world. And I could see money moving through that industry, which is what I needed to start a family. It felt like the right direction to go.

Then, I was hired by JSM Music in New York City as an in-house producer/composer. At JSM, I composed for large clients such as Time Warner Cable, Chevy, IBM, and all types of commercials that you'd see in your everyday life. After a few years, I relocated to Los Angeles and started the Crayon Music Studio.

I admit, it was tough during the first few years. I had to start from scratch, cold-calling and networking, and doing the kinds of things that don’t involve actual music-making. But it all paid off, as I’ve been getting bigger and better gigs lately, and more steadily. And it’s honestly so rewarding to be sitting at the bar or somewhere, and looking up at the TV, and suddenly seeing the commercial that you worked on. By now, I’ve been composing/producing for numerous media projects, internationally and domestically. Commercials, live entertainment shows, films, video games, CDs/records, TV shows-- you name it. You might remember some of our sounds from commercials like Dominos Pizza, Honda, Konami, Verizon, NHL, Pizza Hut, Steinmart and the list keeps going."

Many composers have music and sound design skills, but Andrew Aversa is a true anomaly. Not only has Aversa built a successful career as a game composer, he is the co-founder and lead producer of Impact Soundworks, a company that creates affordable and flexible libraries featuring unusual and unique sounds.

Aversa began taking piano lessons at age 7 and later studied composition and theory at Drexel University. Playing in a fusion band during college helped him develop improvisational skills, but like many young composers, his technical and production skills are self-taught.

What are some of the technical challenges of creating a game score?

Orchestral scores are always challenging. If it is sample-based, there is much work to be done in making parts sound realistic via layering, expression, and automation...something that I find very tedious and time-consuming. Writing for live musicians is much nicer as the mockup doesn't need to sound as realistic as possible and instead just serves as a guide. Still, when writing for live musicians, the challenge is creating a great score...not so hard if you're working with just soloists, but for a full choir or orchestra it often requires an orchestrator.

Otherwise, a general challenge often encountered is figuring out the 'feel' of a game. Many times, composers do not have a copy of the game to play, or video, or even concept art. The less of that you have, the more creative you have to be with guessing at what the player might be doing and the possible situations they might be in.

Kickstarter has become an amazing tool for artists. From experimental albums to unexpected inventions, crowd-sourced funding is fueling the imagination of creators around the world, including composer Ben Goldberg.

For Goldberg, Kickstarter is the perfect place to fund a first of its kind rehabilitation program, combining the juvenile court system with a composer and symphony.

The Treatment Court of the Delaware County (Ohio) Juvenile Court is a program to help juvenile offenders with mental illness or substance abuse issues take responsibility for their offense and reconnect to their community. Through recent funding by the Getty Fund of the League of American Orchestras, young people in the program will participate in a drum circle, learning to play the instruments as part of their rehabilitation.

“Working with these young people to tell their stories of recovery through music is highly motivating," says Goldberg. "This project is a great example of how music therapy is an invaluable tool.”

Hollywood based composing duo Rich and Gigi have combined their own unique musical backgrounds into an Emmy award winning partnership. 

Rich Dickerson began his music career as leader and songwriter for the NY based 80′s band Crosswind. Gigi Meroni, originally from Italy, is a classically trained composer, guitarist and keyboardist.

Together they offer music scoring for film, TV, video games and more.

You've done a lot of work scoring animated TV. Why do you think you've had success in this genre?

In 2002 Warner Bros. were looking for a composer who could score without hiring an orchestra due to budget restrictions. I had been the VP of Music for a animation dot com company called Icebox.com where I wrote a few theme songs for some of the shows. On one of those shows Gigi and I worked together. The VP of production at Icebox had gone over to Warner Bros and knew that Gigi and I had done that sort of scoring and song writing within a limited budget. He set up a meeting for me which I had thought would be a simple meet and greet. It turned out to be with the producers and director of the Scooby movie Legend of the Vampire. They handed me the project right there! 

We worked very hard on getting the director exactly what he was looking for. Subsequently, we were hired for the next Scooby movie Monster of Mexico and then the TV series 'What's New Scooby Doo?' We wrote the songs in both Vampire and Monster so when we were hired for the TV series the Executive producer asked me to write the What's New Scooby Doo theme song. The Scooby TV series was fun and challenging because the "Gang" are always in a different part of the world. We needed to be very diverse and work in all genres. The reason Gigi and I have been successful in this animation is our ability to be versatile in all genres and to be able to score and write songs that stay in your head.

Keith Kenniff is a composer with an incredible resume of commercial music placements. His music captures a stunning realism that sets him apart in a sample-based world. Unique percussive elements, found sounds and other oddities make Kenniff recognizable, no matter what alias he may be recording under.

In fact, you've probably already heard his music behind Apple's iPhone 4 ads. You can tell from the YouTube comments that this track has had an incredible life compared to most commercial instrumental music:

Graduating with honors from Berklee College of Music, Kenniff's success has come from his natural development in multiple genres. His popularity as ambient/electronic practitioner Helios continues to rise, along with an impressive list of music usages by Facebook, Google, Paramount Pictures, MTV and Warner Brothers.

Together with his wife Hollie, Kenniff also records as Mint Julep. The two released their debut album “Save Your Season” which NME coined as “Unquestionably Beautiful”.

Tell us about your studio. What hardware and software do you use for composing?

My setup is fairly minimal in the way of hardware, I'm very comfortable doing a lot of things inside software. I'm using Studio One as my DAW, with a variety of different sample libraries and synths.  The majority of my synth sounds I use come from an old standalone soft synth called "Probe" which was discontinued in 1999.  It was never made as a VST so I've sampled individual notes and then map them inside Kontakt.  I'm really used to using it and find it very easy to dial in specific warm/ambient sounds from it.  Up until last year I was still using Adobe Audition 1.5 (that's the 2004 version!) as my main DAW, but I still love that software for editing and manipulating sounds. I have a pair of trusty KRK VXT 6's that I've gotten very used to, a pair of AT4047a mics that sound great on anything, and various acoustic instruments (upright piano, mandolin, acoustic and electric guitars, ukulele, drums/various percussion etc...)