Richard Marvin considers himself the luckiest guy in Hollywood, as this week he begins scoring the third season of HBO’s highly regarded Six Feet Under. The 13-episode season will air in March 2003.
Marvin, whose credits comprise numerous film and television scores, including the highly regard U-571, scores 4-6 minutes of original music for each episode. “This show has spoiled me for other television. It’s so touching and real that everything else that I work on seems so commercial. The people involved are just fabulous; it’s a great experience. Alan Ball is very clear about what he wants – It’s almost like doing a movie every week; we’re using the same sort of approach.”
Just as he values the quality of the process, Marvin also values his creative tools. Running a Digital Performer-based Macintosh desktop system, Marvin uses the Mackie UAD-1 Powered Plug-Ins, Propellerheads Reason, Ableton Live and various plug-ins from Native Instruments to create the uniquely characteristic music for Six Feet Under which Marvin describes as “an interesting hybrid between ambient electronica and acoustic music with solo piano and orchestral violins”.
He first came across the Mackie UAD-1 when looking for a way to ease the processor demand on his system. “It’s working so great; it’s flawless – I’m using it all the time, every day. My favorite plug-in by far is Nigel. I just love it. I use it to fake guitars. I can put anything into it, really, and by tweaking it I can get a guitar sound that I’m happy with. There are so many variables to it, so many great qualities to the sound. I’ve used a lot of different things like Amp Farm, the MOTU Preamp, but this has a rich quality to it – it’s real believable. But I also use it on drum loops – it’s just so strange and easy to use. I simply pull up one of the presets to get started, tweak some of the controls and get really interesting sounds.”
Building on the success of his tenure with Six Feet Under, Marvin is looking forward to the numerous film and television projects now on his plate. He also looks forward to expanding his Mackie UAD-1 with the recently announced DreamVerb plug-in.
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