Tom Salta: Battle Score
Mixing with a Mouse
Logic Pro helped him turn mental pictures into musical feelings. “I’ve been using Logic for so long that it’s a natural extension of me,” laughs Salta. “Logic lets me manipulate data in ways that are very fast and comfortable for me. It’s got customization and control and flexibility I take for granted.” In fact, he adds, “when I find out you can’t do something in a different program, I scratch my head and say, ‘Really? You can’t?’ I guess that’s why so many people are switching to Logic.”
He savors features as simple as real-time quantization, whereby Logic Pro allows him to continually adjust musical timing to computer-accurate standards. “You can set any percentage of accuracy,” says Salta, explaining that minor timing imperfections help the music retain a human sound. “And because it’s all done in real time, I don’t have to commit to a quantization rate — ever.”
Salta prefers to mix, as well as compose, in Logic Pro. “I pretty much live in the arrange window,” he notes. “Logic has great built-in automation, so it allows me to visually stay right there while I’m working. It’s got the fader for each channel I’ve selected, so I don’t need to have all my faders up on a mixer — I can just mix a song with my mouse.”
Gone Native
Salta is proud to report that he’s gone native. “I used to be the guy running Pro Tools hardware in conjunction with Logic,” he says. “But no more. Pro Tools doesn’t come into the equation now.” In fact, GRAW was his first all-native Logic project. “All my computations ran off the G5 CPU,” he notes.
“I was apprehensive at first, but it turned out to be so much more convenient. I’m still amazed at how much I can do running native — like offline processing. Say I’m making stems for the engineer and I have a four-minute cue. I can run the mixes offline and Logic will bounce that thing in 30 seconds. And that’s just one advantage — another is that by sticking to just one audio engine, all the audio and instrument tracks stay perfectly in sync.”
Virtual Time-Saver
Like any gamer worth his game pad, Salta is all about speed. “The key ingredient here is that Apple lets me work fast,” he says. “When the ideas come, they come quickly. I don’t want the technical side to bog me down — and Logic keeps up with me.”
Salta continues: “I turn on my Mac and load Logic and I have my main sampler, the EXS24, built in. I can instantly work with the majority of my library right there. It’s quite a change from the old days. Years ago, I had racks of synths on the walls around the room and I had to go to the external hardware, save the settings on all that gear, and record it into the computer. Now I do all that on the Mac — that’s what saves the time.
“I’ve been using Logic for so long that it’s a natural extension of me.”
“Most everything I do now is virtual,” he continues. “It’s created on the fly. All those modules and sound sources are triggered in real time within the computer, and they’re never turned into real audio.” Recording instruments as MIDI, and keeping them virtual throughout the composing and mixing, gives Salta much greater flexibility. “I can load a piano module, play some notes, record them as MIDI, then go into Logic and change a note or a tempo so it plays back differently. It’s so much easier to change the MIDI than to re-record audio.”
On the Mac, Salta gains the muscle to work exactly as he likes. “You need a lot of processing power to have all your virtual instruments loaded and running in real-time,” he says. “That’s why it’s great having the G5. I can have so much running in real time, it’s incredible. That in itself is a huge time-saver.”
Inspiring Connections
One of the GRAW perks Salta most enjoyed was the opportunity to hire Seattle’s Northwest Sinfonia Orchestra. “I feel so fortunate to have been able to work with them,” he sighs. “Ubisoft understood that recording with a live orchestra for the physical, human aspect, then integrating that with the more controlled, pre-laid-down sampled score, would give us the best possible sound.”
Working with top-drawer tools and musicians puts Salta in the catbird seat. “If I could do anything in the world I’d be doing this,” he says. “It’s not so much about the gaming per se, but creating music that evokes emotions in people. No matter what format I’m composing for — whether it’s a solo album, movie, commercial, game — the music stirs something up. People write to me saying, ‘This is the best record to drive to,’ or a movie editor says, ‘Your score is so inspiring to cut to.’ I love connecting with people like that.”
