Biography
Paul Farrer is a British TV Composer. His most notable work has been composing the music for 'The Weakest Link'. One of the BBC's most successful TV shows of all time currently playing in over 96 countries.
Other TV shows for which he has composed the music include Jerry Springer's The Springer Show, Ant and Dec's Poker Face, Dog Eat Dog, The 77th Annual Academy Awards, ITV's Dancing On Ice and Sky One's Gladiators in 2008.
His music has also appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show and in the 2005 Tony Scott / Keira Knightley film Domino.
Other film work includes movies with Jason Connery, Brian Blessed and Oliver Reed.
He is the recipient of a BMI Composer Award and an Ampex Golden Reel Award.
In 2007 he set up the website www.composersforafairdeal.com a petition site encouraging Performing Rights Society members to sign up in protest at the PRS board's decision to establish a primetime subsidy which will seriously damage the incomes of those working in daytime TV music, and make it even harder for new talent to get started in the industry.
Wonderful sense of atmosphere. Great development of the theme idea and the strings are almost perfectly arranged. I say almost because the top string line sounds unrealisitic at the beginning. All the other orchestral parts work wonderfully. Essentially this is the problem with samples - you are trying to get them to do what you want which doesn't always work. They can't move as fast as you need them to! Otherwize. very very good
3 years 25 days
A wonderfully rich and emotive piece. I would have favoured the real violin more strongly over the sampled string background in the mix. I wanted more of it because the dynamics of the samples are obviously less detailed than the real performance.
But overall really great.
3 years 25 days
Super sense of melancholy and wonderful collection of terrific instruments performed impeccably. A great melody with an intelligent and thoughtful arrangement....
EXCEPT FROM THE EMU WHISTLE SAMPLE!!!
You clearly have a great band at your disposal, experienced players and a good range of instruments to use so why hang the main hook off a cheap synth sound, that already has iconic status on the X-Files? The casual listener would ignore the quality of the rest of it and focus on that one rather lame 90s synth sound. Why?
Most composers would use a live lead instrument to cover for the fact that the backing is samples. You chose to do it the other way round!
Change this one thing and I'd would LOVE this track.
3 years 24 days
Bloody brilliant. What's wrong with this?
Nothing what so ever.
Awesome.
3 years 18 days
Pastiche fantastic!
You can almost feel the sticky carpet under your feet.
Slick, Professional and Fun.
I bet they had a right laugh in the studio doing this.
Brilliant
3 years 11 days
Terrific. Interesting. Fun. Busy. Original.
Excellent
3 years 11 days
The rhythmic elements 2 thirds of the way in are very nice. A good sense of sound and space and has a classy feel.
3 years 11 days
Good playful track with some serious nods in the direction of Danny Elfman (not a bad thing). Nice use of space and orchestral sounds. the Pizzicato seemed a little too heavy in the mix for my tastes but good non the less.
Call Alton Towers for their next TV campaign!
2 years 8 months 30 days
Pan Pipes should be declared Illegal in nature documentary music so extra kudos for avoiding them! Terrific sense of passion and scale and some very interesting chordal progressions. Lots of good highs and lows and I can imagine the pictures working really well with this track. Good stuff
2 years 8 months 30 days
Drawing a line somewhere between John Williams' Harry Potter and Danny Elfman's Edward Scissorhands this is a decent attempt at flight of fancy orchestral score on a budget. Good use of light and shade and it's good to hear some Olde English references handled without cliche.
Nothing revolutionary here but that not necessarily a bad thing.
2 years 4 months 1 days
lovely texture and richly authentic sound. Great use of ethnic elements avoiding the usual 'travelogue bed track' traps. I would have liked to hear more of a definable melody however. Lots of passion, skill and control on display here but it needs a hook to hang itself on. Or perhaps the lilting opaque quality was what you were going for?
2 years 4 months 1 days
Near perfect. Wonderfully executed and it puts you right in the frame.
Excellent.
2 years 4 months 1 days
You established a great sense of atmosphere in your intro then spoiled it a bit by being heavy handed with your choice of string sounds. This is clearly a cut and shunt track synced to an obviously fast changing video and I'm sure it works well against the pictures because you handle the gear changes very well. But I would like to hear a more cohesive (less tricksy) example of your obvious talents.
2 years 4 months 1 days
Great sense of pace and movement. But I felt the wonderful violin was cheapened a little by the pizzicato strings that were obviously samples but playing an unrealistic pattern that felt very artificial. It's a great example of style, beauty and chutzpah, but I wanted the violin line to develop further into a more memorable melody. To sum up - supremely wonderful in places.
2 years 4 months 1 days
Nice use of brass and a good solid arrangement of a good track, but you need to work on the dynamics and placement of your samples a bit more. I'm sure an orchestra would eat this up and make it wonderful, but until then you need to improve your ability to fake it a bit more convincingly. Terrific stuff though. I like it.
2 years 4 months 1 days
Superb. I love the Vaughn Williams Englishness of it all. What are you doing looking for advice from us? You should be telling us how to do it.
2 years 4 months 1 days
Some great energy and character here. Nice to hear a bit of chutzpah on a showreel. What Telly people will make of it however is unknown! Good luck with it though.
1 years 6 months 20 days
Fantastic stuff! I don't mind the slight lack of musical cohesion - it sounds like it was composed to fit a busily edited video. Nothing wrong with that and as far as tone, richness and overall umphh goes this gets two thumbs up from me. Nice one Joris.
2 years 16 days