Spitfire Samuel Sim - Chrysalis

Samuel Sim is widely considered to be one of the most exceptional musical talents of his generation. His beautifully evocative music and award winning film and television scores are fast making him one of the most sought-after composers working in the industry today. Early in his career, Samuel quickly stood out from the crowd with his award winning score for the BBC’s Dunkirk. A whirlwind success followed which soon saw him composing for the Hollywood feature film Awake for the Weinstein Company.

Samuel is one of the busiest composers working in London today. The ferocious pace at which he works exposes the quality and drawbacks of the tools he uses. Chrysalis is a collection of tools and sounds based on Samuel pondering "what if..." and by analysing why he returned to some tools and not others. By grappling with the increasing demands of TV and film execs to reinvent the wheel and create something 'totally new' Samuel like many of us struggles with the concept of unfamiliarly familiar.

It is the latter point that crystallised the core concept of the project. To create something that could be used like a piano, but wasn't a piano; that projected like a harp, but didn't have the classical baggage; that played like a guitar, but without the folky, geocentric or ethnic connotation.

So at the heart of the library is a beautifully performed and deep sampled harp played by the man himself. Alongside additional techniques are 'impossible' techniques. Bending strings beyond comprehension in order to bow adjacent strings as a mere example. Samuel also played some very interesting and modern styles that experience has led him to believe is the way to make a workhorse set of tools.