Doug DeAngelis: The Evidence on Nuendo and Cubase
Currently one of the hottest talents in theme music composition for TV, Doug DeAngelis has been a Cubase and Nuendo user for many years. With his reputation further enhanced by his work on the 2006 drama series The Evidence starring Orlando Jones, Rob Estes, and Martin Landau, Doug’s latest score project is Smith, one the highlights of CBS’ Fall schedule that stars Ray Liotta as the ringleader of a gang of high-profile thieves.
Doug offered us some insights into his working methods, and how he uses Steinberg DAW applications in his LA studio. “Nuendo and Cubase are my workflow,” he says. “Nuendo is my main DAW for all of my creative work. I run it on my main host machine which is a fast PC designed by PC Audio Labs, and I pair it with a fast laptop running Cubase using FX Teleport. This way I can utilize the power of both machines and keep everything centered in Nuendo on my host machine. I also have a third PC for Gigastudio. I work in Nuendo and Cubase start to finish, from importing the digitized video files, through scoring the music, to the final mixdown.”
With his production environment based around Nuendo and Cubase, Doug now finds working without the two programs difficult to imagine. “It just tortures me when I watch people trying to work on other platforms,” he reveals. Nuendo handles video so well. The shared audio engine [of the two programs] is so intuitive and just brilliantly designed, with dozens of little features that make the job easier. The MIDI features come from Cubase, which has always been the most creative MIDI environment. I love the things that make it obvious that the people who design it actually work in it.” He cites the Folder Track system as highly valuable for his work, while the volume and fade envelopes “add so much mix detail without a lot of time wasted on automation.” Doug also relies on the time stretch and Audio Warp features regularly for his work. “They save me every time the director decides to snip out a few frames of a scene that I have already scored.
With his tremendously high throughput that has included hit shows like CSI: Miami as well as TV tribute shows to Al Pacino and Steve Martin, staying creative is of the utmost importance. “It’s a very creative platform, always inspiring a new idea, a new experiment, or a new approach. Without that things get really boring when you are doing 20 - 30 pieces of music a week.”
Doug’s studio also boasts an impressive range of outboard and software instruments and gear that help him get the sounds heard by millions of TV viewers in the US and elsewhere, including various synthesizers, effects, guitars and basses, and a range of VST instruments.
While happy to share insights into his production environment, Doug is understandably more guarded in giving too much away about future productions: “I am finishing up eight episodes of The Evidence which is a 24/7 job, and I’m also scoring scenes for pilot episodes of several new fall shows. Watch this space.”
The official CBS site for Smith: 
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/smith/
Doug’s credits on imdb http://imdb.com/name/nm1132130/