BY CHRISTOPHER LEON WITH LEVEL AND GAIN
You may not have heard of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, but you would undoubtedly know their music.
The Primetime Emmy Award winners and Grammy nominees are the brains behind the iconic soundtrack for Netflix’s smash-hit show Stranger Things.
Michael and Kyle took some time out of their busy schedules to chat about all things Stranger Things, the Duffer brothers, synths, and their production workflow.
This interview was first published in 2020 and featured in CutCommon’s print magazine.
Hey, Kyle and Michael. How does it feel to have composed the most famous theme in modern television?
KYLE: You know, when you put it like that, it’s pretty cool. We don’t sit around thinking about it, necessarily. But, sometimes, something will happen on TV or somebody will be walking around with a shirt, and I’ll be like, ‘Holy shit, this is massive! This is crazy! I can’t believe that we are a part of this thing’.
How did the main theme come about? Was the music created before or after the main title visuals, or was it a parallel process?
MICHAEL: It was a bit of both. There was a rough demo initially that was not related to having any picture to go along with it. Once [Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers] kind of picked out a piece of music they liked, we started building it up into various versions of 30 seconds up to a minute-and-a-half, because we didn’t have a video yet.
Basically, when they started doing the graphics, they knew a BPM count, but the duration of the music was all to be sorted out. When we got that graphic work, we realised that piece of music was, to us, a perfect fit. So we were like, ‘let’s keep going with this piece of music’, and they kept making changes.
It was probably two-and-a-half months of back and forwards, because we were scoring the show, and we weren’t even sure if we were doing the theme. It was all kind of up in the air, but we wanted to do a really good job on it just to have it ready.
KYLE: I think once we wrote that first version, with the idea of being the title sequence, we knew it was supposed to be the theme song. I think that the Duffers were probably on board, but at the same time, nothing is real until it’s real. But I guess it worked.
MICHAEL: It worked.
The Oberheim Two-Voice synth was used to create the arpeggio in the title theme. How did you end up settling on that synth, and what others did you try before deciding that was the sound you wanted to go with?
KYLE: I think that was an arbitrary decision. Some of the stuff was very intentional, like the [Roland] SH-2 for the bass.
MICHAEL: I mean, it probably had to do with the fact that my sequencer was here [starts pointing around his work desk]. The SH-2 was here, I knew I wanted bass, and the Oberheim Two-Voice was sitting right here. If you are going to do a simple sound, it’s going to sound good on that, and it had to be a synth that could be sequenced. So that’s the reason.
How has scoring Stranger Things affected your musical careers? What doors has it opened?
KYLE: Well, now we have a musical career. That’s the big one [laughs].
Yeah, we had jobs. Michael worked at a synth job, so he worked in music, but he wasn’t getting paid for writing music and neither was I. So, in that respect, it changed everything. It gave us the option to get paid a living wage to make music.
What is your scoring process like with the direction of the Duffer brothers? Are you both free to go away and try new things for each season, or are you given a direction or aesthetic to aim for?
KYLE: It’s a bit of both. They trusted us to just write stuff, but they also had opinions about things. We can write a piece of music that we like, but it might not be good for the show. It might just not work with whatever scene was intended. There are all kinds of factors as to why something actually makes it into the show or is chosen. We do work closely with them, but we also have the freedom to do whatever we want.
They have the music while they’re doing the editing, and that helps form the rhythm of the edit.
Would you say you focus more on the energy of the music in a given scene than making sure you hit all the cue points?
KYLE: We focus on the cue points a lot. The Duffer brothers really like to hit cues with stuff, so a lot of the times the revisions will be just about ‘music’s great, but we need this note to hit here and can you add something else here’. And sometimes that’s really easy to do, sometimes it’s like, ‘f*ck, how are we going to? You can’t just change a piece of music’.
Luckily, we have a great music editor named David Klotz. At first, we were doing it all ourselves, which is insane! I remember thinking, ‘oh wait, this is someone’s job, we should really be letting them do their job’. Plus, he’s really good at it.
MICHAEL: We primarily score to picture, so we have to hit the beats, but then that’s probably 60-70 per cent of the time […] Because you hit stuff nowadays, whereas movies in the ‘80s didn’t. The editing process would have been too hard, and you would have your energetic music and your video [as two separate things].
KYLE: But, it’s a Duffer thing. They like to do that. There are still tons of movies that do not hit beats nearly as much as they do. It’s not unique to them, obviously. That is just a stylistic choice that people make.
What sort of sound effects have you both worked on during the series?
KYLE: When we first started, the line between sound design and music was pretty grey, because we just kind of liked making weird-sounding stuff that might sound like a monster or a weird noise. So, we would make things and send it over [to the Duffer brothers]. But, ultimately there is an actual sound designer doing that stuff.
A lot of the stuff that is effective – especially in action, or with tension – is really atonal, weird noise that just isn’t traditional music. It could be handled by us, or by the sound designers. And sometimes we just flip a coin. [Laughs] don’t think we’ve actually flipped a coin.
Do you have a go-to piece of equipment for sound effects? A place you like to start from?
KYLE: Yeah, modular synths are pretty good. One thing that ended up getting used was this thing [picks up dulcimer-like instrument], which is essentially a dulcimer but it has these springy things on it [plays instrument]. And it’s just out of tune, but just putting a bunch of effects on it, adding sub-bass, and just banging on it or scraping around on it was pretty useful; especially for the jump scares.
MICHAEL: Season 2, we introduced the dulcimer and waterphone. We started incorporating more atonal and weird acoustic instruments.
KYLE: After the first season, we started doing more of the acoustic experiments. There’s a certain quality to an actual sound or room or the box itself [that] has a deeper tone, more than a combination of synthesizers and effects. I mean we can make all those sounds with a synthesizer, but sometimes it’s just faster.
MICHAEL: This thing came out last year [shows off SOMA Lyra 8 synth] –
KYLE: – that thing’s good!
MICHAEL: – it’s just some weird drone box that makes f*cked-up risers and just sounds crazy! You could spend three hours making this layered sound on your modular, but then you can do it in two minutes on this [Lyra 8].
There are some go-tos for sure. We work fast. We have to come up with a lot of music in a day, so I sit right here [at the studio] with my Prophet 6 [synthesizer] in front of me, and some other synths I can reach, which is why I’ve got more into rack-mount stuff.
KYLE: [In his own home studio] I have my [Oberheim] OB-8 and OB-6 and controller here.
MICHAEL: Not having to run around the room when you’re trying to come up with stuff fast […] is good. I recently put my Prophet-5 in front of my Prophet-6, so I can play two different keyboard sounds at once. You can get more done.
How do you both collaborate when writing the score to Stranger Things in separate studios? Do you work remotely or in the same studio?
KYLE: It’s both. Usually at the beginning of a project, we will dedicate some time to be in the same room for at least a couple of days where we can write some ideas. We try to start any project together.
On Stranger Things, we’ve got it [the workflow] pretty much down now. We’ll watch it together with the Duffers in the spotting sessions and get their notes, we’ll work for a few days on some of the larger cues and the things that we want to work on together, and then we’ll split up for 10 days and pick the cues that we’re going to work on, and both do those things until the next meeting.
Then we’ll go to Los Angeles – because that’s where they do their post-production for Stranger Things – a couple days early, and we’ll work, have a spotting session, and do it all over again. That’s kind of the rhythm we’ve fallen into.
Do you both live far apart?
KYLE: Yeah, [Michael] lives in LA, whereas I live in Austin, Texas. Michael lived in Austin when we first started, so for the first and second season. But for the second half of the second season, we set up a studio in LA, so we both went to LA to work in a studio for a few months at a time. We were in the same building the Duffers were mixing their episodes. The idea was that they could be close by, and come check on the music and give us notes easily. It was kind of crazy, but it worked. We got a shit-load of stuff done, went in there early and left late; there was no other reason for us to be in LA other than that. It was good, but it was also intense.
MICHAEL: [The Duffers] like us being close in those final hours, in those final days. The stuff’s just moving really fast, so [it makes sense] to be able to get a hold of us. We do a lot of Sunday meetings.
KYLE: Yeah, because [the Duffer brothers are] so busy, they never stop working.
MICHAEL: Yeah, they’re working on it now [laughs].
KYLE: As we were getting our final cues for season three approved, they were literally leaving the studio to go start writing season four. Actually, after season 3 came out, they were like, ‘we’re taking a three-week break’. I think that’s the only break they ever had since Stranger Things started.
How much of the production process do you guys do after composing the music? Do you go all the way through mixing and mastering?
KYLE: Pretty much. We don’t do mastering ourselves, but we always have notes.
We are doing the mixing and getting it to a point where it sounds good to us. Then we deliver it to them, and they have the last draw. Sometimes, we’re like, ‘oh man, they really turned down that important part and it doesn’t quite sound the same anymore’, and that’s kind of a bummer.
Have you guys used any Synth VSTs at all? Or is everything just hardware?
MICHAEL: Omnisphere, we’ve adapted to pretty strong since they reached out to us after season 1. [Spectrasonics] were like, ‘do you have any Spectrasonics synths?’. And we said ‘no’, and they were like, ‘oh, well here’s Omnisphere’. That is –
KYLE: – that is great, because it sounds good. Sorry, I think I just stole your statement. I know what you are going to say.
MICHAEL: I don’t know what I’m going to say.
KYLE: It allows you to make music on the go.
MICHAEL: It does allow you to make music on the go. […] Once we got Omnisphere, we were like, ‘oh, this stuff can actually sound pretty good’.
We’ve always used digital equipment, and that’s always an important textual quality to our production – not being 100 per cent analogue – as digital textures can cut through really well.
Any favourite mixing or production tips you would share with other musicians or producers who are looking to nail that ‘80s aesthetic?
KYLE: Just take a little bit of high-end off stuff. It doesn’t need to be so required all the time, especially if you’re not using original stuff and you’re using VSTs.
MICHEAL: I’d tend to make dark mixes. First time, I did it just because it sounds like tape and doesn’t fully capture [the high-end quality], so taking stuff off above 10,000 Hz and rolling it off. And using chorus – just a little bit of chorus, even if it’s subtle – can really liven up a VST that’s kind of sterile.
KYLE: Or you could just buy a bunch of old synthesizers. If you like a record and you want to sound like that record, figure out how it was done.
The new season of Stranger Things is now available to stream.
Images supplied. Interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
