Behind the Music for Modern Warfare 3 with Walter Mair

Award-winning composer Walter Mair offers a fascinating insight into the creative process behind his dark, epic score for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III — from using Spitfire libraries to write his pitch, through to live recordings with the London Contemporary Orchestra at AIR Studios and unique processing techniques for the game's main themes.

Sounds heard in this video:

Video Chapters:
00:01 Intro
01:11 Initial pitch playback (demo)
02:10 The Brief
02:42 Brass
03:16 Strings/Evos
05:45 Percussion
06:56 Stratus
08:23 Main theme playback (Spitfire libraries only)
09:05 Live cello
09:53 Live strings - LCO at AIR Studios
11:45 Studio gear
12:22 Synths/modular
12:57 Main theme playback - final cue
14:31 Scoring for film & TV
15:17 The Makarov theme
15:54 Percussion - Resonate and string drum
18:02 Modular rig
19:30 Live strings - LCO at AIR Studios
20:49 - Spitfire LCO Strings library
21:32 Mixing & post-production
23:50 Outro

Looking for new sounds for your scores?

[spitfireaudiollp]

Big thank you to Walter and the Activision team for making this video possible!

[chasvox]

Cool. I was one of the VO actors in the original "Call Of Duty" way back when...

[giuseppe_calandrini]

Great stuff here. Amazing to listen to and to compare parts of the process with mine. Your libraries are the core of each film scoring I made from Europe to USA. You guys at Spitfire are part of my own personal signature sound and scoring style. Big love to you all!

[drewlarmusic]

I finally got my 2nd spitfire library (Abbey Road Cellos) and I cant wait to start making stuff like this. Much love to the team at spitfire and congrats to Walter for landing this huge placement!

[danielphilistin]

Sounds very Sarah Schachner inspired. 11:25 is crazy

[AlecKoffMusic]

This is the moment when the music is much better than the game itself)

[ilyandilymusic]

This has been a dream job of mine for so long it seems like a distant dream. Thank you so much for the breakdown. It was great to see a quick peak into your process. I need to start sending more of my music to studios! Thank you for the inspiration!!!

[adamhousemusiclessons]

It’s great to see your process. I love seeing how you manipulate and process your sounds. 👍

[selinawright]

The making of Makarov's score gave me goosebumps omg 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 this is so incredible

[jnaramusic]

I just discovered this video. This was brilliant! Thanks for sharing

[adamz]

Love Spitfire! Despite of other orchestral libraries advantages, im still very happy with my BBCSO.

[insiderbeat]

Wonderful!!! Need more videos about game music production!!! 😍

[Adambroughton]

Brilliant video, would love to see more of these types of videos 🙌

[ICircosta]

More behind the scenes for a COD score??? AM I DEAD? AM I IN HEAVEN??? HAHAHA this is amazing, thank you so much!

[HossainPanthoOfficial]

Best Composition and marvelous implementation. I really want a career like this. I know a little bit but I want more knowledge about how this works. how i start and how i get some lessons, what is the starting point.
I really want to do something like this project.

[kendallbald]

I’ve recently been working on my own Spider-Man, Batman, Superman and doctor who themes using various spitfire releases. Wish me luck

[Carsons]

Amazing video! Highly educational and inspirational!

[antoniog]

Sorry for the n00b question, but how come the music isn't aligned to the tempo in Logic? Its free roaming. But there was a tempo established at some point for the recordings, no? I never understood how composers work this way. I would freak out watching the beats/bars going by and the music "off" from the tempo in Logic. Also, how is he able to "sync" the delay plugins if the tempo is "off"?

[JordyTerc]

What keyboard is that?.... looks amazing on his desk!!!

[MetalGear]

Where is the scratchy strings sound at 13:42 from?