His Dark Materials - Main Theme║Reorchestration & MIDI Mockup

An all-by-ear transcription, reorchestration and recreation of the His Dark Materials Main Theme. It was originally composed by Lorne Balfe, and therefore all rights go to him, Silva Screen Records, HBO and the BBC.
I've absolutely ADORED this theme since the moment I first heard it when the first season of the show came out last year. If I remember right, after the episode finished, the first thing I did was go to my piano and first figure out how to play it - transcribing it by ear and listening to it over and over, repeat after repeat. Lorne Balfe's soundtrack for this series is phenomenal and I've managed to get my hands on it in about every physical and digital format possible, haha. I drafted up a sketch of this not too long after the first season ended, where it unfortunately remained for a while as my iMac's hard drive decided it was time to die. In any case - I rescued the drive, kept working on it and here it finally is! Almost an entire year later! My arrangement is based off of the theme as it is heard in season 1, although I did consider adding the subtle (ha) changes found in the theme as heard in season 2.
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Background Video content was created by Elastic and is the property of HBO and the BBC.
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[@MatthewNewsomeComposer]

Amusingly - it would appear I've replicated the sound of the original well enough, TH-cam is absolutely convinced that the music in this video actually IS the original recording, haha (EDIT: the system has since realised this is just a cover, but it sure was fun to know I got it pretty darn close enough to fool it for a while!)

[@StoneDomino]

LOL! It is extremely close but I honestly think this one better than the original. The vocal sounds are wayyyyyy better and the minor changes in sound I really like.
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[@devilgod136]

Excellent job!

[@OfficialAaronL]

Haha incredible! Did you dispute it?

[@MatthewNewsomeComposer]

​@@OfficialAaronL I did! Something seems to have worked too, as the system's no longer trying to outright flag it as me having used the original (which resulted in it being blocked in a few countries) and instead now Content ID'ing the song's melody (which is much more understandable and perfectly acceptable, haha).

[@Spineblade]

I'm in love with the music from this series. Great rendition!

[@MatthewNewsomeComposer]

Thank you so much!

[@j.martinez8767]

Great job my man, it's such an underrated intro.

[@jakehopkins6989]

I wouldn't call it underrated.

[@j.martinez8767]

@@jakehopkins6989 you are right, more like underwatched.

[@anabihamza6230]

man that's amazingly identique

[@SHOCMUSIC]

Damn, really close great job!

[@skittlesthekillerklown7088]

I love it

[@rodrigobispo2416]

Nice job!

[@Pax30001]

Nice!!! Keep up the great work!!

[@blackfianit5428]

What sample libraries did you use? This sounds pretty amazing! Absolutely love it😍

[@MatthewNewsomeComposer]

Thank you so much! I predominantly used the EastWest Hollywood Orchestra as well as Performance Sample's Vista and Angry Brass, the Spitfire Audio Olafur Arnalds range and some of their LABS and SA Originals libraries. The piano is Native Instrument's Una Corda (which is also what Lorne Balfe used in the original), the choir is made up of the Olympus Microchoir mixed in with live vocal recordings and the cello was live recorded and multitracked as well.

[@DylanSkie]

This is amazing! Do you have an estimate of how long this took to do in total?

[@MatthewNewsomeComposer]

Thank you so much! I took a break inbetween initially transcribing and then refining, mixing and mastering it as my hard drive died - transcribing was early December 2019 and I only got back to it early December this year, so technically around a year to complete, haha. But if you minus that year-long period of nothing happening, it was around a week to transcribe it and then 5 days to polish it : )

[@ultramania1766]

Where I get this Midi file?

[@MatthewNewsomeComposer]

Hi, unfortunately I am unable to provide a MIDI as this was bespoke recreated directly in Logic and I have long lost my Sibelius file, so any MIDI I export would be very difficult to use or study. There is an official MIDI file out there - series composer Lorne Balfe released the score, stems and MIDI for free, shortly after the beginning of the second season on his Twitter I believe.