I have had the enormous pleasure of working on some extraordinary projects over the last few years. I’ve had the very great privilege to work with the likes of Hans Zimmer, Ben Wallfisch, Lorne Balfe, Martin Phipps, Sascha Dikiciyan, Stephen Barton… this list goes on.

Making synth sounds has, somehow, become my life; and I’m very grateful to have been afforded such a fun, creative and (at times) silly career, playing for a living.

Some of these projects have been exclusively bespoke (like the work for Hans), some have eventually found a second home in my commercial releases, some have even been for my own (few and far between) musical projects.

One of the bi-products of all this is the multitude of sounds that get created and don’t always, at first, find a home. The biggest collection of these sounds is for Zebra2 and ZebraHZ. It’s often the synth weapon of choice for the gifted composer, which works for me, because it is my all-time favourite synth.

These homeless sounds come in a variety of forms: sounds that were never sent, or never used because a project changed direction, or because a project didn’t ultimately happen.

This library of unused patches grew ever larger until, finally, I could no longer ignore it, and set about reworking, remixing and reigniting them for you, my customers, to use.

I’ve been sifting through some of them (there’s much more sifting to be done!), giving them little makeovers and improvements, and then setting about the business of finding them that home; collating them into useful and coherent new soundsets for release.

The first soundset (or should I say soundsets?) from this work is Zebra Apotheosis.

Apotheosis is a great blend of the analogue and organic vibe that Zebra can create effortlessly. This is also primarily because the sounds were originally made in ZebraHZ, rather than in Zebra2 which is more often the case.

When reworking and collating, however, I was keen for the sounds (and therefore the soundset) to not be too stylistically bound to the film/TV/game projects they were made for. One element towards achieving this was having sounds from different programming sessions put together in different soundsets. But, what I also did, was create a “listening library” of soundtrack music to sprinkle a little extra layer of inspirational dust on the final collection.

For Apotheosis, I was listening primarily to Henry Jackman’s The Gray Man and also Lorne Balfe’s Luther – Fallen Sun. I’m a big fan of that “post-Remote Control” sound and have worked with a few composers who originally plied their trade under Mr Zimmer (as well as working with the man himself, of course!).

More recently, I was also listening to Brian Tyler’s Fast X and Tyler Bates’ John Wick 4 scores, both of which are definitely my favourites in those two franchises.

The result of all that is a soundset which I think is going to be a great tool or adding energy and spark to your music. There’s lots of tempo-synced stuff – basslines, drum loops and sequences – that bring a mixture of subtle and upfront dynamism to a cue. Whether it’s through movement of the filter, pitch-shifting effects or even some melodic elements, these patches are great at under-pinning dramatic moments.

And, of course, there’s all the usual The Unfinished atmosphere from the pads, soundscapes and various esoteric synths.

There’ll be more soundsets emerging from these dark corners of my synth programming sessions, looking to emerge into the light for you to propel your music along with. I hope you enjoy this first collection in Apotheosis.