“It’s not as laid-back as everyone thinks it is”: How Tanis scores movies and makes music from her NYC apartmentTanis Chalopin has been composing for film since she was 13 years old. Raised across three continents and fluent in four languages, she’s since scored for productions in the US, UK, France, Japan and Singapore, recently earning a Broadcast Production Award for her composition, Wildcard. She also writes and releases her own music as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist — and in her downtime, is an avid runner, diver, swimmer and skier.
Her new EP, just some stories, is Tanis’s most personal release yet: self-produced, self-written, (even self-mastered on one track) and largely made in her New York apartment. Despite the studio’s limits, it’s treated Tanis well for her productions and soundtracking work — but she’s now eyeing up a new space. “I’m currently building a bigger studio back in my hometown of Nassau in the Bahamas,” she tells us. “Once that space is finished, I will be doing a deep dive into all the gear and strange and wonderful instruments I can fill it with.”
Until then, she’s enjoying making music with what fits: a Yamaha Montage, a Korg Minilogue and MicroKorg, and her two studio buddies, Positive Penguin and Blue Bob, amongst other gear.
We catch up with Tanis following the drop of just some stories to talk gear, vocal experimentation, and why music production is far more technical than people assume.

Congrats on the release of just some stories! You’ve produced this yourself — tell us more about how an idea starts for you. Do you have a clear vision from the start, or do they reveal themselves as you build into the DAW?
When I start producing a song, the direction is rarely clear. I have always found that production is like trying on clothes in a fitting room; you won’t know whether it works or not until you try it on. And if it doesn’t fit, forcing it on probably isn’t the best idea!
Ultimately, I spend a huge amount of time running through sound patches, replaying the same chords or melody to see what stands out to me. If I’m lucky, it will be the first patch I load, but more often than not, it will be patch 101 on the 24th instrument library. Once I find that star element that works, however, then the rest of the production gets built around that.
Image: Courtesy of Tanis
You’ve been composing since age 13, and have scored for productions across five countries. How does writing for picture differ from producing your own tracks?
When I write scores, I’m given clear direction by the production team and the director, and I have the locked picture to compose frame by frame. So when I start scoring, the canvas isn’t truly blank; the music is there to assist the visuals, and I also have to make sure my score matches the vision built by the director.
When producing my own tracks, I sometimes find myself getting lost because the canvas is blank, and I can’t find the direction I want. That being said, the years of scoring film in parallel to songwriting continue to make me a better mixer, producer and arranger because I work with all genres of music — sometimes genres that I am not extremely familiar with — and I get to explore and learn them in real-time, which sometimes helps inspire the production for my next song.
Scoring has also made me a better mixer because, when I’m working on a more traditional score, I end up with hundreds of audio tracks from an orchestral recording session and all the various mics in the room. Learning how to manage such large sessions has actually helped my own song projects have a much better organisation and has taught me that every instrument has its favourite frequency, and we shouldn’t create arrangements where everything is fighting to live in the same frequency range.
Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Tell us a bit about your studio!
My studio is based in my New York apartment. It’s very small and not really a collaborative space, but I love it. I just wanted a room big enough to put a selection of instruments in, where I could compose, create and practice whenever I wanted.
The floor is covered in a thick black carpet for sound absorption, and I have spongy art and wood frames all over the walls for the acoustics. I originally wanted to have a full drum set in there but realised the space might be a bit too small and my neighbours would likely kick me out of the building, so instead I have Roland V-drums electronic drum kit, a Stagg electric cello, a Yamaha Montage 88-key Synth, my electric and acoustic guitars, and my two synths: the Korg Minilogue and microKORG.
I don’t have space for a proper vocal booth either, so I just have a sound shield attached around my Neumann TLM 103 mic that I run through a Warm Audio MKII mic pre-amp. It is a small but lovely pre-amp, especially when you’re recording in a small home studio.
Positive Penguin and Blue Bob — Tanis’ studio buddies! Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Last but not least, I have my little studio buddies, Positive Penguin and Blue Bob, who keep me company on long days when I’m alone in the studio from sunrise to sunset, and they keep me smiling. Blue Bob also naturally springs around to the beat when I play music out of my monitors, so he’s a great test audience.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
The latest plugin I bought is Waves’ Abbey Road TG mastering Chain plugin. I usually don’t master my own tracks, but I recently wrote a song for a children’s show that had no budget for mastering the songs externally. I began digging around for some recommended mastering plugins, and honestly, this one was great! I then used it on my song Priority, the only song on the EP that I mastered. The presets are really solid with enough variety that if you find the right one, you probably only need to adjust slightly.
AR Mastering. Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Do you have any gear that was particularly prominent on the EP?
Piano was the first instrument I learned, so you’ll often hear keys across a lot of my production — it’s the instrument I always open up when I’m trying to sketch out arrangements. Spectrasonics has this beautiful key library called Keyscape that I love using, and I have quite a few electric pianos and a celesta layered into my tracks. I find that they give a nice shine in the higher frequencies when you need a lift, but they also have warm (and adjustable) low ends that can ground chord progressions nicely too.
You’ll also hear a lot of guitars layered in the choruses. I love to run guitar through some hardware pedals, especially the BOSS Super Chorus, just to embellish and lift certain parts of the track.
Image: Courtesy of Tanis
There are some really cool vocal effects across the EP. What are some of the ways you experiment with processing & effects on your vocals? Any techniques you particularly enjoy?
I like playing around with vocal effects, especially with the backing vocals and vocal stacks. Something I have been experimenting with lately is creating a sense of space with the vocals so they’re not always sitting right under the lead. Panning is always an option to widen the vocal mix, but a fun plugin I found was Kaleidoscope. It is a modulation plugin that includes tremolo, flanger, phaser and chorus, and it’s just really fun to experiment with. Some of the presets are very extreme, but I like to try them out and sometimes just dial them back as they give an interesting texture and constant movement to the backing vocals.
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
I have two!. The first is the Pmnichord. I just think they are so cool. I played one while I was recording the vocals for Child in the Empty Forest at Hackney studios, and I’ve been eyeing it ever since. I also saw the clip of how Gorillaz created Clint Eastwood from the Omnichord preset, which I thought was so great.

The other piece would be a Gibson Les Paul. It is such an iconic guitar that one of my favourite guitarists, Slash, uses. I love November Rain by Guns N’ Roses, and I remember so clearly the dramatic guitar solo in their music video with the Les Paul in the desert. I’ve wanted that guitar ever since! I love my Epiphone Les Paul 60s, and it plays very well, so I’m not complaining – the pickups are great, and playability is smooth — but the dream would be to have the guitar from the original manufacturer.
What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
I often get asked by non-musician friends how I get into my ‘creative’ mindset, as I think sometimes they have the illusion that I am sitting in a dimly lit candle-filled room waiting for some magical inspiration to hit. In fact, I really think music production is a highly technical job that requires a lot of concentration, especially when we get to the mixing stage.
I am constantly learning, but whenever I’ve been in the studio with some incredible sound engineers and technicians, I am blown away by how precise and numerical everything is. It’s not as laid-back as some people may think, despite it being an artistic field.
Tanis producing at a commercial studio. Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career? Can you tell us about how it impacted you?
When I was studying music composition and theory in university, I was resistant to learn every facet of the main DAWs that we were trained on (Logic Pro and Pro Tools) because I just wanted to make music as soon as possible. My composition mentor said to me that as long as I don’t understand the software I use to make my music, the software will dictate how my music ends up sounding. This really changed my approach to making music and led me to become not only a composer but also to begin my journey into music production and mixing.
 
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