MICHAEL WANDMACHER

Composer Michael Wandmacher has over 70 credits spanning film, television, and videogames. His work includes scores for Sony Pictures Underworld: Blood Wars, Marvel’s Punisher: War Zone, ABCs The Goldbergs, and Sony Playstation’s megahit Bloodborne. He is known in the industry for his ability to effortlessly move between genres, as well as seamlessly blending orchestras with modern electronic palettes and mainstream music styles.

As a songwriter, Michael has written tracks for multiple films, television shows, trailers & videogames. He has collaborated with & produced songs for artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles), AJ Michalka (Aly & AJ), Hayley Orrantia, Kurtis Blow, and Amy Lee (Evanescence), for which the two won an HMAA award for their end-title track, Speak To Me, from the Zanuck Independent film, Voice From The Stone. This score also garnered Michael a World Soundtrack Awards nomination.

Additionally, Michael has had tremendous success as a remixer, re-imagining tracks for artists such as The Who, Culture Club, Seal, Soundgarden, The Go-Gos, Lenny Kravitz, and Sting, who sang a new vocal for Michael’s version of The Police classic, Every Breath You Take

MICHAEL'S STORY

Back in 2022, I completely threw out my entire creative process and wanted to try something new. I started by re-examining my technical setup while also studying the science of workflow. One big idea emerged from this: Simplify. As a result, I went from three computers to one, six monitors to one, six interfaces to one, no peripherals beyond external backups, and hundreds of wires whittled down to about a dozen. What I ended up with was a system that was a third the size of the previous one, far more powerful, and much easier to manage.

During this time I also did a serious evaluation of controller apps and tried everything I could find. Up to this point, I only had experience with TouchOSC and Lemur. By the time I finished, Metagrid Pro had emerged as the clear winner. Truth be told, I had used the original Metagrid in the past and found it problematic and frustrating so I didn’t know what to expect with the Pro version. What I discovered was a completely different experience in every way.

Metagrid Pro is a deep, highly-functional controller app, capable of harnessing all the automation powers of your software tools. This ranges from tight integration using its pre-built templates to designing your own interfaces for any app that you use. On a Mac, coupled with Keyboard Maestro, the possibilities for automating anything you can think of are limited only by your imagination. I have built macros for hundreds of operations that are not available natively in many different apps. My experience is that if you can do it with a keyboard and/or mouse, you can automate it. This isn’t just for music apps either. It goes for ANY app running on your computer. I have complex grid setups for Final Cut, Affinity Photo, DaVinci Resolve, OmniGraffle, Photoshop, and the entire Mac app suite, as well as centralized grids that allow communication and inter-app operations between dozens of different apps.

It’s not just about buttons either. You can build faders, switches, control pads, X/Y controllers, even precise gesture controls that take advantage of gesture-based actions on a tablet and transfer that information to apps that can utilize it. And beyond auto-switching grids to the active app you’re using you can also use Dynamic Focus Tracking which brings up specific grids and controls based on what you’re using within a given app.

All that said, let’s get to the heart of the matter: Is it fun to use? Oh yeah. I would venture to say that it goes beyond fun to becoming outright addictive. No other controller app out there even comes close to the flexibility Metagrid Pro offers for customizing your workspace. There’s a learning curve for sure, especially when designing complex macros, but once you get the basic app concepts you’ll be able to make new controls in real-time. You can have as many grids and controls as you want for any purpose. Any controller you make is completely customizable. Size, shape, color, brightness, text, arrangement, backgrounds, and layout are all available, plus my personal favorite: custom icons. I’m an icon guy, so being able to make icons that personally make sense to me is everything. You can even build your own color palettes. Make everything super tech-looking or shade controls with warm, calming colors. If you get bored with a layout, just change it to whatever you want. Add or take away buttons or add a fader or timecode display. Make things bigger or smaller. Switch out functions particular to a certain task. The options are endless.

Finally, there are two things that shouldn’t be left unsaid: 1. The developers of Metagrid Pro are deeply invested in this app. They are super-friendly and responsive in their forums and are constantly adding new features, from major leaps forward to tons of little workflow enhancements and, 2. The price is a bargain for what you get. The time saved alone will pay for this app almost immediately and even if you add Keyboard Maestro for your Mac, the total price will be about half what you’d spend on a competitive, less powerful setup and you don’t need any additional hardware beyond your tablet.

As a music-tech nerd of the highest order, I can confidently say that If you want more efficiency and speed in your workflow and you’re not using Metagrid Pro, you should be. After two weeks with it, you’ll be kicking yourself for not having done it sooner.

"As a music-tech nerd of the highest order, I can confidently say that If you want more efficiency and speed in your workflow and you’re not using Metagrid Pro, you should be. After two weeks with it, you’ll be kicking yourself for not having done it sooner."

MICHAEL'S STORY