When Malinda from Translator Fails asked me to recreate the full instrumental of "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, I knew I was facing one of my biggest production challenges yet. Danny Elfman's original orchestration is incredibly dense, layered, and full of details that are nearly impossible to isolate from the vocal mix. This is the story of how I built it from scratch — instrument by instrument, section by section — using virtual orchestral libraries and a lot of patience.
Step 1: Building the Tempo Map
As many of you know, each song has a tempo, and most of us work on a grid with bars, time signature changes, and tempo variations. When I have the original audio, the first thing I do is create this grid. It helps me enormously throughout the entire recording process, keeping everything aligned and in sync.
The Score: Essential Before Recording a Single Note
Before I could start recording any instrument, I had to find the score. The original mix has the voices at a very high level, making it extremely difficult to hear every musical detail underneath. I managed to find the PDF score from the original orchestrator, which allowed me to identify each instrument in the arrangement clearly.
All the instruments are written in this score — exactly what I needed. The key signature is absent; all accidentals are written inline as temporary alterations.
Step 2: Choosing the Right Virtual Instruments
The orchestration of This Is Halloween is incredible — rich in detail, with every instrumental entrance playing a crucial role in the arrangement. I had to carefully consider recording each one to achieve a result as close to the original as possible. For this project, I relied on EastWest orchestral libraries, which offer beautifully sampled instruments with enough articulations to get very close to the original sound of each instrument.
Step 3: Recording with Care and Precision
As always, before recording I test each instrument's articulations thoroughly. The EastWest libraries provide well-sampled instruments with multiple articulations, giving me the advantage of matching the original sonority closely. The individual instrument lines are not simple at all, so I had to ensure that many parts didn't sound artificial — especially the fast passages with sixteenth-note figures.
Step 4: Recording by Instrument Groups
I started with percussion, which is incredibly useful for maintaining continuity with the intensity and dynamics of everything that follows. Next came the piano, and with those two instruments I was able to send Malinda a base track she could use for her audio and video recording session while I continued working on the rest.
The remaining sessions broke down like this: approximately 8 hours on woodwinds (clarinets, bassoon, oboes, flutes, English horn), about 6 hours on brass, 2 hours on saxophones, 7 to 8 hours on strings, and 4 hours on harp, celesta, and xylophone. In total, well over 30 hours of detailed recording work for this single instrumental remake.
This Is Halloween – Oboe Recording Session (EastWest Orchestra)
Recording the oboe part for my full orchestral remake of This Is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Having Danny Elfman's original orchestrator score in PDF was essential — without it, isolating this instrument from the dense vocal mix would have been nearly impossible. Performed with EastWest orchestral libraries.
Multi-Track Demo: Hear Every Section
Listen to the multi-track demo below. I grouped the instruments into Percussion, Brass, Woodwinds, Strings, Mallets, and Piano so you can explore every layer of this orchestral remake. Use the player to solo or mute individual sections and hear how the full arrangement comes together.
The Final Result with Malinda
This is the final result of my instrumental work, combined with Malinda's vocal performance. The mix of all tracks for the following video was done by Johnny Deltoro.
If you enjoyed this breakdown and want to explore more of my orchestral remakes and instrumental productions, visit my Music Hub where you'll find multi-tracks, stems, and production resources for musicians, content creators, and worship teams.
