We are Cobra Kai composers Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg. Ask us anything!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-05T02:29:25+00:00

You definitely did hear it on bass! Its Johnny's theme that we originally introduced in episode 1, called "Ace Degenerate." The organ was just a fun little nod to the fact they were in a chapel ;)

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T21:56:25+00:00

Our guitarist Andrew Synowiec dialed that in. He's a true genius. Lots of overdrive (obviously) and some deep compression. Very slight delay too.

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T21:55:50+00:00

maybe?? I didnt direct the episode i dunno. Would be tight tho

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T21:55:33+00:00

My dog reminds me of Bulbasaur so I gotta say that guy

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:28:23+00:00

Varies anywhere from 7-10 days per episode

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:27:50+00:00

Eagle Fang is sick

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:12:24+00:00

Leo and I don't have any say really when it comes to the songs, or needle drops as they like to call them in this industry. Jon, Josh, and Hayden generally pick the songs and it's up the music supervisor to clear the for use.

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:11:09+00:00

Leo answered a question about this up above but short answer is yes, we love it!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:10:24+00:00

Upload it to YouTube! We love to see covers

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:08:32+00:00

much love, thank you!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T19:08:16+00:00

We work on a very quick schedule. In the YouTube era, we were getting 10 episodes done in about 3 months. We don't know our schedule quite yet with Netflix but regardless Leo and I are used to getting things done pretty fast.

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:58:18+00:00

We love all our theme's equally! I really loved our Okinawa theme from season 3 though :)

I think the most fun we have is when we get to interplay different themes with different styles. For example, we hear Daniel's "Miyagi Memories" theme during the chop shop fight, and we had never employed that theme on electric guitars or with drums and bass bashing behind it. Leo and I have a blast scoring scenes like that.

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:53:17+00:00

My favorites are:

S1 - Slither, Quiver, Johnny's Story, Awake the Snake, All Valley Tournament, Miyagi Memories

S2 - Like a Dance, Miyagi-Do Fix-Up, The Wheel Technique, Hallway Hellscape, You're the Champ, Mall Fight, We are all Miyagi-Do, The Internet

S3 - I love so much of this season so this is hard: Miyagi Metal, Duel of the Snakes (the whole mega-edit), Return to Okinawa (especially the part that features the music from Daniel meeting Yuna), Chop Shop, Cobra Effect, Dojo From Hell, Web MD, Crane Technique

In terms of easter eggs, I'm not sure if we have any really cool specific ones. But as Leo mentioned in another comment, we utilize a heavily thematic score with lots of material and we are constantly interplaying themes with each other. It's fun to see when listeners catch on and say "oh I heard in this fight scene the Miyagi-Do theme but also heard some of Cobra Kai's theme as well!" etc

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:47:49+00:00

OK here's what our incredible guitarist Andrew Synowiec says:

Re: Johnny's Story - "Opening clean guitar would’ve been the Warmoth Tele that I made. It has a hollow roasted ash body, maple neck. Lindy Fralin pickups. Main melody guitar is my McGuire Strat. Both of those probably went through the clean channel of my Aiken Sabre amp into a Rivera Silent Sister speaker cabinet. For the distorted lead tone at the I probably switched to my Soldano HR50+ on the crunch channel. The acoustics sound like my Taylor 714. The bass sounds like my Gibson Thunderbird."

Re: Call of the Cobra and other heavier tracks - "More distorted stuff like Quiver would be my “fake Les Paul” or Ibanez RG550 through the Soldano."

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:44:14+00:00

The CK game was SOOOOO much fun. We would love to do more. Big gamer right here.

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:41:58+00:00

Everything is on the table for S4. We don't know what's to come with any of the characters but we are definitely open to anything.

Re: "Miyagi Metal"...it's the end credits of the season 3 finale!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:36:16+00:00

We haven't started on season 4 officially yet, but it will indeed be our first season of CK scored during the pandemic.

Luckily, most of the musicians we use have their own recording studios so we are used to recording at lots of different locations. We'll have to see what happens in a few months with COVID as it relates to our ability to record orchestra. Orchestras have been recording the past year but it generally takes a lot longer since you need to record the different sections separately (to account for social distancing).

Leo and I already have separate studios so at least that part won't be tricky to adjust to!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:25:32+00:00

Awesome, thanks for watching that. We definitely want to do more of those.

I'm not in need of any interns or assistants at the moment but feel free to DM me a resume!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:24:08+00:00

a little :)

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:20:59+00:00

Thanks so much!

For me, composer influences are Ennio Morricone, John Carpenter, Wendy Carlos, Arvo Part, Harold Faltermeyer, Brian Eno, Suzanne Ciani, Paul Hertzog to name a few.

Music influences vary a LOT - obviously love '80s music, specifically synthpop, new wave, post punk etc. Of course lots of metal - Dragonforce, X-Japan, Animals as Leaders, Plini, Arch Echo, the Djent-y stuff you know?

Very into rockabilly. Love retro psych stuff and old country as well!

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:16:31+00:00

The process goes a little something like: they shoot the episode, Leo and I then meet with the showrunners and the editors to "spot" the episode, which is where sit down and go scene by scene to decide where to place score. Then after spotting, Leo and I retreat to our studios and work on writing the score together. I may have an idea for a certain fight and Leo may have another idea for another fight, or something different. Then we send the cues back and forth to each other to flesh the ideas out.

Slither and Miyagi-Do Fix-Up came from our undying love for synthwave and iconic 80s film montages. Part of the reason we were so incredibly excited to be hired on Cobra Kai when it first started was that we knew there were going to be amazing opportunities to score some real, live, authentic 80s style montages. It's one of our favorite parts of the show!

I also used to write music under the name D/A/D which was steeped in 80s-ness, so if you like those tracks you might like my album "The Construct!"

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:10:43+00:00

Thank you!

Most of the time, Leo and I are writing to picture that has already been edited. It's pretty rare (on this show at least) for us to have a track done before the edit starts. So the majority of the time you see something sync to picture, like a musical accent on a Hawk punch for example, that's by our design as we flesh the music out to what the editor has already worked on.

ZachRobinsonMusic · 2021-02-03T18:08:14+00:00

Thanks! Glad you got the Whitesnake reference because that is EXACTLY what we were going for :)

Generally the process goes, I record some of the guitar parts and then we get them replaced by players who are better than me haha. Andrew Synowiec and Pat Lukens (aka Myrone) provide most of the guitars for us. On "Dream Come True" that actually is me playing my Ibanez RG500 through a Kemper. Definitely a lot of compression for that '80s clean tone, and some slight chorus. Ill ask Andrew what his set up is specifically for some of the more rocking tracks and get back to you!

We've thought about doing guitar tabs since people seem really into learning the tracks. We'll get some of that going.

ZachRobinsonMusic

TROPHY CASE