Sound that makes the picture move
Senandika writes music and designs sound for film, advertising, and games: from an orchestral score to a texture you cannot name but always feel.
The meter I stare at eight hours a day
Ten years, counted in studio days
Session rates, as they are
Studio day, sound designMost booked
Eight hours in the Kotagede control room, foley in the small room next door included. You are welcome to sit behind me for the whole session, and most directors do.
Rp1,850,000 per day
Original score, short film
Priced on minutes of music, not minutes of film. The first sketch lands seven working days after the spotting session, two revision rounds included, a third round Rp900,000.
Rp12,000,000 to Rp28,000,000
Dialogue cleanup and foley
Ten minute minimum. Room noise, mains hum, and footsteps that went missing. Up to twelve minutes of screen time comes back within 24 hours.
Rp450,000 per minute of screen time
Sonic branding
A sound logo of one to two seconds, three length variants, twenty two interface sounds, and an 18 page usage guide. Tested on forty people before it is locked.
Rp65,000,000
Mix and delivery formats
WAV 24 bit 48 kHz, stems split by group, stereo and 5.1 mixes, plus minus 23 LUFS for broadcast and minus 14 LUFS for music platforms.
Rp2,200,000 per title
Atmos mix, at a partner studio in Jakarta
My room is only calibrated to 5.1, so Atmos happens at a partner studio in Jakarta and I bill it at cost, with no markup. I sit in on the session.
Rp3,500,000 per day
What a sonic branding job hands over
The room, the gear, and the habits
Room and monitoring
Recording
Music
Post production
What I do not do
Credits, with their years and durations
-
2022
Original score and sound design
Hujan di Kaca, short film
Thirty one minutes of screen time carrying nineteen minutes of music, recorded with a Yogyakarta string quartet across two days. Best original score at the national short film festival that year.
-
2023
Sound design
Rimba: Last Canopy, Arcadia Interactive
1,240 forest sound assets, all recorded across nine days in Central Kalimantan. Ninety six of them are layered specifically for rain landing on the canopy, because rain on the ground sounds nothing like it.
-
2024
Sound design and foley
A children's animated series, eight episodes
Foley recorded by hand, including sixty four footsteps across four floor surfaces laid out in the small room beside the control room. Best sound design at the 2024 animation festival.
-
2025
Sonic branding
A digital bank
A 1.8 second sound logo, three length variants, twenty two interface sounds, and an 18 page guide. Tested on forty people in two cities before it was locked.
-
2019 to 2025
Producer and mixer
Four albums by Yogyakarta artists
Recorded live in one room, eleven studio days per album on average. Three of them were tracked without a click at the artists' request, which added four days of mixing.
The first sketch arrived on day six, and the scene I had doubts about suddenly made sense.Director of Hujan di Kaca
He refused to use a sound library and spent nine days in Kalimantan instead. You can hear it.Audio designer, Arcadia Interactive
The stems are tidy and split by group, so our editor could rearrange without phoning him.Picture editor, Jakarta production house
Pricing by minute of screen time let us budget the audio before the shoot began.Producer, animated series
The sound logo is 1.8 seconds and had already been tested on forty people before we saw it.Head of brand, digital bank
He told us straight that the Atmos mix happens in Jakarta, not in his room.Post production manager, Yogyakarta
The first sketch arrived on day six, and the scene I had doubts about suddenly made sense.Director of Hujan di Kaca
He refused to use a sound library and spent nine days in Kalimantan instead. You can hear it.Audio designer, Arcadia Interactive
The stems are tidy and split by group, so our editor could rearrange without phoning him.Picture editor, Jakarta production house
Pricing by minute of screen time let us budget the audio before the shoot began.Producer, animated series
The sound logo is 1.8 seconds and had already been tested on forty people before we saw it.Head of brand, digital bank
He told us straight that the Atmos mix happens in Jakarta, not in his room.Post production manager, Yogyakarta
What people ask before the first session
How does a film score start?
With a spotting session: we watch the rough cut together and mark the exact minute music enters and leaves. Without that session I do not take the job, because guessing where music belongs always ends in doing the work twice.
How soon do I hear something?
The first sketch lands seven working days after the spotting session. Dialogue cleanup up to twelve minutes of screen time comes back within 24 hours. For an album, eleven studio days is the average of my last four.
What formats do I receive?
WAV 24 bit 48 kHz, stems split by group, stereo and 5.1 mixes, plus a minus 23 LUFS version for broadcast and minus 14 LUFS for music platforms. All in one folder with the same naming on every project.
Why is Atmos done in Jakarta?
Because my control room is 18 square metres and only calibrated to 5.1. Claiming Atmos in this room would be audible in the result. I rent a partner studio in Jakarta at Rp3,500,000 a day and bill it at cost.
Our budget is small. Still possible?
There are two short film slots each quarter on a publishing share rather than a discount. Tell me the running time and how many minutes of music you imagine, not your budget.
Is there work you turn down?
Tobacco and payday loan advertising, both since 2019. I also decline mastering other people's albums and pass on the names of two mastering engineers in Jakarta, because the same ears should not judge a record twice.
Send the rough cut, not the budget
Tell me the running time, the delivery date, and how many minutes of music you imagine. I reply within one working day with a number of studio days, a cost, and a date for the first sketch. If the calendar will not fit, I name a colleague in Yogyakarta or Bandung.