film music

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jeffmaher

jeffmaher

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http://www.yousendit.com/download/dVlvck94bEFBNkZMWEE9PQ

This is hot-off the platform. A workout with a horn section on a tune I wrote in 1979. Everything is MIDI except the guitar and bass.

One of the things that my old-school sampler [XV50/80] does is provide a regular vibrato on sustained notes, and I was wondering if anybody had a solution to killing it...it's a 'tell' that the sound is sampled; but a possible solution came to me while posting: the mechanical vibrato is velocity-sensitive, so maybe I could reduce the overall velocity of the horn parts in piano-roll view?? Maybe just on the sustained notes, and record them to audio a little louder??

Anyway, let me know if anything is suck-worthy, and what I might do to make it better, if you have a little time.

The piece is meant to support a vocal [coming up], or be a non-distracting floor for a film scene or advert.

30 tracks at 24/48. Verb is Lex "Concert Hall", individual to each track, panned opposite the origin. Bass is rolled off above 400Hz; guitar, below 600Hz; bass drum has a boost at 1800Hz to add a little slap.
No other EQ; no compression..just a hard limiter to knock off a few transients. Mastered just as it came off the mix.
Think the addition of a couple tom-fills would be nice? Other opinions? Voicings too thick? Barry too loud?
 
jeffmaher said:
[Barry too loud?
Click to expand...

Not for my tastes.

Very cool, very mellow. The only thing I would suggest is a slightly busier piano part. It's not prominent enough, it's the solo instrument and right now feels like it's just another backing instrument. Good stuff.
 
Hi David....like your 'crazed clown' avatar :^)...Bozo, through a rational child's eyes...Almost as scary as the congresscritter one.

The piano is a background instrument. The whole is meant to support the vocal. And what I've learned about getting my work used in film and/or commercials it to eliminate a central feature..like the vocal...or a central solo instrument. When constructed and mixed for vocal, there's a nice 'hole' left in the middle...space in the midrange....for voice over or other dialogue, when the vox is muted....and the instrumental , mastered. No competition for the user's message or whatever. It got to be subdued, melodically. Cabbage only: no corned beef.

I'm workin' on making a horn section sound real. A challenge with anything but the super sample software. I can play the instruments...but the budget won't allow....

[I did get a publisher for my work a few months ago, [after a couple-dozen rejections and non-responses over two years] and he emailed me last week to tell me that more than one of the 11 titles under agreement are in the process of being used in more than one movie! [probably the final credit roll...5 minutes after everyone's left the theater...but it's a start.."Zombie Clowns from Mars"] The help I got here from you and the other fellers was a real help getting to the point where someone thought my records were not too ugly to be pitched and licensed.

I really dig that Ellington/Basie horn sound....if I can capture it effectively with my old crappy technology, it'll be a great thing to be able to do. A friend emailed me to tell me that there's no way to mistake the fact that the horns are sampled....and when I listen, I find them flat and punchless....so I'm going back to the individual tracks to see what I can do to to kick 'em up...maybe a little harmonic distortion...compression with a long attack....stereo spread???? Kill the freakin' vibrato!!

Another thing I noticed is that, even with the horns recorded to audio seperately, the vibrato is , apparently, synchronized between instruments. I did find out there's an adjustable vibrato function in the XV50/80...page 20,046 of the users' manual...still trying to figure this machine out.

Thanks for the listen. I appreciate your ears and time.
 
Sounds smooth and jazzy. Almost has a latin or carribbean feel to it. I can't relate to this at all, so it sounds fine to me. Nice.
 
Thanks, Greg. The piece achieves its purpose by creating the mood you describe....it's just a background groove that's supposed to create feeling for another featured voice or scene. What I'm trying to get is a slight emotional uplift in the bridges , where modality changes from dark minor to major, without having to draw attention to itself. "Elevator 101". That's where the money, for a level of recording skill and talent I have, is. But airplay is airplay. I can't reliably create anything worthy of attention in and of itself. But I can fill space with soso stuff that's a cheep rental for the guy with and indie film and a budget of thousands. The really massive thing for me is that once I get my first licensing fee of $250, and BMI quarterly royalty check for $1.75, I can continue to write off my studio expenses and equipment acquisitions on a profit/loss sheet on my taxes, against my live performance profit*!!!! Woo Hoo!!!

*not a lot...I think I qualify for food stamps....
 
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