Collection Completed: Trying a different way to create a collection

[Russell Landwehr]

BTW, the collection I'm creating is in a style that I didn't realize existed until I saw a TAXI listing for it. The genre immediately spoke to me and I began studying it with the intention of submitting to the listing. But then things got crazy at a studio where I'm head engineer, and I missed the deadline. But I still wanted to do the style... and another listing came up... But I missed that email and didn't find out about it until after the deadline passed. Ugh!

At least I know this genre is in vogue, eh?

[mojobone]

I bet that "Ghost In The Shell" soundtrack is gonna be hugely influential or at least its trailer, but I'm guessing you mean the analog bleepcore they use for Mr. Robot.

[RonKujawa]

I recently started working with a new-to-me library that will take a minimum of 10 tracks per genre at a time. So, for my first project with them, I did 12 inspirational rock cues, with alt mixes for a total of 61 files. I did this in about 2 weeks. I had a to use a totally different approach than what I normally do, which is to bounce between genres to whatever I think is in demand.

This time I gathered unfinished tracks on my drive that fit the genre into a folder. I then started cranking out rough ideas recording them on my phone very quickly. After I had a bunch of those, I went back through and selected a few to turn into cues. I repeated that process until I had 12 cues. Then I made a list and made notes on each cue, things like "tempo too slow, edit kick, add clean guitar part". I'd spend a day or two working down the list addressing the notes. Then I'd listen to the batch again and make more notes. During this whole process, I'd get struck with new cue ideas, so I'd add them to the list. I ended up with 16 or 17 total.

About a week before the deadline, I started to weed out the cues that didn't seem to fit as well with the rest of the collection. As I did that, I kept honing the cues that I felt were strong. I'd work on 3-4 cues a day, but at this point the work on each cue was pretty limited. Re-track bass, come up with a new guitar part, fix EQ issues, etc.

The last two days to deadline I switched to export mode and started pumping out the master files and alt mixes. Of course, during this process I started to discover other problems or get struck with an idea that would be a big improvement. I allowed myself 45-60 minutes per cue including revisions and exports at this point. If it took more than that, I switched out a cue from the collection or sucked it up and went with what I had. I should add I was doing this all while maintaining my regular day job. I also had to allow time to metatag and upload everything on deadline day. I took a vacation day from the day gig.

My brain was fried at the end, but it was an eye-opening experience to realize I could do it. Probably the biggest discovery was that I could actually stay focused on one genre the whole time. I tend to be ADD with writing cues.

I started to repeat the process again the next two weeks in a different genre. Then the deadline got pushed up by 4 days! Thankfully I had done it once before, so I was able to replicate the process and get 12 more cues done with a total of 41 mixes including alts.

I'm currently in my third rotation of the process in yet another genre, but this time I have closer to 3 weeks. I have 12-14 cues going in the genre, but felt my brain was frying again, so yesterday I took a day off from that genre to work on something different for another library. I feel like I can still make the big deadline, but also put out 4 cues for the second library this weekend.

Gotta back to work!

[Russell Landwehr]

Very Cool, Ron.

Thanks for the look inside your version of this process. VERY enlightening!

I'm a serial-obsessive when it comes to writing styles. Like you, after concentrating on a certain style real heavy, I get burned out on the style and I MUST switch or the music suffers.

Russell

[Russell Landwehr]

Okay, I scrapped two of the starts because they sucked, and then in order to get a round numbered 10 cues, I started and finished another.

So here is the collection of Tropical House cues I came up with. Shout out to my wife Kim and son Rick for helping me with the titles.

https://soundcloud.com/russell-landwehr ... ical-house

Russell

[waveheavy]

Those tracks sound really... excellent. Love your sense of instrument choice and balance.

Are you running your synths through anything? Like re-amping, or going through some analog outboard? They sound 'warm'.

[Russell Landwehr]

Those tracks sound really... excellent. Love your sense of instrument choice and balance.

Are you running your synths through anything? Like re-amping, or going through some analog outboard? They sound 'warm'.

Hi, Dave. Thanks!

The synths are mostly Sylenth and Massive. I'm not warming them up, I'm just choosing sounds that aren't too harsh. When I master the tracks (as part of my final mix), I check the spectrum and if there is too much energy on the top end, I find the offending instrument(s) and do either a high-shelf cut or low pass, or a combo of the two.

On the bass instruments I'm using Waves MaxxBass. It calms down the frequencies below 60 and brings out the upper bass frequencies like above 80 without making it sound muddy. And I do a steep highpass roll off at 40hz on my master buss to take out all that unusable energy down there.

BTW, much of the marimbas and steel drums are by Pianoteq.

Russell

[waveheavy]

Cool, that was going to be my next question, where you got the steel pan sounds. Thanks Russell.

[Kolstad]

Thanks for sharing your process in this thread, Russell. It's very inspiring and interesting to see new approaches, and hearing the tracks as the result was great!

[Telefunkin]

Hi Russell,
I'll join the throng and congratulate you and yet another great job. For me there are so many impressive aspects to your work here. Just one that stands out to me is the way you cleverly prevent the tracks from sounding 'square' by introducing lots of complimentary parts and and ear-candy to make sure the listener never gets chance to tune-out. Oh, and if its any use to you to know, I think I like tracks 2 and 8 best.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!