A question for those with more experience than I...

[cassmcentee]

I have noticed in my placements that the editors tend to pick out a certain section that they favor and keep looping it.
Bums me out because the end of the loop doesn't sit well when married to the front, for the continuous looping that is.
I'm paying more attention now to how my sections end.
Should I be making my sections twice as long? ie. Am I switching instruments too quickly in my compositions?
Just thinking...
Anything to improve...
Cass

[waveheavy]

Not sure about the "more experience" part, but IMHO what you're doing with your song arrangements look like they'd be desirable by a music supervisor, simply because... of the 'variation' you put in them. For example, your cue "Run Brass Ukey Run" has several sections (or feels) with edit points while keeping to the main theme; that's several choices for the music supervisor to pick from. So it's really a way for one cue to be more marketable the way I see it.

[cassmcentee]

Thanks Dave!
I have been paying more attention lately to how sections end...
I just posted a private playlist of two examples here: https://soundcloud.com/robert-cass-mcen ... ts/s-YtSiW
In both you will hear a CUT at about 15 seconds in, they both make me cringe!

[funsongs]

Thanks Dave!
I have been paying more attention lately to how sections end...
I just posted a private playlist of two examples here: https://soundcloud.com/robert-cass-mcen ... ts/s-YtSiW
In both you will hear a CUT at about 15 seconds in, they both make me cringe!

From The Peanut Gallery, just reading your post -
seems you're critiquing your cues as though they are meant to be listened to in their entirety,
like you would expect to hear them on radio-play.

But if, in reality, their 'home' is gonna be just nice background 'noise' - either supporting an ad campaign video, or sitting beneath dialog... that's a whole different animal; where continuity may matter very little.
That's my inexperienced observation.

Me thinks you just gotta accept that it's those little bits & blips of 'ear candy' - which, like Dave well pointed out - you give them lots of variety from which to select -
the smoothness of the transitions and ends don't make or break the deal.

From the Peanut Gallery - but still -
Your Mileage May Vary.
FWIW: I like all the 'ear-candy' your compositions bring to the table - YUMMY!

[cassmcentee]

Thanks Peter!
The upside is the pieces are getting used!
I would like to keep improving wherever I can...

[Len911]

Interesting. I think the action they are doing is "looping, vamping, ostinato, riffing...", and I think maybe what you say that sounds unsettling may have to do with maybe the final cadence of a section??

So what if you took out the final cadences in each of the sections, and only offered them at the end. You could have two or three final cadences with the different instrument builds.

It could be the use of only perfect cadences in each of the sections? Maybe a deceptive cadence or imperfect cadence might not have such a jarring effect?? Or perhaps just leave off the tonic chord of the perfect cadence and keep the five chord??

Of course now it's more of a cue than a song, and if someone is looking for songs to make cues out of, which one translates better for a first impression?? Good question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostinato

[Len911]

Making the sections longer shouldn't be necessary if you have the complete motif or sequence or riff or theme, or whatever you call it,lol, the vamping, although repetitious automatically makes them longer.

[cassmcentee]

Cool Len!
That makes great sense re: where to position rhythmic changes/vamps
So now I hope to pay better attention to the central motif releases with this in mind.
Thank You

[Len911]

YW Cass!

I think what you are describing is "cue writing". I think Dean from taxi has a book, "Demystifying the Cue", I'm not sure if it goes into the actual technical structuring of a cue or not. Maybe there's not much to the structure?

http://michellelockey.com/4/post/2015/0 ... arlow.html

It seems the best info about cues is going to be found on or with taxi people, maybe the most experienced! I haven't found any college courses or university lectures.

So... when you figure it out, give a lecture or write a book??

[Casey H]

Another POV... Your tracks ARE getting placed. So maybe don't change a thing!

Of course, it never hurts to learn and improve.

Casey