Feedback sought: Patriotic marching band track

[RPaul]

I'm hoping for some feedback on a revised (and hopefully improved) recording I'd submitted to a recent TAXI listing (S240214CJ) looking for "ORIGINAL PATRIOTIC INSTRUMENTALS" that was returned, but also with some somewhat promising feedback. I've since put a fair bit of time into trying to address the feedback. It's (obviously) too late for the listing at this point, but this genre is outside my mainstream areas, so I'd be very appreciative of feedback from others who are more in tune with this area. I'm not positive at this point what I'll do with recording once I dub it final, but I'd like to get it to that stage, partly "to be done with it" and partly in case of similar opportunities in the future.

I'll post more info from the listing, as well as a link to the version of the recording I'd submitted to TAXI and the feedback I received below, but first (especially in case of getting to TL;DR status with the rest of this post), here is a link to the revised recording, which I've put on my TAXI profile, simply for convenience:

https://www.taxi.com/members/2RucHBvoSL ... h-revised-

The listing read:

Lots of ORIGINAL PATRIOTIC INSTRUMENTALS are needed by a very successful EXCLUSIVE Music Library. This company has a very long history of lots and lots of really AWESOME placements, tons of which have been for TAXI members!

NOTE: We have other listings running for this company's request for Patriotic COVERS. Please note that this one is for ORIGINAL compositions.
This Company is looking for Instrumentals that are in the style of the following references:

"Washington Post March" by John Williams, Boston Pops Orchestra, & John Philip Sousa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BznPqj4CTSo)
"Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa & The United States Marine Band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRQWP-TL4gk)
"America The Beautiful" by The United States Air Force Band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MtQXJVeg1Y)
"Hail to the Chief" by James Sanderson & The United States Marine Band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aiOqHC8yqA)
"The Star Spangled Banner" by The United States Army Band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-ycDXD2e8)

Please submit original Patriotic Instrumentals that capture the spirit and feel of the references. Compelling and Patriotic-sounding motifs are needed for this request.
VERY IMPORTANT: Traditional Arrangements ONLY, please!

Orchestral instrumentation that's in the general stylistic ballpark of the references will work best. Please make sure that any virtual instruments or samples you use are high-quality and sound like the real deal.
...
(deleted the standard boilerplate about not copying, deadlines, and such)

The version of the recording I submitted for the pitch is at:

https://www.taxi.com/members/2RucHBvoSL ... mary-march

The feedback I received was as follows:

* What I like most: I like the melodic figures you've written, they're a good for this style.
* I think you could improve by: The trumpets are mixed a bit low and sound muffled rather than the bigger brighter sound we'd expect from this style.
* I returned this song because: The whole mix could be brighter, letting the trumpet and piccolo really bring out their lines. Just simple EQ can help breath more depth into the overall mix.

The reviewer also checked "Song instrument sounds or samples sound dated or of a lower quality" and "Recording/Mix needs improvement" in the Recording and Production section.

I was very short on time to work on the recording prior to the deadline. It is actually a piece I'd originally done back in 2008 to try out a marching band library I was reviewing for an ezine at the time. When I saw this listing, I thought I'd see if I could redo the recording, using an entirely different (and newer) library, editing the MIDI to work with the newer library, trying to pay more attention to the expression an articulations, etc. By the time the deadline came around, though, I'd only gotten through a few of the more prominent tracks, but I submitted anyway, partly for the feedback and partly just "hoping beyond hope".

Much of my time working on the revision has been spent trying to address the "dated/lower quality" instrument sounds, though also hoping to take into account the mix issues and generally get closer to the references and what I heard from the forwards blog examples. I'm especially interested in whether I succeeded on the instrument sounds front, but also anything else that might affect whether this recording would work for this sort of context in case of future opportunities. (FWIW, my mainstream areas tend to be on the song side, especially singer-songwriter, pop-rock, country, etc. Most of my use of band and orchestral instruments to date has been adding some flavors to those sorts of recording, as opposed to making the instruments the primary focus for traditional pieces.)

[WSAO]

Sounds good to me.
I like the pan you did with some instruments and everything is well balanced.
Very good job! Try other libraries, it will find a placement for sure.

[RPaul]

I like the pan you did with some instruments and everything is well balanced.

Thanks for the quick feedback. The panning and ambience are mostly thanks to the library I used itself -- I was trying the Iconica Sketch included with Cubase Pro 13 for all except the saxes. Iconica Sketch doesn't have saxes (I had to substitute on some other instruments, too, but I found close enough matches within Iconica Sketch for the others), so I used a combination of the original Garritan Concert & Marching Band saxes from my 2008 version (albeit editing the MIDI quite a bit) and some HALion Sonic saxes that came with Cubase. Getting those to fit with the Iconica Sketch instruments was one of the key challenges on the panning and blend front.

[VanderBoegh]

Hey Rick, I was a marching band aficionado all through high school, college, and grad school (Boise State "Blue Thunder" Marching Band). Not only have I performed in this world for over a decade (a long time ago, ha!), but I also used to listen to the old marches by Sousa et al for fun. Yeah, I was truly a marching band nerd!

That said, I've got two things to tell you. One, a compliment. And the other, a criticism.

Let's start with the compliment. And that is that your composition is spot-on for the genre. Nice job with this! I even smiled when those piccolos came in to do their customary do-do-do call & responses at the 1:00 mark. This seems like a piece that could - if given a proper recording, stand up with the Sousas of the world.

Now, the criticism. These sounds simply ain't cutting it. From the opening seconds, your track screamed "MIDI recording made with sub-par instruments". There are a few ways to fix this with bigger & better (aka more expensive) sound libraries, but in my estimation, no matter how great the virtual instruments are, you're simply never going to be able to emulate the sound of a 100+ piece band recorded on a big sound stage, capturing the live performance of virtuoso musicians.

I'm assuming the library requesting this music KNOWS this, and they probably don't expect any Taxi member to go shelling out thousands of dollars to hire the local Philharmonic orchestra and mic up a huge stage. But they're going to want something more convincing than this.

I wish I could give you better feedback regarding HOW to come close to that sound using in-the-box virtual instruments, but sadly I don't know of any tips.

Do know that this is a great composition, and should you ever find yourself sitting in the pit orchestra of a local musical theater group (which is what I do nowadays to keep my chops in gear), maybe you could print this off and have the group play it while you record with a handful of mics.

~~Matt

[kjckjc]

Hey Rick - For what it's worth RE: Matt's response... I was a MS/HS Band director for 20+ years, and I will be attempting to write and record and publish my school band compositions eventually (trying to get this Taxi/sync thing under my belt for now), But I have been in touch with a few publishers, and my idea will be to compose the music (written / printed out), and recorded with VST's, but then - once finished, go to my local HS (or even college) Band Director, and ask if I can record their band - performing my composition (which I would rehearse and conduct)... As a former HS Band Director, if a local composer had approached me with that offer - I would have jumped at the opportunity for my students to experience such a thing... Of course they would have to be a decent band, with a decent band director... Bring a 2 channel interface with 2 real good mics, set them up and go for it... I don't know if you are a conductor - or a composer (able to "write" out the parts, score, etc), but - from the publishers I have spoken with - that will be what they need to actually accept and publish the composition... But I think the same thing would work for a recorded submission to Taxi or a library... You would have to have the score and parts printed out though... Good Luck!

[RPaul]

Thanks, Matt and Ken for the excellent feedback and thoughts.

The forwards blog (https://blog.taxi.com/forward/021624/) shows 5 forwards for this listing (S240214CJ). It would be interesting to know more about the production on those. There was one person with three forwards, and I had the sense that he might have been a flute/piccolo/etc. player from the prominence of those in his tracks. Perhaps combining sample libraries with some live-played tracks?

While I was in concert and marching bands back in high school and college (I mainly played clarinet, though also some alto sax in jazz band before the recruited me to play piano), I haven't touched a real wind instrument since. I've done a few recordings with a wind controller, but those were not for group section-type instruments, and I'm not sure that redoing the tracks from a wind controller would make a big enough difference given the libraries I have (and lack of budget to improve on those in the foreseeable future).

I have actually considered the idea of making charts for the song (I actually had notation for all except the percussion at one point, possibly for when I was tracking the parts in the first place to help me follow the arrangement, which I may well have come up with or refined in a notation program) and seeing if I could interest a local high school (or other) band in performing the piece. Beyond my having pared down the arrangement a bit this time out, there would be a lot of work needed to make the charts I'd had usable for other musicians. Perhaps it is something I can consider at some point, though, since the feedback on the composition at least makes me more incentivized to want to try to get this out into the world somehow, independent of any sync potential.

I also remember reading about some "remote orchestras for hire", I think in Eastern Europe, but, beyond the prerequisite of good charts, that sort of thing would certainly be beyond any budget I'd be likely to have in the near future.

Again, thanks for the feedback. It at least gives me some things to ponder on "what is next" with this piece. (I tend to do that every presidential election year, since the whole "Primary March" title is a play on political primaries in addition to being the first and, at least thus far, only march I've written.)

[VanderBoegh]

I have been in touch with a few publishers, and my idea will be to compose the music (written / printed out), and recorded with VST's, but then - once finished, go to my local HS (or even college) Band Director, and ask if I can record their band - performing my composition (which I would rehearse and conduct)... As a former HS Band Director, if a local composer had approached me with that offer - I would have jumped at the opportunity for my students to experience such a thing... Of course they would have to be a decent band, with a decent band director... Bring a 2 channel interface with 2 real good mics, set them up and go for it... I don't know if you are a conductor - or a composer (able to "write" out the parts, score, etc), but - from the publishers I have spoken with - that will be what they need to actually accept and publish the composition... But I think the same thing would work for a recorded submission to Taxi or a library... You would have to have the score and parts printed out though... Good Luck!

THIS!!! OMG, this is a great solution to getting a good live & real recording of a full orchestra which would otherwise be out of reach budget-wise. Kinda on a similar vein as my "get the local community theater pit orchestra to do it" advice. But this other advice is much better. Talk about a win-win for the high school students to get exposed to real recording, and a win for you to get the real deal. Give it a shot, if nothing else! Many DAW's will export MIDI information as notation / sheet music. I've done it before with ProTools, and it's as easy as a click of a button. You'd still have to transpose for various instruments, but it's nothing that's impossible.

~~Matt

[RPaul]

Many DAW's will export MIDI information as notation / sheet music. I've done it before with ProTools, and it's as easy as a click of a button. You'd still have to transpose for various instruments, but it's nothing that's impossible.

Yeah, that part I understand, and I know I at least had it in the notation program I was using at the time I wrote this (Finale -- I've since switched to Dorico), though I don't recall now if that was from having written it in the notation program or having exported it as MIDI from SONAR then cleaned it up to a sufficient point to print it out for my own use -- I typically used notation when arrangements are too complex for me to deal with just playing by ear in real time.

The transposition part is also easy, though the instrumentation in my recording may not be something that easily corresponds to a typical high school band in a few cases.

The more challenging/work-intensive part is writing in all the relevant articulations, dynamics, etc. to make the parts usable by real musicians. But, at some point, I think I've got to try this, independent of the recording side of things. It's just one of those "so many things to do, so little time" things, and trying to decide where it fits into the priorities. I'm very encouraged by the notes in this thread, though, so maybe I'll try starting to experiment with this a bit sooner than I might have otherwise.

As for the recording for sync side of things, I think I might have nightmares about the potential need for a work-for-hire agreement from an entire high school band.