Upbeat Instrumental

[wignelson]

Any suggestions for submission? What kind of instrumental is this? Video game music? I haven't a clue how to classify it. Any help greatly appreciated. Wighttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=149108&stream=1

[davewalton]

Jul 15, 2008, 12:14pm, wignelson wrote:Any suggestions for submission? What kind of instrumental is this? Video game music? I haven't a clue how to classify it. Any help greatly appreciated. Wighttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=149108&stream=1It's a mixed bag. From the beginning up until the 1:00 mark I'd classify it very generally as "light Country instrumental" or something like that. After the 1:00 mark, you bring in a lot of organ riffs and some piano stuff, it gets a little muddy as far as genre.FWIW, I'd stick with the basic feel and instrumentation you have at the beginning up to the 1:00 mark. It needs to be developed more from there to get away from too much repitition but the sound, feel, and instrumentation are good. The piano sound sticks out as not being very good. It hurts the track IMHO. The organ sounds fine but the leads and licks distract from the feel of the rest of the track.The basic purpose of these kinds of tracks are simply to set a background mood for whatever the visual and voice-over are on top of it. One possible use (of many probably)... easily very useful for a travel type show... train trip out west, etc. The first 1:00 is what I'm referring to. My very first music track I wrote (after "coming back" to music from a long time away) had at the end, what I thought was a great organ solo (and maybe it was) but everyone said "AAAKKK!!! Get that organ solo out of there!!!". Looking back I see they were right... "soloing" in a background instrumental is almost always a distraction and inadvertantly pulls the audience attention away from the visual and voice-over.HTH,Dave

[bwrenhewmach]

Hey Wig I agree with Dave I was thinking now this song is more country than the other song you posted until you get to a minute or so. It almost sounds like two songs but I like both of them. I would either take the country sounding first minute and build on that ideal or when you bring in the organ part and build on that ideal. Great work just different worlds. I hope that helps. Love your music Wig. mild Bill

[mojobone]

Some very good playing, jes' maybe a little too much of it. You've got several instruments fighting for the midrange toward the end of the piece; panning them further apart would help, but a sparser arrangement might help more. Instrumentals tend to be TV pitches; you'll want to leave a hole for dialog or voiceovers, cutting some midrange from the instruments will give them some separation that can't be achieved by panning alone, and can help you make a nice audio "doughnut". The cymbals that kick off the proceedings sound suspiciously like a count-off, did you mean to leave that in? The guitar at the beginning is a bit shaky, rhythmically, or maybe it's the quirky rhythmic displacement of the kick drum, or maybe it's just me. Maybe pull both keyboards back in the mix by a notch. Nice ending.

[zoom]

I liked it! I think you're looking at film/tv along with video games.... I would just classify it as an instrumental and submit for the appropriate listings... like anything 'western' or anything to do with rail roads. And it looks like Mojo gave you some other ideas to mull over that sound right on target to me! Also... you may at some point want to go back with a plain ol' acoustic instead of one of those fancy electric numbers.... IMO they sound cleaner, plus you don't have as much high end that may compete with other instruments.

[wignelson]

Jul 15, 2008, 1:24pm, davewalton wrote:Jul 15, 2008, 12:14pm, wignelson wrote:Any suggestions for submission? What kind of instrumental is this? Video game music? I haven't a clue how to classify it. Any help greatly appreciated. Wighttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=149108&stream=1It's a mixed bag. From the beginning up until the 1:00 mark I'd classify it very generally as "light Country instrumental" or something like that. After the 1:00 mark, you bring in a lot of organ riffs and some piano stuff, it gets a little muddy as far as genre.FWIW, I'd stick with the basic feel and instrumentation you have at the beginning up to the 1:00 mark. It needs to be developed more from there to get away from too much repitition but the sound, feel, and instrumentation are good. The piano sound sticks out as not being very good. It hurts the track IMHO. The organ sounds fine but the leads and licks distract from the feel of the rest of the track.The basic purpose of these kinds of tracks are simply to set a background mood for whatever the visual and voice-over are on top of it. One possible use (of many probably)... easily very useful for a travel type show... train trip out west, etc. The first 1:00 is what I'm referring to. My very first music track I wrote (after "coming back" to music from a long time away) had at the end, what I thought was a great organ solo (and maybe it was) but everyone said "AAAKKK!!! Get that organ solo out of there!!!". Looking back I see they were right... "soloing" in a background instrumental is almost always a distraction and inadvertantly pulls the audience attention away from the visual and voice-over.HTH,DaveThanks for the advice, Dave, before I came to TAXI, I never considered the vampire audio effect of the distractions. It makes a lot of sense. I sometimes start layering and end up with too much going on. As a background piece to pitch, maybe I should ditch the organ.I think the guitars and harp can handle it. Thanks for spinning me, Wig

[wignelson]

Jul 15, 2008, 1:54pm, bwrenhewmach wrote:Hey Wig I agree with Dave I was thinking now this song is more country than the other song you posted until you get to a minute or so. It almost sounds like two songs but I like both of them. I would either take the country sounding first minute and build on that ideal or when you bring in the organ part and build on that ideal. Great work just different worlds. I hope that helps. Love your music Wig. mild BillGood advice, mB, I'll develop the first minute theme and keep it short for a tv pitch for a voiceover. Thanks for listening, Wig

[wignelson]

Jul 15, 2008, 4:41pm, mojobone wrote:Some very good playing, jes' maybe a little too much of it. You've got several instruments fighting for the midrange toward the end of the piece; panning them further apart would help, but a sparser arrangement might help more. Instrumentals tend to be TV pitches; you'll want to leave a hole for dialog or voiceovers, cutting some midrange from the instruments will give them some separation that can't be achieved by panning alone, and can help you make a nice audio "doughnut". The cymbals that kick off the proceedings sound suspiciously like a count-off, did you mean to leave that in? The guitar at the beginning is a bit shaky, rhythmically, or maybe it's the quirky rhythmic displacement of the kick drum, or maybe it's just me. Maybe pull both keyboards back in the mix by a notch. Nice ending.Thanks, Mojo, I've got to work on that audio doughnut concept. The cymbals were intentional, but one got cut off, there should have been 8 distinctive ride hits. I'm rethinking that now, maybe four.But it needs something because the guitars start pretty abruptly.Thanks for the spin, Wig

[wignelson]

Jul 16, 2008, 6:21am, zoom wrote:I liked it! I think you're looking at film/tv along with video games.... I would just classify it as an instrumental and submit for the appropriate listings... like anything 'western' or anything to do with rail roads. And it looks like Mojo gave you some other ideas to mull over that sound right on target to me! Also... you may at some point want to go back with a plain ol' acoustic instead of one of those fancy electric numbers.... IMO they sound cleaner, plus you don't have as much high end that may compete with other instruments.Thanks, Zoom, I thought of video game, too. Some games are pretty busy and could handle all the layering. I think maybe the organ is just too much of a good thing. And I was never really happy with the piano patch. Believe it or not, I didn't use any electric guts in this piece. Steel string Washburn and nylon string Fender 100 Classic. Both gits play exactly the same thing and are kind of driven by the bass, which is from a synth. Not sure about the patch, but probably rock bass.Thanks for listening, Wig

[davewalton]

Jul 16, 2008, 10:02am, wignelson wrote:I sometimes start layering and end up with too much going on. As a background piece to pitch, maybe I should ditch the organ.Not the organ itself, just the leads and licks that might impress other musicians but would be distracting for the producer attempting to put the track "into the background". The organ has a nice tone and would work well. Once I started not writing for other musicians so much, my music calmed down a little, found a better groove, the distractions went away and it became more "usable".