A light at the end of the musical tunnel?

[mdekkers]

After what has seemed like somewhat of a bleak year on the musical front I have received nine forwards in as many weeks. Six of the nine songs were created using new sound libraries which I purchased after last year's Road Rally. Special thanks to Tracey Marino and Dave Walton (and a couple of others at the Rally, sorry I can't remember your names) for taking the time to point me in the right direction. Lesson learned: sound libraries (especially for those of us who work solo or don't have talented musician friends readily available) really are the "tools of the trade" and should be the best you can afford. It may make the difference between getting a forward or not. It made the difference for me it would seem, and for several others that I've spoken with.

On a related subject, on Michael's last broadcast he spoke about the process of forwards becoming deals taking sometimes one or two years. I wwould be interested in hearing about the experiences of members in that regards. Thanks.

The songs are "Dark Fury" x 3, "Battle For The Shadowlands" x 2, "Overseas Connection", "Seven Ways To Samba", "Strait From The Heart" and "Hometown Remedy". http://www.taxi.com/michaeldekkers.

[mr clean]

Way to go! And thanks for the tip on the libraries

[Jent]

Congratulations! Which libraries did you purchase?

[ckbarlow]

Knowing Tracy and Dave, I bet there's some EWQL involved. Excellent stuff.

[jfraizer]

Looks like your rolling now Jent. Congrats on the progress.

BTW, Welcome to the forum Jent, Mr Clean & Mdekkers

There is a wealth of information here and a lot of real kind folks as well.

Check out this recent thread on sound libraries. East West is having a sale right now. I just purchased some myself.

http://forums.taxi.com/topic21251.html

[mdekkers]

The sound libraries were all East West titles from www.soundsonline.com.

[Jent]

Thanks for the reply. I have the EastWest Gold Symphonic, so I think I'm started in the right direction.

Congratulations again on the forwards. I'm not there yet, but I hope to have one by the end of the year. That's my game plan, at least. Baby steps....

[mdekkers]

I find my biggest hurdles are technical not creative. Got lots of ideas, it's just having the technical chops to realize those ideas when staring at my computer screen! I find loops can inspire me and then act as a starting point for a piece, even if the loop's eventually discarded.

[mazz]

Congrats on the forwards!

Yes, good libraries can really help raise one's game. Also remember that these really are musical instruments and any instrument is only as good as the player. I don't play guitar so if I was to go out and buy a $5,000 Paul Reed Smith, I'd still suck as bad when I got it home as I did before!! I'd have to put in the time in the woodshed on it to make music on it. With sample libraries, there's a different set of chops, but the learning curve is still going to be steep.

The moral of the story is: go easy on yourself, you just brought home a bunch of new musical instruments and it will take some time to master them. It sounds like you're off to a good start!

I suggest that you make time to practice and study the libraries and their articulations and that time be separate from composing time, this way you don't break the composing flow when you come upon a technical issue. There will always be technical issues that arise in modern computer based composing, but once you have some basics under your belt, they won't be as much of a "buzz kill" as they might be right now.

Hang in there!

Keep up the great work!

Mazz

[glender]

Awesome!