"Ready My Gear" (Epic, Slow-Burn Hybrid Trailer-Style)

[johndalenow]

"Ready My Gear" (Epic, Slow-Burn Hybrid Trailer-Style)

ALL comments are appreciated.

EPIC, SLOW-BURN HYBRID TRAILER-Style INSTRUMENTALS are needed by an EXCLUSIVE, top-tier Music Licensing Company with placements in huge Film Trailers, Video Games, and TV Shows.

https://soundcloud.com/john-dale-music/ ... al_sharing

NOTE: We previously ran a similar request as TAXI Listing #S220210SB, but the Music Supervisor wants to hear MORE material. If you submitted to listing #S220210SB, please send different material this time around. This Company is fairly NEW to requesting music from TAXI, so chances are you don’t have any material in their catalog yet! This is a great opportunity to create a new outlet for your music and begin a new relationship with an awesome company.

This Company is looking for Instrumentals in the general stylistic wheelhouse of the following references:

"Rattle and Run" by 2WEI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P5D0DPNXq8

"Game of Power" by Iliya Aziz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSB300K9shE

"Mission Zero" by 2WEI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlISrNlcfM4

Quoting the Company: "We're after powerful music with a mellow beginning. The tracks should follow the Intro > Build > Climax > Climax II (optional) > Outro structure. The intro needs to be minimal and slow, with very few elements that build to an edit point. The second act should start to introduce the next elements, simple rhythms and pulses before another edit point. The climax should unleash the full melody with all the powerful instruments, push onto the Climax II if needed where you will add to the power with bigger hits and higher octaves. Ease the track out with a gentle outro. Think of that outro as the thing you hear in Trailers when the voice-over says, 'Opening January 28th.' It's sort of a coda after the climax. Most importantly build intense tension and release as a huge epic climax. Work with a melodic idea and flesh out with massive brass, climbing strings, heavy percussion, unique sound design and scorching guitars. Choirs may be added for dramatic value also. Think epic battlegrounds and game boss fights."

Please submit top-notch Hybrid Trailer-Style Instrumentals that start minimally and slow-burn to a huge, climactic ending. Your submissions should have compelling motifs, excellent arrangements, high-impact instrumentation, and exude tons of dark, epic energy. Please follow the desired structure that the Company has outlined above. Sticking with one melodic motif/idea per submission and gradually building upon it is recommended so that your pieces remain cohesive throughout. Please be sure your production is polished and any virtual sounds, samples, or software you use are cutting-edge and of the highest quality.

TAXI Tip: Don't be afraid to layer up your instrumentation to create a huge, blockbuster sound!

NOTE: This Company is more interested in composers who can deliver full albums in this style than people who only produce one or two tracks every now and then. We suspect that if they hear a couple of your tracks and love what you're doing, they'll ask you to send them more music on an ongoing basis.

All submissions should be about 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 3 minutes long, give or take. Non-faded, button/stinger endings will work best for this request. Do NOT copy the referenced examples in any way, shape, or form. Use them only as a general guide for tempo, tone, and overall vibe. Broadcast Quality is needed.

This company offers an EXCLUSIVE deal. You'll split all upfront sync fees 50/50. The Publisher will get 100% of the Publisher's share, and you'll get 100% of the Writer's share. You must own or control your Master and Composition rights. Since this is an Exclusive deal, please be sure your material is NOT already signed with any other Libraries or Catalogs. Please submit as many Instrumentals as you’d like, online or per CD. All submissions will be screened and critiqued by TAXI. Submissions must be received no later than 11:59 PM (PDT) on Tuesday, March 29th, 2022. TAXI # S220329EP

[Casey H]

Hey John
Not having a great ear I can tell off the bat that this isn't in the league of the references at all as far as the sounds. That is before I went through the structure. And trust me, my ears for that ain't great. If you read the listing, the bar on this one is an 11 on a scale of 1-10. ("My bar goes up to 11" )

From my POV, this is an example of chasing the wrong types of listings for where you are in your journey right now. Grain of salt: I'm a pure vocal songwriter without production skills. But I really suggest that you work on more mid-bar cues such as for reality TV first and get some successes there (forwards at the minimum). I'm rooting for you.

Given I'm a non-production guy, I welcome comments as to whether my thoughts are right here.

Best,
Casey

[johndalenow]

Casey makes a very valid point here about 'the bar'. Worth keeping in mind.

My comments are less about this specific listing and more generally about this track and the others you post for feedback - quite a few. I hope they help in some way. IMHO composition-wise, I think there's a lot going for this piece, as well as many of the other pieces I've heard of yours. The dated sounds are being used less and less, the orchestral sounds are getting better, the pieces are sounding more 'joined-up' instead of having unusual pauses in them for edit points, the impact samples are sound like they belong there and not just pasted in because you can, and the endings are becoming more structured. I have to congratulate you on those improvements. Again IMHO, what's still not quite there yet is the production quality, and although its no easy task to put that in place it is possible with some good tuition. I hope you are already investing in that side of things, but if not, that's where I would suggest focusing efforts for a while. Turning out lots of work is a great habit to have, but finishing those pieces to a broadcasts standard is vital if they are to get any further than your hard drive.

In this track, I would say that some EQ would help reduce some of the harshness in the string sounds. I hear low-end problems starting at 1:16 when the low pizzis enter and EQ would control that too. From then onwards it sounds like there's some odd compression or maybe limiting going on that pumps and muddies the mix. Then I hear really bad distortion in the sound at 2:13, and from then onwards there's general distortion in the whole mix. I've noticed similar distortion before in many of your tracks, and wondered what the source of that might be (and also why you might not be aware of it - monitoring issues?). It might be something that could be easily remedied, and perhaps its simply poor choice of mix bus processing (some saturation included in a mastering plugin that's set inappropriately? Just guessing). Unfortunately though, all these things mean that the delight of this 6/4 piece is marred and it wouldn't get past the screeners in its current state. I hope you manage to sort a few of these things out and get the production side up the standard of the composition. Good luck.

Telefunkin,

I thank you for your detailed critique. I'm in the process of "eating an elephant." What would REALLY be of great help to me would be for you to describe specifically "what" it is that YOU do when the same problems occur within YOUR tracks. You mention EQ, saturation, compression, limiting, distortion and mix bus processing. (FYI, I use Logic Pro as my daw) Specifically, how do you handle these issues/areas? I sincerely appreciate your time to advise, and thank you for noting my progress so far.

Best! John

[johndalenow]

Hey John
Not having a great ear I can tell off the bat that this isn't in the league of the references at all as far as the sounds. That is before I went through the structure. And trust me, my ears for that ain't great. If you read the listing, the bar on this one is an 11 on a scale of 1-10. ("My bar goes up to 11" )

From my POV, this is an example of chasing the wrong types of listings for where you are in your journey right now. Grain of salt: I'm a pure vocal songwriter without production skills. But I really suggest that you work on more mid-bar cues such as for reality TV first and get some successes there (forwards at the minimum). I'm rooting for you.

Given I'm a non-production guy, I welcome comments as to whether my thoughts are right here.

Best,
Casey

Hi Casey,

Thanks for your comments. When "cues" are "on the menu" I usually "order-up," but this trailer request is the kind of listing I ultimately want to pursue. I guess ya could relate it to learning to swim by someone "throwing you in the water." I understand that at least a modicum of preparation is vital, which I am getting on my journey, and I also, because of experience, understand that, after committing to the challenges of the high-bar, eventually I will succeed.

Thank you for all your well-intentioned comments, my friend,

John

[johndalenow]

What would REALLY be of great help to me would be for you to describe specifically "what" it is that YOU do when the same problems occur within YOUR tracks. You mention EQ, saturation, compression, limiting, distortion and mix bus processing. (FYI, I use Logic Pro as my daw) Specifically, how do you handle these issues/areas?

Its tough to answer in any great detail, but then again, following the workflow of even the best producer in the world (not me by any stretch) wouldn't help you anyway if there are systematic problems in your setup. I try and ensure that I can hear what's happening in my mixes. I don't have the best ears, best monitors, or best studio space in world, but I can work with what I've got and they reveal enough about the sound of a track to get me by. For a quick check I can switch to some rubbish monitors that reveal more about the mid-frequencies, and I also find that good ear buds (of all things) can reveal high-end problems that get masked by a full-frequency range sound. They are seriously worth a try, and could be the best few dollars you ever spend. However, I'd suggest listening carefully to the track in question, and see whether you can recognise the things I've mentioned. If not, then perhaps your monitoring is letting you down. If you can hear them, that's good and you might be able to track them down and minimise or eliminate them.

Next, check what's happening that might be causing distortion and/or other problems. Is there anything on your mix bus? Turn it off and see what happens - does the distortion get better? If there's nothing on it at all, then are you pushing the final level over 0dB? What instruments could be causing that (often its the bass end)? Does muting certain instruments give a cleaner mix? If so, either turn those instruments down in the mix, or cut their low end (hp filtering at 20Hz or higher), or turn down the whole mix.

If there are plugins on your mix buss, check what processing they are doing, how hard they are working, and what they are doing to your mix. Try and do as little as possible (at least to start with) to get a clean result even if its not a great balance. Until you can achieve that its going to be difficult to move forward. In general, I prefer to do as little processing as possible to get the result I want. Slapping saturation, a compressor and a limiter on the mix bus might be perfect in some situations but could be totally inappropriate for others. Nothing is set-and-forget for all occasions.

Once you're sure your monitoring is telling you the whole story, and you've eliminated any problem-causing plugins or settings you ought to be in a much better position.

Next, if there are problems in my mixes, it can only be me that created them, so I try not to create them in the first place rather than have to fix them. For example, adding an impact sample with loads of bass in it can be a bad idea if the bass is already active at that point. It piles up low end frequencies that can not only dominate the mix, but also cause any heavy-handed mix bus compression/limiting to clamp down and cause pumping effects and maybe push into distortion too. I try and choose carefully which sounds I want to work together, and I might opt to cut the lows (hp filtering) or duck coincident parts that occupy similar frequencies.

When setting the instrument levels during mixing I'm conscious of where the mix might end up. I wouldn't start by setting a background instrument at a high level, because its obvious that the more prominent instruments might then be too loud and the whole mix could exceed 0db (never a good thing). Therefore, when the mix is coming together, I check the levels on the mix bus. If its too high or low I'd pull all the channel faders down or up (by grouping them so they all move together, but I use Cubase, not Logic) to get a level that makes more sense to me. [By the way, I always leave the master faders at 0, and as far as I'm aware, so does everyone else.]

Exactly what the signal level into the mix bus should be is quite subjective. It depends on your own workflow and what you do next. My choice (although it can be a bit of an iterative process at times) is to get the mix right, and then add mastering plugins on the mix bus so the end product (a mastered track) comes from a single project. Many may think it's entirely wrong and mastering should always be a separate process, but it makes life loads easier and quicker for me and I'm far from the only one who works this way.

What I want to end up with is a master with peaks at -0.3 dB and an RMS (or LUFS) value between -9dBFS and -12dBFS (but it can vary depending on who or what I'm mastering it for). That means I want to hit the mastering plugins with a lower signal level so I can pull it up to where I want using a limiter. I primarily use Izotope's Ozone which includes a nice limiter (and other processing modules) that shows the peak and RMS levels. My preference is to do as little processing as possible on tracks and on the master bus too - the less processing the better. If I can get away with nothing but a limiter on the mix buss that's great but rare. I usually tweak all sorts of things to massage individual instruments, control the dynamics and finally sweeten the mix/master. Ozone offers lots of presets employing various modules that give a different final sound, but not all are appropriate.

Basically then, I get the mix working and keep the levels sensible, and then I set the final mastering level. I sometimes choose an Ozone mastering preset that sounds good to me, or I might use the mastering assistant to see whether it gets a better result, or I might just select some modules and adjust them all myself. I always put the limiter last so there's no further processing after it (or tonal and level changes, although other metering or monitoring is OK).

As a visual reference, the Ozone package also includes a separate module called Tonal Balance. Its shows a frequency band across the whole spectrum where most tracks of a certain genre would lie, plus a curve for your own track as it plays. If your track stays within the band then at least there's some chance that it has a reasonable frequency balance, but it doesn't mean that its perfect - its just a guide. What it often shows me is that I tend to add too much bass, so perhaps I should address that in my own monitoring.

I'm not advocating that you rush to get Ozone and Tonal Balance, but I do find it helpful for me, and eventually hope to be able to get a good tonal balance without the need to use it. We should all learn to trust our ears more.

There's nothing earth-shattering in any of this, so I don't know whether it helps or hinders you, but I do hope you find something useful that can help you clean-up your mixes and set you on a sound path for refining your productions. I would also suggest making friends with some of the Taxi members that specialise in orchestral productions, and they might be able to give you some more absolute advice. Edmond Redd is a very friendly and helpful person who would probably be able to suggest some sources of more reliable information and guidance.

Meanwhile, I hope the elephant doesn't give you indigestion .

WOW!

I am in your debt. I have made a copy of your response and I will "wade" through it directly. BTW, can you recommend speakers at a price of no more than a thousand dollars per speaker?

Again, thank you brother!

Best,

John

[johndalenow]

BTW, can you recommend speakers at a price of no more than a thousand dollars per speaker?

That's a job for Google, for example...
https://producerhive.com/buyer-guides/s ... nder-1000/
https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/best-studio-monitors/
https://hyperbits.com/best-studio-monitors/

.... but again its never as simple as it first seems. Small or big room? Empty with loads of reflections, or great shape with lots of acoustic treatment? Expensive large monitors in a small cubic box will not sound good! Do some careful research based on your own room and its features, but don't rush into it. Kali LP7 seem to get great reviews at the budget end, Adam Ax7 or Focal Alpha might be a step up, Genelec will help you spend your cash and there's a ton of others at any cost you like. Keep grabbing the 'best' lists and you'll see certain names and models keep cropping up = a good choice in general. Take the room thing seriously though, otherwise it could be a bit of a waste. In Mike Senior's book "Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio" he discusses monitoring and its problems. By the time you've read that you might never want any studio monitors, and he makes a good case for mixing on headphones although accepting that they're far from perfect either.
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mi ... all-studio

If you're currently monitoring through some old less than hi-fi amp and dodgy domestic speakers, then any of the budget powered monitors would be a big step-up (and I'm assuming you also have a reasonable interface rather than using the Windows multimedia settings for example). If you already have some half-decent budget monitors (and interface), then you should already be able to discern major quality issues in the mix, even if its not to forensic levels. Spending more on expensive monitors will, in theory (room and hearing permitting) increase the refinement and imaging in the sound presentation, but unless you can perceive, comprehend and act on that refinement its of little use. I'd suggest taking your time and maybe 'grow' into the next step-up in a few stages rather jumping straight in at the serious money end.

Telefunkin,

Prudent advice to be sure. Thanks for all the greatly appreciated help.

John