TAXI.com

Greetings,

I'm new to Taxi, having joined last month. 5 years ago, I was working with an agency to place my songs in the TV industry, and they asked me to send them a CD of all the songs remixed without vocals. So I had the engineer remix them without vocals. I did the same for two other CDs I released later. My question is: for Taxi submissions where they want instrumental cues, is it a good idea to submit these non-vocal mixes as is, or should I edit them down to remove the verses? Since the vocals carried the melody, and that's gone now, the verses sound a little strange. I wondering if music without a melody is of any use in a cue? And since they seem to want cues of 2 to 2 1/2 minutes, and song might be 4 minutes, should I cut at least some verses out? It shouldn't be too hard for me to just load the non-vocal songs into a DAW and edit them down.

Like I said, I'm new to all this, so I'm trying to figure out if there's any use for my songs in the film and TV industry, and how to best submit things. So suggestions and advice are greatly appreciated. I just submitted 3 non-vocal songs mixes, and realized I should have posted this question in the forum first! Oh well, next time I'll know.

Rob Roper

Hey Rob,

I haven't had any success yet, so I'm not the most qualified here, and without actually hearing the tracks, it's hard to give an informed opinion. That said, I suggest adding the melody with some lead instrument - something that fits the genre.

More important is paying attention to what the listing is asking for and delivering that. If you've got a song that would be perfect for a listing but it's four minutes and the listing calls for between 2 and 2:30, by all means, edit away. Check out some of the archived Taxi TV shows on ustream for more info.

If you plan to submit for instrumental cues, for the most part they do not follow song form unless specifically requested. Almost all listings call for 2 minutes of music. Sometimes that's max, sometimes it's 'at least'.

I would suggest editing them to:
Short intro (optional, 2 to 4 bars)
Chorus 1 (add melody)
verse 3 (assuming it has more instrumentation than verse 1, add melody)
Chorus 3 (add harmonic line)
stingout or button ending

If you need more length I would perhaps do
Short intro (4 bars)
Chorus 1 (add melody)
verse 3 (assuming it has more instrumentation than verse 1, add melody)
Chorus 2 (add harmony)
Chorus 3 (add additional counterpoint if needed)
stingout or button ending

After editing for length then you could add the melody played by one or more instruments. As you progress through the piece you may want to add a harmonic line to that for variety. I'm also assuming, as noted, that the instrumental part of the songs developed over the course of the song and therefore the last chorus has more ear candy than the first.

Sometimes you will see calls for instrumental beds without melody as well.

Just remember to start with the chorus. Instrumental cues are A section (B section) A section. Button or sting ending, no fades.

cheers
H'bird

Mike and Hummingbird,

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate it. Cutting stuff is relatively easy, but adding anything, such as an instrument to play the melody, could be a little difficult. I can think of 2 ways to do that: 1) import the stereo master into the DAW, record a melody instrument, and remix; or 2) ask the engineer for the wav files of all the tracks, import those, record the melody instrument, and remix. Option 1 is easiest by far, but perhaps questionable from a fidelity standpoint. Option 2 means I have to either pay the engineer to remix it, or do it myself, and I'm ok as an engineer but not a professional.

Any other suggestions?

Rob

Rob, you could always use one of those audio-to-midi plugins in the daw. Cubase has one in the variaudio section. It takes a monophonic signal (vocal), you can also edit it, then export as a midi file.
If you don't edit the audio, like straighten the pitch bends or vibrato, if the midi wasn't used for a horn sound of some kind it might sound strange. It wouldn't necessarily need to sit on top of the mix, because just by being the melody, it will be noticeable. Check the daw you are using, it probably has one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF44ToYhaBg

If you want a free method, http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/

what follows is my opinion and it may or may not make sense to you:

Most people who do instrumental type placements do their own recording, engineering, mixing and mastering.

Its easier to balance the $$$ spent on gear and the earnings (at least at first when it might be a trickle of $).

So...these items are easy:
But yes, you will spend some time getting a good mix. Its worth it in the end because it will make things much more flexible moving forward.

This should be simple - you should be able to get the Pro Tools session (or whatever your engineer used) and just open it up and start working on it.

CAVEAT: Say the engineer used Pro Tools and mixed on a console.

without a console with settings that you can recall the mix will be totally different.

If the engineer used Pro Tools in the box, and you have Pro Tools, then its just a matter of you having the same plugins. That could be cheap money in the long run to get those plugins. Or you could remix with other plugins that are stock in your DAW.
If the engineer used Pro Tools and you have Cubase or similar, then you are going to have to pay the engineer to output stems / splits of the session so that you can bring them in to your DAW to work on them. Or an AAF or OMF package. Its reasonable to assume the engineer would charge for that.

If it were me I would get started on being a good enough engineer / mixer to fix / upgrade / change anything that you have.

I think Vikki well covered how you could adjust the arrangement so they just don't sound dead in the verses.

hummingbird wrote:If you plan to submit for instrumental cues, for the most part they do not follow song form unless specifically requested. Almost all listings call for 2 minutes of music. Sometimes that's max, sometimes it's 'at least'.

I would suggest editing them to:
Short intro (optional, 2 to 4 bars)
Chorus 1 (add melody)
verse 3 (assuming it has more instrumentation than verse 1, add melody)
Chorus 3 (add harmonic line)
stingout or button ending

If you need more length I would perhaps do
Short intro (4 bars)
Chorus 1 (add melody)
verse 3 (assuming it has more instrumentation than verse 1, add melody)
Chorus 2 (add harmony)
Chorus 3 (add additional counterpoint if needed)
stingout or button ending

After editing for length then you could add the melody played by one or more instruments. As you progress through the piece you may want to add a harmonic line to that for variety. I'm also assuming, as noted, that the instrumental part of the songs developed over the course of the song and therefore the last chorus has more ear candy than the first.

Sometimes you will see calls for instrumental beds without melody as well.

Just remember to start with the chorus. Instrumental cues are A section (B section) A section. Button or sting ending, no fades.

cheers
H'bird

Thank you hummingbird! This post should be a sticky for people trying to figure out cues.

YW

By the way, be sure you have a work for hire signed by the engineer/producer and any musicians before you consider submitting for film/tv. You must own the master and the performances to pitch, as mentioned in many Taxi listings.

Another approach I use is if the song has the structure VCVCBC as many popular songs do, simply start the instrumental track at verse 2. In many cases, that makes a backing track more interesting and gets to the "meat" faster. Of course, it varies on a case by case basis but I've done OK this way.

There are a number of libraries that place backing tracks as instrumental cues on reality TV shows. But definitely do what you can to make them as interesting as possible, getting to the good stuff quickly.

Best
Casey

Casey H wrote:Another approach I use is if the song has the structure VCVCBC as many popular songs do, simply start the instrumental track at verse 2. In many cases, that makes a backing track more interesting and gets to the "meat" faster. Of course, it varies on a case by case basis but I've done OK this way.

There are a number of libraries that place backing tracks as instrumental cues on reality TV shows. But definitely do what you can to make them as interesting as possible, getting to the good stuff quickly.

Best
Casey

Awesome. Casey and Hummingbird. This info is exactly what I needed to know. (Sorry to high jack the thread, just excited lol.) I even bought a book to try and find the common structures... the book touched on everything but what I needed lol