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My cues from a year ago definitely fit the bill for fake and mechanical. Finally making improvement after the steep learning curve of working with samples. Still a long way to go but now at least getting a positive response. The proof really is in the pudding since early on I thought I was just about ready to submit. Humbling.
When I was very young, I had a mentor who was a pioneer in electronic music. He was a genius at creating electronic orchestras with analog synths (before samplers).
He told me that if you wanted an electronic instrument to sound like a real instrument, e.g., a trumpet or violin, you had to think and play like a trumpet player or a violinist.
Two examples:
1) When trumpets play a crescendo, the tone gets brighter as the instrument gets louder. Even if you have good samples, like CineBrass, if you don’t use the mod wheel, or breath controller to create that effect with any musicality, it doesn’t sound right.
2) When strings play “pads” there’s generally a lot going on. They don’t just play “footballs.” There should be dynamics, awareness of vibrato and movement in the writing.
If you don’t understand these things even good samples will sound keyboard or “organ-like.”
You don’t have to be Wynton Marsalis or Joshua Bell for production music. But, once you rise above, or set your sites above, reality TV, you will be competing with writers who go to great lengths to bring musicality to their work, by shaping almost every note and writing authentically.
So…even if you’re not shooting for the big time does it still matter? I think so. Competition is fierce at all levels. My personal belief, whether you’re going the Exclusive WFH, non-WFH (exclusive or not), or RF route, the more musical your work is, the more it will get noticed and purchased or placed.
Just my 2 cents.
_Michael
“Think and play like a drummer” is one of the first things I learned about creating drum tracks. Sometimes when listening to composer’s drum tracks I wonder where the fills and cymbals are. Or why haven’t they changed the beat up for the chorus maybe with a ride cymbal or adding to the kick drum pattern. Or I hear something that would take a real drummer three hands to do. 🙂
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