Cue critique request – Heartbeats

[Raman777]

Hi MLR community,

I’ve been a satisfied customer of MLR for a few years and though I don’t usually post anything, I’ve garnered a lot of helpful information from all of you who post reviews about your experience with the music library world on this site. I recently finished recording a short instrumental cue and I would love to hear your feedback on it.

Raman Sachdev – Heartbeats

— Raman

[Michael Nickolas]

Hi Raman, I like your cue. It’s a pleasure to hear some real emotion in a piece of library music (you can’t go wrong tuning down the sixth string to a low D). I was just listening to some recent releases from a big library and was thinking how it all sounds the same, sounds written only to sell. On the other hand, my sentimental/emotional pieces aren’t big sellers. Clients seem to love their uptemo, feelgood inspirational tracks.

You have some noise in your recording, probably pre-amp hiss from your input device. Something to look into.

[Raman777]

Michael,

Thanks for taking the time to listen and send me feedback.

I’ve also noticed a preference among music libraries for uptempo cues. They tend to catch the listener’s attention more quickly than downtempo cues and don’t demand as much prolonged concentration. I certainly don’t mean to say that writing uptempo instrumentals is easier than writing slower pieces. In fact, I incline towards writing slow to midtempo reflective pieces and find it quite difficult to play faster musical compositions.

As for the hissing sound in the first third of Heartbeats, I intentionally placed that pseudo-gramophone sound effect there. It fades out as the central part of the cue begins. My wife didn’t care for that sound effect; she found it distracting.

Thanks again for your reply.

[Michael Nickolas]

I intentionally placed that pseudo-gramophone sound effect there

I remember once in one of my educational songwriting projects for children I used a kazoo. I thought it was a great idea for a song for kids. The client asked me to remove “that buzzy sounding thing”. 🙂

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