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Aaah, when I was a Teenager, the only recording apparatus I could afford was one of these tape recorders with integrated microphones lol. I had to wait for my first salary at 26 (I very did long studies) which went all in the first affordable digital 8-track, a Fostex DMT8 VL, the second month, a Korg M1 second hand that could then be piloted by an ATARI-1040 with Cubase V1.0 (I still have the latter in the corner of my studio btw… no collectors around here ? 😉 ).
Memories memories…
I used to ‘write’ (and I use that term loosely) very quickly when I was working for TV music companies full time. Sometimes we’d be writing 5 or more tracks a day. It was fun to crank out a lot, but it’s unsustainable, and after a while very unsatisfying creatively.
Have you found more joy in slowing down? More success?
For things other people need hours and days I need minutes or hours
On some levels this is the difference between a professional and a non-professional.
By analogy: I just finished renovating parts of my house. It took me 6 months to accomplish what a professional would have done in 2 months.
The results are very good, but I am not as fast as someone who does this kind of work every day, for a living. Moreover, the results are not at the same level, in many cases, as a professional.The same is true with composing. What you describe Wildman is training, knowledge and experience, all of which take years to aquire, through study and practice. Those are the fundementals that go into becoming a pro, whether you write for orchestra or make beats.
When people say “I do X amount of cues in a day” it’s really not relevant, because it depends on the following:
1) The individual’s skill level. If you don’t have some basic grasp of theory, you are not writing music, you are reinventing it, which will take a lot longer.
2) The kind of music you are writing…no one is producing 3 or 4 cues per day at the compositional level of a cue that Mark Petrie spent a week on. On the other hand, you should be able to do more than one typical reality / cable cue in a day, and
3) the tools (gear) that you have available. That speaks for itself.
If you don’t have good gear, you will waste hours, days, weeks trying to make what you have sound better (and probably still not be happy).If you open up your template and have a full orchestra at your fingertips, and your FX routing set up, you are going to be able to work quickly. It’s the same no matter what genre you’re working in.That’s how top recording engineers work.
The more that you have in your “toolkit” both intellectually and physically, the less time you spend searching for “it,” whether “it” is a sound, or the next chord.
Just my opinion.
Michael
If you open up your template and have a full orchestra at your fingertips, and your FX routing set up, you are going to be able to work quickly. It’s the same no matter what genre you’re working in.That’s how top recording engineers work.
What I meant to say here is that another way of speeding things up is to streamline your workflow. One way of doing that is with templates. If every cue is a blank page, you are reinventing the wheel.
Oops, somewhere along the line everyone decided to make themselves cheaper. We devalued ourselves. I always set a goal of making the cue good enough to hopefully claw back a grand in earnings through royalties and license fees over time. Easier said than done….
More advice, do you think that you will make a difference and command $1,000 doing work-for-hire assignments? If you already are commanding this, how did you set yourself apart from others?
I am always interested in learning how the successful people got to where they are. I know that many composers, including me, are busy chasing libraries and seeking out work.
I now want to learn about those composers that have stopped chasing opportunities and are now being chased or at least courted by music production companies that pay money for music.
“How much time do you spend on a broadcast quality cue?” and the answer is always “at least 10 hours.” ‘At Least” is the operative word and I would not be surprised if 12 to 14 is more realistic from composition to live recording overdubs to final mix and mastering.
That’s true for me also. I have (and can) crank out cues much faster but I never find it as satisfying. I really do enjoy the process more than the end result. As I mentioned earlier I have had success with those “cranked” cues but they don’t seem to satisfy as much creatively.
If you open up your template and have a full orchestra at your fingertips, and your FX routing set up, you are going to be able to work quickly. It’s the same no matter what genre you’re working in.That’s how top recording engineers work.
This a vital step, I have a few templates for different things. VEPro is also handy for this. I also use the Waves signature series plugins a lot as they get you 60-90% there very quickly. I also have a few mastering templates too that I can recall setups very quickly. It really is worth spending a day organizing this. Also learn what a compressor and eq actually does, I am lucky enough to be trained in one of the last big studios when a compressor was a large silver box.
Looking back at my workflow and catalogue I average 80-100 cues p.a.
Have you found more joy in slowing down? More success?
A lot more, the $ earned per minute of slower, more refined music is noticeable.
A lot more, the $ earned per minute of slower, more refined music is noticeable.
That is good.
I have a bunch of music out there already. The money will come eventually, or not! But the chase for royalties isn’t fun anymore. I remembered when I started out a few years ago.
Companies that didn’t pay upfront always stressed the importance of backend royalties growing and growing every year. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. At least not for me.
They go up and down pretty wildly. I do not know what to expect anymore. Even though I have music in more shows, I do not necessarily expect a big increase in PRO money. That is unfortunate considering the amount of time I spent making music. My music is not mind-blowing, but I get staedy placements in shows. That shows that I have some talent and a marketable product.
Anyway, thanks for the tips guys.
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