Trailer Music Track

[shenrichs]

If anyone cares to listen to my trailer music track and give your feedback I’d really appreciate it:

https://soundcloud.com/steve-henrichs/gate-of-time

[cozyhand3]

Sounds great to me! Thanks for sharing, Shenrichs.

[Mark_Petrie]

It’s a nice piece, and with a bit of mixing clean up and production help it would be great for TV.

If it’s critiqued for trailers, to be blunt it doesn’t quite have the production value or emotional depth and arc for trailer placement. You should listen and compare this to other trailer music that has been placed in a big trailer… you probably start too strong out the gate and leave less room to build.
If a trailer track should start at a ‘1’ (dramatically speaking) and gradually get to a ’10’, this track starts more like at a 3 and gets to a 7.

Getting a track to start small and then grow to where it sounds like it’s hit ’10’ is very hard – believe me I know after over 300 attempts at writing trailer music. You basically can’t leave anything out by the very end – it has to be the most dramatic ending possible – both musically (you’re pretty close here) and production / arrangement wise (that’s where you really need to focus more attention).

[shenrichs]

Mark, thanks for the tips – much appreciated.

[boinkeee2000]

Hi Mark, when you say “production value” do you mean the quality of sample libraries used besides the mixing/mastering? is it all about the hybrid orchestra atm? just listened to audiomachine’s “so say we all” that was used on end game trailer and heard all your points…i get the emotional depth and arc thing, just the prod value still stumped…quick note i dont do trailer music just picking your brain

great job shen, cant see how your track cant be profitable with those few tweaks advised

[Mark_Petrie]

What I mean by ‘production value’ covers everything about the finished product – the execution of the musical ideas. That includes arrangement (voicing, orchestration and counterpoint), as well as the choice of palette – the overall color scheme of a track…the synths and augmentation you give to the orchestral parts. How good the samples sound is a critical part of that, but not the only job that falls under getting the production as polished as possible.

Someone like the genius Thomas Bergersen can make samples from 2004 sound better than new ones that just came out – it’s really more about how you use the tools you have.

Then there’s the mix, and everything that is beyond simply balancing the track and making sure it’s not clipping – treating most tracks with some degree of EQ and compression, what reverb(s) you’re using, and what mastering chain you run on the master fader.

[shenrichs]

Thanks for the clarification Mark.

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