[GM]

Hi Edouardo
I loved your tracks, all of them. They seem very high quality to me.
I can’t offer any advice on the cinematic and the electronic tracks, as they are not my “area” (but they sound good to me anyway).
I loved “Ethnic Revolt”. The only detail that I think it could be improved is that the wind instrument playing the main melody (not sure what it is) seems to be a bit “loopish”, a bit repetitive. Not sure it’s a loop, but it’s either that, or very, very similar performances throughout. I would “humanize” the performance a little bit, if possible.
Same thing for “Feel the Brass” (nice track), this time about the double bass. Same feeling of “loopishness” (great riff though!!). Also, I’m not sure I love the delays throws on the brass, they seem a bit too obvious to me, but it’s just a matter of taste.
But these are small details. The tracks sound awesome to me.

[GM]

Completely agree with Mlmusic.
I also agree with Michael. However, I don’t think it is exactly about commerce vs art, as you said Michael. To me, at least, is not an issue of “art”. I think it’s more like an issue of quality vs. quantity. You can write “Imagine” or “Yesterday” in 5 minutes, if you’re talented like those guys from Liverpool. Or you can spend two years trying composing a track and still that track may suck, from an “artistic” point of view. So, art is not my point. My point is “production”. In order to produce a track to make it sound really “professional” (or “world class”, as Trackmaster put it) – regardless of its artistic value – there are limits to what anybody can do in 2 hours or 4 hours (or 4 days, for that matter, depending on genre etc.) My guess is that if you make 1 or 2 or 4 tracks per day, chances are that your track is unpolished to say the least. You do sacrifice quality for quantity. Even if you don’t realize it. And yes, there is a correlation between time and quality. How could it not be? Great production is often about a thousand tiny details adding up. Ask the top mixers, ask the Pensado’s of this world. And that takes time. Of course, that doesn’t mean that such track won’t sell well, or won’t be a success, or won’t be accepted by top libraries in the business. It may well happen. And if you’re smart and talented it may happen quite often, like it’s happening to Trackmaster and others I guess. All I’m saying is that THERE IS a trade-off between quality and quantity, for all of us. Pretending that there is no such thing is just silly. Nowadays, it’s just happening in this business that such trade-off is clearly pushing us to favor quantity over quality. As a music producer, I may have to deal with it it and adapt (or die). I might even embrace it. Whatever. But as a music lover (and as a music production lover), I think it’s pretty sad.
My 2 cents of course.

[GM]

@OverDub

Yes, I think that you want to make money with certain libraries you have to put out tracks like popcorn – or burgers 🙂
But, as AlpacaRoom said, this is not necessarily true for all libraries, all genres etc.

Anyway, OverDub, I am truly amazed that you can make an acoustic (!!) or rock (!!) track, all with live (!!) instruments, and then mix it in 2-3 hours. I (almost / kinda) understand this in genres where problems like mic placements etc are not an issue (using mostly synths). But using real instruments? Wow. It takes me two hours just by getting the sound I want from my acoustic guitar …

As usual, to each his own 🙂

[GM]

Trackmaster

It’s all good. Music is what it is to you. We probably just have different ideas about what music is, and what’s composing. That’s fine.

Just for the record, I never said that you should change your approach, I never said that you use mostly loops (although I did think so, but I never said it – I said I used loops for my 4 hours experiment), and I never said that what you do is easy – ok, I said that burgers are easy, I admit it .. :-). Basically, I just said that it’s not for me. I just shared my own experience. That’s all I meant to say.

Anyway, if you actually don’t use loops and 1) compose from scratch, 2) perform from scratch (on your keyboard, guitar, drums, bass etc), 3) mix and 4) master a song made of 25-30 tracks (!!!) in just 4 hours, and the result is high quality or “world class” … well … my hats off to you, really. You truly are a-m-a-z-i-n-g. A sort of music acrobat. It sounds almost like a miracle to me, but what do I know, right? I would be really, really curious to see you at work – seriously, I would gladly PAY to learn that kind of skill … in fact, maybe you could make a lot of money teaching people how to do it. Just thinking about it, usually professionally mixing ONE song takes at least a full day of work, and that’s considered very fast in the business (I’m talking professional mixers here, of course, for professional results). And that’s just the mixing part. As I said, you teach people how you do it and become rich and famous … just a thought.

good luck

[GM]

Trackmaster,
I do not question the quality of your music or the passion you put into it. I’m sure you make great stuff and get joy out of it. I was just talking about me. I would never be able – or willing – to do 1 or 2 tracks per day, no matter the genre. I think I would get bored, or stressed out – or both – pretty quickly. It’s just my approach to music making (even if it’s production music), to what music means to me, to what writing music means to me, to what I get from this experience. It’s just me.

I just want to be clear: I wasn’t criticizing you or the McDonald-like approach to music making. It is McDonaldization, though. One track per day is super fast, compared to what music making used to be (in the past, but not too long ago). It is fast food. Quick, easy, cheap. Nothing wrong with that. I LOVE a good burger. I just don’t mistake cooking a burger with creating a gourmet meal. Some may prefer the former, some the latter. Sometimes you want one, sometimes the other. But they are different things. Very, very different. Besides, I think I can do it too. In fact, I did. As an experiment, one day I decided to put together a track from scratch in 4 hours, not a minute more. As a sort of “challenge” to myself. So I did. It came out nice, actually. I used a bunch of pre-made loops and samples of course. I even made a few bucks out of it. Did I enjoy it? Not really. More like eating a burger. Putting together pre-made parts and ingredients. Once in a while, it’s ok. It may serve a purpose. But in the long term, it will kill me, just like burgers. It will kill my inspiration, my love for music, the joy I get out of it. I need vegetables and vitamins too … 🙂
Again, it’s just me.

If, going forward, that will become the only way to make a living making music, well, I won’t be part of the game. I’ll find something else to do. Maybe I’ll work at McDonald 🙂

[GM]

Great job Adi. By the way, I love your watermark generator!!

[GM]

For what I’ve seen on youtube, 8dio’s dobro virtual instrument seems really good (I think they have two instruments, a solo and a strummer as well).

[GM]

I guess non americans cannot really sign this petition, right?

[GM]

Edouardo
i’m glad to help … by the way I also had a Korg M1 long time ago and … well, I still have it! A beloved, good old friend! 🙂

[GM]

Another small developer with excellent plugins and very cheap prices is ToneBoosters, I forgot about them. I own only 1 plugin, but I tried some others that came free with some magazines (2 or 3, you can find info on the website). Really good plugins, some quite innovative. A lot of people absolutely love them, at Gearslutz. Prices are about 19$ per plugin.

[GM]

Art, that’s just great … 🙂

[GM]

You’re welcome Art. And thank you for emphasizing my post.
I just want to point out that I am NOT associated with any of these plugin makers that I mentioned 🙂
I’ve been making music with pc for about 30 years now. My first Cubase was running on an Atari machine 🙂
Geez, I’m old.
So, even though I am a musician, not a mixing engineer, I’ve been through A LOT of plugins of all kinds all these years, like many of you guys I guess. Expensive ones too.
Well, I think that NOW things are very different than just a few years ago.
These small developers (often just one super-talented person) are multiplying, and the best of them have incredible products. They provide super quality and, more often than not, true innovation. Please notice, I don’t really like the “free” idea. I don’t like when good production music is given away free or too cheap, and I feel the same about software. Talent and work should be rewarded fairly. So I encourage everybody to try those free plugins, and if you like them, make a donation or purchase the “gentleman” edition, if you can. Most of them will blow your mind. Judge with your ears.
So, although I don’t like the free concept, I also don’t like being taken advantage of. I am not so sure why should I pay hundreds of dollars for a single plugin that doesn’t even sound as good as those free ones. There’s something wrong somewhere … in the meanwhile, I try to support those small developers, because it’s a win-win-win situation: my wallet wins, my music wins, and the real talent of these developers wins.

[GM]

I’ll post my 2 cents here.
Izotope products are excellent (I bought an old version of Ozone, years ago). However … I am lately more and more convinced that it is possible to build a complete arsenal of top-notch plugins and tools for very little money. A few examples:

From Klanghelm:
– MJUC compressor, just came out. 24 dollars. Three character compressors in one. The vast majority of guys at Gearslutz claim it’s one the best compressors EVER, if not THE best ever. No kidding. I bought it. I agree.

– DC8C compressor, probably the most versatile compressor on the market. Superb quality. It takes some serious learning, but with this one you can do ANYTHING. Price? 20 dollars.

– SDRR superb saturator, I dont use it a lot, but when I need a saturator, you can’t beat it. Extremely flexible, incredible sound. 22 dollars.

From Tokyo Dawn Labs:
– Kotelnikov compressor: this is a mastering compressor. Absolutely superb. By far, the best clean, transparent mastering compressor on the market. Very flexible, very innovative, very … everything. And it’s FREE (yes, free) (a gentlemen edition is available for a few dollars, and it doesn’t add anything crucial. The free edition is more than enough for even complex tasks. But, if you’re a gentleman …)
– SlickEQ equalizer: a masterpiece. Simple as that. Just the auto-gain thing alone changed the way I mix. Superb sound. FREE (again, if you’re a gentlemen … in this case the gentleman edition adds something useful like a VERY nice tilt function).

From Variety of Sound:
– All of their plugins are absolutely brilliant and FREE. Use them all the time. Nice variety too. I particularly love the HDR (very innovative concept … very useful for mastering) and Ferric, amazing sound. But you’ll find a very good reverb, SUPERB equalizers (several) etc. And they are all FREE.

From Sonimus:
– I have their console emulations (Satson and Britson) and SonEq Pro, a brilliant, brilliant eq. 39 dollars for the consoles, 49 dollars for the eq. I did splurge here 🙂 Great products, small prices.

From SKNote:
– brilliant plugins, some very innovative, super cheap. I have no direct experience here, but I’m about to buy a couple. But the good folks at Gearslutz are in love with SKNote products. Prices? Very, very, very cheap.

These are the ones that I know because I use them (besides SKNote). All FREE or close to free plugins, TOP QUALITY, at least on par (or, more often, much better!!) to those from larger companies that charge hundreds of dollars per plugin.
Judge with your ears, not with the price tag.

[GM]

I’ve been a Cubase user for a long, long, long time. Then I tried Studio One by Presonus. Switched immediately, and never looked back.
The only thing I feel S1 is still missing is a good way to edit articulations. In that respect, Cubase is still number one. But for everything else, S1 – for my needs – is way better (and much cheaper!!). Just my opinion of course.

[GM]

I share a similar experience.
I’ve had a bad january, good february, very good march, and complete disaster in april and, so far, may. The whole month of april and these 10 days in may have the been the worst I’ve ever seen. I hope it’s just a statistical fluctuation. But I do think that the RF market is going down the drain in the short-medium term (for composers, not necessarily for libraries).
I agree with what Michael and Eduardo said. However I am not so sure that, as Michael said, older tracks may have a disadvantage because of the increasing quality of sample libraries and sounds. I wish it was like that! But my feeling is that quality (in all respects: composition quality, sound quality, mixing and mastering quality etc) is a minor issue. It’s very sad, but if you have a listen at best sellers tracks at, say, Pond5, you see what I mean.
Not sure about other libraries, because in others it is not possible to see what are the best sellers. But Pond5 is a big market, and I think it may represent reasonably well the trends in the RF overall scene.

I also feel that the “snowball” effect described by Eduardo is very real. I experienced it myself, for a short period of time, with one of my tracks at Pond5. It was a vocal track. By sheer coincidence, I guess, I sold it several times in a short matter of time. The thing started snowballing fast, and I sold it many times in a matter of days, I guess because when people searched for vocal tracks found my track on top of their search results. Then it stopped selling completely pretty quickly. I guess other tracks got a stronger snowball effect than mine, and my tracks got buried deep in the search results. I am strongly convinced that the stronger predictor for sales, by far, is the average position of the track in the search results. All the rest – including quality – is secondary at best. I think there was a research by a social scientist called Salganick showing this effect with music markets.
This also means that the way search engines in libraries are designed is absolutely crucial.
Anyway, on my part, I keep my other sources of income, as Michael suggested, and I keep making the best music I can, simply because I care about the quality of my music 🙂 But I dont know, maybe if music was my only source of income I would think differently. And that’s the sad part: paradoxically, if you only make music for a living, and if the RF market is an important source of your income, you might be pushed to care less about quality and more about other things (quantity etc). If this is true (not sure), it’s pretty sad.

[Author]

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