[mylesthebaker]

If you want a quick and easy way I would suggest you could try Toontracks EZMix2 with the added mastering pack. The interface is simple to use and the results are reasonable.

[mylesthebaker]

Anyone had any experience with Steinberg Halion Symphonic Orchestra? Still haven’t used my 3 month fully functonal demo so was thinking of having my first foray into the world of strings and woodwinds over the Xmas period.

[mylesthebaker]

Just had a browse at the fount of all knowledge Wikipedia

They did play all the music live and some of them had only 5 months to learn their instruments.

Love the drummers relaxed groovy style

When the Japanese do something anything other than perfect isn’t an option which is a strength and a weakness!

[mylesthebaker]

Hello Art

That film was so popular here. All the junior high schools have a brass band club and the playing is of a really high standard. Mind you as with most Japanese things they do it almost to a professional level practicing before and after school almost every day, on weekends and even in the holidays. My local school just won the regional competition with a great set of Elvis and Rock’n’Roll numbers, they put on quite a show!

[mylesthebaker]

Nice one Mark! Sound and sage advice!

 

[mylesthebaker]

Thanks guys, some really useful stuff. On the getting tracks finished front when I was younger I had so many unfinished tracks that I probably only managed a few tracks a year so, I try and prescribe to the ‘finish what I have started’ way of thinking now often due to a time limit imposed externally or sometimes setting one for myself. If not I would probably go on remixing something until I retire!

Because it is very easy for me to get sidetracked or just leave my music gear alone it has made a significant difference to me by getting everything switched on and up and running when I first get up and also following Aaron at Renegades advice by trying to do at least one or two things every day, be it composing, recording , mixing, mastering, emails or making phone calls. Eventually the cumulative effort does make a difference and I am beginning to see some progress!

[mylesthebaker]

Great post Michael. You are a man of knowledge and experience. It would be good to know some of the smaller companies that pay a lesser upfront fees.

Listening to Erwins (50Styles) tracks you can see why his music is so successful.

 

[mylesthebaker]

We all have to start somewhere Anon. I little bit less negativity and a bit more encouragement might be a bit more helpful ie. some tips on how to get in to these ‘serious companies’!

[mylesthebaker]

Thanks Denis and Jay for your responses.

In reply to Denis for me I would adjust that slightly to 80% perspiration (it gets pretty hot here in Japan) 10% inspiration and 10% frustration. I am stubborn tho and keep plugging away. Jay I am impressed with your committment and will to succeed.

For my own situation, I started trying to get into this thing a couple of years ago and after a false start (I had a bunch of old band tracks that I put up on various places then realised I needed to get permission from all the musicians who had played on them so I had to pull them off again) But I have had some success with Revostock and Ambient Music Garden. Until recently most of my energies have been going in to placing a bunch of CD’s by the late husband of a friend of mine who was a fairly well known musician/performer here in Japan. To that end I had to firstly digitize 60 CD’s and do all the metadata/keywords etc. Then I spent several months putting it onto places like Audiosparx and Revostock which takes so much time and energy. As yet I haven’t seen any rewards from that but I am ever hopeful and Abient Music Garden has had steady sales. The reason I posted this quetion is I guess because I am in a process of trying to change how I work. Instead of spending hours putting my friends music up on royalty free sites I am going back to doing what I enjoy, which is writing and recording my own 2 minute ‘masterpieces’ and building up a decent library of my own works.

I am a full time English Teacher here as well as doing the foreign wedding thing at the weekends and I play in a band so at present my time is limited but I am working towards making the most of what time I do have which is mostly in the mornings. Now when I get up the first thing I do is get all my music stuff switched on and ready to go. Then while I potter around and wait for the bath to run I will listen to whatever I have been working on (At present that is mixing my bands 1st CD). Then after my bath I get stuck in to working on it until lunch time, with plenty of short breaks (good advice there Denis!). After lunch I might put in another short stint and then when I get home (usually about 8-9 ish) I sometimes do a little bit more but am usually too knackered so vegetate in front of the TV.

I think I am at the point now where I know where I want to be and have set my self the target of having my own library of tracks (say 2 CD’s in about 10-12 styles) finished within the next 3 years.

This change in my attitude has partly come about because I and a couple of friends have all decided we are not satified with certain things and have formed a small support group to look at goals and how we can acheive them. Mostly it’s about working thru small achievable steps to get to where we want to go!

With regard to my friends music I am changing tack and trying to find smaller more bespoke companies like Altarboy who might give the music mor attention than a company like Audiosparx or Revostck and I don’t have to do the uploading and setting up (cue big sigh of relief!).

Cheers

mylesthebaker

[mylesthebaker]

Like many on here I started with a Tascam 4 track and graduated to a midi setup with and Atari 1040st, Sansui 6 track and a Casio FZ1 sampler (I wish I still had it as it was great for drums!)

Then I went on to Cubase SX1 which I used for many years along with an Edirol UA 700 interface (great because it had mic and guitar modelling). Most of my sales have been achieved using this setup. In the last year I have had a more professional setup with Cubase 6.

When I listen back to my old recordings the thing that stands out for me is that I worked hard to get the sounds right at source as after recording the options were limited.

As my equipment has improved the speed at which I can make music has improved but the care taken with what I do hasn’t. Now I don’t worry so much if a vocal is a bit out as I can tweak it in the DAW. I think there is some sort of inverse law that should be coined as ‘DAWS Law’ which states that the effort taken to produce music with good quality performances, decreases in inverse proportion to the increase in facilities available on each new version of the software!

[mylesthebaker]

Well that’s a waste of time then! Sometimes you get a feeling something isn’t worth the effort and that was my view when I quit Music Xray before so this doesn’t fill me with motivation to go back!

 

[mylesthebaker]

No idea what it’s about as I did have some tracks uploaded a year or 2 ago but closed my account. Maybe they love me so much they want to entice me back. I guess they are trying to get a significant boost to their catalogue numbers.

 

[mylesthebaker]

Just got this in email

We’ve got some money for you. We’re not kidding.

Hi there,

We’ve noticed that you’ve never uploaded any of your music to Music Xray.

Today and this weekend, we will give you $1 in credit for each song you upload into your account (up to $8).

Log in and get started now.

Caution, this is only valid for direct uploads, not music we import for you (although automatic imports from SoundCloud are covered under this offer).

We will check your account next week and we will credit your account before Friday November 2nd, 2012
The Music Xray team

[Author]

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