Ever bought a sample pack with melodic loops, only to find that the performances are locked to a specific tempo? In those situations, you can often find that writing a track around those loops can be the easiest way forward. You need it to feel natural and not that the melodic loop was forced into …
When starting your journey as a library music composer, you’ll need to write a bunch of tracks in preparation to send to prospective libraries. You know one of the biggest challenges about writing library music for sending to these companies before they’ve shown any interest? Finishing. I know that if you’re anything like me, finishing …
We happily spend time layering up Guitars, Vocals, Keyboards and Percussion, but when was the last time you layered up the Bass in your tracks? Yup, thought so! 😉 Below is a video guide on how (and why) to start layering up Bass in your music to get some interesting results that can make …
This post is super short. It’s also very important if you’re writing Production Music. I had a great email this week from a composer who has taken the “Library Music That Sells” course and watched the recently added “Deep Dive” video walk-through of one of my tracks that has done well for me regarding …
We all agree that TV and Film music needs to breathe. It often needs a rich, full sound whilst simultaneously staying out of the way for voiceover or sound effects. This is not an area of music production where you want to suffer from an overly-busy or cluttered end result! Layering your Percussion (with or …
“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is resistance.” -Steven Pressfield Ever found yourself avoiding sitting down to make music, even though you love doing it? …
I’m currently in the midst of a heavy writing deadline for a 4-part TV series, having to write a lot of music as quickly as possible. I wanted to share with you two techniques I’m using to help me write and produce more efficiently within my DAW, (Digital Audio Workstation.) They are useful for any …
UPDATE – Since the post below was written, Discovery Networks have U-Turned on their decision to proceed with Direct Licensing. However, we will leave the below post active as a guide to Direct Licensing in general. The hot topic in the media composer community right now is that Discovery Networks (who own Discovery Channel, …
There’s an affliction that affects a lot of us composers, music producers and musicians: buying more gear. For many of us, this takes the form of new plug-ins and samples for our DAW’s, be it a new string library, reverb or EQ plug-in. For others, it may be a new guitar, or additional microphones. Should …
TV composing: Is there enough work out there? It can be tough to launch a career scoring TV shows. As you look into getting work in this area, you may, at times, wonder if there is even enough work out there for you to somehow squeeze your way in. It struck me recently how the …