Realstrings 2011

My Christmas holidays treat is to play around with pretty pictures in Final Cut.  And this year in iStopMotion too.  Oh yeah, and to review some of the jobs for realstrings in 2011.  With thanks to all the artists, musicians, producers, composers, publishers and labels.

In the charts with Olly Murs

Finally, a track I worked on at number 1 in the singles chart!  Olly Mur’s Dance With Me Tonight, produced by Futurecut.

You have to listen pretty carefully to hear our contribution which doesn’t start till about minute before the end.  Strings were arranged and recorded throughout the track but just the last bit made it to the mix.  Simple arrangement, straightforward to record, not much different from any other pop job, except this is doing good business!

 

Share or buy?

The debate about fie sharing has been running for years.  I’m not in the camp that says the technology that permits file-sharing is killing the media industry; it’s the same technology that has revolutionised my life and work, so complaining about tech advances is hypocrasy on my part.  Taking something that you should pay for isn’t tech’s fault; it’s a weakness of human nature.

So how do I react when my loops libraries, which are an important part of my portfolio of work, appear on file sharing sites?  I am on a sales royalty (a minority percentage) so unless the libraries generate income, my investment is wasted, as are the investments of Loopmasters.  (My investment is time, studio and musicians’ fees.)

I’m frustrated, angry but ultimately optimistic.

Each copy taken does not necessarily mean a lost sale.
Some who search for a string loops library will buy it, some will take it.  Some will stumble across it and it and take it, just ‘cos they can, but probably wouldn’t buy it.

File-sharers ultimately become file buyers.
I may struggle to remember the distant past, but I know for sure that I was young, and stupid and short of money and mad that I couldn’t seem to afford everything I wanted.  But I’m older and wiser and have some social responsibility and a conscience now.  I pay for software and media because I know that’s what keeps the business going.

My brand gains wider exposure.
There’s been a lot written about the artist and the brand, and how wide acceptance of your brand ultimately leads to income (still not sure how exactly).  A recent post here was about RCVR, a short-film series with a big budget, given away to viewers on Youtube.  The guys doing that stuff are wiser than me, so I’m confident brand improves, even from a file-sharing site.

I’m overwhelmingly optimistic.  Jeez, I hope I’m not convincing anyone to turn to file sharing just ‘cos I can list at least some positives!

When my latest library appeared on file-sharing sites recently, I was, at first, incensed by 2 things; the page contained not only the text and logos from Loopmasters but the video I prepared to demonstrate the library.  And the file sharing site carried ads from well-known companies, which I interpret as the corporate big boys condoning file sharing.

That 2nd point I’m still pissed off about, the first gives me some interesting data.

I have a Youtube channel and the views for the Realstrings Volume 3 video were high, by my standards.  Youtube is even suggesting I carry ads for my vids to make some revenue.  So my brand is getting exposure and positive feedback.  But the list shows something pretty depressing – the hits from file sharing sites far out-weigh the hits from sales sites.  By a ratio of about 4:1 as far as I can tell.

Of course, a Youtube hit from a sales site doesn’t necessarily mean a sale, but this is at indication, at least, of take v buy.

I don’t think I can do much about it, other than try to capitalise on brand awareness and encourage the takers to become buyers in the future.  I expect advertisers to pull out though and Google, ffs, stop putting file sharing results in your searches!

King Jack

Attie Bauw is a respected Dutch producer who has worked with some mighty rock acts, including Judas Priest, The Scorpions and recently a young Dutch band, King Jack.

Their style is heavily 60s influenced and the 6 string arrangements I was asked to do took influence from some classic tracks of that decade.  This short edit is from the song Battle, which ends with a long Db7 groove.  In order to give the strings an ethnic edge, all the notes of their melody are taken from a scale adapted from the Mixolydian, 1 b2 3 4 5 6 b7 8.  A bit of a finger twister to play, but highly evocative and intriguing.

 

The album is available in the UK.

The smell of honesty

Rob Lord is a composer for film (www.stylophonic.tv) and a recent project for him was RCVR (pronounced ‘Receiver’).  It’s an American sci-fi series with a bit of an X-files vibe, not released for TV or movie theatres, but the internet (www.machinima.com, with videos hosted on Youtube.)

A business model that finds a way to monetize media on the web is a bit of a holy grail at the moment.

Interviewed by Marc Hustvedt on TubeFilter.tv creator and director David Van Eyssen says:

“Our goal was to rethink storytelling as a narrative one-way street, inviting users to explore, discover and share much as they would in a game – or social network.”

Getting from that premis to a financial return looks one hell of a challenge, but that hasn’t stopped Machinima and sponsor Motorola putting enough money into the show to give it a great production quality.  Including the score.

Not surprisingly for sci-fi, the score needed to be ambient in places, mysterious, chilling, but Rob didn’t rely on synths and samples; he has recorded singers in London,  Ondes Martenot and Cristal Baschet in Paris, and some strings with us.

So why go for live musicians?  Rob says:

“The score for RCVR mainly consists of live instruments and features strings, 12 piece choir, Ondes Martenot, Cristal Baschet, piano and
guitars often heavily treated with electronics and fx.
The difference the live performance element made was enormous and I really feel that it helped me to connect with the emotional core of the story, which might sound a bit pretentious but if you’re not helping people to empathise with characters and their situations then you’re doing something wrong. I don’t really know why but strings and the human voice just work so well to picture and combining those with other-worldly instruments like the Cristal Baschet and Ondes Martenot enriched and humanised what could have been a cold and fairly abstract sound.”

A piece of music has a function.  It communicates ideas and emotions.
And it does that in a variety of ways – the choice of notes, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, tempo, sounds, dynamics and performance.  And this last element is the hardest to define or explain, it is the least tangible element in the composer’s toolkit.  We talk about performance in rather vague terms since it is so difficult to put a finger on what makes it do something for us.

Perhaps what we are most looking for in a musical performance, is the smell of honesty; a commitment to the music that comes from inside a human; the sound of flesh and blood making a genuine effort to express emotion.  And that’s what you hear in this soundtrack.

It’s In The Trees, composed by Rob Lord for RCVR, streamed with kind permission of the composer.

www.projectrcvr.com
Machinima.com

String Arranging – part 2

A few years ago I made an ‘Introduction to String Arranging’ video, to share some working practices.  It’s taken a while, but here is Part 2.

This gets a little more technical, but reflects how I approach arranging strings for a song.  The song is Es Mejor Asi, by Solstice Duo, a track from their 1st album, produced by Luis Alonso in Costa Rica.

solstice-duo.bandcamp.com/
ReverbNation.com/solstice-duo

Budapest Orchestral Session

And here’s another Eastern European centre for orchestral sessions – Budapest.  I’ve recorded in numerous others but this was the first time here and the job was for Icezone and Universal in Germany recording my orchestral arrangements of 2 songs, performed by Ute Freudenberg and Christian Lais.

One of the songs is already a massive hit in Germany, the other will be released later this year in both pop and orchestral versions.

Excellent facilities (Hungarian Radio), great players and production team (CLmusic), and glorious weather, which is kind of special when you’ve travelled from Manchester on a cold, wet July day.

An edit of the songs, released October 2011

 

 

Beverley Knight Soul UK

Beverley Knight’s album Soul UK has a couple of tracks with strings from realstrings.com  Say I’m Your Number 1 & Don’t Be A Fool.

It’s selling well by the looks of today’s Amazon ranking, it’s getting some great reviews and the girl is working all the media outlets to tell the world about it!

The 2 tracks we worked on were produced by Futurecut. Here’s a mini mix.