by John Radford Reverb in productions is probably for most composers the first ‘go to’ plug in and after effect, yet just as reverb can add a great professional quality and depth to your music, and can just as quickly ruin the production and make it sound ‘over produced’ and unprofessional. Reverb can often make […]
Tag: composing music
Surviving your first composing gig
By Richie Nieto Getting paid to compose music is every hopeful music composer/producer’s dream. Some make it into a full time job, others land one or two gigs and sees their dream fade away, yet others never even get a single paid music composing gig and give it up work in an office instead. Sad, […]
Maximizing Composer Agreements
by Kole Hicks *First and foremost, while this may be potentially applicable across various freelance disciplines, I’d like to mention that this article is being written from the perspective of a Composer who mainly works in the Game Industry (with some additional experience in the Production Music world). Furthermore, it’s always recommended to hire legal […]
Ideas for Effectively Using Sibelius and Pro Tools 8
A Method for Streamlining Your Workflow to Maximize Creative Output By Kole Hicks Pro Tools has never had the reputation of being (MIDI) Composer friendly, but with the upgrade to PT 8 I’ve found that it’s now my preferred sequencer when composing. The method I’ve been using and will share with you today has some […]
Ideas for Creating Unique Musical Colours
By: Kole Hicks If you’re like me, than you probably love to write music. However, you may eventually (if you haven’t already) run into the following issue: “Normal” sounds are not accurately expressing your muse’s intention. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the sound of a masterfully played grand piano or open chords strummed […]
Producing MIDI music for mobile phones / cellphones Part 2
by Piotr PacynaGo back to part 1 of this article 6. Controllers According to the most common opinion one should use only those controllers that are absolutely necessary. Well, it is true, but not quite the whole story. Yes, some old devices are unable to read anything other besides Patch Change and the Volume controller, […]
Music Production hardware and software tips, Part 2
By Piotr Koczewski < Back to Part 1 Hardware continued Selection of monitors (video) – First of all, you have to pay attention to the same contrast of a monitor, when purchasing a few HD monitors. Once I worked at two different monitors of the same company and I had to set contrast manually, which […]
Producing MIDI music for mobile phones / cellphones, Part 1
By Piotr Pacyna I’ve produced game soundtracks for mobile phones for over 9 years now. When I was starting out I thought that all I had to do was simply to make a MIDI file. A piece of cake! But I was so wrong… The feedback that I was receiving from the clients showed me […]
Music Production hardware and software tips, Part 1
By Piotr Koczewski Many composers talk about creating music, but few discuss the tools required to do it. What I mean is the IT side of music creation. I will do my best to explore this broad topic providing the most concrete information. The choice of displays (audio) – the more displays with a different […]
Guide to Virtual Pianos
Stage vs Digital Audio Workstation By Dov Waterman There isn’t anything out there in the world of digital music reproduction that beats the sound of a real instrument. Nevertheless, the piano is one of those instruments that composers, performers and audio engineers have sought to emulate over the years. With ultra-powerful computers with […]
