Modern R&B Music Construction Kits

One side effect of the maturation of desktop tools has been that our clients and employers expect us to do more - for example, an editor is often expected to also do some motion graphics and sound editing; a motion graphics artist may be expected to come up with the soundtrack as well. Fortunately, several desktop-based sound tools - such as Apple’s GarageBand and Soundtrack Pro, Adobe’s Audition and Soundbooth, Propellerhead’s Recycle and Reason, Ableton’s Live (my weapon of choice), and Sony’s ACID Pro (the pioneer of them all) - make it easier for a doodler with a good ear to create a soundtrack out of a box full of sound snippets. These snippets usually consist of musical phrases that may be repeated (looped) or strung end-to-end (here’s a short primer how).

These applications tend to ship with their own box of snippets; third parties also offer literally dozens of “music construction kit” sound libraries that contain collections of coordinated snippets which make it easier to create songs in specific styles. I rely on these myself, either using a construction kit to create a soundtrack in a style a client has requested, or mixing and matching between sets to create original compositions. For those who are new to this world, I’m going to share some reviews of construction kits I’ve encountered in hopes of helping you make informed decisions as to what might inspire your inner musical muse.

Simple Soundproofing

We work at home. Our house has two levels; downstairs is half-jokingly referred to as “the studio complex.” We’ve set up one of the spare bedrooms down there as an audio room.

Most bedrooms are boxes with parallel walls, which in turn often cause problems with resonances and echoes in a room. Fortunately, the spare bedrooms in this house have some non-parallel walls, which help break up and diffuse the pattern of echoes, which makes them less annoying. Adding more hard surfaces such as computer desks and monitors can increase the amount of diffusion, but sound is still bouncing around. The result is akin to the reverberation present in what one would call a “live small room.” As we use a microphone placed about a foot away from our head instead of a headset mic (to cut down on the distraction, and also pick up sounds such as the keystrokes and mouseclicks), it picks up some of this room sound as well.

Although I personally like a little natural reverberation when I listen to a voice - completely dead rooms sound unnatural to me - a few have “commented on” the liveliness of the room sound in the voiceovers to our training videos, so I decided to see if I could tame the bouncing soundwaves a bit. I tried a cheap, low-tech approach first, then threw a little more money and work at it. I thought it would be fun to share my results:

Sound Devices INTRODUCES CL-9 LINEAR FADER Controller FOR 788T DIGITAL RECORDER at NAB 2010

LAS VEGAS, NV, APRIL 12, 2010 — Sound Devices introduces its latest accessory for its best-selling 788T Digital Recorder, the new CL-9 Linear Fader Controller, at NAB 2010 (Booth C1354).  With the addition of the CL-9, the already powerful 788T becomes a complete mixing/recording system, perfect for audio capture in sound-for-picture, broadcast and music-oriented productions. 

The Case of the Two Licenses

A question came up recently about what sort of licenses are required when marrying music to motion graphics (or any imagery edited or animated in time with music). It so happens there are two, which you may or may not need to worry about:

Review: Rode NTG-3 short shotgun microphone and Blimp windshield

Users of short shotgun microphones can be sorted into two categories. Those who complain about spending $250 to $500 on a mic, and those willing to spend $1000 to $2000 on one. Into the first category you can place students, hobbyists, many camera operators, and just about every producer. In the later you’ll find professional sound mixers and…well, that’s about it. So what mic choices do those restrictions translate to?

The Missing Video: Sonicfire Pro + After Effects

A few years ago, SmartSound commissioned us to create video training on how an editor or motion graphics designer could start in their Sonicfire Pro intelligent stock music software to select a soundtrack for a commercial, edit the source clips in After Effects (or any NLE, for that matter) to match the music, and then go back into Sonicfire to massage the music to work better with the now-edited video and voiceover. This video is theoretically still available on SmartSound’s web site, but has become hard to find since they updated their site to tout their latest version (SFP5). As we think it still contains some very useful advice on how one can work more effectively with music and video, we got permission to re-post it here. Although it is specific to Sonicfire and After Effects, the concepts it contains have broad application (especially the middle section “Spotting and Editing to a Soundtrack”). Click the PLAY VIDEO link below to view it.

Click to PLAY VIDEO »

See the Beat: Video-driven composing

First things first. I’m not a musician. I don’t play one on TV. I’d like to be - I did just start playing acoustic guitar. But if you heard me, you’d agree - I’m no musician.

But I am a video producer/editor. And a motion graphics designer. And I frequently need music for my work.

Which makes me an ideal candidate for Abaltat’s Muse.

Hilarious. Also true.

Craigslist is a marvelous institution. There are editions for some 500 different cities, but you can still consider yourself lucky if you live near one. Among (lots of) other things, Craigslist has ads for temporary or permanent film/tv jobs. Some of those listings have more to do with a newbie director’s fantasies than anything real - no budget, no plans, no technique - but you learn to ignore them.

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