music Questions - Social Sound Design

Removing background location music from documentary dialogue

2012-01-31T10:52:46Z

Has anybody had experience of removing location music from documentary dialogue? A filmmaker has approached me to tackle an issue with broadcast rights on the music coming from a stereo in the background during a couple of shots in her documentary. I was thinking of editing the dialogue as I would for a scripted film and then replacing the gaps with ambience from the shoot as well as a royalty-free music track of similar style fitting the reverb of the warehouse where the film is shot. I'm not sure how well this will work. Is this going to be insanely difficult? Any one else had a similar job in the past? Thanks Phil

Is there a good solution for hosting a sound design/music portfolio online?

2012-01-09T14:07:48Z

Do any of you know of a good template-based portfolio site which caters for sound and music? I'm thinking of sites like http://carbonmade.com/ for visual media.

Or perhaps the best solution is just a link to a Vimeo account? Or one consolidated video?

My current portfolio is on Tumblr using a pretty nifty theme but I just feel like there's something better out there.

Uni Project Feedback

2012-01-11T07:07:24Z

Hello there soundies.

I would love some constructive feedback on my creative sound project that I am currently working on for uni. You can view it here - The Arrival on Vimeo.

I am creating sound and music for a graphic novel that I scanned and turned into video.

I aim to create a soundtrack that is reflective of the book's visual style and shows the world from the character's point of view.

It features artwork from Shaun Tan's graphic novel, The Arrival - shauntan.net

Sound used is both my own field recording and foley work as well as sound libraries including freesound.org, Sound Library by Stephan Schutze and Logic's library.

I appreciate any feedback you can offer as it is an essential element of my project.

Out of sync singer on a long take: how to save it?

2011-12-06T11:59:02Z

In the movie I just finished, I had to save a long (continuous) take where a popular singer (here in Italy) singed with playback but was out of sync (in a few spots more than half a second). Obviously the out-of sync is not constant, as the singer sometime was on the beat, sometime late, etc. This shot was edited without cuts, and the production guide track was obviously substituted with the studio recording (that was used for the playback during the shooting).

Recording the song again, with the tempo mapped to her singing, was out of the question (for budget and agreement problems).

I asked for the instrumental track and the voice track. Then I stretched, moved, edited every single line/ word trying to match the lip sync, but always paying attention to the musical rhythm. On two or three spots I had to slightly time stretch the music too. In the end, the resulting sequence is far from perfect, but much better then the original, and the production approved and signed the edits, everybody was happy. But...

But how would you have dealt this? Time stretched music and voice at the same time? (I tried, but to me the result was much worse and the flow of the song completely destroyed). Found the sync for the voice part, and then remap (with time-stretch) the instrumental track?

Best uses of contrapuntal music in film?

2010-05-24T19:17:36Z

First off, if you don't know what contrapuntal music in film is (correct me if I'm not explaining correctly): Music opposite to the emotion expected from the narrative. So for example, to put it plainly, fun music over a sad scene.

I just watched "9" and I loved the sound. Specifically, I loved one scene where they used contrapuntal music. The song was (somewhere) Over The Rainbow, which was [stop reading here if you haven't watched it] used diagetically when they where celebrating their victory and everything is hunky-dory but then they get attacked again but the beautiful music keeps playing over part of the attack. I thought it was a very well crafted scene.

Over The Rainbow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-um0pHTAg

[youtube]F0-um0pHTAg[/youtube]

Trailer for "9": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnoJecu9e7c

[youtube]OnoJecu9e7c[/youtube]

At film school, I went through a contrapuntal phase, but I haven't had the opportunity to use it since. So my question is:

Have you used this technique for your films (any thoughts on it)? And what are your favorite films that use it?

Has anyone here replaced their MBP dvd drive with an SSD? I wanna run NI Komplete sans external HDD

2011-11-21T21:20:15Z

So, I'm going away for a bit and want to take my laptop with me. Including my NI Komplete so that I can make music when/where I want to...

I've been looking at getting an OCZ Vertex 3 250GB and moving Komplete onto it and throwing out the DVD drive (I haven't burnt a disc of any kind in about 2 years)

I know that SSDs slow down with age(and a lot of writing and 'erasing' causes this slow down, etc, but I'm wondering whether I need to be concerned about this at all as the iea is to use this drive solely for my NI stuff, including the great instruments made by Tonehammer, Twisted Tools etc. So no writing/erasing taking place....only streaming from disk.

The forums I've looked seem to discuss the pros/cons of using an SSD as main drive, but there doesn't seem to be much out there in the way of music/sound specific tricks.

@joecavers @C3Sound @JayJennings

What do you know?

Inspiration from the world of music production

2010-09-22T13:24:53Z

Hello sound friends.

This is is another 'list your top' question. Today:

Which music producers do you feel created unique and inspiring sound design and in so doing made the albums they produced a unique sonic experience?

To get the ball rolling, here's a few of my faves:

David Bascombe

Nigel Godrich

Thurston Moore

J Dilla

Madlib

Martin Hannet

On U Sound

Paul Simon

Who would you rate?

Sound Cloud SSD Group

2011-02-21T14:38:06Z

Hi Everyone. I have taken the liberty of starting up a Sound Cloud group for Social Sound Design users. I thought it would be good to have an easy place to listen to each others tracks as we have many of the same sonic interests. It will be interesting to hear how others on this site produce music. The page can be found at link text Please feel free to post your tracks up now.

making it sound like a record player

2011-10-24T08:24:05Z

Hey guys, I am currently working on a project where I need to make music sound as if it is playing from a record player, and then separately I need to make some dialogue sound like its coming from a gramophone, has any body got an idea on how to do this?

What are your sources for new/unknown music? - Not exactly sound design but...

2011-05-04T17:23:46Z

I am always looking to add tunes to my 'faves' playlist (a playlist strictly limited to songs that rate 9 or 10/10). I'm not talking about hipster 'no one's ever heard of this before' stuff. Just solid, well played, well made music from any genre or time period.

My best sources are:

Friends recommendations Pandora KCRW WFMU

any hidden stations/services/anythings?

Composition versus sound design, what's the difference?

2010-03-30T15:51:13Z

A documentary maker called me a sound designer. At first I thought he forgot to mention my composer role. I told my girlfriend about it and she was like sound design is what you do, a composer feels like an old title.

When I am doing music or sound I blend it all together. I might even play guitar, small percussion, record and tweak everything. Like doing sculpture. Make new noise out of noise.

Uhm, but I am not sure. What's the difference?

Sound Design Studies?

2011-08-26T10:31:54Z

Hello everyone!

I'm currently looking for studies that have to do with Sound Design and I was wondering if anyone here knows a good university/school where they teach sound design or studies related to that (Music design etc.). Thank you in Advance!

How necessary are 'professional quality' music composition skills in the Sound Design field?

2011-09-09T00:16:56Z

I'm just starting out in sound design. I've been interested in the field for a long time but have only just got myself into the position where I can start to purchase some proper kit and get involved with proper projects etc and there is a lot I need to learn about the workings of the profession, common practices, and so on!

I've spent a lot of time over the past few years messing around in various DAWs in my spare time, creating "electronic music" and just having a bit of fun but I wouldn't consider my composition production quality to be quite at the level where I'd feel comfortable using it in a film or game project yet, which leads me on to my question:

On average, do most sound designers compose their own music, or outsource to specialist musicians when working on pieces that involve bespoke music tracks? And is it common for a SD working on a, say, film piece to be given the music tracks that are to be incorporated to them from the project directors etc?!

I'd like to think I'd soon get to the stage where I'd be confident enough to use my own pieces within projects I'm working on. I am particularly confident with my abilities in creating background ambient pieces but realistically I know I'm some way off from getting full blown music tracks to be at 'professional level'. Do you think this could be a hindrance if I'm looking to pursue a career in sound design?

Any comments or discussion on the subject would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Making dialogue more intelligible through M&E

2010-07-22T20:33:11Z

Dear All,

I have a question about trailer mixing that hopefully some of you have an answer to:

When mixing a trailer, or any mixing for that matter, what's your preferred method for popping out dialogue and narration and other important things through the music and effects?

I sometimes have trouble when the music is blaring in a trailer or action scene, and dialogue must be heard through it.

Do you carve out a pocket in the music with an overall EQ on it? Or do you make space by cleverly feathering in the music between lines with volume? Or do you drastically EQ the voice only and leave the music untouched? Do you crush the dialogue with compression?

If you do use only volume, how do you not lose the energy of the music if you have to duck it down under dialogue or narration? Do you only duck some of the mid-range heavy stems and leave possibly the percussion stem up full blast so as to not lose the energy?

Thanks beforehand - Ryan

Music Makers: Do you find your Sound Design skills influence your compositions?

2011-07-28T01:02:07Z

With regards to myself, I started making music first before discovering sound design and now find that this is in turn working its way back and influencing my compositions: my choice of timbres, how I compose the piece and particularly the sources I use - in my sound design work I tend to record everything myself (for the moment anyways) and have started incorporating this into my music using it overtly as samples and/or covertly such as in a piece I'm working on at the moment where I cut up a crowd stereo ambience I recorded to get some interesting glitch sound.

Most of my music is Electronica / IDM / Glitch kind of stuff so I think in my case it lends itself easier to the composition process perhaps more than dance styled music and definitely in regards to pop and rock.

So how do you find your Sound Design skills influence your compositions (and production techniques)?

The Arrangement?
Source Choice?
Mixing / Editing?
Frequency range?
Instrument / Timbre selection?
Choice of Effects?

OR do you have different approaches for the two?

Be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions :)

Please mention what style(s) of music you mainly create in or are referencing in your response as it'll help give an indication of how well it applies to different genres.

There is also a SC group created by 'Lenny' where some SSD members have posted tracks if people would like to join and share their music: http://soundcloud.com/groups/social-sound-design/tracks

Who knows the ins & outs of licensing music?

2011-07-27T17:29:50Z

Hey,

I'm working on a 3 X 15s ad campaign at the moment, for which I'm doing the sound design. The producer has asked me to find out about licensing some uplifting, dreamy orchestral music for a the dream sequence in the ad(s). The ads are all the same, in that they start outh in the same way and then a magical transformation takes place whereby the character's environment becomes one of threee places. However, the music required for the transformation is the same. They will run on TV and online for a maximum of 2 (not necessarily continuous) years.

I've looked at Audiojungle, but they don't seem to mention anything about TV licensing.. I've also looked at Killer Tracks but it seems really comlicated ;(

To be honest, i'm jumping the gun a bit be asking you guys, but any help/info/links would be a big help...

Cheers, and thanks for now

Kurt

References of music using drums, voices and clapping hands

2011-07-20T11:45:35Z

I'm busy designing a directors pitch for a "neo-noir" feature film. One of the elements is obviously sound and music. My soundtrack is going to use a lot of natural sound-scapes (the film is set in a national park in South Africa) and I want the music to reflect the natural surroundings. Amon Tobin (foley room album) is part of my referencing due to his dark undertones and exceptional use of sound bits to create an overall tone.

What I am looking for is music that uses clapping, drums and voices as the primary driving force. I feel that these elements can be used to create phenomenal tension and suspense. I have listened to some African Gospel music and recorded a Nigerian Church busy with praise and worship. Often they have no instruments and revert to just clapping and singing. This is true for a lot of rural African music.

Any leads or ideas of music that come to mind will be very useful!

general ambiences with street music performance

2011-07-17T08:20:51Z

I made some street recordings with music playing in background. In one case, it was a musician, who was improvising on a saxophone in a metro station. In another, i recorded a city park ambience with some soft music playing through speakers.

It's a silly question, but can i use these ambiences in my production or sell them? Do i have to obtain something like a talent release for that or license the music?

Mixing Stereo Music to Surround

2011-05-26T03:46:36Z

Hi All,

I have been looking at moving me stereo short doco films with background music to a surround experience. At the moment the design is fairly simple, interview vocals center and music as it comes from the artist (stereo). What can you guys suggest to move the music towards using a full surround experience. I am looking at subtle exposure, not over the top use of the surround stems without compromising the original quality of the music. The sound effects are more natural to mix, so I am not too fussed about them.

I hope that makes sense.

Music for T.V. and/or Film

2011-05-24T19:02:40Z

How can I get my music used in T.V. and or film? Who do I need to contact?

chillout/loungy background tune

2011-05-14T16:21:53Z

hi, i'm looking for a sample library or cheap license music to create a background tune for a production i just finished. desired style is electronic lounge/chillout. any recommendations?

thanks

How much should I charge for my music being used in a film

2011-05-08T11:07:33Z

I was recently approached by a film producer and asked if I'd be happy to have my songs being used for their film (80mins). I agreed as it's a great way to promote your music. But they asked me what's my expected income from that and I have no idea how much I should charge them. The tracks are my original works, unreleased so there is no problem with getting in touch with a record label etc. Then also comes the royalties etc.. Can someone explain to me how it all works?

Big fish effects feedback needed

2011-03-10T22:29:45Z

I wrote music for one program called Big fish and add some fx but I'm not sure whether they help it or not.

[vimeo]20887044[/vimeo] What do you think about? Any feedback is welcome.

Music & The Moving Image Conference - NYU, May 20-22, 2011

2011-03-16T02:04:25Z

Despite the name of the symposium, there are many conferences about sound design as well.

So... Are you going? Anyone has attended past conferences?

I would like to meet some of you this summer in NY!!

http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/scoring/conference

music libraries

2011-03-13T18:56:31Z

What music libraries your are using? Can you advise some not very pricy ones with rock, ska, raggae, so modern music in good quality?

Scanner/Radio/Transmission Fans out there?

2011-03-13T09:50:39Z

I recently found this amazing site that mixes a live feed of carefully selected ambient music tracks from soundcloud with police scanner chatter from several cities (only one city at a time) that sounds so unbelieveably lush and just utterly and amazingly beautiful. It's almost creepy how well this actually works together.

It came to my attention since one of my recent ambient/cinematic pieces was chosen to be one of the featured songs and I got over 1000 plays on soundcloud within 3 days and I was wondering why/how.

Here's the site:

http://youarelistening.to

You can choose the city transmission that you want to feed your mix. LA, NY, Chicago, Montreal.

I also find that it sounds really interesting if you open multiple tabs of the same location and stop the music (soundcloud player) on any/all the duplicates except the original, thus giving you multiple copies of the scanner feed (with a slight time delay on each) on top of the one single ambient song.

I even took a bit of time to record some of the chatter with variable multitudes of instances because some of the sounds just sounded so interesting and potentially useful.

I know when my daughter was finally old enough I kept the "baby monitors" we used to listen in on her when she was sleeping just in-case I ever possibly needed them for some "worldizing" or any signal processing that they might be appropriate for. I've actually been able to use them a few times to great results.

I've also heard some great stories of people actually having things transmitted through radio transmissions (like Walter Murch for THX 1138) so they can re-record it for the "worldized" and unpredictable results.

Hopefully some of you have some interesting stories about related things. Please share.

Music clearance forms

2011-02-23T22:02:01Z

Hello,

Production is finished and now the US producer asks me to send the music clearance forms....? I know these in Holland, but not in the US Does anybody has an idea of where to get these forms, are they standard? should i make something up?

Unmusical Items as Instruments in Music/Design

2011-02-14T19:51:43Z

I wanted to ask everyone what their experience is with using household items, or really any other non-instrument to either layer in, or as itself, into music and sound design.

For instance, I shall share my experience.

While recording music in my living room with a good drummer friend of mine, we stopped for a break and started rocking the Mario Party on N64 (as we are avid gamers of classic editions). The N64 crashed and the music went haywire, becoming unintelligible noise, and pulsing with a rhythm. And being in the frame of mind with the song we were recording... it happened to be half of the BPM we were at. So mic'd the TV and recorded the static, pulsating riff the tv was blaring and incorporated it into the end of the song. The instruments faded down and static faded up as the drums stayed present in the music creating a very interesting poly-rhythmic soup of craziness.

Has a by-chance factor like this happened to any of you? Have you found awesome additions to a composition or sound design in a very unlikely place? Share stories below!

Telefon Tel Aviv - SSD Thread Tribute

2011-02-14T22:17:29Z

Personally, the respect I for the group is just not normal.

Talk about such all encompassing, engulfing, trancing, absorptive music.

However, I wanted to start a thread about the techniques and software used, or could have been used at one time, in their music or in this genre of elecro-acoustic in general.

Ableton Live, Beat slicing, classic drum machines, Pro Tools, Analog Synths, glitch repeats/delays, fx, tape manipulation - anything goes.

I want to start this discussion of with one of their interviews from EM magazine. http://emusician.com/remixmag/artists_interviews/musicians/remix_tapeheads/

This interview covers their production over a few different albums. The techniques they used to create some of their amazing songs, and the lives connected with such compositions.

Some links to their unbelievable music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYnmP8HOZ00 - Sound In A Dark Room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCspF-lz24A - Fahrenheit Fair Enough http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3u92RKP2V8 - When It Happens It Moves All By Itself

Ill kick it of with a question related to Telefon: How has this type of music inspired you to push your creative boundaries? How did you respond and what types of explorations in audio resulted from such inspiration?

Virtual Instruments in film music composition

2011-01-11T11:58:53Z

Are the use of virtual instruments in film music composition having a positive negative or both on the overall quality of film music?