Latest / 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast / Never Say Never (or Always)

Transcript

Never Say Never (or Always) · 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast

• 0:29
  Dave Kropf: From Facebook groups, to blogs to YouTube channels, you know, just like this one, it seems like a lot of professionals out there in the music industry like to deal in absolutes. Like"you should NEVER do this" or "you should ALWAYS do that." But you know, I'm not convinced that that's always the best advice. So today, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about why we should probably get rid of absolute words like"never" and "always" from our own production music vocabulary, and how we should approach each contract or cue with flexibility and an open mind.
• 1:07
  Dave Kropf: Plus, we'll be taking a listen to an orchestral election coverage cue written by you a member of the 52 Cues community on this week's episode of the 52 Cues podcast.
• 1:28
  Dave Kropf: What is happening everybody, this is Dave Kropf.
• 1:28
  Dave Kropf: And welcome back to another episode of the 52 Cues podcast. First, I do hope that you are doing well.
• 1:34
  Dave Kropf: And I want to thank you for spending part of your day here with me. I know you have a lot of options out there. So I want you to know that I really, really do appreciate you. The 52 Cues podcast is a weekly podcast dedicated to all things production in library music, where we talk about industry topics and take deep dives into the different aspects of being a working production music composer. Plus, we feature a que written by you a member of the 52 Cues community and this week, we'll be taking a listen to results are in which is an orchestral election coverage queue--which I believe was written for a taxi brief--written by Jeff Hargrove. So you definitely definitely want to stick around for that. But before we get started, I have to give a special word of thanks to the family, friends and patrons of 52 Cues, who helped keep the podcast the channel and everything you see here going, we are 100% community supported. So if you like what I do here, don't thank me, thank them. And if you want to learn more about how you can help support 52 Cues and unlock extra perks like live streams, workshops, interactive feedback, and a ton more, then be sure to click on the links in the description or you know, stick around because we're going to be talking about all of that a little bit later in today's episode.
• 2:55
  Dave Kropf: Before we talk about the topic, I did want to do a quick follow up. I was on TAXI TV, this this past Monday and we'll have a link to that in the show notes so that you can check it out. I really enjoyed talking to Michael Laskow. And I loved seeing all of the 52 Cues folks hanging out in the chat, I was able to follow the real time chat later. And it was just really good seeing so many familiar faces. And seeing so many new faces join we've had I think just in the last few days, 20 or 30, new new 52 Cues community members, folks coming over from TAXI and the TAXI forums. And like I said in, in my interview with with Michael, it's not an either/or. You don't have to choose, hey, I'm going to participate in the taxi forums, or I'm going to participate in the 52 Cues community you can do, you can do both because together Together, we are absolutely better. So again, I'll have a link to that interview. And a huge thank you to Michael Laskow and all the folks at taxi for having me. He even invited me to come to the Road Rally and speak on a panel there. And I'm going to do absolutely everything in my power to to take him up on that offer. So again, thank you very much Michael over at TAXI.
• 4:14
  Dave Kropf: So I wanted to talk about on today's topic, about why production music composers especially should think about getting rid of the terms never and always from our vocabulary. And and these are, these are concepts that I've seen come up and topics that I've seen come up across, you know, like perspective forums, or other YouTubers or whatever blog articles. And it's just not always the case. There are so few absolutes in this industry in production music has has its own set of guidelines and principles, which govern, you know, things like copyrights, and royalties and all of that. And so when you read something on a forum, you have to kind of translate it into the industry that applies to you. And so what I thought would be a really, really helpful idea is to take some of the never and always statements that I've seen show up and talk about why maybe they don't necessarily apply to us.
• 5:19
  Dave Kropf: One of the big ones I've seen is "never give up your publishing share." Never give up your publishing share and in the the Production Music world, I don't know how anyone, any production music composer hopes to make a living, hopes to get into libraries hopes to get their music up onto TV. If they dig their heels in, and insisting on keeping their publishing share. You know, I have probably 630 or so published cues, and I bet only 15 or 20, maybe 30 of those cues. I don't control the publishing share.
• 6:08
  Dave Kropf: Because I have to give up my publishing share to well, the publishers, all of these libraries, all of these catalogs need the the the legal footing, to be able to sign your music over into the licensing, and then they are the ones who are registering to the PRO's. They're the ones who are tracking everything. And when something goes sideways, I sure as heck, contact my publisher to help me deal with Hey, what in the world is happening? Why am I why did I get 41 cents, royalty check? Well, all of that costs money, it costs someone money, costs somebody their time, then they should be compensated for that. And so we do that as production music composers, by giving up our publishing share. And I think where this absolute comes in, are folks coming from the artist background, where they're going to put something up on Spotify, or selling CDs, or whatever, and they say, Don't ever give up your publishing share? Well, as an artist, maybe you don't do you don't want to give up your publishing share. Because you have to control where that music gets placed.
• 7:19
  Dave Kropf: Kind of goes hand in hand with "never give up your copyright." Again, your library needs that legal footing. And so to just hit every deal, you see every contract you see, with never give up your publishing share, never give up your copyright, you're going to have a rough go at it. Because the libraries need those things, to do their jobs to do the job that you are asking them to do. I've said before here on the channel, that your publisher isn't your agent, they don't work for you, they are partners with you in this, they are in the same boat as you are. They're just on the different side. They're rowing on the port side, and you're rowing on the starboard side. But you're all rowing, and you're all going in the same direction. So if you insist on keeping your publishing share, I imagine most publishers will won't sign your music. Now you might be able to get through some royalty free, or some non exclusive publishers, I am of the belief that non exclusives will be increasingly rare as content ID and tune sat and all of that all of those algorithms, which help identify music placed in various properties. I imagine as that technology gets more sophisticated, then the the non exclusive libraries are going to have a more difficult time tracking and all of that. So yeah, don't insist on keeping your publishing share.
• 9:01
  Dave Kropf: Because you severely severely limit what you can do with your music. And if you insist on keeping your publishing share, just know that now it's up to you. It's up to you to find homes for your music. It's up to you to go sign the deals with all of the networks or the production companies now that's on you. And I sure as heck hope you have the relationships, let alone the networking and negotiating chops to pull that off. So in production music, you probably will give up your publishing share. And if you see somebody saying never give it up, make sure that it's apples to apples here. And it's not somebody who wants to be an artist giving somebody who is a production music composer advice.
• 9:51
  Dave Kropf: All right. Another absolute that I see is "always insist on getting credit." Always insist on getting credit. And this kind of goes hand in hand with "never ghost write" now. And Catherine Dern, composer who lives out in LA, who, who I'm working on getting an interview with and so we've communicated and then I think it's gonna happen.
• 10:14
  Dave Kropf: We're working on that just lining up dates, so be on the lookout for that very soon, hopefully in the fall. Anyway, her whole YouTube channel is a lot about kind of unpacking the industry and she does a stellar that videos on ghost writing and how it's okay. But it's also some some sound a little bit icky, and all of that. So I'll link to that video and you can you can check that out. But for that to be an absolute always insist on getting credit. Well again, production music composers, good luck with that. Good luck with that, look, you're very rarely going to find your name in the credits at the end of a show.
• 11:06
  Dave Kropf: You know I, for production music, I never see those things. And there's another although--asterisk--I did have one placement where I did get credit music by and it was me and two other two other composers who worked on it. So yeah, I got credit there. But always insisting on getting credit, if you're doing something, I don't think that's gonna I don't think that's going to end well for you. And as far as ghost writing at this point, we're kind of getting into film music.
• 11:39
  Dave Kropf: And to say never take a ghost writing gig?
• 11:39
  Dave Kropf: Well...I mean, maybe maybe you should, depending on if it's good for your career. And there are so many instances where writing something alongside somebody else but not getting that credit not getting that title card or whatever, is just a good career move. I worked on a game gaming project where the game company insisted insisted that there just be one composer credited for whatever reason they didn't want music by composer a and composer B. I don't really know the reason behind that but that's what they wanted. And so they chose the name which was a little bit more well known I guess. And so that's who they went with so when it's says music by blank is music by composer A composer B got an additional music by credit later, but did not get that music by composing music composed by that kind of thing happens all over the place. Let me go look at like Hans Zimmer's crew over at remote control studio.
• 12:57
  Dave Kropf: It's it's it's a and I don't mean this pejoratively. It's it's a factory, everybody has their part, and everybody's kind of working, putting their hands to the piece of the whole picture. So that together, everybody comes together and makes a good product. But Hans gets his name on the credit. It's no different than like John Williams writing the music on the piano and handing it off to an orchestrator. Who's gonna then hand it off to somebody who's going to engrave it, do all the typesetting and then Mr.
• 13:26
  Dave Kropf: Williams shows up and conducts the orchestra. I mean, it's just a different it's just a different type of of machine. There's different type of factory. So always insist on getting credit. It depends never ghost, right? It depends on if it's good for your career, or not. All that having been said, at the end of the day, you need to do what's what's what feels right to you, you need to do what's good for your career. You obviously we don't want to we don't want you to get taken advantage of. And I think a good composure is is compensating fairly, and if possible, you know, putting your name like it on the team. Right? But don't don't approach it as an always situation, because it might be just the shot in the arm you need to boost your career I keep thinking of Ramin Djawadi, who who was on the remote control team during Pirates of the Caribbean and when Hans was stuck on a queue remain who otherwise was just fetching coffee for everybody wrote a que that ended up in the movie and then he's off to the races and now his career has completely blown up.
• 14:50
  Dave Kropf: But you're not going to see music by Ramin Djawadi on the credits for Pirates of the Caribbean and to be honest, I'm not even sure his name is at all I don't want to say that for sure maybe somebody in the in the in the in the comments below can let me know if his name appears at all. I don't know if there are additional music credits. I'm not sure.
• 15:18
  Dave Kropf: But again, take in each individual situation separately. But don't make it an absolute always get credit never goes right That's where we get into trouble.
• 15:31
  Dave Kropf: Here's a here's another. Here's another absolute statement that I've seen, which deserves consideration. "Never work for free." "Never give your music away." "Never give your cues away." I've even done a whole episode on this showed we work for free. And the answer and the the answer is, maybe, if it's good for your career, if it gets your foot in the door, or let's, let's think of it another way, if you're brand new to this, if you're a student, if you've just graduated, and you're looking for some film credits, or if you're looking just for the experience of scoring something or writing Production Music, yeah, you're probably going to give it away. Because you haven't gathered the experience to insist otherwise. And that's, that's completely okay.
• 16:27
  Dave Kropf: Now, in the production music world, we work for free all the time, because so much of what we do is on spec on speculation, and so we're only get paid if we get played. And so if I write a ton of cues that never make air, and I didn't get any kind of upfronts, from the library itself, which is somewhat rare, not completely rare, but somewhat rare, then I am I'm working for free. But that's okay, because it is a numbers game. And I want as many cues out in the system as possible, so that some of them can hit, some of them can land and I can start making royalties. But I can't think working for free. Now what I'm doing is I'm releasing things into the library, and buying lottery tickets, so that hopefully one of them pays off, right? I'm not gonna I'm not gonna buy one lottery ticket, one set of numbers. And if it doesn't work out, then it's broken, like the whole system is broken. But if I right, if I buy many lottery tickets, then I have exponentially increase my chance. It just so happens that for most libraries, at least the most of the libraries that I work with, there's not a lot of upfront money. If it is it's somewhat token, but but there's not a ton. So you might need to work for free. If it's on spec, or if you're learning the ropes, or if it's a fantastic opportunity, and you just want to do it. You just want to do it. Here's another thing. Here's another, here's another always that I've seen, always get everything in writing, always get everything in writing. And that is a dot dot dot Asterix. Because, yes, you do want to make sure that there is some documentation to support an agreement that you have made with somebody. I think that's smart. But what that looks like, can absolutely depend on the relationship that you have with the person that you are making that agreement with, for example, I did an audio book project for for someone that that I knew. And I sent out a pretty dense--now that I think back it's pretty dense, cover all of my bases, like I covered all the but like I'm covering my butt with this contract--and she got it. I mean, it was probably like 567 pages long.
• 19:11
  Dave Kropf: And she got it and she's like, wow, this is really overwhelming. And I just want you to to record my audio book. You know where it was, we're not entering into the super long, long term thing in the reason if the takeaway here is that I was so wound up in covering all of my legal bases that the contract I sent her felt super impersonal to her based on the relationship that we had. And so I amended that contract, and we'll whittled it down to a one page contract which still essentially covered all any any legal issues as far as like who owns who owns these recordings, deadlines, how much you're paying me, this is what I will be doing for you. But it didn't have like all of the section eight paragraph two line C.
• 20:08
  Dave Kropf: Force Majeure oil type contingency, legalese that shows up in so many of these contracts. Which is understandable. If you're if you're dealing with just a complete internet stranger or somebody that that you don't know. Well, you know, you You're entering into business with them, you want to cover your bases. If I do a collaboration, or if I have a buyout, you know, I have my standard kind of contract.
• 20:38
  Dave Kropf: So it's this isn't about not using contracts, it's about approaching things like a contract with the understanding of the relationship that you have with that person, another example, you know, publisher that I work with now, I have a contract that I signed when I signed into their library.
• 21:01
  Dave Kropf: But now when they they put new orders in, there is not a super dense contract with every library album project. Even if there's upfront money. Now, there's an email. Well, where we will say, Hey, this is my understanding, green light, yes, let me know. Because the relationship has progressed, such that that is all it needs. Again, I'm not saying don't ever get anything in writing, if you want to, like take it to court, then things like emails and texts are absolutely 100% admissible in court. And if you don't know the person, then you probably want to cover your bases. But if it's somebody you know, somebody that you have relationship with, yes, get something. But you don't have to whip out your your your Legal Zoom chops in completely over over contract the situation, when sometimes a text an email, or in the case of the audio book project, a one page document is much more reflective of the relationship that you have. So always get everything in writing. Just consider the relationship. And I do recognize that there is some risk involved in that. Right. And I'm not a lawyer, blah, blah, blah. But the risk reward based on the relationship, that's my takeaway, and maybe I just haven't gotten burned enough, maybe I'm completely naive in this. And I would love to hear from you if you have horror stories about hey, I didn't, I didn't have a contract, which stipulated enough and so and so yeah. And you got burned. Yeah, I'd love to hear hear that story.
• 23:00
  Dave Kropf: And maybe again, maybe I'm just being naive. But I guess until until I cross that bridge, I'm willing unwilling to take that risk.
• 23:12
  Here's another never I've seen: "never take a buyout. Always insist on your back end, and never take a buyout." And I can say, right now that that is a never that I never apply. Because sometimes it's a loss leader, you do your job. And if it's if it's going to net you a bunch of money, or if it's going to net you a relationship, or potential work down the road, you should absolutely consider taking a buyout. I pitched my music to a trailer for a trailer for upcoming game. And the buyout was $175,000. Yeah, yeah, I'll take that buyout, you can have it. Another one I did for a company, Disney. And it was $1,000 buyout. I know Disney has stupid amounts of money, I get that. But I was willing to give that away. What was $1,000 for the buyout for it was it was like a corporate piece for their Disney Institute brand. So it wasn't like you know, something that was going to show up in a Marvel movie or something like that, let's manage our expectations about what this was. But it was $1,000 for for some some corporate video work with Disney Company. And I will happily happily offer that it's a buyout, for potential relationship, to have that that Disney logo in my portfolio. 100% 100% do that. So "never take a buyout..." If it means more for your career, to do that. It's kind of like up there with never, never give it away and never, never play for free or never, you know, give up your publishing share or your writers share and all of that stuff. You know, it really, really depends. It depends if it can further your career and if it means more work down down the road, then buyouts giving up your royalty shares. Those are absolutely negotiable.
• 25:23
  Here's another never I've seen: And that's what ultimately all this is, is it's it's negotiation chips that you have to bargain with.
• 25:31
  Here's another never I've seen: So I have a couple of more. And I want to talk about some production nevers and always that I've seen, I've seen one that says, never master from MIDI. Like if you're ever going to put your mastering chain always bounced to audio, and only ever master from bounced audio, and that's just, that's just not been my experience at all. That's not been my experience, especially with processing power. Like like, you know, always bounce in real time, like, No, you don't have to do that the computers can handle it. And so I'm here to tell you, it's totally okay to mix and master from your MIDI instruments. Now, should you bounce your instruments before you archive so that if for whatever reason down the road, you know, you don't have those plugins, but you need to get back into that session. Well, that's probably a good idea that I know that I am admittedly terrible at remembering to do. But that's a different conversation.
• 26:32
  Here's another never I've seen: Here's another production always that I see.
• 26:32
  Here's another never I've seen: Always do this one thing, or that one thing in a mix. If you have hip hop, always do this. If you're if you're mixing orchestral cues, always do this. Never have this on a mastering chain. Never do this. Now, there are best practices Absolutely.
• 26:55
  Here's another never I've seen: And each genre of music or each type of cue a mood or emotion might have some best practices that go along with it. But to make an absolute out of it, I think absolutely. boxes you in. I see this with my Full Sail students all the time, all the time.
• 27:10
  Here's another never I've seen: Should I always do this, if I'm mixing a hip hop cue, should I always bring the bass in first?
• 27:19
  Here's another never I've seen: Should I always cut the low end from a kick or whatever. It's entirely dependent on the cue itself. And so I would encourage you from the production side of things not to get trapped into these always or never ideas in your production.
• 27:39
  Here's another never I've seen: Because in the flexibility in the creative chaos, sometimes that happens when you're breaking these these quote unquote rules, you can actually end up with some very, very good results.
• 27:54
  Here's another never I've seen: Alright, so I must admit that there are some times when it's okay to say never, or always, there are some times because there are some absolute so I would be disingenuous, if I didn't leave you today, without sometimes where it is okay to say, Never or always. Alright, so here's one. All
• 28:21
  right, and these are in no particular order: • Never send out a form email, when you're pitching your music. • Never send out a form letter, I got an email from, from somebody wanting to be on the podcast wanted me to do an interview on the podcast and get featured. And it was so obviously a form letter. Like, luckily, it was all in the same font. But it seemed so obvious to me that they had had taken their form letter came from a publicist, and said, Hi, insert name. We are so we really enjoy your podcast called 52 Cues. We really love what you do, and we love the episodes. And then it went on for the pitch. We think our person would be a good fit for your podcast. And it was so obviously a form letter and I mean, I get it. The publicists are sending out mass emails, hundreds of podcasters at a time, but probably they just googled music production podcast. My name came up and they said okay, yeah, we'll send it seems tangentially related. What I want to do, turns out I'm not gonna go I'm not gonna give it any more energy than what I'm giving it right now. What I wanted to say is, tell me about which episodes you think are the best. What did you enjoy about it? What did you think?
• 29:57
  right, and these are in no particular order: Because they didn't reference any specific, any specific episodes. Parenthetically, this publicist also didn't give me any pictures didn't send any links. Like, here's who this person is. Website EPK (electronic press kit), nothing. Just dude's name in an obvious form letter. And kind of insulting. I think maybe, or maybe I just need to get over it. But or maybe I've reached a level of success where people are going to say Send me form letters. But Nah, man, if you're gonna, if you're going to pitch something, at least get least give them the decency to write an email from scratch.
• 30:43
  right, and these are in no particular order: So if you're pitching your music at the libraries, you owe it to the person that you are looking to create the (hopefully) long term relationship with a long term business partnership with you owe it to them to write an email from scratch, you can give them that you can give them the half hour, 45 minutes it takes that shows I know who you are, I give a damn about who you are. And you're not just an ends a means to an end for me, a means to an end for me. You owe it to you owe it to your libraries that publicists owed it to me, don't waste my time by sending me a form letter.
• 31:34
  right, and these are in no particular order: Clearly, that triggered me a little bit. I wasn't prepared to get that. Get that ranty about it. But yeah, come on, now. Come up. So never send out an email, a form email, when you're pitching your music.
• 31:50
  Here's another one: always communicate, even if you're going to miss a deadline. Always communicate. If you have questions, if you don't understand something. If they're asking you to do something that you don't know how to do, always communicate. It's rarely better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If you're gonna miss a deadline, I know your library might be disappointed, your publisher might cause a problem for them. But you will cause a bigger issue if you miss a deadline. And you just no show no call.
• 32:33
  Here's another one: Because that that is damaging the relationship.
• 32:45
  Here's another one: That's not That's not disappointing. Somebody that is damaging the trust, the inherent trust that that goes hand in hand. When you again, create a business partnership with someone. So if you ghost them, and they're expecting something from you, you miss a deadline, for whatever reason, because we're humans and life happens. Deadlines get missed. So how you handle that is to communicate, communicate when you when you miss your deadlines.
• 33:16
  Here's another one: Communicate, if you're running behind, if you're going to a meeting, you're running late, send them a quick text running late, here's where I'll be there. You don't owe them a big giant story. And definitely don't make up anything. But Communicate, communicate, always communicate.
• 33:39
  Here's another one: Alright, and here's the here's the here's a practical one for you practical never, never update your software or your operating system during a big project. Now, if you're working productive music composer, chances are you always have projects happening. And so that's great.
• 33:57
  Here's another one: Yeah, you're always busy. But never update your software. If you have a giant if you're in the middle of a big project. Because something will break Murphy's Law will come into effect. And something just won't work. And definitely never update the new operating system--I'm looking at you, Mac--never update the new operating system on the day it comes out. Uh, I mean, I just this past weekend updated my 2014 iMac to Big Sur, which came out in 2021. Alright, and so it's it's, it's an OS behind because I think Monterey just came out. And so I'm an OS behind. And before that I was on Mojave, which is three OS's ago now now for because Monterey, like and then Big Sur and then Catalina and Mojave before that. The only reason I went on to Mojave is because High Sierra wouldn't support Logic 10.5. And that's really the motivating factor for me, I only update my OS when Logic dictates it. And it just so happened 10.7.4with logic had progressed enough. I really needed to update logic. And I can only do that by getting on to Big Sur. A lot of Mac talk for you Windows folks. Sorry about that. But never update your software. Now. Never update your operating system. Never update your DAW. Never try to update if it's working unless something's broken. But if it's working, then just sit on it find, find a time where you're in between projects, or you know, you have a couple of days should something go wrong. And that's why I did this past weekend.
• 35:50
  Here's another one: Because I had two days in a row, where I knew I didn't need to be in the studio and I updating my OS.
• 35:59
  Here's another one: Parenthetically, it went really, really well.
• 35:59
  Here's another one: Updating from Mojave to Big Sur, was relatively painless, knocking on wood here, relatively painless, couple of a couple of security permission issues like with my tablet, my mouse, and, but But luckily, because Big Sur has been out for so long, all of the plugin manufacturers, all of the hardware folks had all ironed out all of those kinks. So it was it was a non issue. It was really, really, again, I'm knocking on all the wood on my desk, just to make sure.
• 36:34
  Here's another one: All right, another practical one, always backup your files. And I talked about this, always have a backup always be running a time machine, whether it's cloud based and physical base, and I incorporate both of those in my own system. And I encourage you to do the same, but always backup your files. Because, again, I did a whole video on that, that only needs to happen one, once in your life before you realize how desperately important backups are.
• 37:04
  Here's another one: And then finally, I want to leave you with two times that you should use never, and always, never be a jerk. And always be kind and easy to work with. Never be a jerk. Check your ego at the door.
• 37:24
  Here's another one: We're all in this together. We're all working for the same goal. Together, we are better. The folks in the industry, your publishers, they're not gatekeepers, they're not trying to keep you from succeeding. They all want the same thing. And so if something goes sideways, if you get, you know, some feedback from a publisher, and you don't understand it, or if you think your stuff is so amazing, and you didn't get a placement or whatever. Don't be a jerk. If you get feedback that you don't understand that you disagree with, accept it. Be kind be easy to work with. Because again, your publisher is on your team. They are team you. And so by making your by helping make your music better, everybody wins. And so if you get offended when you get feedback, if something goes weird, and some other cue got placed, and you didn't get placed, even though your cue is arguably better, just roll with it, be kind, a little bit of kindness, it cost nothing to be kind. And that's true, whether you're dealing with publishers or whether you're letting people in and traffic and that's, that's, that's what I try to embrace. Like if I'm in traffic, and people need to merge, even though they might have roared up beside me. I'm gonna get a little philosophical.
• 38:55
  Here's another one: Even though somebody's roared up beside me, I'm like, that's, that's a really jerky thing to do.
• 39:01
  Here's another one: If I, if I like roar up to the person in front of me. And I insist that this person that roared up beside me who wants to edge in, they should just get in line, just like a be a good citizen of the world and go get in line. And so I'm going to insist, I'm going to insist on not letting them in. Then I am incorporating that negative energy into myself. And I am making an already tense situation even tenser. And while I might have the brief satisfaction and the smug satisfaction that I can have of seeing that guy in the rear view, like haha, jerk that you get for being a jerk, you're behind me jerk. I'm gonna get to my destination three seconds faster. Well, is that worth it? Is that righteous indignation in traffic? For example? Is it worth it? Or what will happen if you just ease off the gas? Let that person in. And now you did a nice thing for somebody who, if you're lucky, you'll get a friendly wave, but probably never acknowledge it.
• 40:29
  Here's another one: And will probably, you won't receive any direct benefit and they're gonna go go on with their life and you'll never see them again. But in that moment, in that moment in that crucible of terrible, terrible traffic coming from a guy who has to drive on I-4 between Orlando and Tampa quite frequently, which has been named the deadliest stretch of highway highway in the US. I have found that when I let those people in, when I backup, I embrace kindness to those fellow human beings who are just trying to live their life, that my letting them in isn't about being nice to them. It's about being nice to myself. It's about being good to myself. Because when I am the jerk, when I am like Captain America, righteous indignation, I feel all in knots about it. And ah, but it's about releasing that energy and not letting it become a part of me. And since I've been doing that, traffic, it sucks sometimes. But traffic isn't this wound up in knots, rage, time, that carries that carries over professionally as well. Right? It's like a mind like water kind of thing. You want to absorb it, and then return to equilibrium. So that you can continue to be your creative, best self, whether you're in traffic or whether you're in your studio. Again, I got got a little deep there at the end. I hope that's okay.
• 42:18
  Here's another one: But what about you? What do you think? What do you think about never or always or any of these other absolute terms? Are there some absolutes that you insist on? Or are there some absolutes that you think should be purged from the industry? I would absolutely love to hear from you. Because I always read all of the comments. Okay, I'll stop. I'll stop. But I really do appreciate your feedback and would love absolutely love to hear from you. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to be taking a listen to results are in by Jeff Hargrove. This is a cue written, I believe, for a recent taxi listing, looking for Election coverage. So like for news, instrumentals, and so I'm really looking forward to check checking that out, but we're gonna take a quick break and listen to that on the other side.
• 43:19
  Shannon Kropf: Hey, y'all, I'm Shannon Kropf. And I want to tell you that the 52cues podcast is made possible by viewers and listeners just like you, composers and producers who are looking for a better way to connect and collaborate. You see, 52 cues isn't just another website selling static pre-recorded videos to a mass audience. It's a fun, vibrant and positive community that comes together online for sharing cues, getting feedback and discussing what's up in the production music industry. You'll find both personalized feedback and live interaction which are the best and fastest ways to grow your skills and earn more placements. The best part is that the 52 cues community is absolutely free. And when you're ready to take your career to the next level, we offer friends and family subscriptions which unlock weekly live streams, live interactive group feedback sessions, monthly interactive workshops and more. Head over to 50 to cues.com and sign up today. And while you're there, check out our personalized feedback videos, private lessons, and of course, merch I can't wait to see you at 52cues.com.
• 46:57
  Dave Kropf: That was "results RN" by Jeff Hargrove. Jeff, thank you so much for sending this along. He sent us along for our week 25 search, got a ton of love on it. And so I really, really appreciate that. I think Our Results RN was it right now or like, hey, the results are in, in which case, that's cool. I like that "Results RN." First of all, I really really enjoyed this queue.
• 47:23
  Dave Kropf: And I think you are absolutely on the mark as far as being an election, an election night type type of a cue, especially with you know, we have midterms in the US here coming coming around really fantastic Stinger kind of out of the gate, some kind of little buttoned up up little and they would use just that. And so having a little four or five seconds Stinger is so so valuable. And so I think I think we came out with gate fantastic.
• 48:02
  Dave Kropf: Now with...watch some of the some of the brass articulations seem to be a little a little sluggish. And I caught that a little bit later as well. We're doing good here. I feel like the snare drum, snare drum is a little too far too far down in the mix. And it's a little reverb-y, sounds like it's way way in the back of the stage. Think this is all working love the sus chord, love the progression. And I love how you bring in the melody here. Do watch--and this is you're not alone in this--watch those woodwind runs. There are a couple of tells whenever you're dealing with MIDI instruments. And especially MIDI instruments which are looking to recreate orchestral sounds, there are a couple of tells in one of those tells is woodwind runs.
• 49:08
  Dave Kropf: I believe that it's just those are so difficult to pull off using MIDI programming. And this is why libraries like Project Sam in the Synphobia series, they have these runs recorded. And so I would I would look for those, those one shots a little bit, as opposed to programming your own is just the major scale kind of ascending. And so I think that could go a long way to helping that because once a listener and it's kind of gets into uncanny valley territory, but once a listener kind of feels that, that artificiality, it can be a little tough to shake. And so I would, I would try to find a one shot from a company like-- or sample library like Project Sam--I'm sure there are others out there. But those are the ones that I use. I think that's a great compositional choice.
• 50:10
  Dave Kropf: I love that *sings melody*. I love it, but it's sounding a little artificial here, and is that the same range, the trumpet line gets the same range.
• 50:20
  Dave Kropf: And so I would If I would give that to like the horns but save the octave above the high trumpets for the next layer up because outside of the Stinger, this is going to this is probably going to have a lot of voiceover over it. So you want it to sit back in the mix a little bit better and so you don't want these these really high screaming trumpet parts to to be blasting on top Alright, so now we're kind of going into into a breakdown territory. And those those are another thing where we have to be careful with those love the progression I almost around the minute mark maybe go to the to the relative minor, you know, maybe go to the sixth chord there or something, I felt like we needed a harmonic change here because it's it's just kind of the same progression the whole time hear the love love you giving the string and the string sound really nice. But if you can make that melody work under a different progression, maybe again, kind of shifting into the minor key and I would change up the the bass rhythm a little bit so it's not just bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, but go go a little bit drive, you've got to pull the energy back harmonically take off the top melody then we can get away with adding a little bit more rhythmic energy as it's cooking underneath it. So I'm going to back it up to the top of this here. *Hums rhythm" --maybe something a little bit like that.
• 52:36
  Dave Kropf: *Sings extended rhythm and harmonic pattern* So,so just has a little bit more guiding energy.
• 52:47
  Dave Kropf: Not a fan of those muted trumpets they sound really far far back and kind of the right my right side there I love how you're giving your melody off to the different instruments-- *hums melody*--a kind of call back there. Alright, so we're coming back into the primary melody *hums* and build and I feel like we need a little bit more powerful statement... *hums* Give the melody kind of by itself there just for a moment because it really it just feels like it's a little too same-y through here it's like it's all it's too much the same level of energy and in--let's say asked for two minutes, two and a half minutes and they might have I'm not sure if the brief--then I would probably cut it cut it right here I would I would ramp up to the ending right here. I don't know if we need a whole other pass through and it doesn't really feel like it's energetically and excitement wise. I think melodically, harmonically, all of that, the instrument choices, everything, that's I think we need a much, much better ending I think I think we felt like we just kind of stumbled into all absolutely working. But it just feels like this feels like it's too long right now without having some somewhere else to go it a little bit like we hit we hit our stinger.
• 55:15
  Dave Kropf: And then when we're done--*sings suggestion*--something like that. What do you think? And I actually want to play one of my cues alongside this to kind of show you to show you what what I mean here. So So here's a cue called"Courage and Conviction" which was actually submitted for when CBS Sports needed a new theme for their their golf broadcast. Now, I didn't land it, but I'm absolutely going to take that shot.
• 56:02
  Dave Kropf: And as I was listening to your cue it kind of reminded me of of this cue and it has it has everything that that we would be looking looking to have for an election cue so check it out.
• 56:37
  Dave Kropf: alright, so now we're gonna dip back into that voiceover energy with the hands into melody with a bit of harmonic shenanigans right and then really change it up bringing the primary melody strip back the energy a little bit some harmonic shenanigans right and now we go back into the kind of the voiceover section. All right, and now we're coming back into that section where we're going to call the melody and really really punch it up big, big ending right. So extending that ener- energy extending that ending when you when you come out of your melody there at the end to really really juice it up.
• 58:44
  Dave Kropf: By the way, this was my this was my personal homage to Alan Silvestri as a just putting out into the universe as a thank you for all the the influence he's had on my own work. So for your cue coming into it--*sings melody*--like I'm not singing the right pitches, but doing some some some sort of like call and response between the high brass and the low brass, I think could be really, really effective, effective in there. But otherwise, I really really enjoyed the cue. Do be careful as far as your mix goes to make sure that we like so with with with so many of these orchestral samples and the way that they're recorded in the rooms and they're all these big ensemble patches. So much of like the 500 to 800 hertz or so to 900 hertz can just really gang up where all the strings and the brass I think it's it's baked into the way the reverb convolution everything works. And so I find myself having to constantly dip dip those frequencies and I think we could probably benefit a little bit from here and otherwise we're doing really good. Yeah, I would tag that. I would take that--*sings suggestion*-- I think it might be exact same thing I sang earlier. But really, really well done.
• 1:00:38
  Dave Kropf: Like I mentioned, this cue was submitted over at 52 cues in our weekly feedback thread. we do threads every single week, where folks can post their cues and get submissions or get feedback on their cues, leave feedback for other cues. But there's so much so much else happening over at 52 cues. Like just by the time you record, this will have already happened, but I'm doing a live Q&A with Morgan McKnight, who is the Executive Director of the Production Music Association, and that is open to the 52 cues members. And that is going to be just this afternoon, really, really looking forward to that and that that Q&A is going to be posted on an upcoming episode. In fact, that will be next week's episode of the 52 cues podcast. So while as you're listening to this, that was actually yesterday, the the recording of that will be posted on next week's episode. And so we would love to have you over at 52 cues. And it's free to join. It's free to be a member. But we also have other subscription tiers. So if you're looking to really kind of push into the next level of your career, whether it's getting interactive feedback, whether it's attending workshops, whether it's it's open Q&A, office hours, mastermind, masterclass groups and all of that, then check us out over at 52cues.com You can join up over there, you can buy merch, you can get mugs, and T shirts, and all of that other business and all of that goes to supporting the channel. So once again, thank you to everybody. Thank you for your support the friends, family and patrons, but that is going to do it for me this week. I hope you had a great week 25 And I can't wait to talk to you next week for week 26. Until then, peace.
• 1:02:20
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• 1:02:30
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