Reid Rosefelt

Yesterday I found a flaw in the six videos I did--so I would have to reshoot all of them. And then to fix the flaw it involved resetting everything--camera position, lights, reflector, backdrop, sound, And after a few hours, I couldn't get it right. And the weird thing about it was that, compared to the book project, the whole course looked dull. This was something nobody wanted but me. So I just decided to put the course off until after the book was out. If the book has any success I can use that as a way to give the course some authority. For fun, here's the current version of the title sequence. The compositions were made in Photoshop and then animated in Premiere. See if you can guess what instruments I used for the music.

Yes, Facebook/Instragram is divisive and is responsible for many terrible things in our society. Long ago I actually was a Facebook consultant and I owned a lot of stock. I stopped consulting and sold all my stock and took a big tax hit because I didn't want to be profiting from something that immoral. But it's not all bad. I do like keeping in touch with my high school friends. You don't have to use it to fight about politics. You can just see pictures of people's grandchildren and I like that. And there's no way in a million years I would be writing this book if I didn't find out that people actually liked this stuff I was doing. Really? It's not that good! I had a friend who was a tremendous actress . She had a real following in the indie world. But she didn't want to be an actress. She wanted to be a writer/director. She was rich and didn't have to work so she just let her acting career drop. She only did jobs when people called her. And her directing career went nowhere for a long times. But people really loved her as an actress. She could care less because it was effortless for her to do it. This is easy, so I don't value it. But maybe we all need to listen to what the world tells us now and then. Like if you're trying to be an orchestral composer, and you're not getting calls from the NY Philharmonic, but you write great songs that all your friends like... you know? Maybe you should think about going in that direction and seeing if you can take it to a level beyond your friends. I'm still trying to figure it out. But I'm going to see this book through.

Thank you all for your interest. Here's what's going on. A lot of you know that I've been planning a series of publicity videos for a long time. My feeling was, "Why am I doing music videos when there are people like Rick Beato around?" And I thought that I've been a movie publicist for 45 years. I know a lot about that. So I started working on scripts and the technical aspects. This has been a long time coming. But nothing new. I could do the video course and do the podcast and the Tiger the Frog sale too. I had it all workeds out. But now I'm also writing a freaking book. Here's how that happened. I decided I wanted to begin beating the drum for the course on Facebook. I have almost 900 Facebook "friends." You meet a lot of people when you're a publicist. But on Facebook the only people who get my posts are my high school friends and Simeon--because they are the only ones who care about me anymore. So I thought that if I wrote something interesting it might wake things up. I started telling little stories about my career as a film publicist. I'd get up early and spend an hour or two writing each one. And people really liked them. And soon everybody was on my case telling me to write a book. So I said "no way" and I kept saying "No." Because it's not something I want to do. At all. The FB posts were fun because there was no pressure to do them well. But people kept on me about it. All these people in the film business who abandoned me... And then I thought about it. I've tried to do so many things in my life, from writing ten screenplays, to directing movies, to music to making YouTube videos, Nothing really came of any of it. Nobody ever said "we want to make a movie out of your screenplay! or You're such a great director!" And the YouTube channel, despite endless work, hasn't caught on at all. If I kept making music videos it would probably take me another year to become a YouTube partner. This is all stuff I was trying to do my best at, and now for the very first time, people are saying they really like something I did , Stuff I tossed off without a thought. Stuff I don't personally value too much. I think some of the stuff I've written here or on VI:Control are better. And I decided to listen to what they were telling me. Maybe this is something I'm just naturally good at. Maybe I should stop resisting and just do it. The book is called "Why Tony Curtis Hit Me"

I'm sorry to say that I'm not doing the Tiger the Frog Black Friday post on VI:Control this year. I was really looking forward to it. My hope was to keep doing them every year. My hope is still to come back in 2022, but maybe somebody else will jump in this year at VI:Control. But you've got King Larry, so no worries for all of you. Basically I am really busy with a project I had no idea I'd be doing. I also had to leave the Composers Roundtable podcast that was so much fun to do. But I just don't have the time. I'm doing this on top of the publicity video series I'm starting in a week or so, so I'm freaking out a little. That's going to be weekly, and I'm also doing this.

Movavi has 7-day free trials of their software, with typical restrictions like watermarks, but enough to see if it's for you. They sell a lot of interesting add-ons, once you get into their world. Movavi has a big staff and a large user base. I don't know their software, but from the outside they are the opposite of Magix. Magix buys other people's technology, like Engine and Vegas, with whatever problems and bugs they have. Then they do nothing to make it better. It's all about buying a loyal user base who will stick with it and even upgrade because they don't want to learn something new. And the big trick is to sell new versions with add-ons that don't work with other software, so people keep pouring money in. Movavi, on the other hand, seems to be starting from zero with simple software without a lot of bloat. It works, it's reasonably priced they are making it better, and they are making tons of products for their ecosystem. Even though I use Premiere, there are lots of things I still use Vegas for because I like the plugins I have. This is so cheap I'm considering getting it. Maybe I'll like their screen recorder or their video converter. Also Gecata seems interesting. As it can record games, can it record DAWs with sound? Do be aware that they sell regular and commercial versions of their effects packages. So you would have to buy their commercial versions to use it on a monetized YouTube channel. So for example, some of the free stuff in this package sell for $24.95 in their store, but it costs $49.95 for the Commercial Account. And even the commercial account license only allows for one social media site. My point about this is it's great for people having fun with video, but extremely expensive for people who have commercial YouTube and other social media accounts. But I totally sympathize with anybody who doesn't want to or can't buy a subscription. But I also have Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and Apple and all this other stuff. There's always some show that my wife and I want to watch. It's depressing to see this charge every month on my credit card bill, but I"m starting a series that is going out 52 weeks a year, and I just can't be messing around with Vegas.

When I first got Vegas Pro about twenty years ago, it crashed all the time, but I just chalked it up to me not having a powerful enough computer. As I started to bet more power and 64 GB RAM, it continued to be a disaster. Crash. Crash. Crash. Last year I started making YouTube videos regularly, and my videos got longer and often had many layers of special effects, text, etc. And when I went online I found out I wasn't alone. Lots of people talked about how Vegas crashed. So one of my regular activities was looking for new solutions and trying them. I didn't have your problem with rendering. I could see how somebody making very simple videos with Vegas might be fine. But with all the crashes it was taking me three or four times as long. I was complaining to my wife and she just said, why don't you get new editing software. So I bought Adobe Premiere. Very expensive, although I got a slight discount through my wife's work. Only available on subscription. The day I started using it was the day all my problems ended. There were also features that made it work two or three times faster. For example, right now I'm doing a video with an animated collage. This would be very difficult to do in editing software. But I just put everything together in Photoshop. Premiere imports Photoshop files. All the png files were in place and all I had to do was animate them. I could never have done it otherwise. Because Premiere is a standard, there are many thousands of plugins available for it as opposed to the NewBlue stuff and very little else for Vegas. There are tons of free plugins out there. That was like a wonderland, to suddenly be able to get all these plugins. Kind of like getting full Kontakt.

To be clear, I like EZBass a lot and highly recommend it. I think the engine is amazing and it's well worth the money. It's another winner for Toontrack. But when you use it in a piece, it runs as a kind of DAW within a DAW. So for me it's easier to output the MIDI when I'm done creating it. Then the MIDI is on a track in my DAW and I can use it to play any bass I own. So in this case, as I own Trilian and Modwheel's Lowdown and Mellow, I just don't feel the need to buy this. But I can't wait for the MIDI 6-packs to come out.

Because of the very strange way they are recorded. It's in my video.

Full disclosure: I'm not going to buy any more Toontrack basses. But especially not acoustic ones. There are so many really great ones out there in all price ranges, including many cheaper than this. I would just go to the many VI:Control posts about best acoustic basses and read up. Like this very recent one: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/jazz-upright-bass.114289/#post-4910405 On the other hand, I look forward to the Toontrack acoustic bass MIDI.

I think it depends on how well The Resonator does for Tracy. I assume he is splitting the revenue with IK, so they would have to bring in a lot more business for it to be worth his while. My guess is that the answer might be no about porting more. This might be an experiment on his part to let a wider world know how good his stuff is. Like people use Audio Plugin Deals or an NKS sale with NI.

I once promoted a production company called InDigEnt where all the films were made with low budgets using prosumer digital cameras, like regular people bought at the time for home movies. This was the days before DSLRs and 4K on little cameras, so these films were grainy on the big screen. It literally meant Independent Digital Entertainment, but it also meant a Poverty Row type of studio. I suppose today somebody could pretend to be offended about this. Of course, nowadays somebody can pretend to be offended by anything.

I can understand why a bad experience like that would make you feel that way. Most people, including most UVI fans, consider World Traditions to be awful. Apparently UVI just bought a really old library from MOTU and put it up there. Not smart. But to their credit, they went back and fixed it up for World Suite, which has been as well-reviewed as World Traditions was critiqued. And WS2 is better still. My favorite purchase from UVI is Falcon. Everything they sell can be loaded in there and taken to a new level. I also love all their synths and synth collections.

But you have only a month to spend it! 😀

The original UVI World Library was not supposed to be very good. I believe it was ported from MOTU. When they made it into World Suite they added a ton of new instruments. I think all of them were from Precision Sound. If you look at Precision Sound, you'll see that the stuff added is the same. There are some super gems in there. I love the accordions. If you were to buy them at the Precision Sound half price sale, it would cost you a lot. Of course, the PS instruments are Kontakt. The same thing happened with World Suite 2. They added a lot more new instruments. I'm not sure from where. Maybe their own? If you look at EthnoWorld it's very similar. The stuff from EthnoWorld 1 is not as good as the stuff from the newer versions. There is a variability in quality with libraries as huge as these. I'm pretty familiar with both and I think EthnoWorld 6 is MUCH better, both in quality of sound and features. I don't know what the price is for you to upgrade, but if anybody is deciding between one and the other, EthnoWorld 6 (instruments only) will be cheaper on Black Friday. It lists at $259 and with 40% off it's about $155. The only issue I can thing of with EthnoWorld is that 6 came out 4 years ago and I wouldn't be too surprised if version 7 would turn up before too long. Currently, upgrading for 4 or 5 to 6 is $159, which is more than 6 costs new during the sale. Every now and then they have sales on upgrades. I like having both. Each has instruments the other one doesn't have. Also World Suite was my first one, and it started my exploration of world music.

Tracy said in VI:Control that the Intro price is good until 10/31 https://vi-control.net/community/threads/introducing-the-fiddle.114532/

I already want the Delta Blues and Renaxxance. And the Mandolin, Uke, Brio, etc But I've been spending so much on video equipment lately that I am probably going to sell a lot of music stuff, including things I just bought like PIANO COLORS and PICKED NYLON 😥 I'm going to try not buying anything musical for awhile. Luckily I have this one!

When people talk about their favorite guitars, they always say OTS and AmpleSound, which are definitely great. But there are things that Tracy's guitars do that they can't. And I think that some people may think they can't be as good because they're so inexpensive. I think all of Tracy's instruments sound so great and are so playable. I love his harmony feature, that I've never seen on any other instrument. It's particularly amazing on this because he does all these interesting things to make it sound like a double-stop drone. When you go higher up, you get a higher note as the drone. The problem for most people is that there are no sales. Because I don't feel the panic of a quick sale, I have to force myself to say, "I'm buying one of these today." I try to buy one a year. I bought most of his guitars and Blue Street Brass. I got to know him when I did a video of Solid State Symphony, which I had owned for years. That's why he asked me to demo The Fiddle. He's updated it since the one I played before. I tend to just turn the harmonies on all the time. That's why my little tune is pretty flat next to his demos which so beautifully show all the different articulations. The STEEL sounds better than the Fiddle on my track because you can just leave the harmony on and it sounds great. I use a snapshot called "Cryin'" I highly recommend this. I've missed out on some of his intro sales by not taking advantage of them soon enough. I don't know about a bass. I love the auto-harmonies, so maybe some instrument that could show that off. A 12-string? But the way his instruments do articulations would admittedly be great with a bass.

Tracy's demos are amazing as usual.

I beta-tested this. I got distracted and wrote this little melody. It's just The Fiddle, Indiginus's The STEEL, Picked Acoustic, and Trilian. The Fiddle - Three Things.mp3

I stand corrected. You agree that forums should be moderated and that Mike can moderate as he chooses. But you think he moderates like somebody who operates a police state and has been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. I think that's an excessive description of what he does. But you are entitled to your opinion, however untethered from any sense of proportion. But as Mike has been extremely careful at making his choices and explaining his reasoning, and your reaction is so extreme, then it is my opinion, that you don't like the idea of any moderation, no matter how mild. That's my opinion. You don't give any examples, but Jay Asher was given warnings but just would not or could not stop. He commandeered dozens of posts and attacked people relentlessly. And was just a general grump and a scold that made the forum less fun for everybody else. And when he was finally kicked out he said he was okay with it, and simply went somewhere else He's fine. He's still alive and not in the gulag. 😀 You also said that Mike is not a good human being. Do you know him? Isn't that something of a leap from you disagreeing with his forum moderation? It's also my opinion that you knew that posting your opinion on a forum like this--dedicated to buying software--that it might cause some people not to buy any of Mike's software. You wanted to hurt his business. That's my opinion. You say you don't hate anybody. I'll leave that for others to judge from the way you came after Mike. MODERATOR; If you are looking at this, please leave the post up but delete all this unnecessary drama, unrelated to software deals. It's exactly this kind jumping in with personal vendettas like this that brought down the previous composer's forum. So I'm done contributing to this post.

I strongly disagree with this. Mike is a terrific guy. He was beloved in the community for Realitone before he ever got officially involved with VI:Control. That is because he has always treated his customers well, including a no-questions asked refund within a month. How many companies do that? VI:Control exists for one reason and one reason only. There was a previous composers forum and the conversation got so toxic there that most people left. And that was that. That kind of thing was beginning under Frederick Russ, so Mike came in. If Husker thinks that VI:Control has any chance of lasting a year without moderation, he is simply uninformed about its history, and about how mean the people can be who go on it. Most people are really nice and supportive, but a few are really not. I myself have been treated very poorly on numerous occasions on VI:Control. (In fairness, it happened once here too). In those occasions I questioned whether I wanted to keep going on there, and I stayed away for quite awhile. Mike tries to be very fair about who he kicks off, but it is not an easy thing. If he leaves nasty people on the site, people leave. Too much of that and the forum is over, as the previous forum was. If he kicks them off, @husker gets mad at him. He does his best, but you simply can't please everybody. I follow these things carefully and I've supported him on every thing he's done. So if you hate Mike, Husker, then I guess you hate me too. If @husker doesn't like Mike that's his business. But to compare a super nice guy like Mike to a North Korean dictator is a bit over the top. I hope the rest of you will not listen to him when you consider a Realitone product.

STUPID DEAD is a great name for a movie or maybe even a band.

Hippity-Hop

Yes Mike has produced a lot of Hip Hop. He is also one of the most important developers in my book, having made so many classic instruments like Blue, the under-rated Realidrums, and the awesome Sunset Strings. It took him forever to make this after he introduced it at NAMM because it was so close to his heart and he’s a perfectionist who kept adding more and more features. He is also one of the few developers who offers refunds fo a limited time But you’d have to buy it from him to get that

I think it’s unlikely that Essentials will be available for $60 on BF. But other versions of The Orchestra will be 40%. off and people might want to figure that into their decision on whether to get this Of course there is always the standard discount on all of The Orchestra products for Optometrists.