The Spaces Between - Updated

[jwnicholson78]

On 6/25/2022 at 7:48 AM, Douglas Kirby said:

I enjoyed the listen - nicely done.  Sounded great through my headphones.

Thanks, so much!  I appreciate it.

[jwnicholson78]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:53 AM, markno999 said:

Great track, really like the musical content and overall sound design.   You have a very recognizable style musically.   

The only thing I heard that I would change is maybe change some of the intro sonar pings to another sound or change some of the tonality to mix it up in the intro?  I would maybe use a Hang Drum on a few of the hits.     I know you are going for a spacey type intro but the sonar pings to my ears are a bit on the annoying side and maybe distract from the music.    Obviously it is a personal taste thing and other people may like that sound so take it with a grain of salt as intended.

That said, a minor thing on an otherwise flawless track.    On my 3rd listen and digging it a lot.

Regards

I really appreciate the feedback.    Having let this sit for a little I definitely think the sonar pings and some of the other sounds need to be moved back in the mix, so I'm going to have another go at it when I have some time.  I'll have to play with some Hang Drums, too.  Thanks for the suggestions.

[jwnicholson78]

On 7/1/2022 at 1:51 PM, freddy j said:

I agree with the comments above.  This is a most pleasant piece and you mix sounds great to these old ears.  I also like that "jangley" guitar -- it has a sound similar to that used on the theme song for the television show called "Due South".  Jangley guitars and birds at the end --- how cool!!

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment, Freddy.  Much appreciated!

[antler]

Very nice. The sound effects certainly add an aspect of interest to it - was there some kind of story in mind? Love the drum break roughly in the middle, and the addition of the choirs after it give it an epic feel too, as well as diversifying the sonic palette. Well done!

[jwnicholson78]

52 minutes ago, antler said:

Very nice. The sound effects certainly add an aspect of interest to it - was there some kind of story in mind? Love the drum break roughly in the middle, and the addition of the choirs after it give it an epic feel too, as well as diversifying the sonic palette. Well done!

Thanks so much! 

Yes, I did have a story in mind when I was putting it together.  I had just finished the game "The Outer Wilds" when I started working on this, and was inspired by it.  (Small aside - If you are into video games and you haven't tried it, check it out!).   Also, I had done a couple of other space themed songs recently.  So, while I was working on it, I imagined a lonely astronaut (maybe the Rocket Man) finally finishing his last job after many years. At last he gets take one final trip, to go home.  All the little clicky bits are him trying to get his ship to work, the pings and pongs and other beeps and boops are satellites or maybe alien ships whizzing by.  When the choir and strings hit, he's finally caught sight of home, and then he lands, takes off his helmet, and just listens to the birds.

Jeff

[antler]

48 minutes ago, jwnicholson78 said:

Thanks so much! 

Yes, I did have a story in mind when I was putting it together.  I had just finished the game "The Outer Wilds" when I started working on this, and was inspired by it.  (Small aside - If you are into video games and you haven't tried it, check it out!).   Also, I had done a couple of other space themed songs recently.  So, while I was working on it, I imagined a lonely astronaut (maybe the Rocket Man) finally finishing his last job after many years. At last he gets take one final trip, to go home.  All the little clicky bits are him trying to get his ship to work, the pings and pongs and other beeps and boops are satellites or maybe alien ships whizzing by.  When the choir and strings hit, he's finally caught sight of home, and then he lands, takes off his helmet, and just listens to the birds.

Jeff

The Outer Wilds looks interesting. For some reason it was giving me a Life is Strange vibe and I saw a mention of it in the comments; I'm guessing it's a completely different type of game though. I've added it to my Steam shopping list.

The beeps and boops make sense now (don't get me wrong, they sounded cool even when I didn't know the story). Very effective. Did the birds come from a sample library?

[Larry T.]

just my own personal tastes would be to have this piece work as a stand alone piece of music, remove the effects (but keep the birds)....you really put together a lot of different motifs and have them all fit together so seamlessly ????

[jwnicholson78]

On 7/4/2022 at 6:40 PM, antler said:

The Outer Wilds looks interesting. For some reason it was giving me a Life is Strange vibe and I saw a mention of it in the comments; I'm guessing it's a completely different type of game though. I've added it to my Steam shopping list.

The beeps and boops make sense now (don't get me wrong, they sounded cool even when I didn't know the story). Very effective. Did the birds come from a sample library?

I never played Life Is Strange, so not sure whether the comparison is apt or not.   It took me a couple of tries  to get into Outer Wilds, but once I did, it quickly became one of my favorites in a long  time.

I don't remember where the bird sample came from.  I got into a kick of downloading free samples for a while wherever I could find them, but I've long since forgotten where I got them.

[jwnicholson78]

8 hours ago, Larry T. said:

just my own personal tastes would be to have this piece work as a stand alone piece of music, remove the effects (but keep the birds)....you really put together a lot of different motifs and have them all fit together so seamlessly ????

Thanks so much for the feedback!

[jwnicholson78]

I updated the mix to lower the levels of some of the sound effects.

[Keith Wilby]

16 hours ago, jwnicholson78 said:

I updated the mix to lower the levels of some of the sound effects.

Sounds a lot better for it to me, nice one ?

[jwnicholson78]

15 hours ago, Keith Wilby said:

Sounds a lot better for it to me, nice one ?

Thanks!  Sounds better to me, too

I was having fun with all the sound effects, but after I had let it sit for a while, I realized they were a little overbearing.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

On 6/23/2022 at 3:27 AM, jwnicholson78 said:

Thanks!  I've never thought my little tunes were good for much more than keeping me entertained.  I'm kind of curious to look into Library Music companies now that you've brought it up, though.

If you're interested in writing for Libraries, I suggest following the Sync My Music Youtube channel - there is a free 5 part course about writing for production music libraries there where you can get an overview of what it's all about.

I have to warn you though it's pretty competitive and you would need to write at least 50 tracks per year for a couple of years to make any sort of dent in it.   

Although this is one of the better tracks I've heard on the Cakewalk forum the production bar is somewhat higher for sync so you'd need to hone those mixing and mastering skills some more to reach the standard but it sounds like you have some decent composition ideas that would work for TV.

Mostly you have to write to briefs rather than whatever comes into your imagination - " We need X styles of music for upcoming shows " - so you have to be cool with writing what they need , rather than what came into your head that day. 

If you do get anywhere it can be rewarding to hear your music in TV shows, much better than just sharing stuff with friends online and hoping someone wil listen. It's kinda cool to know literally millions of people have heard your music around the world, even if they don't know it was you.   The money can vary hugely, I've had some placements earn literally pennnies whilst the best ones can make 4 figures over time. 

All I would say to you or anyone else interested is if you do it you go all in. Read the Dan Graham articles in Sound on Sound about library music,  and be prepared to do a lot of work for a couple of years with zero money before you start getting any traction.  Good Luck !

Edit : Posted a link to some tracks in a thread I just made

Edited July 13, 2022 by Mark MoreThan-Shaw

[markno999]

Much better with the sound effects pulled back.   Really well done.

Regards

[jwnicholson78]

On 7/11/2022 at 6:57 AM, Mark MoreThan-Shaw said:

If you're interested in writing for Libraries, I suggest following the Sync My Music Youtube channel - there is a free 5 part course about writing for production music libraries there where you can get an overview of what it's all about.

...

Thank you for these comments.  I really appreciate your feedback.    A lot of what you say confirms what I expected - that it's a competitive space, and it takes a lot of work to have a significant chance.

I feel like I have made some progress in improving in the last couple of years, but I also feel like, when I listen to songs that I have produced vs. professionally produced work, I still have a LOT more to do.  Unfortunately, with a full time job (that I do enjoy) and young kids to take care of, I'm lucky if I can make a song or two every other month.  I think I worked on this one for at least 3 months.  So going all in isn't really feasible, and for now, I think about continuing to try and improve my skills for the time being and maybe when the kids go off to college, I can spend more time and get more serious in music production.

In the meantime,  I wonder if there are there libraries that I can submit my music to, on the off chance that someone would pick it up and use it?

Again thanks for the feedback!

[jwnicholson78]

6 hours ago, markno999 said:

Much better with the sound effects pulled back.   Really well done.

Regards

Thanks.  I really appreciate it.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

15 hours ago, jwnicholson78 said:

Thank you for these comments.  I really appreciate your feedback.    A lot of what you say confirms what I expected - that it's a competitive space, and it takes a lot of work to have a significant chance.

I feel like I have made some progress in improving in the last couple of years, but I also feel like, when I listen to songs that I have produced vs. professionally produced work, I still have a LOT more to do.  Unfortunately, with a full time job (that I do enjoy) and young kids to take care of, I'm lucky if I can make a song or two every other month.  I think I worked on this one for at least 3 months.  So going all in isn't really feasible, and for now, I think about continuing to try and improve my skills for the time being and maybe when the kids go off to college, I can spend more time and get more serious in music production.

In the meantime,  I wonder if there are there libraries that I can submit my music to, on the off chance that someone would pick it up and use it?

Again thanks for the feedback!

Yeah I don't think I could have done it when my kids were younger and hold down a  full time job too. Mine are at Uni / College now  and I can generally do two tracks per week depending on how busy my day job is, but back in the day it would take me the same amount of time as it takes you now.  This is why I often harp on about DAW workflow in some of the threads because when you work to deadlines every minute counts and when you use it pretty much day in day out you get a much better idea of it's strengths and weaknesses.

I'm not sure it would be usable in it's current form, one of the unwritten rules is " no foley " ..which means no sound effects that are not musical parts and you have a fair few going.  You could always bounce another mix without them. That transition around 36s is a bit clunky so you'd probbaly want to smooth that out and make it more musical. Those tranistions are often used as edit point when cutting to picture so some sort of rise & hit type sound usually works best  ( like a reverse cymal swelling in the forward playing cymbal for example .

If you send it to a bonefide sync library you'll need to be a member of a PRO ( Ascap / BMI in the US  ) as the mebership number goes with the metadata and is how they know who to pay royalties to. There aren't really any that would take a one off track as it's not worth the Admin to onboard a new writer for one track, most want 4 or 5 or some want a full album. 

There is a lower tier of libraries that don't really deal a whole bunch with broadcast, they are more for content creators to get music from..corporate videos, Youtubers etc. You don't necessarily have to join a PRO to submit music to these places as they aren't really supplying TV shows so there are no royalties, you just get a share of the revenue that someone paid to use your track in their Youtube channel or whatever.  If you wanted to try one of those places like Audiosparx, AudioJungle, Pond5 will probably let you sign up and put a single track up. Be warned though that one track is a bit of a needle in a haystack and you need a volume of material in any library before it will likely start getting used.

  

 

[Jesse Screed]

spaces

moments

opinions

bridges

[SUPAREELS]

? That's it ... Just loved the work

Steve

[musekamp]

Great sound! I like the composition and arrangement.