Transcripts
1. Course Introduction: I'm Alex Scott and
welcome to my studio. I'm a music producer
and songwriter with hundreds of songs placed
on networks like Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and commercial work with
brands like Microsoft, Samsung, Ford, and Flenymore. I'm going to bring you
into my studio and share my entire process
from start to finish. You're going to follow
along as I produce a track for sync from scratch, from starting with picking
a tempo, genre, and vibe, all the way through how I mix and prep my final
files for delivery. Along the way, I'm
gonna be explaining everything that I'm doing
from my thought process, my ideas, my decisions, to the tools that I use and the techniques that I've
learned over the years. I'll show you how
to get the track started quickly and add edit points and structure that TV and film editors
are often looking for. By the end of this class, you'll know everything you need to produce tracks for TV,
film and advertising. So come join me, Alex Kopp, for this learning experience
from inside my studio.
2. Picking A Vibe and Tempo: All right, let's jump
into making a track that is well suited
for TV and film, for me, this can start 1
million different ways. It could be I've got a brief for something
and I need to write in a specific direction
or style or tempo. But a lot of times
it's just catching a vibe and starting from
scratch and see where we go. So I think today
we'll start with maybe some basic piano chords
and get a tempo and feel, maybe a little
atmosphere vibe and sort of see where that takes us. All right. So in
my template here, I've got sort of everything
already broken down into how you'll see we'll help us later bouncing
stems and stuff. I've got a piano group
since drums, et cetera. And within that, I've
kind of got some of my favorite things
that helped me start, help me get a song going quickly so that I don't waste any
time or lose an idea. Alright, let's see here.
I think today maybe a little more up tempo pop vibe. Maybe a little indie
rock in there. Let's just let's just start vibing on some chords
and see where this goes. I'm not the best at theory, so we'll just see
where we go here. Alright, put something
in there. It's cool. Let's just record a couple of these progressions and
see which one's a vibe. That's one idea. Usually, I just sort of fly stuff around, make a super messy timeline until I've got something I like, and then we'll sort of piece
it together from there. Something oh et's try. S D Alright, let's try that one. It's a little little dark,
maybe for what I want, but let's try one more
and then see if we can piece these together
into having a yeah. Take that. We'll
save these for now. Again, my workflow gets
a little sloppy here. Move things around 'cause
I don't like to delete stuff just in case it might
become a bridge or you never. Let's go into this media
clean this up a little bit. Nice. I like that chord progression. So now usually what
I'll do is go look for some sort of
percussion or some sort of movement loop that'll
maybe guide the direction of feel and where this is
going to go in that sense. So we're going to go
in a splice here. Make it simple and
just put in tempo. Then we'll just
look for drum loop. I don't know I usually just
grab a bunch of stuff, throw it in, see where ends up. Cool buildup section
at some point. 's look for a percussion loop. Ooh. Nice. Something like that,
we can filter and just add some sort
of texture in there. I'm gonna chop that and shift it so the downbeat
is on the one. A filter on that. I'm already starting
to hear some go melodies on this,
which is awesome. Alright, now, something I
usually like to do next is add some atmosphere,
some ambient sounds, some foley samples,
some single note stuff, really just to make it
a vibe and not just a standard chord progression. So let's take my cynthia
going through this petal. Got a striming big
sky over here, a massive reverb to
slam stuff through. It's just an instant
instant vibe. About an hour. Fix the
attack a little bit. Chop right off. Maybe another layer
or something similar. Too harsh. Well, that's kind of cool. I like that. Let's
just put it in there for now. I
can always mute it. I still looking for one
more layer of something. G flat and. Just take this whole thing,
leave the tail there. Nice. It's a little vibe. I think we'll start
getting a little bit of some a little more
percussion going, maybe. Listen to Ann?
3. Building The Initial Loop: Listen and see where
this might be heading. H It's not right, but I like that chain, so
let's hold on to that. I make a lot of
mistakes as I go. I try not to let it stop me. Just go back and fix stuff, get the idea out while you got it. Let's start again. Oh I just want to try the Sea this kind of more electro
indie pop vibe, maybe where this wants to go. Something Alright. Now that we've got this sort
of super basic loop going, I'm just going to keep
expanding on it and turn this into what might become
a section of a song. So I'm gonna build out some drum, some other
instrumentation, and then just see
where this might fit. Maybe this becomes
a pre or a buildup. Maybe we delete all of
it. I don't really know. I just like to keep going and build and stack and take things away and add new things and
just watch where it goes. A ca. Cool. I sort of feeling like a, well, what would be a pre chorus type section to
me at the moment, let's see. All right. Look at the timing right. Wow. Just me. Not doing a good job. I try to be due
diligent as I'm going about dropping all
my loops and things I'm bringing in within my pre set up groups that I talked
about at the beginning, just to be able to
easily solo things, change the level
of all the drums, just super simple and quick. Alright, I think
we've really got a good track start going here. If I was going to go into a session with a
vocalist or something, this would be a great
starting point. I would have something like
this before I met with them, either on Zoom or in person, just to be able to bring
something to the table, and, you know, sometimes
getting some chords going or getting this
far can take some time, depending on what your
day is looking like, how you're feeling, if
you're inspired or not. So I try to get this part going before I step in the
room with somebody else. So I think for now, this is a great start for us to build
off of in the next lesson.
4. Turning The Loop Into A Hook: In the last lesson,
we started our track, got a vibe going, our tempo, idea of a genre and a couple alternate
chord progressions that we might use
later in the track. So let's get back into this
and build up the hook, the different sections
of the track and really start to get an overall feel for what this track
is going to be. I kind of like this
more electro vibe with out the piano
at the moment. I really think this is sort of our pre chorus
build up section. I want to add some
sound effects though, kind of transition things, but start to give it that vibe as well. All right. I think what I'm
going to do is maybe work on a bit of
where this might go. So I'm thinking maybe
now I'm going to start with what'll be the
hook of the track, and I'll take some elements from this section and build upon that and really
open up the drums, open up the keys, and start to get some
melodies in there, and then probably work
backwards from there. Let's see if the 16th note open high hat kind of Indie
Rock thing works or not. I had a crash. My go to crash. Add some more percussion
elements to the drums. Highs are kind of obnoxious, but I think they'll
work in context. One thing with sync
music is you really want something new and
interesting to be happening. Every eight bar every 4 bars, every 8 bars like the top of every time your chord
progression loops, just to keep it interesting, give people stuff
to edit to catch on to really move
a picture along, which is kind of the
point of sync music. So you'll see a lot of me adding in extra drums or on half
of this hook section, a new melody will come in. So definitely something
to keep an eye out for and when you're
working in this style, something to be mindful of. Small percussion. I want to put some toms in here. I love using this Saturn two saturation to really make these toms pop in
this kind of music. Right. One thing I really love to do in sync
music or music for TV film, production music, whatever
you want to call it is lots of SFC, sound effects, impacts,
brakes, space, things that just keep you pulled into the track
and kind of keep the visual, whatever this is being edited to or whatever is being
edited to this. It keeps it interesting, gives people a lot to work with. It's always something
I see people asking for sync companies,
editors, et cetera. When I flex and a group. I like to use the What are these called The summing
groups within logic, kind of puts everything into
a folder and routes it out in c so it's soluble, mutable. You can add effects to it, and also really helps in our final deliverables process, which you'll see at the end. Maybe look for one
more percussion loop. So Oh. Just looking for, like, a fully percussion loop, something out of the norm, it's got some nice
movement to it. Let's or something like that. I might add another
kick layer, something. Again, just to keep it changing
a little top end maybe. It's Sort something that
sounds like a stomp, but I don't think stomp
is the vibe for this. I just gonna copy
that kick pattern. Just check the frequencies, make these work well together. Saturation on the top of
that cut a little bit more. About a adds a little
room, a little life. It's kind of nice. So I like to do these ambiances that we made on the prophet
here at the beginning. I often like to keep these going throughout
the whole track. It kind of blends things together in a nice way
and nice little glue. Let's see if that works here. Treat it a little different compress side chain compress
it a little bit to the kick. Maybe let's find a new layer on the prophet to do a similar thing with
different sound. Cool. Just this sort of little chord two note
chord change thing here is something right. All right. Now, I really want
to see if we're going to keep the same cords
for this bigger section. We'll call it the
hook. Different cords, maybe one of these other
chord progressions that we initially came up
with. Let's just see. I'm gonna cut all
the keys there. I'm gonna bounce this pad so I can really make a
hard cut on it easily. Get a new piano, play around
with some chords in the I don't know if that's
survive or not, but I like that corp russia. Just so I can feel it. Let's see if it's
really the vibe or not. It's out of base. It's cool. I love it
yet. Cross some more. It's better than this?
5. Flipping the Hook into an Intro: I think this might
be the one for now. Let's make thetnochords
work a little more. I'm a sucker for a single note, piano melody, just somewhere buried in there for movement. All right. Miss it
the second time. Well, that's Joe fix it. It's better base Let me see if I can find
ambient melodies or some There we go. I love some ear and
candy, anything, again, just new things all the time
in these kind of tracks. Nice. I think we'll
add some bass guitar, something to make this even more on the indie side
versus just electronic. Humanize it a little
bit, if you will. Just try something super basic. U Et's listen to where we're at. Alright. I think
it's time to start looking for what could be the main melody of this trap. So I'm gonna pull up some sense, just see something that
sort of fits the vibe, maybe isn't the complete sound, but just something
to play around with. And No real rhyme or reason here, sort of looking for a sound that inspires a
melody, basically. Alright, not feeling inspired. I'm gonna pull up
arcade by output, which just has lots of good. Samples and things to keep you going when
you're losing momentum. Yet, yet. Share to back to think 80 to think
80 Thank Thank you. Make a little chop out of
first half of that, I think. Yes. Let me I I don't let me let me. I don't I don't Abby's a little melody for inspiration. A This is a super happy go lucky track. Let's take a listen
from the top. Awesome. I think here, we've got our hook
basically sketched out. I think it could use a little
more melodic development and make it a little
more interesting. It's a little basic
at the moment. But this is a good
stopping point for now. In the next lesson,
we'll pick up on this hook and take
that into building out the arrangement and a
couple more sections and then really adding all
the final melodies and bells and whistles to make this super TV and film friendly. I'll see
you in the next one.
6. Creating a Verse: In our last lesson, we got our hook section of
the track going. Now we're going to take that and the initial start that we had and work a bit with
getting our arrangement going and just trying
some different things. We might try some
different tempos, moving some sections around, moving chord changes around, just to start to get a fully
fleshed idea of a track. Then from there, we'll take it into adding final melodies and transitions and edits just to really wrap this thing
up. Let's jump into it. I think the first
thing I want to try is maybe just a different tempo, just to see if I'm
maybe like that. What we'll do for that is we'll just make everything
that's audio, flex time and logic that way. Tempo wise, it'll just shift
right where we need it to. All these percussion loops. Let's try those. No. I try a half time feel just to see if I can make this a
little more interesting. Okay Alright. I'm gonna try moving these
chords around a little bit. Nice. I like that
better. It's that. Et's look for a half time
percussion loop maybe. It's much of a melody man. Interesting. Dirty this high house up a
little bit or something. Maybe B stop. But Just trying to create some more
interesting pattern sounds something.
Not really sure yet. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Try this little what is the 16th note now
that we're halftime. Just getting, no, no, no, no the tender. Obviously, that's fast. Oh. Mm Like I said, my process can get quite sloppy. I usually just take time at the end and go back and clean up all these tracks
and I'm duplicating and trying different things. But just want to
keep the flow going. It A I've got some bit of an idea for what could
maybe become an intro. I mean, just maybe Cool. That's something. Let's spell it out a
bit of an arrangement now and sort of see
where this all develops. Again, my messy timeline. Put some effects on that. Come, come, come, come come, come My meme, come, come, come, come, come of, I feel slow. Alright, let's try using
this as a verse, maybe. Keep this all intact for now. Tempo might have to come up a little bit if we're gonna
keep it at halftime. So it's double the
length of that, and we'll bring
some other elements in in the second half, again, to just keep
things coming and going. Interesting new stuff to not let this get boring since there's not a vocal
on top of it. Let's put a little
sweep into that. Try a different baseline, maybe bring the moving baseline
in the second half there. That could be cool or secure. Let's take this up Marte Just making those fit
together a little bit. Let me, Let me, C, me. I'm going to bounce that
so I can make a cut there. I don't like to use
automation yet at this point, just because I'm
going to be sliding so much stuff around can easily get messed up and working with audio is a bit easier.
7. Build Ups and Sync Edit Points: I don't put a little
something in there. That's kind of cool. Some loop somewhere,
it's not working. Switch did not go? Cool. Now I'm starting to feel
like something fun, like a picture in a background
of some sort of TV show. I don't know if it's
a commercial vibe but maybe we'll get
it there. Let's see. Come on, come, come, come, you know, a crash
there of some sort. Base is a little much. I'll figure something out there. More percussion. Turn everything down a bit. Cool. Think arrangement is,
let's double that hook. And put impact there. All right. Let's try going back
to this section after. Let's give it a measure space. Space is always key in
this kind of production, anywhere like that where a
scene could change, again, edit points for video editors to do something, do their thing. As we get going in this section, we'll definitely add
some new elements that don't happen the first
time around right now, let's just get this
arrangement going. I think I'm going to take out this double chorus
this first time double hook to keep this from getting too long. Move all this back. Maybe let me try some
different chords here. Some sort of change.
He'll be nice. All right. Let's see.
That's also gonna lead back to this most likely. What introspective section. The
8. Writing a Bridge Section: Cool. Then here, we're gonna
make some sort of bridge breakdown section against another
something different. Go from that back into the
chorus and then into an outro. Emmy C, C, C, C, C, Emmy Emmy C, C, All right. Let's listen from the
top and then sort of see what we should
do in this section. My, come on, come on, come on, come on, come. I want to make a face for? O Let's try something a little different here. Like that. We're gonna
have another break there. It's just duplicate it. Let's try that. Oh All right. Now that we have an
arrangement that, you know, fits the general
structure that I see a lot for TV film,
background music, which is, you know, sort of verse chorus,
verse chorus, bridge chorus, in a
songwriting sense, but really it's
different sections. Movement changes every
four to eight measures that keeps it interesting, some breaks to
give people places to edit to, change things up. Now what we're
going to do in the next lesson is go through, add some melodies
that really bring this home, chop some sections, maybe shorten a few things, tighten up the arrangement, tighten up the melodies
and the changes and the arc of the
overall track, and then we'll have
a finished track.
9. Refining The Arrangement : The last lesson, we got
our arrangement locked in. Now we're going to
go back through and refine things a little bit, add some more melodies,
more percussion, maybe some extra instruments just to really
build up the track, get a nice arc going,
everything's just constantly building up to
that last hook within this. We might change the
arrangement a little bit, shorten things,
tighten things up, but we're definitely going
to go through and add some more edit points and
hits and places where there's breaks in the track
that editors can really fall in love
with this track for editing purposes and find something that works
well for their picture. Alright, let's
just take a listen from the top, see
where we're at. And then we'll go from there. I try I speeding this
up a little bit, to see if we can get
a little more energy going since we're now
in this halftime feel. I'm gonna put this
bigger crash here. Oh adding some more effects to different section
changes, more energy. Nice. This bridge
is a cool section. It's different than the
rest, but we really want to accentuate that and see if we can add a few more
things in there to make this a whole different
edit section. This could even become
its own short edit for a completely different
film for somebody. Let's pull up. Let's get a whole different scenth
sound going here. This Archeria collection
is one of my go tos. It's just it's got all the bases covered scinthwise for anything you could need in this space. For this type of music
for TV and film stuff, I'm often working
on quick deadlines and need to turn tracks
around as quick as possible. So I go to presets a lot and just use those as starting points to find inspiration.
Sometimes they stay. Sometimes I tweak them, sometimes they get a ton
of effects loaded on top to change it up, make it unique. There's really no
rhyme or reason, no right or wrong, just find sounds and make
parts that you like. And Somewhere there's a harmonic on there that I don't like. Try different sounds. I'm not feeling that vibe at the moment. Computers not liking
this one today, huh? Well, we might do with this then. Try something different. Sometimes the computers
just not feeling it. If I stay in that
space too long, I'll get very discouraged
in the track. Cool. I hear a
little melody there. Let's just see
repurpose a sound. A melody like that
or work in there? It's just It's going the
exploration of sounds. Kind of cool melody. Sometimes I don't really
know what I'm looking for. I'm just searching. Mm. Let's see. Losing
my love for that. My dot. Ta take down some of the detail in that. It's chic.
10. Additional Melody Development: I'll say. Oh. Cool. That's a cool
little melody. Let's bring that in slowly with a little
bit of filtering. We'll automate that in so that that beginning
starts quieter. Ah. I go to use this big crash
again, I think. Trying to find a little
vocal chop for that. Oh, let me. I don't. Well, I can't believe it. I you don't have to call me
but you don't have to Well, it'll be Ohh Bounce up, pitch it down, we'll
just filter it and sin. Let's try something fun. We'll automate this
level of this reverb. Just for a little
closing in effect. I'm going to label a couple of these drum percussion channels 'cause I kind of want to hear maybe what that double
time sounds like again. Separate these drums
a little bit more so we can maybe try this chorus in
halftime. Let's see. It's kind of cool. H you never know what might work. Alright, so we changed
that up a bit. Coming in and out of half
time, double time. Who knows? Might change it again,
but at the moment, it feels interesting to me, and that's what I'm looking for. I'm going to add a
different impact at the top, something more drastic. I already have that in here, but let's come, come, taking the sloop out. Take some low end out of this. So the base has some real room. Those little crashes aren't working. We're gonna put those bigger
crash in the whole time. Change the velocity
on this first cord. A little unnatural. Alright. This needs
a clap in the hook. Sure. I have I should say. Alright, cool. I'm going to add try putting a bass guitar back in here after we
took it out before. See if we can liven
this up a little bit. Before before. Cool. I think that
could be cool. It just play a little address. Lo. Really just looking
for that pick. Alright, I think we're
gonna add a little guitar, possibly. See where we go. Thinking maybe some sort of plucky something of movement and then maybe some big chords. 80 style or something. Mm. Make sure she's in tune. Something like that. H Just looking for something big and open that adds more weight to it without adding too many
more parts at this. Close enough. Double that mess.
11. Human Elements And Live Instruments: Maybe, maybe not. Sloppy. All right. Let's see if we bring this
melody into the hook. Want to put a
little arp in here. Maybe one more guitar here. A little Pamute or something to just drive into this
next hook a little bit. Remember what these chords are. Let's try it. I'm just gonna do single notes. I can render cords
to save my life. More times to get all
the way through that. Yes. Oops. Alright, I think
we're almost there. Maybe one other part, two
other parts here there. All right, might try
a quick thing here. Arcade again. This
line, distant voices. Kind of like vocals, but also ambient synth
all at the same time. Simple things. Arcade
is just great to just pull samples when you just need a little
something like that. D. I'm going to make this
fake stereogram quick. Let's try. Another riser in here. I might try switching
that back to half time, maybe just making the
last time, double time. That's cool. Again,
changing always. I want to make an even
bigger tro fill here. Normally in TV film
music, sync music, we want the ending to have what's called either some
people call it a tight ending, a button ending, but
you really want to end on almost Tada moment. So just putting a big kick crash in the first chord right there
is really what you want. I'm going to leave
it like this for now just because it sounds
more musical to me, and then we might make a version that just
has a quick ending. Uh, for editing purposes. Sounded pretty good to me. Maybe you want to add one
or two quick things in this end of this last
chorus just to make it a final moment. That's cool. I'm gonna add one. I want to add a big, like,
slide up right there. Really wanted to transition into that double time
section at the end. ******* find I'm looking for. Stars. The one last thing I maybe want to add
some acoustic guitar. Just in this last
chorus, patch this in. I'm super lazy when I
track acoustic guitar. I just put my SM seven right
on my desk and track it. Let's make a truck. Two. Good enough. I should work. I
think I'm going to add sort of that whole note ending thing that I
mentioned before, just to have out here. Get that in there.
Clean this up. That should get the job done. H a listen to this you can hear by stuff
like this that I'm not the most amazing musician, especially guitarist, et cetera. But you can really make it
work for this kind of stuff. Layer it in there. Do your
best. No one will know. Put it in a rim. Let me go, C, C, C, L sail
this from the top. I think we've about
got our track here. Let me go C, C, C. Alright, so I think we
about have our track here. The next lesson, we're going
to start to clean this up, clean up the tracks, label
things, get our mix going. I think in the
mix, we might find a couple spots where we need to add a part or take away a
part, and we'll do that then. And then we'll prepare all
the files for delivery in the ways that music houses for TV and film
like to see things, and then we'll have
a deliverable trek.
12. Final Arrangement : Now that we've got our
track pretty much together, we're going to dive
into just cleaning things up, labeling things, getting rid of some mess in the session that
we don't need, and then jumping into the mix and master
and really getting these files ready to
deliver for TV and film. Some of that will be including the types of files and the
way that I break them down, the stems that we make,
the cutdowns of the track, and after that, we'll have a
final product ready to go. Let's jump into it. So I'm going to start by just
listening through this track. Again, we might take
some things out. We might add some things still. To me, this part of the process is still really
part of the production. Since I'm not a dedicated mix engineer
or mastering engineer, I sort of tweak things as I go, and then it all sort of meshes until we get
to the final product. My come, come. Start by looking at this base. We've got a lot going on here. Let's see if we need it
all, if we can clean it up. Tron this piano down. Trow snare down a bit. Take some more low
end out of this pad. I'm gonna make that
cut right there. Excuse me. A little more intense. Sounded like something
was hanging over. Bounce this. I want to bounce that piano, so the tails of it cut as well. Again, this looks
sloppy at the moment, but it's just to
get the ideas done, and then we'll clean
it up as we go. Make sure everything but
the drums cuts hard. Try that old high
hot I have in there. And That doesn't do anything for me. I feel like there's a top
of a percussion missing, so we're going to see if we can find a sample
to put in there quickly. Just chopping this up to make the downbeats, match the snares. Bring that melody
back in earlier. Alright, let's see what
this section is doing next five I'm gonna add a little bit of side chain
compression to the bass. Doesn't need much. Sounds pretty good. Sent them. Alright, while I'm
thinking about it, I'm gonna move all these
vocal chops to their own group so we can
treat them separately. Nose track stack, I'm stack. A vocal chops. I put it back up this way. Angry. Just looking to maybe add
some width to these sends, clear up the center
a little bit, make the drums punch
a little bit more. Cool. We've got a little
extra width and a sense. I want to work on just
a little bit more. So you're adding some top end just on the sides with that. It's kind of a sloppy
technique, but for now, it's gonna get done while
I'm trying to achieve. Alright. I think this first
hook is sounding pretty good. We might need another
layer somewhere in here, but let's see as we move on. I'm gonna turn this base up, gain this base up a little
bit this second verse. All right, let's just maybe
add a little melody in here. That's cool. Turn
it down, bury it. Again, just adding layers, adding stuff that
keeps it interesting. I'm starting to get a
little bored at that point, so we need a couple
of things still. I know we're mixing, but
again, when you're all in one, mixer, master
engineer, producer, writer, everything.
You do what you want. Let's change that timing. That's fine. I'm gonna add a high, like, glossy sinth
in here somewhere. Computers getting unhappy. We're going to clean
up some tracks. Just fix that first
note. It's a little off. Normally, I don't like
to quantize some things, leave that as a little
bit of a human element, but I was feeling a little off. Again cleaning some
of these up so we can add a little more dynamics
in that cut there. Fly over the things, so
we just add it another
13. Mixing Your Track: There. Let's get maybe like a sub drop
again, more impacts. Transition points.
This the whole scene, the whole vibe of whatever somebody's editing to
could change right here. Try it. Et's change this. I I can't figure out why
that's cutting out. I must want to try that intro. Or wrong notes, too.
Needs that movie. Just checking to make sure I'm not missing some
parts that I moved over, anything like that. Alright, cool. Starting
to sound good. Let's clean up some
of these track names, track counts, and
then bring it home. I'll just go through, label everything the best that I can. Usually the individual
tracks on this kind of stuff don't go to
anybody except me, but it's just good if I need
to come back in and make an edit quick or I need to move things around
or make a cutown, make a shorter version of this,
just to know what's what. It's a great time to remember
how bad I am at typing. It's also a time I'll go to start taking out tracks that
we're not using anymore. Stuff like this I'll keep, 'cause that's sort of
where things started. That'll give me a place to
go back to if I needed to. Also keep these in case I
want to go back and reprint any thing that I've
printed, et cetera. I always pull the fader all
the way down to zero on these 'cause sometimes I'll hit a key command and
unmute everything, and then it can
just be a mess to try to remember what was
muted, what wasn't muted. I don't know that I need that
one. We'll get rid of it. So parts a bit tedious, but it's important to do or you might come back to
this in two years and not know what's what or if something isn't working or you lost a plug in and you
need to recreate it, you don't even know what
sounds some of these are if you haven't at least put
a little note in there. Alright, we're getting
there. Let's take all these. I like to name the midi regions, audio regions the
same as the track. It helps you to also just
see what's going on. Like, so drums. What we got? I forgot about this, so See what this sounds
like somewhere. Not the vibe. Well, we
don't need that here. I'm also gonna take out some
of these unused regions just so it's just very
visual to me I like, Okay, this is happening here, this isn't happening
here. That helps. We've lost the
love for the snap. I'm going to hide a few
of these unused things that I'm holding
onto just because they're confusing me a bit. Et's see if this maybe
still works on you or not. Kind of like that clap. Skip some things here. That was a kick missing. All right. Was I'm gonna leave these strings
here for now just in case something
gets put in there. Almost done. I almost just deleted the whole session right there, which would
have been good fun. Let's rename all this let's take these those Just clean up a few other
muted regions so nothing that we're not using can somehow
come unmuted at some point. Alright. That looks pretty good. Let's check on this
mix a bit more. Let's see if I can
clean this intro. Just listen and see if there's any other sink friendly
things we can add or not. Take that snap out too much. Section's great. It's
got different things happening in every
little increment. A spread these guitars out a little bit. Try to turn them
up a little bit. Add some more transition
effects there. Few stuff that we already have. It's like the sweep shorten up. Just something to help bring in that piano melody.
It's coming in there.
14. Mastering And File Preperation: I think this bridge needs like something
on the low end. Let's try taking this
down and octave. That's not it. Computer We're getting to unhappy
territory here. That base is still
sort of cutting out there where we were
trying to fix earlier, but for some reason, I've just sort of gotten used
to it, so it's gonna stay. Try a longer sweep there. Put another impact there. I might try to add one
more pie something here. You this one out not precious about it at all. Okay. It's a bigger effect going
into that double time there. Add something cheesy in here. Just another lift at the end. Try. It's like a
big vocal thing. H Go. Awesome. I think this track
is sounding pretty good. It's not the craziest tracks, not the best tracks, not the worst tracks, not the most unique
thing you've ever heard. But stuff like this really
has its place on TV and film. There's all kinds
of shows and movies that need stuff for
backgrounds of certain scenes. And really what it's about is just sitting down and
just knocking tracks out and not being too precious
about them in this space and having stuff to send for
any type of opportunity. So let's go ahead
and put a little bit of some stuff on
the master here, just clean this up, and
we'll finish up the files. Sometimes these suns
go a little wild. For some reason, logic, if you are just listening back and you're highlighted
over here on a track that has stuff going on or
a lot of stuff going on it, it can do some weird CPU stuff. So sometimes I just
keep a blank track to just do things like
I'm about to do now. So we're going to
start by just getting our overall bus to
not be clipping. Give us a little bit
of room to work with. All my sense instrument groups that we talked about earlier are all going to a music bus, so I can process things here. If I have vocals going on, I have a separate vocal bus.
Everything goes to that. Just another level of control. I can add filters,
things like that. I'm going to start
here with just forcing my low end
everything into mono below, like, say, 65 hertz for this. A little less. I also like this BX digital plug in for adding a
little bit of stereowidth. Just a little bit, it
gets a little wild. Not using any filter
during the day. Clean up a little
bit of low mid. Add a little bit of kick in
here. Sorry, I mean sir. Overall, it sounds good. It's
a little little muddy, but Let's make this cut
some low on the sides. Alright, cool. We're getting
there. We're getting there. For this kind of
track, honestly, I'll often just go to
ozone for mastering. I'll start by doing
the automatic mode, letting it do its own thing,
see where that gets me, see if I like how
it sounds or not, work backwards from there,
tweak it a bit if needed. Sometimes I just leave
it. Sometimes I'll go in with all kinds
of different plugins, but the overall balance
is pretty nice here. So I'm really just looking to add a little bit of
stereo imaging and then just cranking
it as much as I can without creating any
crazy distortion or clipping. Let's listen to how it sounds. Compare it, see if we need a tweet, see if we
like the sound, and then sometimes I'll
change my mix going into that just to
get a final product. Garmon. Great. I think our masters
sounding pretty solid. Again, with this type of
stuff, as with any production, you could tweak
and tweak and add melodies and cut things. For me, I try to focus on
just finishing tracks. Not everyone's gonna
be a masterpiece, not everyone's gonna be my
favorite thing I've ever done. Um, some I hate. But in the sync music world, music, TV film,
advertisements, honestly, some stuff that I
sort of slept on and didn't think much
about in the process or made super quick
has been some of my most successful work. I mean, I've had some
tracks that I made in an hour be used again and again for years.
So you never know. So for me, I just I
don't try to harp too much on getting the perfect melody, the perfect chords, perfect mix, make tracks, have fun with it, don't get
discouraged, keep going. And put them out there. I think the biggest
thing with music is just putting it out
there and keep growing, keep learning,
trying new things, and see what comes from that. Let's get these files
prepped and ready to go. I'm going to bounce a
master file of this. And here's what I
do for settings. I always bounce a decent quality MP three that lets me share
this with people easily. It's small enough to email out, but also I use a platform called disco for sharing files
with music libraries, music houses,
editors, et cetera, and this gives me a quick, small file that people
can load on the phone, load on the go. And preview to make a decision if this is maybe a track they
want to work with. On top of that, I always
bounce wave files. That's the standard that I see requested a few
places I work with, ask for AIFF, but
waves the standard. Resolution 24 bit
always sample rate. This is something
that's maybe different. A lot of software out of DA's default to
441, which is fine. But in TV and film, you have to think a bit
differently because the audio and the delivery
specs of what they're sending to Netflix or what
the cable provider is streaming to your
TV is different than music that's
streamed on Spotify. 48 K is the standard
sample rate in that space. I always keep my
project template at 48 and bounce my files at 48. It's a little bit bigger file. Um, some will say it sounds
a little bit better. But for me, it just
makes my delivery easy. That's what I've seen
asked for over the years. So I just had switched a few years ago to
always working at that. So that way, my files are always ready to go when
somebody needs them. I bounce offline. I don't
do any of these things, include the audio tail,
overload protection only. I don't need to normalize
it because I'm already sort of hitting it pretty hard. And then we'll do that. I'm going to send
this to this folder. Usually it will come
up with a track name. I always put my actual
name in the file. What's called this? Bounce that. Let it bounce, do its thing, and then we'll come back after
that and go to the next step. If this was a track with vocals, I'd be bouncing
two master files. Actually, I'd be bouncing
three master files. I'd bounce full Mix, instrumental master,
and vocal Master. That way, somebody could
edit between them if needed. But for now, we're just going to bounce the instrumental master. Great. Now that we've got our
master file bounce, the last thing we're
going to do with this full track is bounce stems. And in logic and how I work, like I said, in my template, everything is already built into what they call
summing folders, which is basically a folder, but also a pre arranged
aux track that makes all my piano tracks are
going out this track here, so I can easily sum them as one by just having
this highlighted. And in logic, the
way that I bounce stems is I select all of these summing stacks or groups or folders, however
you want to think of it. Go into audio or sorry
into file export, and then it lets me export
nine tracks as audio files. Then I'll get a similar set of settings that I can use as to when we're
bouncing the single file. I'm going to make a
folder called stems. In here, I'm going to add a prefix to these so
that it's clear which track if I'm sending a bunch of tracks to somebody that
these stems match up with. Usually my track name
won't be quite as long, but this gets the point across. I'll be my name, the
name of the track, noting that this is a stem
and then which stem it is, which it pulls
automatically from these. We'll include the tail on these. You want to make
sure you include volume pan and automation. I think my base group is down, let's say, three dB right now, and the others are all at zero. If you don't have this, everything's going to
bounce at zero and then if you put them all
together, the mix will be off. I got to make sure to select that and that's pretty much it. We'll hit exxportEport, and let that export
all of those files. Alright, let's double
check these stems. Looks like everything.
Printed fine. Awesome. Let's go back and
clean up these bad bounces. Gonna take a name off of here. We'll also copy this name, add it to the stems folder, just so it's coherent. Great. All right. We've
made it to the end. We've got a final
track that's mixed, mastered, and ready for
delivery for TV and film. The file types are what
editors are looking for. We've got an already
broken down to stems, so when they want to
come back and ask, Oh, hey, we want to take
that vocal chop out for this section where we've
got a lot of dialogue. We've already got those stems broken down, ready
to go for them. Now it's time to send
it off to some editors, some music houses,
some libraries, whatever your area of expertise is or wherever you're looking to
send more music, and let's move on
to the next track. We'll see you in the next one.
15. Making Cut Downs Or Alts for Tv And Film: All right. Now that we've
got our files printed, our stems, our final mix, et cetera, one more
thing I like to do for TV and film music is
print some cutdowns. Often, especially for
the commercial world, they need tracks
that are 60 seconds, 30 seconds, sometimes
15 seconds. So I'm going to show
you my process of sort of how I'll take a full
session like this and cut it down into these specific
lengths. Let's jump in. So I think today for
explanation purposes, let's make a 62nd version
of this track that has a hard ending right within the
amount of time they need it. And often, that's
just a couple seconds before the total length. So for a 62nd track, you're going to want your
final hits to be around 56 58 seconds with them being fully faded out by 60 seconds so that if used in a commercial, project, it's just perfectly
fits a 62nd TV commercial. Same thing with a
30. If you're making a 32nd commercial or
a 32nd cutdown here, you'd want your last
hit to be around 27, 28 seconds being faded
out by 30 seconds. So let's take this project. Let's save an alternate version. And let's look at our timeline here and make some markers. So let's use 57
seconds roughly here. Let's put a marker
and let's have our final hit hit around there. Zoom in will make a mark at exactly 1 minute just so
we know that everything is faded out by then. Great. Now, what I like to
do for this process is work like a puzzle. I'm going to take
my whole timeline, all of my automation, all
of my regions, everything, move it off to the side
so that I can see it as a whole and then
figure out how to construct a cutdown from that. With a cutdown like
this with a 60, 30 NM, you still want to
create a similar arc to the rest of the project or
to the full track, rather. You want to start smaller in intro and then building into
that last chorus section. So let's pull this all out here. Yes, we want to move
the automation. And then we'll start sort
of constructing from there. L to start with the intro. Let's take this whole section. I like to just copy
and paste so again, I can see the full track as a whole over here and then
work backwards from there. Copy that. All right, I think
for a shorter track, we're going for a
62nd track here. Let's cut this intro in half. I'm going to use the second
half of the melodic stuff, so I've got that build
up and a part that was already really flowing well
into the next section. So we'll take these.
Save that for now. Splitting these and
deleting stuff from the timeline that
I don't need since I have the whole
project over here. I'm going to keep
these impacts and slide this stuff to make
the top of my track. Nice. Now again, we've got
limited space here. I think I'm going to take
this section of the track, this B section of
the first verse. Split these things
that aren't split. I want to copy this over. Might copy this first chorus. I think we'll end up using that. A Cool. I think what we'll do and what I often do is sort of try to combine these two sections here. So this B section of the first
verse has the piano in it, has some extra percussion.
Different bass. Since we copied that
section over here, let's give a similar arc. So let's cut this
piano out off the top, have it come in in the second
half as this does, shorter. Same with this percussion
that's coming in over here. I think the base might
be a little different, so let's do the same with the
base, bring this base over. Cool. So that's about half
of our arrangement now. I know that I'm gonna want to end with this
biggest section that we have. So we're gonna fly that over and then see what we want
to put between them if we can fit a whole verse two or
bridge and see what fits. Alright, so I think
I want to stay for this 62nd version in
the halftime field. I don't think I want to go
to that double time chorus. So we're gonna just
pull over this first first half of
the chorus here. And then we'll take
some of these elements from the second half, as well, once we copy
this over with the drums. Looks like most
of it. Grab that. Let's try to put the
end of this hitting right when I have that
mark for the last hit. Check that out for now. Perfect. I'm going to
grab these sections. I'm gonna grab
this piano melody. Let's see if there's anything else that's not over
there at the moment. Take this Tom fill for the end. Another goal with
these is to try to use everything that's here, so it's truly a cut down
version of the full track, not adding any elements, sometimes adding a riser or sweep or some sort
of transition thing. If you need to fill a
little bit of time is okay. But otherwise, use the elements
that you've already got. It's a little off slide that. Take this end his. We're going to make
a tight ending. I'll show you once we get
this arrangement dialed in. Cool. Cool. So this section, it looks like we've got a full
progression's worth of space. We could take any
of these sections. We could take possibly
this verse section. So let's see. Or we can take the bridge. I think I like the
bridge. I think it just fits a bit more of a cut
down version like this. It gives, you know,
three distinct sections, fully different
vibes to work with. Kicks over there. Oh Alright. We got to fix that sweet because before we had a measure of rest, so put that back. I'm gonna pull this melody over. I just like it. It's
been in my head. I want to mute that
for just a break. I'm gonna move a sweep in into that bridge where
a little more natural. I'm gonna try to
put a little bit of a pause right before
this last chorus, so it impacts a little harder. Freak on some levels
to make this have a little more impact since it's a bit different than
the previous arrangement. Awesome. So now what we're gonna do
might sound a bit cheesy, but this is what works great, especially for
advertising where, again, it needs a tight ending. So we're gonna end just on the
first chord of the chorus. Big, open, simple. Clean that up a little
bit. A little bit more. Again, we really want
this fade out to be done by the 62nd mark. I cut the crash, fade it out. Cool. The only thing I want
to do there is I want to add a simple hit on the bass
guitar to tie that together. Alright. Let's hear it real quick. Awesome. So, you see, we're
adding a couple little new things
like these hits. Other than that,
we're not adding any new parts, new melodies, so it is just a simplified
version of the full track. Cool. L short the project
length for our bounces. Let's see. Let's take a
listen to this from the top. There's let's see, those toms. Smoother. Come Awesome. That's a great 62nd
cutdown on this track. Now, typically, I would go
back and do the same thing, make a 32nd version, a 15 second version. That really covers all the bases in at least the
advertising space. And what that does is just those are things I've typically
seen requested. Those are standard
lnks of commercials, at least in the United States, just printing all
those and no printing stems for all these
versions gives editors just
everything they should need in almost all cases. That prevents you from
needing to go back in and open this session last minute when they call
you up and like, Hey, we want to use this track, but we don't have this or that. I just like to get ahead
of it, print all my files, back this all up, upload it, send it off, and move
on to the next track. Alright, we've made
it to the end. We've got a TV and
film ready track, files are ready,
stems are ready. The file formats are what they're looking for
for TV and film. We've got different versions
we've got shorter cutdowns. We've got a longer version, everything that they might need when editing this for TV
film or an advertisement. So now I'll package all this up. I'll throw it in Dropbox and I'll send this out
to some editors that I work with and move on to the next track. We'll
see you in the next one.
16. Thank You: All right, we've
made it to the end. We've got a TV and
film ready track, files are ready,
stems are ready. The file formats are what they're looking for
for TV and film. We've got different versions. We've got shorter cutdowns. We've got a longer version, everything that they might need when editing this for TV
film or an advertisement. So now I'll package all this up. I'll throw it in Dropbox, and I'll send this out to
some editors that I work with and move on to the next track. We'll
see you in the next one.
Alex Kopp, Music Producer
