Ask Me Anything! (Part 1)
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- This video answers some audience questions sent to me via the comment section or social media. Drop more questions for Part 2 of the series!
0:00 Start
0:20 Intro
1:23 Cue Numbers
3:15 Single DAW Session For Whole Project?
5:27 Scores In The Same Key
11:12 Kontakt Purge Function
13:24 Stuck Notes Fix
14:13 VEP Interface Garbled
15:27 Layering Libraries
18:42 Tempo Change VS Meter Change
20:52 Reaching Out On Social Media
25:53 IMDB
26:35 Best Advice For Aspiring Composers
30:41 Other Stuff
35:02 Conclusion
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#askmeanything #filmcomposer #musicproduction
I really liked the part on reaching out via social media. Pretty funny people need instruction on how to communicate. I had to laugh for a bit.
I wish all working composers were as generous with their knowledge as you. Thank you for your channel! I’m honestly addicted.
Absolutely my pleasure! Thank you for watching!
Being a professional musician for the past 30 years it's hard to encounter something you can actually say is refreshing and new....that's what happened with you.
Thank you, you saved my life.
I have just discovered your videos a few days ago and I am totally hooked.....
As a joke note....is it me of those are floppy disks?
Love your channel....keep it up.
Girl do you, we appreciate your content!
Thanks a lot to share so many precious pieces of information, these software are often so hard to master and time-consuming it is like you gave me extra days to live longer!
Priceless information that we can't find in courses or books. Thank you so much!
This is gold!! Thanks for taking the time to do this, Anne-Kathrin!
Thank you for watching!
I took notes through this whole thing - so many great insights! Thanks for sharing. Loved the intro too, nice to see a different part of the world for a minute. Cheers.
I'm glad this was helpful!
This is amazing! I appreciate this insightful and very straightforward information you've shared with us Anne-Kathrin! :) Thank you and I'm so looking forward to Part 2!
Thank you for watching! I'm looking forward to doing Part 2! I just need more people to submit questions in order to do it of course :-)
Super stoked I found your channel. Looks like a lot of great content. I just leaped from Cubase 5 to 11. I found your video on the new stuff in Cubase 11. I think I will watch a bunch of your videos. Peace
Excellent advice, Anne. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, it is very helpful!
Glad to help!
I am so so happy to have found my way to this channel. This information is so invaluable! Thanks so much!
Thank you for your kind words!
Thank you for your clear honesty about your line of work. It is fascinating to me as I am wanting to break into this type of work. Love your make-up by the way!
Thanks for watching and thank you for the compliment! I certainly try to be as honest as I can in these videos.
hahaah Samuel Adler, every country studies that book! Great video Anne!
Great video! Thanks for taking the time to make these :)
I respect and agree with your vision you talked about at the end of this video. There are plenty of other channels and avenues for composer rambles, music theory & orchestration lessons (although I wouldn't be opposed to a breakdown of one of your tracks!) and I like that you keep your channel clean and focused :)
Thank you for watching! Yes, I suppose we all have our own style of presentation but I really prefer it to be clean and concise without too much rambling and ranting. I also need to be more careful than others since I'm actively working in this industry and what I say on my channel and social media can have direct effects on my day to day interactions with colleagues and filmmakers. I will definitely do a couple of scene breakdowns along with tracks of mine.
Great video, Anne-Kathrin! Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks Anne-Kathrin. Actually really good professional advice. Not only for film scoring, but for many creative disciplines. For instance 'Best Advice For Aspiring Composers' could be applied for all arts in general.
thanks for a wonderful video, you have made awesome work to make good educations.
Thank you so much for providing this Q&A ! I gues this will help many composers (including mysef) understanding more and more about the industry :)
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this fantastic video Anne-Kathrin! Not only is the information practical and useful (scores in the same key), but I appreciate the way it's presented concisely. Plus the videographer in me appreciates the scenic opening shots! :)
Thank you so much! Glad this is helpful! Haha, and yes, I get that footage from my bike rides on the Westside - it's quite literally an excuse to get my butt out of the studio and into the sunshine at the beach. :-) I have no idea what I'm doing though, I will say that. I just stop and point my camera when I see something pretty. Learning editing and lighting on the fly as well - but hey, as long as the information comes across I suppose it's okay. ;-)
Awesome! My wife and I just moved to Santa Monica and took our first beach bike ride since we moved, it was awesome and yes a great way to get away from the computer. Great job on the videos the quality and editing is well done. I did 2 videos about composing and the hardest part for me is talking on camera, I’m much more comfortable being behind the camera!
Really liked your take on advice for aspiring composers. I always default to thinking about this question from a business perspective and often overlook the creative side. It's a pretty big question that requires a big answer but your point about getting your music out there is super important :) Great video!
Thank you! It really does warrant a much bigger video which is in the works right now. There definitely needs to be a healthy balance between thinking creatively and thinking from the business side of things. It's fairly unique to composers I believe - we need to be creative business owners essentially. :-)
Liebe Ann-Kathrin, vielen Dank für deine tollen Tipps! Das ist sehr, sehr hilfreich. Ich habe deinen Kanal erst jetzt entdeckt, aber werde jetzt regelmäßig vorbeischauen. LG Lutz
I'm not a film composer but this advice, especially to aspiring composers, is great!
Thank you!
Such good information! Thank you for sharing Anne! I will be reaching out to composers in the near future.
Thank you for watching!
Just discovered your channel, through an unfortunate exchange on VI-C. So glad I learned of the channel, even if not through the ideal route (but still, always good when something positive comes out of something negative)! Great channel - watched lots of the videos. Great information, thanks.
Thank you for watching! I’m glad something good came out of that exchange on VI-Control. I’d engage more on there but too many threads turn negative so I mostly stay away unfortunately.
Thanks Anne
When I heard you for the first time I was shocked at how many things I agreed. Your way of speaking about music in the sense of a professional factual and extremely sounding English - I am impressed. Besides, the compositions and orchestration are extraordinary.
Plus, sharing it all with the community - keep going! Ann rulez § :-)
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the kind words and I’m happy you like what I create!
Great info!
Just discovered your channel, thanks for all the useful information and advices you're giving us! Ps: is that a real floppy disk on the desk? Haven't seen one in a long time 😄
Good info, as always!
Thanks, I appreciate it!
Great, that you have the claim to post well editet and planed, organised videos. Not just rumbling around and not waisting my time. Thanks! I now, editing needs time - not our time, but YOUR time. So, thank you.
Thank you! Yes, it's time consuming but I think it's more rewarding for everyone. I hate it when people waste my time so I want to avoid doing this to my audience.
Thanks for Great content 🙌
I just found you last night. Thank you, really, thank you. Really appreciate your library review series too. Looking forward to strings. I don't have any suggestions for further content because what you're choosing and your plain speak are right on. Just keep doing what you're doing. From 11pm last night until this very moment. I've learned more than a HELL of a lot of youtube watching from other channels. I'm finding my footing as a composer. Not a job yet, but footing nonetheless. Thanks a bunch for your content- much appreciated.
That's so sweet of you to say! I'm really happy this channel is useful to you. That's the only purpose of it - to help aspiring composers acquire new knowledge and to refresh or supplement the knowledge of those further along the way. I should have the strings video up soon and then I'll have quite a bit more in the pipeline.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer I should mention that I LOVED your studio B-roll too. We studio junkies love that. Abbey Road, amazing sound and orchestra, Jake Jackson? Um, who wouldn't! Any time you can grab studio B-roll- winner videos. As black Friday approaches with the library sales...I must...resist lol. I have spent so much getting up to speed even this far. I'm an audio editor, music coordinator, and I've written all my life and now my orchestration muse is on big time. It's amazing what you can do now with the tools at hand. But, it ain't easy!! Take care for now and thanks again.
This is great. Thanks!
Thank you for watching!
I hope you will answer this one. Why is it SO HARD for unknown composers of CONCERT PIECES to be performed, even by local/music schools orchestras? I think YOU ARE AN ANGEL FOR DOING THESE VIDEOS. GOD BLESS YOU with good health and continued GREAT SUCCESS!!!!
Very interesting.
Habe deinen Channel eben erst entdeckt. (Danke YT-Recommendations) Für jemanden, der von Black Metal Prod. zu Scoring wechselt, super informativer Content! (Frag' mich bloß nicht warum der Genrewechsel hehe)
Werde dich definitiv weiter verfolgen und mir deine Videos reinhauen, wenn der Kopf abkühlen muss.
o7
Thank you for making these kinds of videos,really helpful and inspirational, kind regards.
Glad to hear that! Thank you for watching!
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer you are most welcome Anne,its was a pleasure, kind regards.
Fantastic video!
Thank you!
Hi Anne-Kathrin, thanks so much for the information about film scoring. It's something I am very interested in next to working on regular concert compositions. I did some small scoring projects mainly as practise and it's Wonderful to see how a scene in a movie changes the moment music is added to it. I am looking forward to watch more of your videos (which mostly happens during coffee breaks: ).
I'm glad I can be helpful! Thanks for watching!
Nice video Anne-Kathrin.
I'm pretty new to you but good to hear some subjects coming from a more "top end" viewpoint from a working composer. Thanks.
Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words! It's always very frustrating to me when people who aren't actively working composers share half-baked information which is one of the many reasons I started my channel. It's even worse when those types of people sell expensive online courses and capitalize on young people's dreams. The only drawback is that most composers that are indeed active in the field will often have a very "spotty" upload schedule and I'm no exception to that unfortunately.
Anne-Kathrin Dern you’re welcome, and yes. Uploading as a composer isn’t the best thing for CZcams’s algorithms, so I understand. I’m not a working composer yet, but working on it very hard and improving🤞
That’s exactly what I had in mind with my comment btw - so many channels with; “here’s 10 minutes of some demos and a new vst, now pay me to sound just like me...” no thank you lol. I love hearing all different approaches and it’s gud to build from lots of sources, modern and otherwise, but ultimately it has to come from my gut to make it my own. Good advice/critique is always invaluable though.
Thank you
I came just for that part 26:35 thank you much!
Btw, its nice that we both have Focusrite haha its amazing! ;)
Love Focusrite! I just got that 6i6 actually. Before that I had a Presonus interface which was way inferior. I actually just finished recording a my next video about my hardware so you'll find the Focusrite featured in there again :-)
Great channel. Are those floppy discs on the desk?
Hi Anne-Kathrin, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge! I worked in the late 80s (i'm old) writing music for TV and commercials etc, Studio time (16 track tape) was expensive and one of my biggest frustrations was wasting time and money on material that was ultimately rejected. I know now we all have home studios, inconceivable in the 80s, but time is still an issue. What are your tips for working with filmmakers to quickly focus on suitable material. I am very interested to know your process of drafting, reworking and in general satisfying the filmmakers vision, particularly in the early, conceptual, stages of a project.Thanks again for your excellent videos.
Ha! Key of Dm. The saddest of all keys.🤣
Thanks for this, Anne-Katherin! What's on those old floppy disks?
I was impressed to see those too, is this a new way to run sample libraries faster? lol! Thank you Anne-Katherin for sharing information with the community!
Hahaha, it's my elaborate backup RAID system of course! ;-P No for real, they are coasters for my coffee. Takes me back to my childhood. :-)
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Ha! That's kind of brilliant tbh
Sehr informativ, danke dir! Normalerweise wird nicht so frei ueber bestimmte, essentielle Arbeitsaspekte gesprochen. Ist definitiv noetig und gibt gute Einblicke in Produktionen, die evtl anders ablaufen als man es selbst gewoehnt ist.
Es freut mich, dass die Videos hilfreich sind!
This is a very nice insight in the life of a soundtrack composer . So interesting ! I guess, you are talking both about the music you make (the CUEs, the DAW, Libraries) and the score (writing for the orchestra). Do you write the score as an entire DAW session and just give the score to the orchestra, or do you just write the score? Your videos are very peaceful, informative, they teach and tell me exactly what I need to hear about music composing. The way you make them, makes me feel like I'm watching a movie. I'm stuck till the end. You should not worry about the frequency of your posts. You have your own life. People who like you, subscribed to your channel, and will have the nice surprise to be notified when you put a new video online. Thank you for all your work, and Take care
I'm glad you like my videos and find them useful. I'm not sure I understand your question, though. Writing the score and DAW work is one and the same thing, there is no separation between the two anymore. Was that the question?
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Pardon my lack of knowledge in music composing. ( I make music with no training. My way of doing it, is kind of messy, and may sound like it). Back to, my really not important question : I thought that you could either compose your music with your own sound libraries and send the stems to a studio or you could just write a score (just the notes) and give it to the intrument players . If you gave a score to a musician, I wonder if you just wrote it down , or if you composed it with your DAWS and sound libraries, and give the score to the orchestra. In a nutshell my question is : do you always compose your entire project with a DAW ? (you implied the answer to that in your ... answer) In fact this question did not really matter. I found your video so interesting that I felt the need to comment and it seemed a smart question. It won't affect me, in my pocess of lousy music making . Next time I want to show off , I should restrain myself (If only I could) and talk about the weather ;-) Anyway, thanks for your answer,. The informations you give in this Q&A, are really helping. Nice pictures of the beach, and by the way, how's the weather ?
No worries! Just wanted to make sure I understood the question. It’s not possible in film scoring to just write sheet music and give it to musicians these days because the production has to listen to the music first and approve it before it’s recorded. Orchestral sessions cost a lot of money so it would be way too expensive to record music that might get rejected by the filmmakers. Therefore, all music has to written and produced in a DAW first. Once approved, the orchestrator then transcribes the MIDI for the musicians.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Thanks a lot. I didn't figure, that much, out. It seems obvious, when you put it that way. Have great day.
Awesome content, thx a lot for doing this! :) Which musical degree courses (Studiengang (my english is a bit rusty^^)) did you made and was it in the state or in Germany?
Thanks for your information, I find it very helpful and you have shares some very extensive knowledge out of the the videos I've watched you produced. I'm changing careers from music education in the near future. I've been teaching band for about 20+ years and its time for a change. I have studio, music tech, and writing experience. I want to gradually transition into film scoring, game and tv. I'm also familiar with Sibelius and I have use it with the students I have taught. I have a request if possible for you to do a video with your orchestrator, as to how you all go from your markup to sheet music for the orchestra using Sibelius. Thanks keep up the great work you are doing!!!
Claude Robinson•Music Media ES
Thanks for watching! Glad you find this helpful! The orchestration video is actually one of my most requested so I'll have to find the time to sit down with my orchestrator and discuss our process. It will happen for sure! :-)
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Thanks!!!!
2 quick questions. how do you determine the tempo? specifically the process of setting tempo for the cue. do you watch the cue and guess a tempo, do you tap things out, do you use visual cues to determine tempo?
All of the above, depending on the scene.
Great video! Straight to the point and very insightful.
I have a question: Do you know of any instance where Noteperformer (in Sibelius, Dorio
...) was used for demoing a cue or is it still not good enough soundwise for selling the music to the filmmakers? And do you thing better playback devises in notation software would make also media composers life a lot easier?
Glad this was helpful! I don't know if anyone is using Note Performer for demoing - I certainly haven't seen it. It sounds good enough for orchestrators for sure but I'm not sure it's a good idea to present that quality to a production. I think the issue with solely trying to do mockups in a notation software - be it now or in the future - is that it neglects the creative aspect of working in a DAW. There are so many little details, textures, synths, specific sounds, audio plugins, etc. that go into a score, even those that sound purely orchestral, that I don't see notation programs be 100% effective anytime soon. Unless of course Steinberg finds a way of better integrating Dorico directly into Cubase.
What a great resource! I notice you've switched to a Windows system at some point in the past year, was there a specific reason/set of reasons for switching from Mac to Windows?
Thank you for watching! And yes, I did indeed fully switch to PC / Windows. I actually have a "Mac vs PC" video in the making since I just went through that switching experience and I have a variety of reasons why. :-)
cool !
Thanks!
thanks, I did some musical theatre productions, It seems to use the same numbering. Is that different or the same idee?
Great info here Anne-Kathrin! Thank you for this. If I may add to the second question, do you usually do a different session per cue, then?
Also, for the 2nd part, I'd love it if you talked a bit about money. Only if you're comfortable, of course. One of the most mysterious aspects, at least for me, is how much money is usually involved in the types of mid-level productions you're involved in. What types of overall budgets do your projects usually have? What's the music budget? How much do you usually make? Do you have like, a set composer/creative fee or does it depend on the project?
Thanks again!!!
Thanks for watching! Yes, the norm is do create a different session for every single cue so by the end of the project you have roughly 30-60 sessions, depending on the amount of cues the movie / TV show has. I will do a video about money but there is no real answer to your questions since every project is different. What I get paid depends on so many different factors and every deal is unique. I'll try to get my thoughts together for a video on this though.
Nice views there .godbless
Hi Anne thanks for these videos. They help a lot. You are a great inspiration for many of us. Let me ask you a question please. You mentioned here that we aspiring composers should put our music out. I have a lot of music composed already but I haven't posted them anywhere yet cause I don't know if I should register the compositions first. I mean register the tracks in BMI for example. What is your advice about this? I Know nothing about this so I am afraid I make mistakes at the moment of putting out my music. Thanks in advance.
Yes, you should register your music before putting it online, or do it shortly after. Most PRO's offer an online service to register new music which only takes a few minutes. Of course you don't have to but if someone then uses your music for anything commercial, then you won't collect royalties.
3:20 Will Roget has entered the chat
In my first 2 hour long feature film, I did the entire score in one project. Even though my computer could handle the 500 track orchestral template, I got into so many issues with tempo because one scene after the next would have its own tempo, and then when the director wanted to go back and have an earlier song at a slower tempo, I'd change that and realize that EVERYTHING AHEAD OF IT WAS COMPLETELY OFF, ofcourse. So then I'd have these little tempo-makeup areas that would in-between cues rapidly speed up or slow down to compensate so that the later scenes were back in place. This happened far too many times to count. I don't even know why I kept on with the full movie being in the same project, other than that it was easier to just have everything there to one-click scenes so that the director could immediately see it instead of opening up an entire other project file. That alone was a nightmare in and of itself that I had to learn the hard way before moving on to later scores.
What about round robin when you use purge option? Some people complain about lost repetitions (when an instrument performs same notes in succession).
Round Robins load as all other samples automatically when they are required in a piece.
A wonderful video. Thank you so much for your insight. A quick question please: Do you find any shortage of work for an orchestral composer such as yourself vs. more synth or sound design driven scores in 2020 / 2021? Thank you again. :)
I'd say there's a shortage of of work, period, at least compared to how many aspiring composers there are. The Spitfire and Bleeding Fingers competitions have shown that there are roughly 15.000 to 20.000 people in the world who want to do this, but there are only about 1.000 to 3.000 full-time composers making a living from this line of work around the globe. So whether one chooses orchestra or synth or hybrid or songs, it'll be a highly competitive journey. If one does any of these at a high level and the necessary amount of time and work is put in, I think there's enough gigs to be had. But only for those who manage to get ahead of the other 20k people.
However, I do adjust my writing and production to different demands when necessary. After all, being a film composer means wearing many different hats. I just happen to be hired the most for animation and family entertainment which often demands a more traditional orchestral thematic approach.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Ok. I hear you. Makes lots of sense. Thank you so much for the reply. I’m still in the middle of checking out the rest of your videos but I can’t wait to see new ones as they come out. I really appreciate your time. Have a great night.
any specific reason why you said tape saturation over tube? I always use tape saturation on my mix, just curious about your reasoning
Do you think you can do a video talking about the overdubbing technique, particularly with strings?
Sure, could you elaborate a bit more on what you mean specifically? I may have talked about this in me "Sweetening and Striping" video but maybe you mean something else?
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer What I meant is by recording a small string section multiple times in order to enlarge the sound and give it a "full" string section sound. I saw many companies out there that provide such a service in case the composer was on budget but still wants a symphony sound. For example, you could make a (6,5,4,3,2) strings sound like (12,10,8,6,4). Although overdubbing could be very tiring for breathing instruments.
Thank you for clarifying! I can definitely talk about this in my next Q&A.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Thank you very much!
Question 2. how do you come up with melodies for a cue? I know it’s a huge question. but do you have any tips to help come up with melodies quickly?
Not really... they come to me eventually when I spend enough time humming and thinking. I’ve also learned a lot from analysis and from Klaus Badelt himself correcting some of my early themes years ago (also through humming... apparently that’s a thing). But I think having musical ideas floating around your head is the base requirement of this job. My voicemail is filled with random ideas I have that I can tap into.
For what it's worth, d minor is a bit kinder(than e minor) for the brass.
Cheers,
Alan Tomlinson
Thank you for this. What midi controller is that?
I believe I go into that in my Hardware video. It's an Akai MPK 88.
Which keys are easier for the sight readers? Which keys are the most awkward for orchestrations?
That entirely depends on the instruments you write for.
Do you think Adler's Orchestration is applicable to modern film scoring? The recorded medium is different from concert hall performances and I wonder if there's anyone who has written a book keeping in mind.
Yes, I don't see why it wouldn't be applicable. I suppose it depends on what kind of music one writes but if a composer is serious about writing for orchestra, then they definitely need to know about the instruments and how to arrange and orchestrate them. It also greatly helps with mockups to write idiomatically for the instruments. There's certainly more than can be fixed or "produced" after the fact in recorded music but ideally we get as close as possible with proper writing and orchestration first. I frequently give orchestration notes to my additional writers if I know a cue would play better if the instruments were used differently. It's part of the overall technique of writing to picture and I wouldn't want to limit myself by not having that knowledge. It would make my life as a more traditional orchestral composer much harder - both during the writing process as well as when I'm at the sessions giving notes or conducting.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer I was doing some copying work subbed out from a friend in LA and there were terms in the score that I didn't recognize- he told me they were Hollywood scoring terms, not formal music ones. That was quite the learning experience!
Indeed! There are a lot of unique specifics in sheet music for our scoring sessions. Most of them are simply to save time and to make the sight-reading as easy as possible since there are no rehearsals.
Why e-minor? I know HZ explained his love for the D with "lowest string with vibrato" and em would be natural for a guitar player, but I don't see a guitar in your studio ;)
Several reasons really. A lot of my ideas incidentally come to me in the key of E and I've always liked it when playing flute. Also E-minor / G-major are the most comfortable keys to play on string instruments (particularly violin). Since they make up the majority of the orchestra, it's probably wise to please them. Aside from that, I do also play the guitar (you can see it in the background of some of my videos) which obviously is very comfortable in E as well. Side note: You can also vibrato on open strings like the E-String by doing "ghost" vibratos an octave higher on another string - not quite as strong as a really expressive vibrato though.
Shall I really ask everything? Well, what about: what time is it?
is that a diskette??
haha, Eb minor. Yeah I'm sure the string players will love all the flats...
Or all the in between finger positions... it's a recipe for a tuning disaster to happen...
Hi.
I don't understand why strings find Eb minor any more difficult than E minor. Surely, everything is relative on a fingerboard, isn't it? I get why keyboard players prefer C major / A minor over anything else, and WW or valved brass instruments will also have preferred keys, but violins????
Don't appologize for being busy.
So beautiful lady
It's too bad you're not on Twitter. I'd love to ask you some orchestral questions on social media to try to engage others. But I will NEVER rejoin Mark Zuckerbergs political, social engineering platform again. It's torn much of my Father's side of the family apart. :-/