Music School, Major Cities, and More | Mailbag #1

00:00:00:12 – 00:00:07:05

Chris Hayzel

I got to get out of my I got to get out of my ad campaign, head down into podcast head.

00:00:07:06 – 00:00:08:05

Steve Goldshein

Yeah.

00:00:08:07 – 00:00:20:04

Mike Patti

I was. So you got these questions. Did you do a post and asked people for these? Yeah. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Good questions. Very. A lot of them. Like, how do I make money? Yeah, everyone’s mind these days. But I.

00:00:20:06 – 00:00:33:00

Chris Hayzel

You guys ready it Welcome to orchestrated a Musio podcast where we discuss the past, present and future of music creation to explore exactly what it means to be a musician in the modern era. I’m Chris Hayzel.

00:00:33:05 – 00:00:34:04

Mike Patti

I’m Mike Patti.

00:00:34:06 – 00:00:35:10

Steve Goldshein

And I’m Steve Goldshein..

00:00:35:12 – 00:00:55:10

Chris Hayzel

And today on the pod, we’re answering your questions. So about a week ago, maybe two, depending on when this goes live, we put out a post to all of you inviting you to send us any music questions you might have and whether you’re trying to figure out where to get started in music or if you’ve been in it for a while, but you’re looking for some career advice.

00:00:55:15 – 00:01:18:08

Chris Hayzel

Hopefully between the three of us, we can provide you some valuable insight. But before we dive in, you can follow us on Instagram at MUZIO and subscribe on YouTube at Museo Official for more content. And if you’re a music creator, you’re looking for great virtual instruments. Be sure to head over to Museo dot com to get a ridiculously huge library of some of the best sounds in the world.

00:01:18:10 – 00:01:39:11

Chris Hayzel

Completely free for 30 days. And we promise you won’t be disappointed depending on how this episode goes. If it’s not a complete train wreck, we’ll probably do this again. So if there’s anything that you kind of just can’t figure out how to navigate, or even if you just want to drop us a line, send us some feedback or some suggestions.

00:01:39:13 – 00:01:55:01

Chris Hayzel

Feel free to send us an email at orchestrated at Museo dot com. And we’d love to hear from you. So let’s get into it. Steve, since you’re our customer support guru here. I’m going to kick it over to you. How many questions did we get and how juicy are they?

00:01:55:03 – 00:02:10:11

Steve Goldshein

Hey, Chris. Looks like we got about. Yeah, we got quite a few questions. We got about 20, 20 or so questions along some certain themes and a lot of a lot of meat to all of them. So we’ll dive right in and see how many we can get through.

00:02:10:13 – 00:02:11:01

Chris Hayzel

Sweet.

00:02:11:03 – 00:02:32:07

Steve Goldshein

So our first question comes from Jim B says, I’ve made a living producing original music for 25 years. I’m now retired, hoping to sell my back catalog to libraries or music supervisors. I’ve had no luck submitting my music through the website portals. How can I get my stuff noticed by library execs? Great question. Thank you very much for writing in, Jim.

00:02:32:09 – 00:02:37:09

Steve Goldshein

Appreciate you sharing your your journey with us. Who wants to take a swing at this one first?

00:02:37:11 – 00:02:38:14

Chris Hayzel

Mike I think yeah.

00:02:38:14 – 00:03:04:15

Mike Patti

Try yeah, yeah. So I mean, I have a lot of friends that that run companies like this and there are a lot of composers out there and so no one cares about your music. I’m sorry. No one’s going to be like, Wow, this is the greatest thing ever. Thank you for sending me this. It’s always going to be, especially in the production music world, you got to make that connection with the owner and people are so accessible nowadays than ever before.

00:03:04:17 – 00:03:33:06

Mike Patti

Like you can find them on social media or if you know a friend of a friend, you try to make that connection first, you know, ping them or DM them, you know, and, and just say, Hey, I’m a composer. I got I have, you know, unless what’s the style of music you’re going for Because do you want to target trailer music companies, Do you want to target companies that do just music for television and just media or companies that just do stuff for social media?

00:03:33:07 – 00:03:43:14

Mike Patti

Like, figure that out. Find out who your targets are. It’s a little bit of homework, you know, but it’s not a lot of work just fine. Make that list, create an Excel spreadsheet and just go down the list.

00:03:43:18 – 00:03:46:13

Chris Hayzel

And you just call or email them or reach out to them.

00:03:46:14 – 00:04:03:18

Mike Patti

Yeah. I mean, if you know a friend, like I’m sure if you’ve been writing music for 25 years, you must know somebody who knows somebody who can be like the in its because I don’t think you’re going to have much success if you just just randomly email somebody.

00:04:03:20 – 00:04:04:10

Chris Hayzel

Yeah.

00:04:04:12 – 00:04:07:12

Mike Patti

Right. Because that happens so much.

00:04:07:12 – 00:04:08:00

Steve Goldshein

Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:08:00 – 00:04:10:04

Chris Hayzel

They probably get a ton of emails.

00:04:10:04 – 00:04:31:01

Mike Patti

Yeah, we get tons of emails even. And like, I wish that we could be like Santa Claus and give everybody the careers and dreams they want. Yeah, but like, it’s like it’s, there’s a lot of competition out there, so. But the one thing that, that sets people apart and the reason the ones that are the most successful are the ones that have built relationships.

00:04:31:01 – 00:04:36:19

Mike Patti

Yeah. And that’s like number one. And then can you compose music or can, you know, do you have quality this kind of secondary?

00:04:36:21 – 00:04:58:16

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, that came up a lot in the in the discussion with Brian about relationships. Right. And I mean that that applies to so much more than just music. It’s like even how I ended up here with you guys was through relationships that I had built at a previous company that I worked for and then people that we’ve been bringing in to work or because of relationships that we’ve all had.

00:04:58:17 – 00:05:24:00

Chris Hayzel

So like any type of professional networking is really built on the relationship that you have, whether it’s in music or otherwise. But Mike, like you have told us a little bit about your experience working with Audio Machine, how similar is that to, you know, library music and how did you how did you get connected with audio machine?

00:05:24:02 – 00:05:43:05

Mike Patti

Yeah, I well, I was working with a composer who was a friend of the owner. So, Jim Venable, you guys know James L Venable, who did like Samurai Jack at Powerpuff Girls. He did like all the Kevin, like the early Kevin Smith movies. And we did like Scary Movie three and Scary Movie Four together, which are awesome movies.

00:05:43:05 – 00:06:07:22

Mike Patti

They got to bring those back. Yeah, but yeah, he this was like 15 years ago and he said, Hey, you should, you’d be good at trailer music. Like, can I connect you with my friend? He, he’s looking for composers. And Paul Giamatti, who’s the owner of Audio Machine. I connected with him and I wrote like one or two tracks and, you know, it kind of led to one thing led to another, and I ended up writing a ton of music for for him.

00:06:08:03 – 00:06:30:06

Mike Patti

You know, again, it was just a recommendation like a random like it’s it’s always this like random thing that’s like, I guess I’ll write a track today for this guy. I just don’t know who that what’s audio machine, whatever you write the track and then you realize this is cool. This is wow, how fortunate. Because usually, yeah, it’s like you don’t realize how cool it is until you’re, like, really doing it.

00:06:30:08 – 00:06:41:08

Mike Patti

Yeah. So, I mean, I was like super fortunate to get connected with Paul. I mean, it’s just, you know, that’s the more you do it and the more you connect with people and the more you’re like, not a total jerk. You know, I think that really is helpful.

00:06:41:14 – 00:06:41:22

Steve Goldshein

Yeah.

00:06:42:02 – 00:06:45:17

Chris Hayzel

Yeah. You want to be a pleasant person to work with, for sure. Yeah.

00:06:45:19 – 00:07:20:12

Steve Goldshein

That’s. Yeah, exactly. You hit the nail on the head at the beginning. Like we’re going to hear that. That word relationships a lot in in today’s discussion. It’s a central theme of of the answers we have to the questions that people submitted and it’s a very important thing. So yeah I’ll reiterate that that advice as well to Jim you know you in your in your composing career you must have some people in your Rolodex who can who can get you hooked in with who’s doing this in in the, you know, the modern era, which has changed in just the last couple of years.

00:07:20:13 – 00:07:44:21

Steve Goldshein

The areas around library music and all of that have drastically changed in just in a very, very short amount of time here. So it is definitely a challenge nowadays. And, you know, I’m sorry that you haven’t had luck so far, but I do think that there’s a way, a way for you to to leverage the connections you’ve made over the course of your career and find someone who can help you with that now.

00:07:44:21 – 00:08:08:19

Chris Hayzel

So I do have a question just for for people who might be listening, who might not know what library music is. yeah. Can you can you describe like the difference between composing for library music versus, you know, scoring to picture versus, you know, like what are the what are the sort of the different avenues that one can take as a composer?

00:08:08:21 – 00:08:46:11

Steve Goldshein

This is another another place where we have in our space, in our niche space of the music industry, we have words that have like 40 million different meanings, like the word sample and the word library. Both have like 15 different things. So yeah, a music library is music that’s available for music editors and people who are creating media directors and producers to simply grab a track that already exists as opposed to having a composer hired for that bespoke project, whether it’s a full film or a short or YouTube clip, whatever, whatever circumstances.

00:08:46:11 – 00:09:09:10

Steve Goldshein

Someone needs music. There’s like they’re either going to hire a composer to do it or they’re going to find music that exists already and get it from there. So a music library in this context is cinematic, orchestral, primarily, or whatever type of music it is that is preexisting and in a big catalog that people can pick from and cut parts out of.

00:09:09:10 – 00:09:18:07

Steve Goldshein

So that’s kind of the broad strokes of it. Mike, You, you know, you know a lot more about the details of those differences and how those agreements are structured.

00:09:18:07 – 00:09:41:18

Mike Patti

Yeah, yeah. Another word for it is it’s like production music and kind of going back to this other guy or anybody. There’s this organization called the Production Music Association, and every year they have a conference in Los Angeles. It’s like all the production music companies come together, try to support one another. I know that they try to take some like legal action to protect against their composers rights and things like this.

00:09:41:18 – 00:10:06:08

Mike Patti

And so I know the PM, a music icon, just something that came to mind. Check them out because they’re really cool. I know we’ve sponsored some of their things, their events, but yeah, I mean, it’s music that it’s, it’s again, this is like, it’s like risk versus reward. Like writing production music often doesn’t get paid upfront. You very rarely get paid something.

00:10:06:10 – 00:10:26:09

Mike Patti

Maybe someone will have you write this really complex piece of music for 100 bucks, you know, or 200 bucks. But then once it’s licensed, if it’s for a big movie campaign, I mean, that’s that’s the that’s the ultimate. If you can have that happen or if it’s licensed for a national commercial or something like that, you know, that’s a five figure number.

00:10:26:11 – 00:10:45:02

Mike Patti

But most of the stuff is going to be placements that will air on television or will be used in television shows like Netflix and stuff. But it’s like it’s kind of like fishing, you know, you just going to put the bait out in the water and just just make sure it’s really good bait. Make sure it’s the kind of bait that you want to catch the fish with.

00:10:45:05 – 00:11:04:04

Mike Patti

Because when you’re writing production music, you have to think about what an editor is looking for. And Chris knows that as he goes through this, he’s constantly clicking through music to create videos. There’s a certain style, there’s a certain like he just wanted to stay in a certain vibe for a certain period of time, or maybe every 10 seconds there’s at least some kind of a hit or something that you can cut to.

00:11:04:04 – 00:11:37:11

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, it can be really hard to find a piece of music that fits that fits your project the way that you need it to fit your project. There’s a lot of usually a lot of editing that goes into that after the fact. What I can say is if anybody doesn’t quite fully grasp what library music is, I would say it’s sort of akin to being somebody that creates stock footage and then puts it up on a website where people can go browse that stock footage or photos and finds what they need downloads.

00:11:37:11 – 00:12:11:03

Chris Hayzel

It uses it in their project. And there are smaller music libraries which, according to our conversation with Brian, depending on who you know, the owner of that library’s relationships might actually be more advantageous because if the if the library is smaller, your your music gets more exposure and the owner might have really good relationships with people where they have repeat business versus, you know, uploading your tracks to a website like Art List, which is what I use to browse for music.

00:12:11:05 – 00:12:32:16

Chris Hayzel

That’s a really easy way. I, I don’t know what art lists setup is, but it seems like the type of place where you can just sign up to upload music. I’m sure that there’s some kind of process that you have to go through that, but it’s maybe not as much about developing relationships with the owners of art list as much as it is, you know, signing up and just uploading your music.

00:12:32:22 – 00:12:50:10

Chris Hayzel

But the flipside of that is there’s so much music there that people are just, you know, like when I go on an art list, I’m just scrolling through like thousands and thousands of tracks and just clicking on the first one that I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s a vibe. But I would say it’s a lot like stock footage or photos or things like that.

00:12:50:12 – 00:13:15:03

Steve Goldshein

That’s a that’s a perfect analogy. And so there’s a lot one of the best ways to get experience if you’re new to to writing orchestral film music or music for media at all, and you just go and you just want practice writing tracks that would be good enough to go in a music library is a great way to build your chops and build your skill set and simply keep keep the machine oiled and do that.

00:13:15:09 – 00:13:35:19

Steve Goldshein

You know, whenever you have a track that you’re I don’t know what this track is going to be used for, that’s okay. Maybe. Maybe you submitted to a library and someone else finds what it’s used for later. That’s that’s the idea behind it. Now, in Jim’s case, he’s got, by the sound of it, he’s got a catalog of, of, you know, two and a half decade’s worth of music that that is up for grabs.

00:13:35:19 – 00:14:04:05

Steve Goldshein

Basically. It wasn’t necessarily used for a particular project, I’m assuming, you know, I don’t know the specifics, but yeah, there’s going to be an additional set of nuance there where you’ve got a specific type of music that that’s available. And, you know, over the last 25 years, probably some of it is recorded by a real orchestra. Maybe some of it is, you know, with with my I guess my point is that maybe the path is not trying to sell the whole library as a chunk.

00:14:04:05 – 00:14:28:12

Steve Goldshein

Maybe it’s finding a way to organize it or distill it down or compartmentalize it and shop it around in pieces and say, hey, here’s, you know, hear, hear. People who do this kind of music in your library. Here’s my best tracks from that and then go around and, you know, diversify, diversify what you’re what you’re going after a little bit, if that makes sense.

00:14:28:17 – 00:14:47:01

Chris Hayzel

So, yeah, and to you and to use Mike’s story with audio Machine as an example, it actually might be a good idea to, like you said, Steve, distill it down to like your absolute best work because Mike, you had said that you, you know, you went in and you just wrote a couple of tracks and then developed a relationship with them and then ended up creating more and more and more.

00:14:47:01 – 00:15:07:23

Chris Hayzel

So maybe the thing is, is to just kind of get your foot in the door with someone with your absolute best music. And then once they discover that you’re somebody that they like to work with and that you’re somebody whose music they would like to have in their library, you can say, Well, hey, I actually have two and a half decades worth of music here that you can that you can take and put in your library.

00:15:08:00 – 00:15:30:23

Mike Patti

Yeah, exactly. But it has to be licensable, right? Yeah, I have lots of music too, but 90% of it is unlistenable because it’s it’s either underscore or it’s, it’s like they’re too short or they’re not the right style. Writing production music is a craft in itself. You know, your job is to make a track that an editor could will just be like, Yes, that’s the one I need to get my job done.

00:15:31:01 – 00:15:49:13

Mike Patti

That’s it. Because like, what was really cool, I got to write for Audio Machine a lot and I started writing for Paul and I was kind of tapping into my John Williams fandom and trying to write this cool stuff and getting all crazy with it. And he would just be like, Listen, you know, you got to water it, not water it down, but you got to keep it really simple.

00:15:49:15 – 00:16:10:12

Mike Patti

This is only going to be heard one time and it’s got to get people in the movie theater, you know, that’s it. And simple is better. And that’s actually really hard to do. It is so like I you know, I was very fortunate that Paul Paul is one of the masters of this and he helped me to learn how to do that.

00:16:10:17 – 00:16:26:08

Mike Patti

So it’s it’s a craft and it’s like not something you can’t just hey, I got it. I got a bunch of music here. Let me just shovel it and you write me a check like it’s got to be. It has to be useful and valuable for the purpose that it’s intended for it. No, I mean, he probably has great music.

00:16:26:08 – 00:16:27:10

Mike Patti

I don’t mean to be like.

00:16:27:15 – 00:16:47:19

Chris Hayzel

Well, it’s like, you know, it it needs to capture the attention of the people who are going through it, I would imagine. But it also needs to be as widely applicable as possible or to to a certain maybe a certain genre of project or something like that. Like you don’t want it to have too much personality because if it has too much personality that makes it really specific.

00:16:48:00 – 00:16:58:00

Chris Hayzel

But you are there to have enough personality to where when they listen to it, it stands out amongst the other hundreds or thousands of tracks. It’s like a fine balance, right?

00:16:58:01 – 00:17:15:20

Mike Patti

So it’s this is this is okay. Maybe this is the big question is like as an artist it’s like, well, why are we getting into this? It’s for me, I just I love music, but I also love the idea of how music could be used in commerce, you know? Well, you got to check your ego at the door a little bit, and maybe it’s becomes more of a craft rather than an art.

00:17:15:20 – 00:17:34:12

Mike Patti

And that’s that’s just understand the job and like going into it with it because there’s a lot of people that are like, they would never want to do that. Yeah, they just they just want to write. And those are usually the best artists, you know, like the people that are just writing for themselves. They’re not writing to get the approval of, you know.

00:17:34:12 – 00:17:44:19

Chris Hayzel

A Yeah, I don’t me, I don’t think that I could ever I don’t think I have the chops or the discipline necessary, necessary to write good library music, you know what I mean?

00:17:44:21 – 00:18:23:15

Steve Goldshein

It’s a big challenge in the same way that being a producer or a beat maker who’s making songs, background songs for artists and rappers and they don’t know who the singer or the or the performer on the track is going to be yet. And they’re and they and it has to be interesting and good enough to catch the attention of someone who wants to topline it, but also not so weird and out there that it could only be used for a specific song that because the way collaborative songwriting and producing works is usually a much longer term process than someone who just needs quickly needs music, whether they need a beat to get get their

00:18:23:15 – 00:18:56:04

Steve Goldshein

idea out over or if they need a trailer or a 32nd commercial spot. And they just need it today and it just needs to be done. It’s a very different beast and yeah, so cool. That was yeah, that was a juicy question that one sent us. Send us to a lot of a lot of fun places. So yeah, we’re going to switch gears with the next question about synths duration, which is the process of doing a mock up, doing a realizing an orchestral score with virtual instruments.

00:18:56:06 – 00:19:17:22

Steve Goldshein

Do you have any YouTube clips or material using logic to make them sound realistic as well as the process of mixing and mastering? As composers, we spend huge sums of money purchasing samples but lack the skills to use them correctly and the production becomes lackluster. That question comes from Vivian Kay. Thank you very much, Vivian, for submitting that question.

00:19:17:22 – 00:19:47:08

Steve Goldshein

It’s a very good question for I mean, not just specifically using logic, but any any dye, any any production software that you can create this kind of music. And there’s always a lot of detail work that goes into it when you want an orchestral arrangement or anything created with with acoustic samples to sound realistic and not just impressively good, which is, which is another way to go.

00:19:47:11 – 00:20:18:10

Steve Goldshein

But you always there’s a surprising amount of of spaces, effects, subtle things that that always make a big difference. Things like dynamics making things louder or softer in ways that are how those instruments realistically perform. There’s a common issue that people have where they’re brass, they swell brass too fast and they don’t let it build naturally and go through the dynamic layers at the same kind of rate that the ends that a player really would.

00:20:18:10 – 00:20:41:14

Steve Goldshein

And it goes from really quiet to really loud, really suddenly and with samples in particular, that’s usually a jarring effect because we record them playing soft and we record them playing loud. And for some, some libraries like industry brass, we got them playing the recorded crescendos and there’s no way, there’s no way to beat that, that real recorded swell for things like the brass.

00:20:41:20 – 00:21:06:13

Steve Goldshein

And so that’s another technique, is using the right sample for the right job. That’s why we record dozens of articulations per instrument, different playing styles of longs and shorts, and we capture as much detail in the recordings as we can. So couple of tips for any Daw for Logic or Cubase, Ableton Pro Tools using the right articulation and the right instrument for the right for the job.

00:21:06:15 – 00:21:25:20

Steve Goldshein

Paying close attention to your dynamics. So your your mod cc1 mod we’ll cc 11 expression and your velocity and having. Yeah. A good starts with a good piece of music though. I mean those are more of the production side of things but those, those are the basics of, of the details.

00:21:25:22 – 00:21:57:07

Chris Hayzel

I remember specifically when I found out how to make my pieces sound more realistic, and this is with the caveat that I am not a composer on the same level that that Mike and Steve are here, and I don’t work with samples in as detailed a way as they do. I probably have about I would say maybe 10 to 15% of the knowledge that they do when it comes to making orchestral samples sound realistic.

00:21:57:09 – 00:22:16:06

Chris Hayzel

But what I will say is that when it comes to playing an instrument, it live. The thing that makes that instrument sing is the expression, the way the person plays it. And I remember when I first started getting into into composing, I was I was just playing the notes and just like, you know, banging it out on a on a keyboard kind of thing.

00:22:16:06 – 00:22:55:17

Chris Hayzel

I had no idea about velocity. I had no idea about the mod wheel. I didn’t understand any of that. This was when I was just first sort of getting into it. What I kind of ended up coming to was I break down every section of the orchestra. So like string sections, for instance, I’ll do the cellos separately, I’ll do the viola separately, violins separately, basses separately, and I will play each one all the way through using the mod well to do it expressively right, and to listen along and follow what I’ve done before and and create those swells and all that stuff.

00:22:55:17 – 00:23:22:07

Chris Hayzel

It’s all about for me getting it to feel the way that I want it to feel at the start. That just came from the concept of, you know, when you’re recording a guitar, you want to make sure that your sound, your input is right. The way that you play it is right when you’re recording it because you don’t want to be going back and fixing too much after the fact because you can, you know, you can polish a turd all you want.

00:23:22:09 – 00:23:39:19

Chris Hayzel

It’s still going to be a turn. It is just going to be a shiny turd. So getting everything right and at the beginning, as you’re doing it for me has been the way that I have been able to make my pieces sound more realistic. I don’t know how realistic they sound, but more realistic than they did when I first started, for sure.

00:23:40:01 – 00:23:48:12

Chris Hayzel

So now I’m going to actually hand it to the probably pro of pros in the room. Mike who can actually tell you an applicable.

00:23:48:15 – 00:24:23:14

Mike Patti

Piece of I think, you know, you’re spot on. So Vivians so she’s specifically asking about logic and how to make them, you know, the instruments sound realistic and you know, that’s that’s a great place to start without having to spend a penny. You know, And the common thing that I hear from from people that are that are new to it and I say this like I mean, I have kids that like they try to do stuff and they they don’t yet understand what an instrument is supposed to sound like.

00:24:23:16 – 00:24:34:13

Mike Patti

Like if it’s a string pad, there are certain things you want to do, but that the instrument itself, if you just played put your hand on the keyboard, isn’t going to do by default.

00:24:34:15 – 00:24:35:03

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, right.

00:24:35:03 – 00:24:59:19

Mike Patti

Like depending on the musical context, you might want to have it enter slowly, you know, and then taper out at the end of a phrase. If it’s a melodic line, you want to try to use a legato patch if you have one, which a legato when we write the word legato, well in MUZIO anyway, and most developers do this through legato is a concept where they sampled all of the leaps between all of the notes.

00:24:59:21 – 00:25:25:14

Mike Patti

They painstakingly spent hours and hours doing every single here, I’ll try to play in the piano, you know, very slowly. Yeah. And then work your way, working your way down so that you have it across, you know, thousands and thousands of permutations so that when you just simply play a monophonic melody, it sounds real because you’re capturing those nuances of the changes between those those notes.

00:25:25:14 – 00:25:53:21

Mike Patti

So, you know, and I don’t think logic has many of those, but it can really make it can really make the difference by layering that kind of stuff in there. You know, But you’re asking of there. Yeah. I mean, YouTube, I’m sure, has tons of people composing awesome music with logic presets only. But yeah, I mean there’s, you know, between composer Cloud and MUZIO, I’m not going to try to promote us here, but, you know, there’s a lot of options out there for high quality instruments.

00:25:54:02 – 00:25:56:05

Mike Patti

Yeah, at a low at a low price. You know, what.

00:25:56:05 – 00:26:19:06

Chris Hayzel

I will say is that, you know, no matter how kind of no matter how much you mess around with Logic’s stark orchestral samples, they’re only going to sound so realistic. Like when I discovered that I could buy better libraries that made all of the difference in the world because there’s so much more expression in that right and available to you.

00:26:19:08 – 00:26:45:16

Chris Hayzel

Yeah. So logic stock instruments are a good place to start. Music is only ten bucks a month and it’s got some of the best and the literally some of the best samples in the world. And you know, you can get it for free for 30 days and just and play around with it. And it’s going to it just playing with those samples alone is going to open up a whole new world to you.

00:26:45:21 – 00:27:13:10

Chris Hayzel

Playing with good samples, Keep your left hand on the mod wheel and hit your keys a little bit harder, a little bit softer. You’re going to go a long way with that. And then just listen to a lot of music, right? Like, listen to it. Really think about and analyze the way that these instruments breathe together because there’s a breath that happens in orchestral music where certain instruments may be getting louder while other instruments are getting quieter.

00:27:13:10 – 00:27:37:17

Chris Hayzel

There’s this there’s this dance that’s happening between all of the instruments that creates that sort of alive feeling that an orchestra has. And I know that I just had to spend a lot of time listening to that, understanding how these things sort of work in concert with one another, and then applying some of those says some of those things that I heard to my own music.

00:27:37:21 – 00:27:46:13

Chris Hayzel

And you can again, you can do so much of it with just your mind. Well, just the velocity on your keyboard and good samples help a lot too.

00:27:46:14 – 00:28:11:01

Steve Goldshein

Yeah I think the the point you made about playing in bands being what informed your perspective on it, I think that’s so relevant and so applicable because that that way of the instruments playing off of each other and responding to what each other are doing dynamically and the way things are phrased that happens so organically in, in an orchestra.

00:28:11:03 – 00:28:51:22

Steve Goldshein

And it’s something that really takes that, that extra detail to go in and do every part individually. And yeah, there’s no substitute for understanding how you want it to sound. And that that comes from listening to tons and tons and tons of music, both, both produced with samples and recorded orchestral music and watching videos on, on YouTube of orchestras Performing is a really great way to add a level of understanding because you can see what’s happening, which instruments are taking the melody because they usually, they usually focus on that instrument at that at the time, you know, the camera jumps around and shows you who’s doing what, so you can really know, that’s what

00:28:51:22 – 00:29:02:09

Steve Goldshein

the brass is doing. that’s what that instrument is playing. The playing the melody. that’s how when I hear something like that, it’s supposed to perform because they’re they’re playing it a certain way.

00:29:02:11 – 00:29:29:01

Chris Hayzel

And, you know what? There’s a there’s actually this this maybe a little abstract in terms of answering the question directly. But when it comes to dynamics and expression in music in general, a piece of music is only relative to itself, right? So like what I mean by that is like the highest note that somebody sings in a song is only relative to the lowest note that they sing in the song.

00:29:29:02 – 00:29:51:01

Chris Hayzel

The loudest part of the song is only relative to the quiet, quiet as part of the song. Like not everything has to breathe and go in and out of dynamics all the time. You can. You can have moments where everything is full on for sure. Yeah, but that’s only going to be impactful if you also contrast it with moments where things are pulled back and a little more subtle.

00:29:51:01 – 00:30:03:23

Chris Hayzel

So playing with contrast where you know something that will only make as much of a statement as the inverse of it also made in that same piece.

00:30:04:01 – 00:30:26:18

Mike Patti

Well, I’ll just say practical homework for Vivian, like a practical thing you can do. So I don’t know what level or where you’re at in your musical skill level or whatever, but like something that you know, people do a lot of is they’ll take a classical piece of music that you really like I got from Ravel or something, get the actual score, find a recording you really like, and it could be just like 15 seconds of it or 30 seconds.

00:30:26:20 – 00:30:50:21

Mike Patti

And try your best to get as close as possible to that section with your with your mark up. Yeah. And then, then you really, you really, you really start to find that you’ll see a score and it might even look like a really thick score with a bunch of notes on it. And then you hear it and you’re like, Well, I guess all I really need is just an ensemble string patch, ensemble brass patch, and maybe just the piccolo flute, piano.

00:30:50:21 – 00:31:05:12

Mike Patti

I don’t need to triple, quadruple, double. I know there’s a million things to talk about here, but, you know, I think that that’s a good thing that I, I, I used to do a lot and it’s fun. You learn how to you learn what other composers do. It improves your your skills.

00:31:05:17 – 00:31:25:19

Steve Goldshein

It gives you it gives you more more perspective from the highest. The simple, the highest and lowest level at the same time, the simplest form of it where just it’s these core. These are the chords that are happening. I can play it on these simple, simple instrumentation or I could go nuts and do every, you know, doubled and layered and everything else.

00:31:25:21 – 00:31:50:09

Steve Goldshein

But then you learn what, what, what is appropriate since your question did bring up the process of mixing and mastering, I just want to simply quickly touch on that. I view mixing as the second to last stage of of the production process and mastering as the final stage. And I rarely do my own mastering, but if I ever do, I’m doing that in a brand new project with only the bounced audio of my mics.

00:31:50:09 – 00:32:09:16

Steve Goldshein

I’m not I’m not trying to apply mastering to the output bus of my of my logic session. I’m going to be approaching mixing and mastering as separate steps of the workflow. And if I, if I, if I care about it, I’m going to hire a mastering engineer who knows what they’re doing better than I do.

00:32:09:18 – 00:32:13:11

Mike Patti

I would say a composer shouldn’t mix their own music if you can.

00:32:13:11 – 00:32:14:23

Steve Goldshein

I mean, that’s it. Yeah. Find a way.

00:32:15:01 – 00:32:28:21

Mike Patti

If you can find a friend who’s like, learning this stuff, you shouldn’t be doing both of those things. I know that’s not practical all the time and like to get to be able to get somewhat decent and you could just slap ozone on to the final mix and kind of pretend like you know what you’re doing. But.

00:32:29:01 – 00:32:35:23

Steve Goldshein

Well, right. The sound can be. I’m not I’m not an engineer. So among us hasn’t done that. I mean, put it put it through.

00:32:35:23 – 00:32:36:12

Chris Hayzel

Lander.

00:32:36:16 – 00:32:40:09

Steve Goldshein

Designs. Yeah. Just just use it. Just bounce it and.

00:32:40:09 – 00:32:46:05

Steve Goldshein

Then use our ax to normalize it to -12 plus boom. Done. Shipped. Here’s here’s.

00:32:46:07 – 00:33:15:03

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, here’s something in terms of mixing in with orchestral music and again, with a caveat that I’m probably the least knowledgeable person in the room about mixing orchestral music, but I remember reading something when I was learning about all of this stuff, about the difference between mixing when it comes to contemporary music and mixing, when it comes to orchestral music and thinking about it in terms of, you know, a live orchestra.

00:33:15:05 – 00:33:47:06

Chris Hayzel

So essentially the conductor is there sort of conducting, telling certain sections to come up or maybe come down a little bit or things like that in a live setting. That conductor is mixing by, you know, so basically that you the economy would be like if you need a little bit more bass, you bring up maybe some of the low brass or some of the low woodwinds or if you need a little bit more high end and a little bit less bass you maybe you have them go down and you bring in something that has a higher timbre.

00:33:47:08 – 00:34:24:12

Chris Hayzel

A lot of the mixing in orchestral music is done in the orchestration itself. You know, obviously when you have a piece of music, you’re going to mix it after the fact. I’m not saying don’t mix your music, but you can. I think you can probably do a lot to make that process easier on yourself by understanding the, the, the mechanisms of orchestration and learning how these pieces sort of, you know, work together to kind of mix themselves in a way that was that was super, super, super helpful to me when I when I learned that.

00:34:24:12 – 00:34:45:04

Chris Hayzel

And it actually and ended up informing all of my arrangement. And in contemporary music, too, like when they record a rock album now I think about it that way. I’m like, Well, I actually need something, you know, twinkling over here, so I’m going to do this, you know, roads up and up in the higher octaves or something like that.

00:34:45:06 – 00:35:11:20

Steve Goldshein

no, I’m so glad you brought that, because you’re exactly right. In orchestral music in particular, a lot of the mixing, quote unquote, which is the balance of volume, the balance of frequency and the balance of panning. So left, right front, back, top to bottom, the three dimensions of a stereo piece of music that that is done at the orchestration level because the instruments, the parts in the score have the dynamic markings put in.

00:35:11:20 – 00:35:43:17

Steve Goldshein

So, so the the ideally the play, the piece of music that’s on the music stands when the players get to the to the recording session or the performance has all the information they need of what notes to play or how loud or soft to play and how fast or slow to play them in in rhythm. The conductor is there to make sure that that is all happening at the correct balance because they have the perspective standing in front of everybody and hearing it in ways that the players may be too far across the stage from each other to hear.

00:35:43:17 – 00:36:03:00

Steve Goldshein

The trombones may not know that they’re playing too loud because the violins aren’t playing loud enough. In the way to balance that is for them to play softer, not for the violins to play louder. The conductor knows that. And so the conductor is going to do those those those gestures and bring out those nuances and find that right balance.

00:36:03:02 – 00:36:26:01

Steve Goldshein

But it’s informed by the shape of the piece of music. And so I think that when mixing orchestral music, thinking about it from the perspective of the conductor is a great place to start because that gives you not only the perspective of how loud and soft should it be, at what point, how much information is happening on the right side of the stereo image versus the left because are there.

00:36:26:03 – 00:36:51:02

Steve Goldshein

And that that depends based on where the orchestral instruments sit. There’s a there’s a whole the read the conventions of all of orchestral composing. The reason that the orchestra as the the the collection of instruments that it is hasn’t changed all that much in a couple hundred years. It’s expanded and it’s made, you know, there’s subtle modifications and alternative things that you can add and subtract.

00:36:51:07 – 00:37:23:19

Steve Goldshein

But for the most part, the of what what instruments are always there and where they’re sitting in the the recording space or the concert hall, that’s pretty much fixed. And there’s there’s design behind that so that there is a correct balance of being able to hear the woodwinds and the brass and the strings and the percussion and having everything have its own place, not only in left and right space, but based on how loud that instrument can possibly get and how high and low that instrument can can play.

00:37:23:21 – 00:37:35:17

Steve Goldshein

As you’re listening to other music that you’re creating, you start to notice what’s missing a little bit more easily because you can you you know what it’s like when there is something twinkling over there and it’s nice and you wonder.

00:37:35:19 – 00:37:38:16

Mike Patti

Okay, do we think we’ve answered Vivian’s question?

00:37:38:18 – 00:37:39:20

Steve Goldshein

That’s probably.

00:37:39:22 – 00:37:50:02

Mike Patti

You know, at the end of the day, mixing and mastering is not going to fix a bad mark up. Getting good without, you know, turn off your plug ins. Don’t don’t be don’t pull up your fab filter, blah.

00:37:50:02 – 00:37:51:03

Steve Goldshein

Blah, blah crap.

00:37:51:05 – 00:37:52:22

Mike Patti

Just get it sounding good effect.

00:37:52:23 – 00:37:53:16

Chris Hayzel

You’re going for.

00:37:53:17 – 00:37:54:07

Steve Goldshein

Exactly.

00:37:54:07 – 00:37:55:20

Steve Goldshein

Unless unless the people.

00:37:55:20 – 00:38:10:10

Mike Patti

Are trying to mix and engineer something that is already at its foundation. Sounds bad, you know, like if it’s fake sounding, if it’s, you know, that’s you’re not going to fix it with mixing techniques, I guess that’s what we’re saying.

00:38:10:12 – 00:38:19:18

Steve Goldshein

All right. We are not going to have time to get through all the questions we got. All right. If you’re still listening. All right.

00:38:19:20 – 00:38:35:04

Steve Goldshein

This is another this is another great question from Niko. How much influence does the conservatory have in establishing itself in the modern music industry? And how do graduates really have more chances to succeed? Thank you.

00:38:35:06 – 00:38:38:18

Mike Patti

Okay. Should I spend 100,000 a year going to this school?

00:38:38:18 – 00:38:39:09

Steve Goldshein

Yeah.

00:38:39:11 – 00:38:52:18

Chris Hayzel

Or not in this room right now we have two music school graduates from pretty prestigious programs, right? Both of you guys. And then I did not go to music school at all.

00:38:52:20 – 00:38:55:02

Mike Patti

Steve went to Berkeley for four years, right?

00:38:55:04 – 00:39:02:17

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, I did. Yes. Yeah, I actually did. I was at Berklee College of Music for five years. I crammed a four year degree. Five years because.

00:39:02:18 – 00:39:04:11

Mike Patti

good for you.

00:39:04:13 – 00:39:07:11

Chris Hayzel

That sounds like a really, really successful cramming stage.

00:39:07:12 – 00:39:12:00

Steve Goldshein

It was I was it was 14 semesters, nonstop. It was a good time.

00:39:12:00 – 00:39:33:10

Mike Patti

I went to Hofstra University in Long Island for four years, which they don’t have. I mean, they have really great music education program. I was the only music theory composition degree, but then I went to USC was there that they don’t do it anymore. But they had a one year program that’s called the Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program or I think it’s called screen scoring now.

00:39:33:16 – 00:39:34:13

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, that’s yeah.

00:39:34:13 – 00:40:00:11

Mike Patti

But like it’s changed so much, you know back in my day it was like way cheaper to go to school 20 something years ago. But now it’s like it’s crazy how expensive it is. And I just would every, every young person that I talk to, I try to invite unless they get some kind of scholarship or something, those loans, you got to pay it back.

00:40:00:11 – 00:40:07:17

Mike Patti

You know, as much as we hope and pray that the government’s going to bail us out, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

00:40:07:18 – 00:40:11:01

Steve Goldshein

Maybe other people, not the composers that we’re know.

00:40:11:03 – 00:40:16:05

Mike Patti

So just think about it like and I know that’s like a boring real world, Like you got to.

00:40:16:07 – 00:40:17:00

Steve Goldshein

Know loans to.

00:40:17:00 – 00:40:38:08

Mike Patti

Pay off. So just think yeah it when you’re a student you don’t care. You don’t think about that stuff but you will in five years and be like when that, you know monthly bill comes, you’re gonna be like, crap, I got to pay for this thing. So that’s from the financial perspective, That’s all I would say. Be careful like, and make sure that what you’re getting from that school is you want to learn something.

00:40:38:10 – 00:40:55:06

Mike Patti

Just because you went to Juilliard, frankly, or Yale or something that you’re not going to increase. I don’t think I don’t think it increases your chances of making a career in this business that most of the people that are super successful don’t come from fancy backgrounds.

00:40:55:08 – 00:41:20:07

Chris Hayzel

No. Yeah. If there was ever a place where a degree is a useless piece of paper, it’s in the creative arts, whether whether that’s, you know, in music, in graphic design and whatever. It’s a good opportunity to go expand your knowledge. It’s a good opportunity to work on on projects while you’re expanding your knowledge, maybe build a portfolio, but those are also all things that you can do outside of school.

00:41:20:07 – 00:41:21:12

Chris Hayzel

And I.

00:41:21:14 – 00:41:22:09

Mike Patti

Yeah, look.

00:41:22:09 – 00:41:25:16

Chris Hayzel

I don’t think I don’t think it’s ever going to make that much of it.

00:41:25:18 – 00:41:45:17

Mike Patti

Education has changed. This is a whole big subject, but we shouldn’t go into it. Education is different than it was in 2000. And, you know, it’s evolved into like you can if you have the diligence, everything you could ever want is available to you on your phone. There’s an amazing amount of content out there that’s incredibly good and it’s free.

00:41:45:18 – 00:42:03:16

Steve Goldshein

That’s the that’s the dirty secret is that a lot of what’s happening nowadays is people are spending huge sums of money on college and then they get to class and the professor gives them a list of YouTube links to watch at home on their own. Later. Yeah, well. Well, I could have I could have found. I’ve already seen most of this.

00:42:03:18 – 00:42:05:08

Steve Goldshein

Yeah. This feels a little.

00:42:05:08 – 00:42:08:20

Mike Patti

Outdated, right? Yeah. When you go to a classroom, like I know all this already.

00:42:08:22 – 00:42:22:22

Steve Goldshein

So I’ll say this, though I agree completely that it doesn’t necessarily. I mean, you know, one is none of my composing clients have ever asked to see my Berkeley degree. Mike, when you hired me eight years ago, you didn’t ask to.

00:42:22:22 – 00:42:26:03

Steve Goldshein

See my Berklee degree for my job soon as samples.

00:42:26:06 – 00:42:56:07

Steve Goldshein

So what I will say and it comes back to the theme we started with of relationships, I chalk all of the success that I had following my time at Berklee through to do relationships that I maybe wouldn’t necessarily have had the same opportunity to discover and develop if I had not gone to Berklee. I can’t say that for sure, because I don’t have I don’t have that mirror from the sci fi series that shows you alternate dimensions.

00:42:56:09 – 00:43:24:18

Steve Goldshein

But there’s there’s a there are plenty of things that I am very glad to have learned from my time there. I think that a lot of the knowledge and the experience that I have, I maybe could have gotten in other ways. But the thing that made the most difference was the opportunity to have the relationships with professors, with my fellow classmates, who are now doing awesome things after after graduation for two to the opportunity.

00:43:24:18 – 00:43:47:20

Steve Goldshein

I mean, I didn’t even know that studying music for video games was a thing that people could do until I got there. It didn’t even occur to me. I, I was a jazz saxophone player in high school, and that’s why I went that’s what what got me into Berklee. And as soon as I got there and realized, okay, cool, there’s other options here, I can I can do more than just play giant steps in all 12 keys for the rest of my life.

00:43:47:22 – 00:44:05:07

Mike Patti

But yeah, but I do. I don’t want to like, crap all over, like music schools. I think that, you know, the coolest thing is you’re surrounded by musicians and you’re young and you’re in your early twenties. You know, you want to develop your craft. Everything that you’re learning before the age of 25 will stick with you for the rest of your life.

00:44:05:09 – 00:44:27:06

Mike Patti

So in that time, to really, like, connect those neurons, you know, get extremely proficient at an instrument, piano preferable. That’s I think that’s a good one to have. Yeah. And yeah, studying, studying and studying and just learning. It’s always a question of how do you afford it. You know.

00:44:27:08 – 00:44:32:19

Steve Goldshein

This is the and this is the challenge is, yeah, I don’t think any of us are crapping all over music school.

00:44:32:19 – 00:44:40:20

Mike Patti

Yeah, it’s just I’m just maybe I’m just a kick right now because I have kids and I’m thinking about their schools and I don’t want I don’t want to pay for it.

00:44:40:22 – 00:44:43:18

Steve Goldshein

I paid for mine. I don’t want to do theirs.

00:44:43:19 – 00:44:55:16

Mike Patti

And I was very fortunate. I had parents that helped me pay for my college, too. I had to take out loans as well, but like, I’m not like I am. I feel very privileged. Not everyone is like me, so I definitely had a leg up.

00:44:55:21 – 00:45:24:19

Chris Hayzel

I think it’s I think it’s what you said, Mike. I think, you know, there is a value in it, especially in today’s music world where I feel like so much of the music experience is an isolated one in more of a way than it used to be. Right? With with dollars being so readily available to people, like people are learning how to make music kind of on their own now and they’re not having to go get their friends together to bring all of their instruments into their garage and bring it out.

00:45:24:21 – 00:45:46:13

Chris Hayzel

And I think that, you know, music schools can be a great place to learn in an environment where there are a lot of other musicians and to have that camaraderie, to have that sort of that group feeling of that. Because I think that one of the biggest benefits of music in general is connecting with other people. It’s a language, right?

00:45:46:15 – 00:46:12:11

Chris Hayzel

And so having that sort of communal experience of making music, even if it’s just sort of side by side, I think is extremely beneficial. The knowledge that you would get from going to school, it’s going to be great. That said, let’s say you’re up for a job. You know you’re up for a project, a director is looking for a composer and he or she is looking at you and three other composers.

00:46:12:13 – 00:46:24:12

Chris Hayzel

Your degree is not going to make a difference in that equation at all. It’s going to be, you know, first and foremost, does your music stand out? Do you have the chops?

00:46:24:14 – 00:46:26:20

Steve Goldshein

I am living for these ideas.

00:46:26:22 – 00:46:49:15

Chris Hayzel

I still haven’t figured out how to fix this thumbs up thing, but do you have the chops is here is your music, you know, good to the point where they’re going to want to have you represent their project and to how much do they enjoy working with you? It’s, you know, as a person, as two people working on a creative project.

00:46:49:17 – 00:47:14:12

Chris Hayzel

Are you a good, pleasant, collaborative person to work on this project with? Who is going to bring something to the table, or are you, you know, a curmudgeonly hermit who doesn’t want anybody to bother you and can’t take feedback? Those are the two things that are probably going to make that difference in your degree is not going to really pay play a role in that at all?

00:47:14:14 – 00:47:48:10

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, it’s all about the relationship with the client and if your music is good and your music may be good because you went to conservatory and spent a lot of time practicing and doing it under the guidance of seasoned professionals and classmates who are giving you good feedback. Or maybe you’re really good at it because you spent the same amount of time on YouTube educating yourself for free, getting feedback from your close circle and meeting other composers and meeting other other people and asking non composers to give you feedback and all of that as well.

00:47:48:11 – 00:48:06:00

Steve Goldshein

If you want to get work and this is a little bit of a diverging topic, but if you maybe there’s a better question for this, but it’s all circled back to it when we get to the next one actually. So I’ll I’ll hold that thought for a couple of seconds. Okay. We can move on to the next one because it’s a related question.

00:48:06:00 – 00:48:32:11

Steve Goldshein

So this one is from Frank P I Friends loves the new podcast. Thanks, Frank. Being from a small town in Canada, my question is this is it realistic to start a composing career when you don’t live in a big media city like L.A., New York or London? Great question and a question. Very good question. What I was going to say, my my tail inside on the previous topic.

00:48:32:11 – 00:48:58:10

Steve Goldshein

When you’re networking, pick who you want to network with. I, I spent a lot of time in my my early my time during school, networking with composers and building relationships with composers. Some of that turned out to be really great because it’s how I how I met Mike and developed relationship with Mike’s at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, which I only knew about because I was studying music for video games.

00:48:58:12 – 00:49:21:02

Steve Goldshein

But I spent a lot of time there networking with composers, and composers aren’t really hiring composers. So if you’re especially if you’re brand new and especially if you’re if you’re still learning all of this stuff. So if you want to network with people who are going to eventually give you work, you have to network with those people. From the start.

00:49:21:06 – 00:49:58:10

Steve Goldshein

It’s helpful to network with other composers and other musicians. If you want to collaborate, if you want to learn, if you want to find a mentor to help you practice your craft and hone your your abilities and give you feedback, there’s enormous value to that. If you’re looking for actual work, start building relationships early and often with people who are studying film, directing, game design programing, the people who are at their own comparable level of a journey where they’re eventually going to need music because if they have a long standing relationship with you back from their time as a student or someone new to this, that’s going to go a long way.

00:49:58:12 – 00:50:23:03

Steve Goldshein

And this is also related to if you don’t live in a big media city like L.A., New York or London, find the people who are in your area doing things that you want to support. There are independent filmmakers all over the place. There are there are independent game developers all over the world, and particularly in games and modern media, remote work has never been more viable.

00:50:23:03 – 00:50:44:08

Steve Goldshein

And honestly, remote work as a composer has kind of always been viable. It’s very rare to have, you know, a composer who works in an office or goes into a studio to do their job. That’s kind of reserved for the big the big timers who do it for, you know, staff composers have big companies. Most freelance composers you can be wherever you want.

00:50:44:08 – 00:51:07:06

Mike Patti

Yeah, I would say stay in your small town in Canada. There is no to come to any of these cities. That’s that’s everything has changed so much. And I see it staying that way. I have a friend, Taylor Davis. She’s a violinist. She’s got like a million followers on Instagram and YouTube and everything. And she’s a great composer too.

00:51:07:06 – 00:51:34:09

Mike Patti

And she’s she’s she’s in Michigan and has built a whole business around this brand that she’s created doing covers of like video game music. And she makes these videos. She’ll come to L.A. once in a while to film something or, you know, meet with friends and connect. But she is she’s always lived in Michigan, like in a small town, and she’s doing very well and she’s very successful.

00:51:34:12 – 00:51:58:09

Mike Patti

If you want to be an assistant, you want to orchestrate for big, right? You know, movies. Yeah, L.A. is the epicenter and you want to be an assistant getting coffee for, you know, famous composer, you know, number six. You then come to L.A., But nope, don’t come to a big city. Don’t do it, by the way. Yeah. And I live in North Carolina now, so I.

00:51:58:09 – 00:51:59:18

Steve Goldshein

Guess I’m for full disclosure.

00:51:59:18 – 00:52:02:08

Steve Goldshein

I am in L.A. and. Yeah, yeah. And indeed.

00:52:02:08 – 00:52:03:12

Mike Patti

Steve doesn’t need to be in L.A..

00:52:03:17 – 00:52:06:20

Steve Goldshein

I don’t need to be here. I mean, I got.

00:52:06:22 – 00:52:24:23

Chris Hayzel

You know what? I think it I think it wouldn’t hurt to stay where you’re at. Find people who are creating things where you’re at, things that you can be part of, and collaborate with them on. It also wouldn’t hurt to take the occasional trip to these media hub spots. May become spend a week or two or something like that.

00:52:24:23 – 00:52:47:18

Chris Hayzel

If you if you have connections out in L.A. and you want to come out and meet people and make, you know, build relationships, I found I find that, you know, it can be a lot easier to build relationships in person. So I understand the the drive to come to a big media hub. But the truth is, if you have those relationships, I don’t think you really need to be in a big media hub.

00:52:47:23 – 00:53:09:01

Chris Hayzel

Of all of the films that I’ve worked on, I’ve only ever worked on one with a director who was in the same city as me and who sat in the room with me while I was doing it. Everything else was remote. We, you know, corresponded by phone. And so you definitely don’t need to live in a big city.

00:53:09:01 – 00:53:20:17

Chris Hayzel

And L.A. is super expensive and also kind of like a shitty. So I would say stay where you’re at if you like it there. If you want to move to L.A., that’s there.

00:53:20:18 – 00:53:30:12

Steve Goldshein

Yeah. I mean, yeah, come hang out. I’ll show you around if you want to come. But yeah, you don’t it’s not a it’s not a requirement to be here because. Yeah, you can.

00:53:30:14 – 00:53:32:20

Mike Patti

You know, the weather’s amazing. It’s. Yeah, it’s.

00:53:32:20 – 00:53:37:23

Steve Goldshein

Well it’s, it’s raining, raining like crazy right now, but other than that. Yeah.

00:53:38:01 – 00:53:47:05

Mike Patti

Hope this is helpful. Yeah. People should give us feedback somehow. I don’t know. Yeah, you give us feedback. Yeah. Let us know if we’re just totally full of it or.

00:53:47:07 – 00:53:51:00

Chris Hayzel

I mean, I think to some degree where we’re all just talking out of our asses.

00:53:51:02 – 00:53:52:15

Mike Patti

Yeah, yeah.

00:53:52:17 – 00:53:54:09

Steve Goldshein

Yeah. No, it’s mean. There’s a lot of.

00:53:54:10 – 00:54:04:03

Mike Patti

Actually you realize like when you talk to people that you really think are just amazing, like that you’re heroes. They actually don’t really know. They kind of they’ve been winging it as well.

00:54:04:05 – 00:54:10:19

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, there’s a famous saying, fake it till you make it. And that’s probably and that’s what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your career.

00:54:10:19 – 00:54:12:08

Mike Patti

Yeah, you’re like that for sure.

00:54:12:14 – 00:54:17:00

Steve Goldshein

Anyone Anyone who seems like they’re not is just really good at it.

00:54:17:02 – 00:54:22:01

Chris Hayzel

If they think that they really, truly, truly know what they’re talking about, they’re. They’re full of shit. Yeah.

00:54:22:06 – 00:54:23:04

Mike Patti

Yeah.

00:54:23:06 – 00:54:46:10

Steve Goldshein

All right. I think we got time for one more, because this is a pretty juicy one as well. Okay? And it’s there’s. There’s a few different parts to it. So we’ll go through as many of the sub questions as we as we can go. Do I set a fee for my compositions and how does the price change based on duration number of instruments, client type and delivery time?

00:54:46:10 – 00:54:48:07

Steve Goldshein

That question comes from ADI.

00:54:48:08 – 00:54:51:10

Chris Hayzel

LP We talked about this with Bryan.

00:54:51:12 – 00:55:04:15

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, yeah. So okay, great. So for anyone who’s who’s new to the pod and hasn’t heard the episode with Brian Ralston. Ralston Ralston Bryan Ralston. Bryan Ralston. Chris. EDIT Whichever one is correct.

00:55:04:17 – 00:55:08:19

Chris Hayzel

I’ve been saying Ralston my you know.

00:55:08:21 – 00:55:10:22

Mike Patti

I actually don’t know. I think it’s.

00:55:10:22 – 00:55:17:23

Steve Goldshein

Ralston Okay. Well, Ralston with apologies to Brian for not knowing which which is the correct pronunciation.

00:55:18:04 – 00:55:37:01

Steve Goldshein

It’s a great episode of the podcast. Great discussion. He had some really awesome advice, and he’s doing his seminar that’s all about this, this stuff. But I think this is this is one of those questions of of setting fees. These are the numbers. Like no one likes to say the numbers. There’s that saying in business, the first person to say the number loses.

00:55:37:03 – 00:55:44:03

Chris Hayzel

Yeah. Do you have do you ever have that that that that conversation that’s like so what’s your fee And you go well I don’t know. What’s your budget.

00:55:44:05 – 00:56:09:11

Steve Goldshein

Yes I was Yeah exactly And it becomes a Spider-Man pointing at each other. Yeah. You know which and you just go in circles like that for, for a long time there are certain conventions that people follow, some pe some composers will say, I’ll charge a flat fee of 10% of the budget or they’ll have a flat fee of x $0 or x dozen thousand dollars, depending on their, their, their level and their rate.

00:56:09:12 – 00:56:27:02

Steve Goldshein

And this is why this is why these things are so difficult to give a definitive answer. Like, I wish I could just say to everyone, you know, everyone who asks, how much should I charge? I wish I could just say $1 million. And then, you know, hope that that that that would be an acceptable thing. But that’s just not you know, that’s not realistic.

00:56:27:02 – 00:56:30:02

Steve Goldshein

That’s not what what people pay for music.

00:56:30:07 – 00:56:51:15

Chris Hayzel

Yeah well in the in the in the podcast with Brian he clarifies that there is no formula for this right. And I think I think honestly the first step from my perspective is getting to a point where you understand that your music has a value, that your service and your ability to create music has value. That’s a big leap in and of itself.

00:56:51:15 – 00:57:10:14

Chris Hayzel

It’s taken me, you know, years and years and years to get to the point where it’s like, Actually, you know what? This is worth somebody giving me money for. And I still I still struggle with that. By the way, whenever somebody wants to pay me to do music, I, I go, okay, how much is this worth? I have to go through that whole process again.

00:57:10:16 – 00:57:36:07

Chris Hayzel

But like, once, once you understand or believe that your skill in this area is worth somebody paying you for it, then you can start to ask yourself the question, how much is this worth? To me? I think, like, how much do I think it should be worth? And then you can break it down, I think in a in a way that works for you in negotiating with the project.

00:57:36:07 – 00:57:54:13

Chris Hayzel

I know, Mike, like you had said, that you you have a permanent rate that per minute of of delivered music for me I’ll usually give a project flat fee but I’ve sort of done the math in the back of my head of how long I think the project will take. So actually this is a good this is a good example.

00:57:54:13 – 00:58:22:21

Chris Hayzel

So I’ve worked on both like feature films, like narrative feature films and documentary films, and they’re two very, very different experience, says as a composer, you know, a feature film, narrative, feature film. Depending on the type of film, there actually may not be that much music in it. And usually what you want to do is what I try to do is the very first thing I do when looking at a film is going through and figuring out where there shouldn’t be music, right?

00:58:23:01 – 00:58:41:11

Chris Hayzel

And you might actually find that there’s not a whole lot of music that you have to compose. You just have to compose the right music. A documentary, on the other hand, is just people sitting and talking for the most part, so there’s going to be way more music in a documentary because it’s more of a driver of the narrative, right?

00:58:41:11 – 00:58:58:14

Chris Hayzel

It’s usually wall to wall music and a documentary with very little break. So I’ll look at that and I’ll go, okay, this is how much this I think this is going to take, and then I’ll make an estimate in my head and then I just have to live with that price. If it ends up taking longer, then I don’t make any more money on it.

00:58:58:16 – 00:59:18:16

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, I have to. I have to first get past the fact that I don’t feel like anybody should ever have to pay me for music because I’m not good enough or that this is something that I would already be doing. And then I have to look at it and come up with like a price that actually feels like it values me to the degree that I feel it should, I guess.

00:59:18:18 – 00:59:56:18

Steve Goldshein

Yeah. For and for me, I’ve done multiple different pricing structures. I’ve done a per minute rate where you’re like, Here’s how much music, how many minutes of completed music, and then a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per minute, depending on, on the project and depending on their budget. I’ve done, I’ve done projects like that, I’ve done flat fee for, for video games and lately I’ve changed my, my pricing structure to be based on a day rate where I’ll charge based on how many days I think the project is going to take and I’ll charge somewhere between 512 hundred bucks a day, depending on the complexity of the music.

00:59:56:18 – 01:00:29:22

Steve Goldshein

Because there’s what I like about the way this question is structured is there are a few variables already already listed which are clearly important to Adele in the way that they value their music. Which how does the price change based on duration number of instruments, client type and delivery time? I’m glad that you included that that last one of delivery time, because if someone needs something, they if they need 10 minutes music on Monday and it’s Thursday today, that’s going to cost more than if they need 10 minutes of music in six weeks.

01:00:29:22 – 01:01:03:12

Steve Goldshein

That’s that’s you know, I may still do it in the same amount of time and I may still say, okay, if I have the opportunity to to to charge my rush fee. But if they but if you know, it is reasonable to to factor in being under a time crunch and when you’re figuring out how to value your music and value yourself, it it’s helpful to consider what is involved beyond just the fun because it can be very exciting when you first start getting paid for for creative projects because it’s kind of like, wow, dreams coming true.

01:01:03:12 – 01:01:37:14

Steve Goldshein

I’m doing something that I really love and am really passionate about and is a lot of fun and is a craft that I’ve honed and now people want to actually give me money for it too. Wow, that’s amazing. Then then the reality sets in and it’s like, well, the reason people are going to give you money for it is because there’s also a solid amount of pain in the ass that has to happen with with actually getting this done to a professional level and valuing your own time and how much of that you’re willing to put up with and how many revisions you’re willing to do and how many and things like how long is

01:01:37:14 – 01:02:20:04

Steve Goldshein

the music and how many instruments am I? Am I doing? Is this, is this 5 minutes of music that is four tracks of simple synths and a drum machine? Or is that It’s mostly pads and, you know, a four bar loop for for two of the 5 minutes? Or is this really densely orchestrated comp flex material with a lot of tempo changes and time changes and detailed dynamics work that has to be done on 36 different melodic tracks and all of these things because that changes the equation for sure and being able to understand how you may value having to do those things or having to put up with all that ahead of time is

01:02:20:05 – 01:02:23:04

Steve Goldshein

good to factor into your rates and your negotiation.

01:02:23:04 – 01:02:38:07

Mike Patti

So I mean, it’s just it’s it’s like so much information, right? Like if you can the ideal is is to have someone else do this for you. Well that’s ultimately what you want is you should be universal truth.

01:02:38:09 – 01:02:39:00

Steve Goldshein

You can be.

01:02:39:00 – 01:03:06:08

Mike Patti

The creative and focus on just being amazing, this genius composer who just delivers the awesome thing. Okay, someone else ideally should be advocating on your behalf, but that’s not okay. And when you’re first starting out, you’re not going to we’re not going to do that. So I think we’re talking to somebody who’s who’s just starting out. So really simply it should be a per minute rate that you have to come up with that you know, is fair and you got a factor.

01:03:06:08 – 01:03:26:18

Mike Patti

There’s a lot of things that I think young people don’t consider. And that’s, you know, 20, 30% of it goes to Uncle Sam. Okay. So right, so so just immediately delete like 30% of whatever that final number will be. Yeah. You know, and there’s all sorts of other expenses that you don’t realize that you have and you think, man, I’m getting.

01:03:26:18 – 01:03:27:14

Steve Goldshein

20.

01:03:27:15 – 01:03:52:01

Mike Patti

Thousand dollars for this project. That’s going to take three months. Okay. Right. It sounds like a lot of money. And I remember thinking like, my gosh, if I got $20,000, I’d said, I’m good. I’m retiring, you know? Right. But then you realize like, okay, that that goes very quickly. Yes. Like rent musicians that you might pay for.

01:03:52:03 – 01:04:21:02

Mike Patti

So don’t undersell yourself right before, like aim high, like go for it and ask for the high number. Who cares about your experience? None of that stuff matters. Just what’s the number that you feel is really Don’t go crazy. Like, don’t say like Steve was like $1,000,000 later. Come on. Like, yeah, if it’s. If it’s 10 minutes of music, throw out a number that you feel is like will work for you and look it all comes down to did you have a good conversation with them?

01:04:21:05 – 01:04:40:15

Mike Patti

Do you have a really like ask lots of questions so you can really get a good feel for what this project is going to be? This isn’t like we’re not plumbers, electricians. This is always every project is totally different. Meaning like it’s you can’t really guess what it’s going to be, but you can get close. Just, yeah, ask, ask for the high number and see what happens.

01:04:40:17 – 01:04:47:00

Mike Patti

Obviously, if you know, like if Disney is paying for it, if there’s a big company right, that has big deep pockets, then you.

01:04:47:00 – 01:04:47:12

Chris Hayzel

Then go.

01:04:47:12 – 01:04:48:11

Mike Patti

Hey.

01:04:48:13 – 01:04:49:05

Steve Goldshein

Hey, high.

01:04:49:07 – 01:04:51:05

Steve Goldshein

Really let them be.

01:04:51:10 – 01:04:58:11

Mike Patti

Because guess what? If they lower it, then you then you’re the hero doing them a favor. Yeah. You’re like, okay, no problem.

01:04:58:13 – 01:05:01:11

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, well, and expect. Expect that they’re going to negotiate.

01:05:01:11 – 01:05:02:21

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

01:05:03:00 – 01:05:07:02

Chris Hayzel

The first person throwing out the number. Expect there to be a negotiation for sure.

01:05:07:02 – 01:05:15:15

Steve Goldshein

And, and don’t get freaked out when they come back with, with another number or if they say something like that’s, that’s a ridiculous number, they might then say how about this much.

01:05:15:15 – 01:05:33:16

Mike Patti

And most of this stuff is going to be you know, I think ask cap and BMI. Usually we’ve really relied on those things and those are kind of been dwindling. So this upfront fee is gonna be really important. So they start with, you know, if you’re if you’re young and you you’ve had experience, I would say about 1000 or 1500 a minute is a good place to start.

01:05:33:18 – 01:05:57:04

Mike Patti

And, and then the more experienced you get go up to 2000, you know, 2500. I think that that’s very reasonable to ask. You know, it’s it’s a lot of work And there’s this this quote from Buddy Baker. He worked with Walt Disney. He was like a legend, Disney legend. This guy. And he said he gave the best advice is at USC.

01:05:57:07 – 01:06:04:00

Mike Patti

He said, I compose music for free, but I charge a lot of money to put up with all the bullshit.

01:06:04:02 – 01:06:08:18

Steve Goldshein

And so that’s what that’s what this job is. It really is.

01:06:08:23 – 01:06:30:03

Chris Hayzel

I, I had a project that I worked on one time, you know, I was asking them, Did you edit this to temp music? If you guys have temp music, I would like to hear the music that you used to edit it, because the thing that happens is that when edits something to music and the director gets used to seeing that edit, they get attached yes to the music that’s in there.

01:06:30:05 – 01:06:50:05

Chris Hayzel

And they were like, No, no, no. We want we want to we want you to bring your own vision to it. So we left it completely empty. Okay? So I go in and I score the whole thing. You know, it takes me six weeks or something like that. And they come back and they’re like, this isn’t really what we were thinking of.

01:06:50:07 – 01:07:08:11

Chris Hayzel

Even though I had been running it by them the whole time, this wasn’t really what we wanted. Turns out they did edit it to temp music and it was a completely different feel. Right? And so the bullshit that you’re talking about, Mike, it’s like I had to go back and spend a whole other six weeks on this project that I gave a flat rate for, right?

01:07:08:11 – 01:07:25:12

Chris Hayzel

Mind you, and, and complete Glee do the entire thing over again. And I said, Okay, send me the temp music I’m going to go through and I’m going to make this easier on myself and I’m just going to do a bunch of sound alikes for you because you already know what you want to hear. Yeah, you know exactly.

01:07:25:14 – 01:07:47:23

Steve Goldshein

And this is I mean, this is I’m really glad you brought that up, too, because that’s another thing that happens is the the the third parties who come in and they say, you know, I once did a short film that we were we agreed on this really dark, heavy electronic score that was like the social network type thing that and so I do this whole the whole score and I send it over and he’s like, Yes, I love it.

01:07:47:23 – 01:08:11:08

Steve Goldshein

This is awesome. And then like a few days later, I get an email that, hey, so the producer didn’t actually want this. She wanted something that was more like, like, like The Amazing Spider-Man. And I was like, What? Why? Why is there why is there someone on this project who I’m just finding out now after I delivered the whole thing, who has final say over that?

01:08:11:08 – 01:08:34:01

Steve Goldshein

Isn’t that isn’t you who I’ve been working with for four weeks and that was another good learn because it you know when you there’s a there’s a subquestion about about crafting contracts and what clauses are a must have and all of that that sort of thing. I know you know contracts are a whole different, different beast. That’s another get someone else to do it.

01:08:34:01 – 01:09:01:09

Steve Goldshein

This sort of situation, it’s good to understand, obviously what it is that that you have going into it. But you know, without necessarily having to formalize it so much, one of the first priority should be finding out every decision maker who is who is on the project and work with all of them and make sure that you have consensus with with everybody so that you don’t do something that is wildly different than than what you wanted, even though told you X, Y, Z.

01:09:01:09 – 01:09:22:07

Steve Goldshein

This is where it comes back to relationships. You need to have a solid collaborative process with everyone and yeah, yeah, people, people outside of music who who don’t don’t create music and don’t don’t understand how how the sausage is made are often surprised to find out that it’s that it’s as much work and as painstaking.

01:09:22:07 – 01:09:45:18

Chris Hayzel

As it is when you are working with a director and you’re talking about pricing something, you have to realize that, you know, nine times out of ten they’re not going to understand what it is that they’re asking you for. So I think I think to I think to what Mike said, like, you know, definitely start high value yourself, value yourself high value yourself as highly as you feel like you deserve.

01:09:45:20 – 01:10:08:17

Chris Hayzel

Ask for that. Expect a negotiation. They’re going to go low and you’ll probably fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t know how permanent rates work, but I’m sure that’s a good way to start. I think the day rate sounds like a really good thing too, because that sort of accounts for how much work you’re going to do. And it’s not going to you’re not going to end up doing any work for free, which I think is also great.

01:10:08:18 – 01:10:34:19

Chris Hayzel

But the truth is, is that I think the more you do it, the more that you you work with people, the more you understand the type of bullshit that comes along with this, you’re going to get a better understanding, too, of how to price these things and how to how to come to this stuff. Because the truth is, is that there’s there’s a million things that come with working on a project that you’re probably not going to think of when you’re first starting out.

01:10:34:19 – 01:10:39:04

Chris Hayzel

And then. Right, that’s going to inform what you for moving forward.

01:10:39:05 – 01:11:00:14

Mike Patti

Yeah. By the way, Brian Ralston’s I’ll just give him he for his class. He actually he has a couple of lawyers that will offer to help you or give you a 30 minute consultation. I think having even if you can’t even like just starting out, having a lawyer is really good. I mean, I know we all hate lawyers, blah, blah, blah, but it’s if they’re on your side, it’s very important.

01:11:00:14 – 01:11:12:03

Mike Patti

And they could be maybe they can be that person to help be the buffer and like talk to this person. Maybe they can get your rate up even higher. You know, that’s always good, man. This is like I wish there was like a clear this is what you charge does. Exactly.

01:11:12:09 – 01:11:12:15

Steve Goldshein

Yeah.

01:11:12:15 – 01:11:18:00

Mike Patti

Yeah. You know, that’s what the answer that people want that answer. Yeah, that answer doesn’t exist and sorry.

01:11:18:02 – 01:11:18:20

Steve Goldshein

Yeah it is.

01:11:18:23 – 01:11:32:22

Chris Hayzel

Yeah. And you can, you can have something that works for you, but you’re going to probably charge differently per project based on what the person that you’re working with is used to. Also, I think we’re we’re coming up on being at a time here. We’re like an hour and a half.

01:11:33:02 – 01:11:34:15

Steve Goldshein

We’ve got questions.

01:11:34:17 – 01:11:52:18

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, that’s pretty good, you know, Pretty good. You know, if we didn’t get to your question in this episode, we apologize. We were really excited about all these questions. And I think if we do another mailbag episode, maybe we’ll carry some of those questions over and get to the ones that we didn’t get to hear.

01:11:52:19 – 01:12:07:17

Steve Goldshein

Yeah, there were there were a lot of similar questions. So I hope that if you submitted a question, you might have heard a similar variation to the one that you asked. And I hope that we gave you an answer that helps you as well. And yeah, like Chris said, reach back out and we’ll do another one of these.

01:12:07:17 – 01:12:08:22

Steve Goldshein

I think this was fun.

01:12:09:00 – 01:12:28:09

Mike Patti

I will say, you know, this podcast is new and if if you really love what we’re doing here, we’re just getting started. And if you could share it, if you don’t know mind, just if you found that what we offer is valuable, share it on your social profiles, on your stories, and give us a five star rating. You know, if you think it’s worth it.

01:12:28:11 – 01:12:31:02

Chris Hayzel

Yes, that’s really helpful.

01:12:31:02 – 01:12:46:09

Mike Patti

That really is helpful to us. We want to keep this and just offer this as a free information. And we’re going to continue to bring really cool guests on and people that are really making things happen in this industry. So thanks for listening.

01:12:46:13 – 01:13:00:17

Chris Hayzel

Yeah, yeah. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, anything like that, you can reach out to us. It orchestrated at mediocre time and if you haven’t already, go get your 30 day free trial of MUZIO and get creative today. See you guys next time.