Do you compose your own music for your movies or short films?

Do I compose music ? Yes, and also do arrangements.
Do I use a midi keyboard? Yes, as a source of midi to drive a standalone sound source.

For me, the most 'creative' method is use a multitrack digital recorder. First I make a 'guide' by recording voice, guitar and metronome on separate tracks. This 'guide' sets the three parameters for the song or tune - key, tempo and arrangement. I don't worry about singing in tune or getting the chords exactly right - these tracks are replaced with 'best' versions where I can concentrate on one thing at a time. Other instruments are added - keyboard (midi to sound generator), bass, drums (recorded one at a time on separate tracks - snare, kick, toms, H/H, crash & ride, etc as required), sax, etc. When the tracks are all OK I mix them to make the final result.

A vital feature of this self-op procedure is the ability of the digital recorder to do drop-ins using a footswitch - it saves such a lot of time.

Ray

Hi Ray, thanks for responding.
I was interested in your system but I just want something pretty basic, and costing around £100 to maybe £150.00.
I rang the Dolphin music sales department, explained that I just wanted to compose music as a background sound track for my short films, and he mentioned the M audio Oxygen 25, but I could spend a bit more and get the 49 version.
Do you compose music for a living, I mean, would you be interested in composing sound tracks for my short films?
Let me know in PM if you prefer.

PM sent

Ray

Compose is the key word, usually linked to play. Sample based looping music creation tools have been around for a while now, and as a bit of history - when they first appeared, Fruity Loops and Garage Band etc when used in schools and colleges got quite high marks in A Level exams - UNTIL the exam board realised that there was a conflict. What are the marks for musical skill by the person working it, or for pressing the right buttons for the software to do the work. In the end, it was decided that the component of the music that was generated by the software had to be excluded - leaving the work of the student to be marked. This was often found to be just quite random presses of keys, that the software turned into a pleasant end product. They had to change the spec to remove the machine's component.

Being a composer means composition and musical ability in my book. Re-arranging blocks into background music is fine - but it does NOT count as being music. If the same thing was available in written text, perhaps with paragraphs in memory from proper authors, in their own style - and the software bolted them together, it would be a rubbish book!

If you can play a keyboard, and have some musical background in theory, then composition - that is proper composition is possible, and there are plenty of plug-ins for the popular sequencers that help - and hundreds of great sample systems.

The difference between a midi controller and a midi keyboard is just the ability to input extra data direct from the keyboard, so you can map a button to be record, another to play etc - you can dedicate a rotary to be reverb (controller #7) - another to be expression, pan, chorus and loads more. Depends on the sound sources you have hanging on the other end. I have a small controller keyboard, a full size weighted keyboard and a rotary controller panel - each has it's job. I once did a 'composition' for a short clip for a client and discovered a preset on one of my soft-synths that had one of those rhythmic evolving sounds. The 3 minutes was one key held down! That is NOT a composition, but it sounded great!

I mainly use garage band to do some music for shorts or corporates but it tends to be fairly basic as I do not wish to do a proper musician out of work.

I could do more but as there is usually no additional budget for music clients tend to accept what they are given.

Larger projects always have a music score produced by a pro musician.