I woke up this morning to a lot of things going on. First, I had uploaded an edit of a track I'm currently working on to SoundCloud last night. I'm trying to figure out how best to classify this music. Here's the track:
I classified it as "Jazz and Blues" but it could be ambient or downtempo. I would appreciate any constructive feedback regarding other genres that might fit it better. Next . . .
I got an email overnight from Pond5 regarding some stock music tracks I had submitted. The message said all items had been approved, but also included the standard rejection boilerplate. Needless to say, I was confused. I sent a message off to Pond5 and they responded almost immediately saying it was a glitch on their end and all was good. Thanks to them for their prompt response! So I have three new tracks to promote, and I plan to do that today on Twitter, YouTube, and G+. On top of all that, I had two sales yesterday at AudioJungle, which is quite extraordinary for me given the relatively small size of my portfolio there. Life is good; I hope yours is too.
Blog of Bruce Edward Smith, composer and producer of music for commercial use and personal enjoyment. Stay up to date on Bruce's latest releases and projects.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Native Instruments Symphonic Essentials Demos
I've spent parts of the last several days trying to download and evaluate Native Instruments Symphonic Essentials Demos for brass and strings. If you've run across my blog before, you know that I have bought and worked with several NI instrument plug-in products. My favorites are the Strummed Acoustic instrument for Kontakt 5 and the Rounds synth for Reaktor 6. Both of these have come in handy at various points in my stock music work.
Having heard some of the possibilities of the Symphonic Essentials Brass and Strings instruments from NI's promotional videos, I decided to download and evaluate the demo versions. This led me on an adventure that lasted several days. If you're trying to figure out how to get these things installed, read on (it's not an easy process).
I began by submitting my email address for access to the download files. I already have an account on the NI site, so this is no big deal. The Brass Essentials file comes down as a 5 MB executable that downloads the sound files with an option to then automatically run the setup. The sounds take up close to 4 GB and I had a lot of trouble with their downloader. It failed a couple of times, and when I was able to download the whole thing, it then failed to execute the setup program.
To complicate matters, the files do not come down as a zip file, but as a disc image (.iso). Since Windows 10 killed my DVD drivers (thanks Microsoft!) I had no way to easily burn the image onto a disk to install. The String Essentials download doesn't even include an executable downloader; it just downloads the .iso directly.
With no way to burn the images to disc, I checked the NI support forums. Lo and behold, a lot of people there were experiencing the same problem as I was. NI recommended using a drive mounting utility to map a drive to the image in order to access the files. The one I found and used for Windows 10 was Pismo File Mount from Pismo Technic. It includes a number of utilities for working with disc images, not just file mounting. I found it easy to use, and it worked extremely well. My compliments to Pismo. Now I thought I was good to go, but not so fast!
It's not enough to merely mount the drive, because I couldn't actually run the setup file from the mounted .iso directly. I needed to copy all the files from the disc image into a folder on my C: drive. Then, and only then, could I run the included install utility to install all the file packages. After all that, I found out that the demo times out after 10 minutes.
Part of my problem was that I don't have the fastest or most reliable network connection where I'm currently living. But I suspect there were access problems on the NI end as well. In the final analysis, I conclude it wasn't worth it to spend time on and off from Wednesday night to early Saturday afternoon in order to get 10 minutes hands on with the product demos. If your network is faster and more reliable, and you're comfortable doing all the stuff I described earlier with drive mounting and so on, it might be worth it to you.
Otherwise, I would advise not to bother with the demos at all. Check out the NI videos, and then buy the full versions, or don't. I may eventually buy them, but I'm also leaning toward something like Garritan Instant Orchestra in order to get ideas down quickly where I want to work in orchestral styles.
Having heard some of the possibilities of the Symphonic Essentials Brass and Strings instruments from NI's promotional videos, I decided to download and evaluate the demo versions. This led me on an adventure that lasted several days. If you're trying to figure out how to get these things installed, read on (it's not an easy process).
I began by submitting my email address for access to the download files. I already have an account on the NI site, so this is no big deal. The Brass Essentials file comes down as a 5 MB executable that downloads the sound files with an option to then automatically run the setup. The sounds take up close to 4 GB and I had a lot of trouble with their downloader. It failed a couple of times, and when I was able to download the whole thing, it then failed to execute the setup program.
To complicate matters, the files do not come down as a zip file, but as a disc image (.iso). Since Windows 10 killed my DVD drivers (thanks Microsoft!) I had no way to easily burn the image onto a disk to install. The String Essentials download doesn't even include an executable downloader; it just downloads the .iso directly.
With no way to burn the images to disc, I checked the NI support forums. Lo and behold, a lot of people there were experiencing the same problem as I was. NI recommended using a drive mounting utility to map a drive to the image in order to access the files. The one I found and used for Windows 10 was Pismo File Mount from Pismo Technic. It includes a number of utilities for working with disc images, not just file mounting. I found it easy to use, and it worked extremely well. My compliments to Pismo. Now I thought I was good to go, but not so fast!
It's not enough to merely mount the drive, because I couldn't actually run the setup file from the mounted .iso directly. I needed to copy all the files from the disc image into a folder on my C: drive. Then, and only then, could I run the included install utility to install all the file packages. After all that, I found out that the demo times out after 10 minutes.
Part of my problem was that I don't have the fastest or most reliable network connection where I'm currently living. But I suspect there were access problems on the NI end as well. In the final analysis, I conclude it wasn't worth it to spend time on and off from Wednesday night to early Saturday afternoon in order to get 10 minutes hands on with the product demos. If your network is faster and more reliable, and you're comfortable doing all the stuff I described earlier with drive mounting and so on, it might be worth it to you.
Otherwise, I would advise not to bother with the demos at all. Check out the NI videos, and then buy the full versions, or don't. I may eventually buy them, but I'm also leaning toward something like Garritan Instant Orchestra in order to get ideas down quickly where I want to work in orchestral styles.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Best Year Ever (and it's Only October!)
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| Thanks for an awesome year (even before it's over!) |
Part of the growth this year is due to the fact that I established a presence on AudioJungle and I think I've done pretty well there for my first year. But I'm close to record levels at Pond5, too, and we still have the Christmas season coming. I also got an unexpected boost from MotionElements, and am very happy to be in all three marketplaces.
So let me once again thank anyone and everyone who has supported my work, whether by licensing my stock music, downloading or streaming Dream Catcher or tracks from Circadia. or just stopping by to check things out here or at the official site. I'm grateful for all the support.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Work in Progress, October 11, 2016
I currently have a couple tracks awaiting curation on different markets. One is "Ambient Urban Requiem," a slow sad track with lots of piano reverb and thick synth padding over a hip-hoppish beat. That's at AudioJungle, which I usually give first refusal on new tracks because they insist on exclusivity in order to grant a 50/50 split of revenues. If they reject it, I'll submit it to Pond5.
The other track is a science-fiction style cinematic cue that I submitted directly to Pond5. It has a big cinematic pad and some choral things going on and ends in an ominous, unresolved augmented chord.
Also, I have a new track at AudioJungle called "Positive Corporate." It's pretty much self-descriptive. You can hear it below and license it here.
The other track is a science-fiction style cinematic cue that I submitted directly to Pond5. It has a big cinematic pad and some choral things going on and ends in an ominous, unresolved augmented chord.
Also, I have a new track at AudioJungle called "Positive Corporate." It's pretty much self-descriptive. You can hear it below and license it here.
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