What's Happening: Week of April 30, 2018

Taking a break from heavy production . . .

After uploading my last group of items, I decided to step back from cranking out stock music and do sort of a strategic review. I analyzed my sales from the beginning of the year. I found out some interesting things:

1. Podcast intros and loops now make up almost 3 out of 4 sales from my portfolio. The last time I looked at several months worth of data, it was about 50-50.
2. Of the remainder, the next largest groups of sales were in the ambient and drone categories, plus a lot of specialty items that don't fall neatly into a specific category. The dramatic and corporate/motivational categories didn't really have a lot of sales at all.

Part of the reason for some of the categories lagging might be that I haven't promoted them as heavily on my social media compared with the podcast intros. So I think I'm going to try and give them some more exposure over the next few weeks to see if that helps. If it doesn't, I'm going to seriously consider going "all in" on the podcast intros.

Meanwhile, I haven't completely stopped working on stock music. I did sketch an outline for a trailer music item earlier this week. It starts with a soft introduction, builds to a climax, then a short, even bigger climactic coda, before resolving to an outro. I'm projecting it to be about two minutes. I plan to revisit it early this week, and may share all or part of a rough mix in my next weekly update.

My featured stock music item this week is "Epic Dramatic Orchestra - 60 Second." It's got a nice big, cinematic feel for news/events, politics and similar content. In addition to the featured 60 second version, there are also 30 second, 15 second, loop and bumper/stinger versions. I do hope you'll check it out.

That's pretty much it for this week. Thanks for stopping by and supporting my work. Please look me up on Spotify and iTunes/Apple Music, too.

In The Pipeline, April 24, 2018: "Critical Seconds"

"Critical Seconds" is a fast-paced, urgent 60-second piece with strings and lots of cinematic-style percussion. It's designed for scenes where seconds count. Here's a sample:



Stay tuned to my Twitter feed for updates on the availability of "Critical Seconds."

What's Happening: Week of April 23, 2018

Here in Ohio, we're another week deeper into spring, and amazingly it's actually starting to feel like it! It's also Earth Day, and I hope you've had the opportunity to take time and appreciate the biosphere. I also hope that you're doing well (or at least better than my poor Cincinnati Reds baseball team, who are on course to win 23 games out of 162. Yikes!).

I'm dong well, having released some new items this week. I intended to create a "pipeline" post for a couple of them, but Miklios at Pond5 has been so fast of late, he's getting them online faster than I can create the post. I am NOT complaining!

But speaking of . . .

I do have a new item awaiting curation (just uploaded it Friday). It's called "Cause For Optimism" and it's yet another take on the basic bright and positive corporate track. There are three versions: a full (2:22) track, along with 60- and 30-second edits. Here's a preview of the 30-second version:



As always, keep an eye on my Twitter feed for status updates.

Meanwhile, my featured stock music item this week is "Restless." It's got some electronic noodling and some nice tension-building moments for your tech, business, or dramatic narratives. Here's a quick sample:



If you like this track and want to use it in your project, it's available to license royalty-free from Pond5!

HEAR THE FULL TRACK

If you'd like to check out some of my non-production music, please head to my web site and click "CONNECT" to find links to my stuff at iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play and Spotify.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a tuneful week!

What;s Happening: Week of April 16, 2018

I had planned a post for Friday, but never got a chance to create and upload it. Let me explain.

I had s new item in the pipeline, but it cleared curation at Pond5 so quickly (literally within a few hours) that I didn't have time to make an "in the pipeline" post here! It's called "Modern Country Intro" and it's available in 30 second, 15 second, bumper/stinger, and looped versions. If you're looking for something with a contemporary country music feel to kick off your podcasr, broadcast, vlog or other presentation, I hope you'll check it out.

My featured stock music item this week is Sense of Awe. It's another one of those science-fiction type electronic-symphonic hybrid background that's great for evoking the infinite mystery and beauty of  nature. Consider it for life science or astronomy presentations.

I've been considering candidates for my Excelsior: Volume Two project but haven't made any final decisions yet. Stay tuned for more as that continues to develop.

Finally, it looks like I got some interest and action in my podcast music intro collection coming out of NAB this year. Allow me to express my gratitude to anyone who licensed my work this week, as well as to you for just stopping by. May your week be happy and productive.

New in the Pipeline: April 10, 2018 - Hybrid Action

Yesterday, I finished and uploaded another new stock music track to Pond5 curation. I call this one "Hybrid Action," and it's a fast paced two-minute track with big hits and accents from both traditional (cello, low brass) and synth instruments. I hope to add this to my "cinematic and dramatic" collection upon approval. Here's a thirty second sample to give you a flavor of what I'm going for here:



Keep an eye here and on my Twitter feed for more info as to when this will be available to license.

What's Happening: Week of April 9, 2018

I'm plugging away this week, as I'm sure many of you are. There are a couple of interesting things going on, though.

First, I want to thank all the folks who stopped by from Facebook to read my series of articles on the making of "Sonny the Monster," a cover I did some 30+ years ago of a Robert Pollard song that became part of the Guided by Voices canon with the release of the third GbV "Suitcase" set in 2009. If you've not heard the track, there's a video of it on YouTube:

If you haven't read the articles and would like to, start here.

Meanwhile, I have new material in the pipeline. This item, with numerous variations, is a simple corporate background I (predictably) called "Simply Business Positive." Pending approval, it'll be available in full (2+ minute), 60 second, 30 second, 15 second, looped and six second bumper versions. Here's a sneak preview of the 30-second version:

Stay tuned here or to my Twitter feed for the heads up when it's ready to license.

Finally, I'm thinking maybe it's getting close to the time to release Volume Two of the "Excelsior" Series. I plan to spend some time this week reviewing candidates for what I anticipate will be a three to four track single/EP. I'' be updating this as I get a little further into the process.

Thanks to you for listening, supporting my work, listening or just stopping by. Please support my work by licensing my stock music or listening to my various stuff on Apple Music/iTunes or Spotify (search for "thisbrucesmith"). See you next week.

New in the Pipeline: April 4, 2018

I'm excited to share not one, but two new items (one with variations). If you've read my latest weekly update from a few days ago, you know I was trying to come up with a title for a short track I had recently completed. Well, to make a long story short, I gave up and took the path of least resistance. So, here is "Dark Tense Interlude." It's another electronic/hybrid track with pads, strings and heavily delayed/reverbed piano. It attempts to evoke an atmosphere of tension hanging suspended in your scene. Here's a 30 second excerpt.

Just today, I finished and uploaded "Lifestyle Intro" (yes, another punt on a title). This is yet another item for my podcast intro collection, although it's got a bit of a corporate vibe too. This one comes in 30 second, 15 second, looped, and six second bumper versions. Here's a preview of the 30 second version:



As always, stayed tuned here or on my Twitter feed for updates as these and other items come on line. Or don't, in which case maybe I'll just give them away. (Note: I said "maybe.")

What's Happening: Week of April 2, 2018

I hope everyone who celebrate Easter has had a joyous one. Now it's on to a new week.

I have a new stock music item I'm getting ready to submit to Pond5, but I'm having a problem: I can't come up with a title. This is a two-minute piece, one of those things I do from time to time that's good for tension and drama building. But after a while it gets monotonous calling all these things "Tension Builder" or similar titles. I'll come up with something and let you know.

My featured stock music track this week is Ethereal Mystery, a symphonic, cinematic hybrid piece. It's similar to last week's featured item, "Wonder of Discovery." I sometimes tend to do similar styled pieces in batches. I just get in a mood and out they pour. Next week's item will be yet another like this. But that's next week.

As for this week, I'm trying out Buffer, yet another social media management platform. I started out working with TweetDeck, but I also want to be able to schedule posts to my Google+ feed. So I tried out Hootsuite. It has an interface I found very intuitive. I occasionally encountered problems logging into their front end application and had to fall back on TweetDeck a couple of times, but was willing to live with it.

Until yesterday.

Starting this week, I'm experimenting with using a different laptop for posting to social media and other administrative tasks, leaving my main laptop primarily as my project studio. In trying to log in to Hootsuite on the new machine, I found I couldn't. So I went to my regular machine (where I had the password stored) and tried to change it there. It wouldn't let me change it unless I also provided my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn URLs. First, I don't have a Facebook account. Second, their platform should know the information for my Twitter and other accounts. So I said enough already, and cancelled my Hootsuite account. Hopefully, my luck will be better with Buffer.

And that's that for this post. Keep watch here as I'll be giving at least one sneak preview of items in the pipeline this week. Take care.