Jump to content

One of the episodes that I scored with scratch music is online :)


Vekked

Recommended Posts

I tried to stay pretty true to "scratch music" and not just scratching a sound over a regular beat for the most part. Of course deadlines and post-production made it so this isn't the case but there's a lot of beats that are scratch drums/melody/sample/effects. They have all the stems though and sometimes they would mute layers depending on how much other audio was happening in the scene.

 

Also I wasn't allowed to use distinguishable english or copyrighted sounds so a lot of it I had to sound design myself or source sounds from friends/royalty free sample packs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest It'sPhilFromThursdays

Man, that's fucking cool, dude!

 

Congrats on getting such a dope gig.

 

This represents a continuation of what i like to call justice props, i.e. when Paul won the UK IDAs it was like, yeah, of course he won he deserves the recogniton for being the best at using traktor and having beast skills, ergo he's getting obviously deserved public props that he really should be getting, aka justice props.

 

You get to deserve shit like this cos you put in work and are talented.

 

= Justice props

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man, that's fucking cool, dude!

 

Congrats on getting such a dope gig.

 

This represents a continuation of what i like to call justice props, i.e. when Paul won the UK IDAs it was like, yeah, of course he won he deserves the recogniton for being the best at using traktor and having beast skills, ergo he's getting obviously deserved public props that he really should be getting, aka justice props.

 

You get to deserve shit like this cos you put in work and are talented.

 

= Justice props

It's worth mentioning that Vekked advocated to make this happen with scratch composition. It's really cool what he did here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Correct me if I'm wrong here but this is a first for the culture...a episodic tv show fully scored by a turntablist?

 

Also Jake did I catch that you said Kid Koala did the theme song as well?

 

Regardless of it being 'all scratched' you did a great job man, something to be well proud of!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes!! This is so good. I like the way the music regularly changes within the same scene and I like the FX, such as the transformed tone to get a metal detector sound.

 

This is a positive step for the artform and yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the first to do it. Looking forward to seeing the full version.

 

Big up yourself!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank guys :)

 

Yo!!!! I kept wondering what was up with this project. I was afraid it didn't pan out or something but boooyahhh, there it is. This is crazy dope man! Propers!

Haha nope I was grinding the whole time but they got a bit stricter on what we could talk/post about so I was pretty quiet. I probably said a bit too much at the start lol.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong here but this is a first for the culture...a episodic tv show fully scored by a turntablist?

 

Also Jake did I catch that you said Kid Koala did the theme song as well?

 

Regardless of it being 'all scratched' you did a great job man, something to be well proud of!

If it's not I wish I knew because all I really had for reference was Wavetwisters (which was a pretty good reference since this cartoon is also set in space).

 

Yep Kid Koala did the theme ages ago while it was still a pilot and before it was picked up fully. I imagine they didn't have the budget to get him for the entire season, hence me lol. I did a theme as well before I knew they already had it, I might post it eventually if I get permission (it ended up being used in other parts of the show).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

https://youtu.be/cBTApeLYOXY

 

Fucking dope Jake!

 

Unless it get's taken down, this one works

Good find! Haha that's dope that someone like it enough to rip it from the TV and upload it. That one has the logos from the station and such. Would be sick if it got picked up for season 2 because then it has a chance of going international.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW for about the last ten years apart from running the record shop I've been building up an online presence for our mail order business 'Backtrack', which just sells film and TV music... to the point where many weeks I do more of that than anything else. In that time it's made me acutely aware of music in films/TV - it's job, how successful it is, techniques deployed by different composers, etc. I've got to say on that level, you've really nailed it. You're not just making some detached music which has been randomly shoehorned in as an afterthought, you've properly scored each scene. Your music clearly directs the audience and matches the action throughout and overall just gives everything a slightly cooler vibe.

 

Also, if you ever fancy getting really nerdy about the process of doing this project from your perspective, I'd be keen to read it. Stuff like how much music you actually made to source from, any specific challenges along the way, and things like wether you had to be tighter than on live stuff, did this process improve your skill levels elsewhere, etc. (The last two are very much from my own very limited experience of trying to make scratch music or record others doing so)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest It'sPhilFromThursdays

Also, if you ever fancy getting really nerdy about the process of doing this project from your perspective, I'd be keen to read it. Stuff like how much music you actually made to source from, any specific challenges along the way, and things like whether you had to be tighter than on live stuff, did this process improve your skill levels elsewhere, etc. (The last two are very much from my own very limited experience of trying to make scratch music or record others doing so)

 

I endorse this message

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW for about the last ten years apart from running the record shop I've been building up an online presence for our mail order business 'Backtrack', which just sells film and TV music... to the point where many weeks I do more of that than anything else. In that time it's made me acutely aware of music in films/TV - it's job, how successful it is, techniques deployed by different composers, etc. I've got to say on that level, you've really nailed it. You're not just making some detached music which has been randomly shoehorned in as an afterthought, you've properly scored each scene. Your music clearly directs the audience and matches the action throughout and overall just gives everything a slightly cooler vibe.

Thanks dude! Honestly I felt pretty over my head at times (mostly the beginning), so glad that it doesn't come across like that LOL

 

Also, if you ever fancy getting really nerdy about the process of doing this project from your perspective, I'd be keen to read it. Stuff like how much music you actually made to source from, any specific challenges along the way, and things like wether you had to be tighter than on live stuff, did this process improve your skill levels elsewhere, etc. (The last two are very much from my own very limited experience of trying to make scratch music or record others doing so)

Let's get nerdy haha.

 

So basically going into it I sort of fell into the position. Someone saw my youtube video, ask me to jump in the audition pool, I spent heaps of time scoring a 3 minute clip with a few different scenes and ended up winning it. Their reference artists were Kid Koala, Shadow, Cut Chemist, DJ Q-bert so for me I felt like they actually WANTED to hear scratching in a lot of stuff, so that's what I did... Apparently it was true.

 

I'm not sure how many minutes I ended up with but probably 70-80 full beats/tracks, a few dozen transition tracks of like 3-5 seconds, a bunch of sound effects and scratch/brake/backspin sounds.

 

The biggest challenge was definitely keeping up with the deadlines and learning to translate their requests from non-musician/DJ speak to scratch music. At first I was trying to make masterpieces, spending hours and hours per 30 second track, and they'd just be like "nah, try something else" and I was like man I spent so much time on that!! So I ended up creating a workflow and limitations so that I could stick to the schedule better.

 

For me generally it was: no more than 4 tracks + FX/embellishments, chopped or scratch break for drums, moog bass, main melody or sample, and lead vocal or scratch bit. So a typical track would be:

 

1) Lay down the drum scratching.

2) Play moog bass with Monark VST (I rarely scratched the bassline cuz they take up a lot of the frequncy range when you do that)

3) Find a dope catchy sample, or synth line.

4) Final scratching... like "hey" or "yo" or "ugh" because I can't use any obvious english.

5) Add sweeps/filters/noise effects to fill it out.

 

This way it forced me to do as much as I could with a few tracks and kept me away from making 30+ track songs that weren't realistic to make every few days.

 

The other challenge was interpreting their requests. I'd get "make something that's like X in X style", and it would be like make Peter and the Wolf a trap song, or make a bill withers track a house song, or make a disco style police theme song. Then sometimes my feedback would be "I like it, but put it up an octave". It took a while for me to be able to interpret what they were asking for and put that into a song. Particularly in the case of "put it up an octave" I realized it basically meant make it more hype... so faster or crazier hats or something haha. I'd say that a big part of scoring seems to be translating and interpreting the requests of the directors.

 

I'm not sure if I had to be tighter for this than live... Like the recording couldn't have mistakes and stuff like you can get away with live, but on the other hand you can just hit record 100 times until you get it right, and tighten things up post. So the end result is a lot tighter. I got better at hitting takes quicker as I went too.

 

The biggest skill that it improved for me was production in general. I took the job with the plan to use it as a way to get better with Ableton and speed up my workflow and I did just that. It was sort of like a training ground for music. I got in the habit of creating tracks and finishing them, mixing them down, sometimes light mastering, so I wasn't just tinkering around with midi and chopping samples... I had to actual get stuff to a point where I could send them off. I'm not a super beast at it yet but I definitely feel more comfortable in getting a finished product than I did. I have a rough workflow for mixdowns and make sure I check things over like all my bass is side chained nice and I've got an EQ on every track cutting out frequencies I don't need, and all of my drums and chops have their transients and no pops in them... Pretty standard stuff but it takes some experience to get in the habit of crossing your T's and dotting your I's for every track like that.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Then sometimes my feedback would be "I like it, but put it up an octave". It took a while for me to be able to interpret what they were asking for and put that into a song. Particularly in the case of "put it up an octave" I realized it basically meant make it more hype... so faster or crazier hats or something haha. I'd say that a big part of scoring seems to be translating and interpreting the requests of the directors.

 

I've had that before when someone has said 'increase the BPM' , but after trial and error I realised what they meant was 'increase the energy/make it more hype'. Almost started making a translation sticky note to decode their requests :d

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...