If you’re a musician who is interested in creating music for films and TV shows, you’ll enjoy this.
In the fall of October 2009 I began a series of weekly tracking sessions with Atlanta-based guitarist/vocalist Brad Long (Matt Wertz, Seth Condrey). Brad and I each had different, but mutually beneficial goals going into what eventually came to be called the “Longenberg Project”.
My desire as a co-founder of www.musicrevolution.com was to offer a collection of royalty-free production music tracks that were absolutely free for education institutions yet also available at a low price for commercial productions. I am a keyboard player by trade and use a home studio setup of Logic Pro 8 and Pro Tools 7.3 running on a MacBook Pro. For additional instrument sounds, I also use Native Instruments Komplete 6 software synths. My controller is an M-Audio Axiom 61.
As for Brad, he had worked on many contemporary Christian album projects and was looking for a project with shorter production cycles and less pressure to create The-Greatest-Album-Ever.
“The idea of getting together for spontaneous bursts of incredible productivity sounded like a breath of fresh air”, says Long. “With album projects, you have to pace yourself for a much longer process. Mike and I always have had a lot of synergy and this project sounded like a lot of fun”.
At the time, Brad’s home studio comprised of Logic Pro 8 running on a MacBook Pro. “Keep the gear simple, simple, simple.”, says Long. “It’s all about creating a magical moment.”
On our first day recording together, we decided on a few creative guidelines based on my knowledge of the needs of professional film and video editors:
1) Three minute tracks – always with a stinger.
2) No key changes (that complicates the editing).
3) No overt melodies. It’s not about us. This is background music.
4) Don’t overthink anything. If the idea makes us smile, record it. Move on.
At our first session, my Roland Fantom X6 keyboard fed a stereo signal into Brad’s Apogee Ensemble. Brad played a JB Custom Fender Telecaster using Lindy Fralin pickups running through Pod XT Live. Here’s what we came up with 90 minutes into the project:
In my next installment of this blog series I’ll stay focused on this track (now titled “Basic Hygiene”) and how we quickly improved it’s sonic quality. The finished track is available on our Free Music page here: (https://www.musicrevolution.com/free_music/ for qualified participants) and available for commercial licensing here:
https://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?x=0&y=0&keyword=basic+hygiene
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace where media producers and business owners can license high-quality, affordable music from a online community of musicians.