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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.

A national anthem is a national song that memorializes a country’s patriotic sentiment. National anthems are usually sanctioned by a nation’s government and are used for ceremonial purposes. If you are looking to convey or create a patriotic musical feeling about a particular country, national anthems are a great way to set the right mood. We have an extensive selection of royalty-free national anthems on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that could be used for a range of purposes including TV and radio commercials, films / documentaries, TV, online video ads, corporate videos, web videos, events, ceremonies and a range of other applications. In fact, we have royalty-free national anthems for the United States, Canada, England, Australia, Ukraine, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Portugal, Wales, China, Brazil, Greece, Spain, Denmark and many other countries

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “national anthem” yields over 200 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=national+anthem&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=49&y=3

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “U.S. national anthem” (aka, “The Star Spangled Banner”) yields the following 14 royalty-free versions—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=U.S.+national+anthem&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=30&y=5

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “Canada national anthem” (aka, “O Canada”) yields the following 3 royalty-free versions—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=Canada+National+Anthem&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=26&y=7

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “English national anthem” (aka, “God Save the Queen”) yields the following 4 royalty-free versions—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=english+national+anthem&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=29&y=8

The next time you need to create a patriotic mood based on a particular country, check out the extensive collection of royalty-free national anthems on MusicRevolution.com.

With over 30,000 tracks of royalty-free music online in our production music library, MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) has some of the best royalty-free music available anywhere.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

A track with a lead vocal is always aiming high in terms of film and video placement. Vocal tracks may not always fit underneath a voice over explaining a business strategy, but sometimes the message you’re trying to deliver or the mood that you are trying to set just has to be sung. We wanted to highlight some of the great royalty-free vocal music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that could be used for a range of purposes including TV and radio commercials, films, TV, online video ads, corporate videos, web videos, trade show videos, background music and a range of other applications. We have a broad selection of royalty-free vocals music.

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “vocal” yields over 2,700 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=vocal&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=17&y=3

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “female vocal” yields over 150 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=female+vocal&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=39&y=5

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “male vocal” yields over 250 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=male+vocal&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=40&y=5

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “singing” yields the following 82 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=singing&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=32&y=4

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “chant” yields nearly 200 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=chant&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=36&y=6

MusicRevolution.com also has a number of CDs, available in both physical CD and download CD formats, with hand-selected royalty-free music tracks.  We have assembled an excellent collection of royalty-free vocals music on “Vocals, Vol. 1” –

http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/vocals_vol_1/
We think the vocal tracks on this royalty-free CD of production music can help to create the right mood for your audience. This is a collection of vocals tracks that are really worth checking out.

With over 30,000 tracks of royalty-free music online in our production music library, MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) has some of the best royalty-free music available anywhere.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

Any musician born before 1980 can appreciate what the MIDI standard meant to music creation. I still remember connecting that 5-pin connector cable, for the very first time, between my Yamaha DX7 and my Korg DW6000 then freaking out when I heard both keyboards sounding simultaneously; even though I was only playing the Yamaha.
Pioneered by Sequential Circuit’s Dave Smith and Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi, the MIDI standard was historic because major competitors like Korg and Yamaha all agreed to adopt it on their equipment; a feat that was only possible because Kakehashi and Smith knew their creation would only succeed if they made it open source and not proprietary.

This “all boats will rise” kind of thinking is rare. But one well-known figure in the production music industry has employed this kind of thinking since 1998; tenaciously working to create a metadata standard by which track searches can be done by media professionals quickly and uniformly no matter what music collection they’re browsing.

That person is Steve Pecile, founder of Soundminer. The Soundminer metadata standard, although used by a handful of progressive beta testers since 1998, was officially launched in 2002.

“We think of it as a ‘schema’,” explains Pecile. “It’s a standard by which an audio file can be digitally tagged with information about its creator, its style, where it was recorded, who conducted the orchestra, what microphone was used, which movie scene it was for, which PRO the composer belongs to, etc.” In most broadcast or feature film media projects, audio files typically pass through dozens of digital workstations before the final product is rendered.  Not unlike tagging an animal before releasing it into the wild, Pecile hopes a time will come when every sound effect file and music file in a project retains its digital “wrapper” through the entire process, thus making it easier for music licensing managers, post-production personnel, movie producers, lawyers, performing rights organizations and Skynet to accurately know the origin of all those wonderful….er…animals.

Soundminer’s landmark white paper comprehensively detailed what field should goes where so that media professionals could implement the standard themselves in their own way even before they purchased any Soundminer products.

Soundminer offers an excellent software product to do all this for you (VPro – $899.99), but this writer believes that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what makes the company remarkable. It takes a magnanimous attitude to say to an entire industry: “If it’s important to you to remember which microphone you used on location to capture that footstep sound, put that information in field x. If it’s important to remember who conducted this particular film cue, put that information in field y. If the track has a hip hop flavor, be sure to check a box in the hip hop column.”

That may sound innocuous, but if every production music library and major audio content producer adhered to the schema and populated their open id3 containers the same way, music searches and audio file cataloging wouldn’t be the huge industry bottleneck that it is…and all boats would rise.

And Pecile and his colleagues aren’t stopping there. They imagine a day when finding the right piece of music will go beyond just text metadata. Digital fingerprinting – the method made famous by Shazam wherein frequency, time and intensity data for every audio waveform is captured, cataloged and compared  – will definitely play a role in how production music track searches are done in the future.

Pecile explains, “With software like that, it’s less about the number of data points being captured than what conditions are being applied to those data points.  I definitely see the Soundminer platform evolving in that direction, but right now it’s a question of economics. The research teams who develop these algorithms can sometimes be too insulated from the marketplace to price their products realistically.”

In a competitive industry like the music business, which has hit its share of icebergs due to overly-proprietary thinking, it’s refreshing to see Steve Pecile and Soundminer endeavor to unify the production music world with their metadata standard; and the progressive thought they apply every day to answer the question thousands of media professionals ask on a daily basis: “How the heck am I gonna go through all this music and find the track we need?”

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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.

MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com), an innovative online marketplace for royalty-free music, today announced that its production music library now has more than 30,000 tracks of royalty-free music.

“With over 30,000 tracks of high-quality royalty-free music online, our community of professional musicians has helped us to create one of the most comprehensive and dynamic production music libraries available anywhere. We have the royalty-free music to meet almost any music buyer’s needs. And we are continually adding new royalty-free music,” stated Chris Cardell, Co-Founder of MusicRevolution.com. “As a result, media producers, video producers, filmmakers, advertisers, music supervisors and music buyers are able to access the latest and best royalty-free music at MusicRevolution.com,” added Cardell.

“We are pleased with the participation of the hundreds of professional musicians from around the world who are part of MusicRevolution.com who have helped us to reach this significant milestone. With over 30,000 tracks online and growing, MusicRevolution.com is one of the largest production music libraries in the world. The quality and depth of our musicians and music is outstanding,” stated Mike Bielenberg, Co-Founder of MusicRevolution.com. “The next time you need royalty-free music for a media project, go to www.musicrevolution.com and use our intuitive “Advanced Search” function to find the music you need or send us a message at http://www.musicrevolution.com/consultation/ and we’ll be pleased to help you with your music search. With our community of professional musicians, MusicRevolution.com can also help you to find the right musician for any style and genre of music to affordably meet your custom music production needs,” added Bielenberg.

MusicRevolution’s royalty-free music library includes every genre and style of music, including: On Hold, Fun, New Age, Rock, Comedy, Corporate, Drama, Energetic, Orchestral/Classical, Christmas/Holiday, Acoustic Guitar, Hip Hop, Retail, Sentimental, Advertising, Electronica, Country, Jazz, Piano and Vocals.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, music supervisors, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

Location: East Aurora, New York, U.S.A.

Member since: July 11, 2012

Tracks in portfolio on MusicRevolution.com: 140 (click here to hear all tracks) http://www.musicrevolution.com/search?artist=5993

–Background—

Ed Bentley of Ed Bentley Music is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Ed’s music includes guitar featured instrumental tracks of the rockabilly, bluegrass, country  and country rock genres.

–High profile projects or clients you have worked for?

I’m just starting to make some headway. Have recently had placements on the History Channel’s “American Pickers”, Animal Planet Network, Discovery Channel, and a few others.

–Primary instrument?

Guitar, also play bass and a little keyboard. I finally was able to get a decent midi controller that works on my guitar, called Triple Play, made by Fishman. Does a nice job.

–Favorite music-making piece of gear or software you currently use?

IK Multimedia’s Philharmonik, and Sampletank. I use Band in a Box now and then, a little program from Canada. Some great “real” musicians playing great styles…

Also use Toontracks, Easy Drummer 2.

–Music education background?

Just a country boy guitar picker. 

In late 2004, I was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame outside on Nashville.

(http://www.rockabillyhall.com/EdBentley.html )

Having been away from the music scene for a few years, my induction was the needed spark. I jumped back into music with both feet. I started making frequent trips to Nashville, renewing old acquaintances, co-writing with some great writers, and set up a home studio here in Buffalo. Shortly after, I got interested in writing Instrumentals for Film and TV.

–Memorable “Aha!” moment during your musical education?

The day pro tools started to make sense to me! My good friend Aaron Saloman, up in Montreal, might beg to differ, and still thinks there’s room for improvement. Aaron does a lot of my mixing and mastering and generally saves me at times.  Aaron is a Berklee grad and does a great job on edits also (30 sec, 60 sec, etc.).  http://www.musicrevolution.com/musician_profile?username=aaronmusic

–Most embarrassing music-related moment?

When I got to Nashville and tried pitching some of my first songs. What an eye opener, found out just how much I didn’t know about song writing!

–If you had a time machine and could record or perform once with any artist, who would it be?

James Brown or maybe Vince Gill.

–Moment you first knew you would be a musician?

I’ll never forget that morning in July 1956, the first time I heard Johnny Cash on my dad’s barn radio.

 –Advice you would give to a younger family member interested in a music career?

My grandson Jack is showing interest in learning guitar, though he quit his lessons. Although now he’s back at it, trying to learn on his own. I am watching and trying to encourage him, even suggested “he at least learn some chords”. He wanted to be a rock n roll lead player the first week. Got a call from him the other day,

“grampa, I know Am, G, F, C & D.”

Good start Jack!  

–Five songs or albums you’d take with you to a desert island?

Hard one. Being an ole timer, there are so many over the years and the music keeps getting better. I would have to say, Johnny Cash, “I Walk the Line”, changed things for me in 1956.

Over the years, not in any order, Vince Gill, “Look at Us”, Rosanne Cash, “Seven Year Ache”, Lynard Skynard, “Sweet Home Alabama”, and Dire Straits, “Sultans of Swing”.  There are soooooo many others!

–If you could master another instrument, what would it be?

Keyboard… I believe I have missed many opportunities by not being a good player.

I am constantly trying to improve my guitar chops, hard though, it’s that “teach an old dog new tricks” thing.

 –Favorite time of day to work in your studio?

 Definitely mornings. I am a morning person, and the creative juice flows in the AM!

  –Any studio collaboration you experienced that stands out in your mind?

As a country songwriter, I was amazed at being in a studio in Nashville and watching the greatest musicians in the world put their touch on my songs. I was floored when they created an arrangement on a song they had only heard five minutes before…And two takes?

Unheard of in my little world.  What an eye opener!

–Some of your favorite tracks that you would want us to feature in the blog.

Well, “Grass Fire (Hick Hop Remix)” is kind of unique.

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?trackid=33111

It’s a bluegrass song with urban drums, comes off pretty well. I wrote it for the current cable TV reality/ swamp show stuff going on right now.

My song “Lonesome Rider” has been used on the Animal Planet Network a couple of times. It was my first attempt at writing and recording for TV.  And my first attempt on pro tools. Whew, glad that’s in the past! Ha

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?trackid=33158

Well, just starting to get a foothold in this side of the Industry, I would have to say the following tracks have been selling well–

“Swamp Down” http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?trackid=33088

“Up A Hill” http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?trackid=42356

“Rocket Boogie” http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?trackid=26100

We thank Ed Bentley for sharing some of his musical background with us and for contributing his tracks to MusicRevolution.com, the Royalty-Free Music Marketplace. The next time you need lively music instrumental guitar music inspired by rockabilly, bluegrass, country and country rock, check out Ed Bentley Music on MusicRevolution.com.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

The right music in advertising can help you connect with your listeners and viewers to create an entertaining and memorable experience which can help to build your brand. And music can help you further target your advertising audience based on age and musical interests. We wanted to highlight some of the royalty-free advertising music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that could be used for a range of purposes including TV and radio commercials, online video ads, corporate videos, web videos, trade show videos and a range of other applications. We have a wide and diverse selection of royalty-free advertising music.

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “advertising” yields nearly 23,000 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=advertising&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=0&y=0

MusicRevolution.com also has a number of CDs, available in both physical CD and download CD formats, with hand-selected royalty-free music tracks.  We have compiled an outstanding collection of royalty-free advertising music on “Advertising, Vol. 1” –

http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/advertising_vol_1/
The royalty-free music on this CD complements but doesn’t steal the show from your VO talent. These tracks, drawing upon every genre from chill out techno to rock and roll, can tell a story by themselves.

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “broadcast” yields over 19,000 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=broadcast&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=43&y=6

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “commercial” yields over 2,000 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=commercial&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=30&y=7

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “branding” yields the following 46 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=branding&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=26&y=6

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “promotion” yields the following 149 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=promotion&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=44&y=8

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “TV ad” yields the following 22 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=tv+ad&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=46&y=6

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “radio ad” yields the following 23 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=radio+ad&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=37&y=6

A memorable ad slogan combined with a catchy jingle tune can create a form of sound branding or sonic branding. A search on MusicRevolution.com for “jingles” yields the following 20 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=jingles&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=0&y=0

With over 30,000 tracks of royalty-free music online in our production music library, MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) has some of the best royalty-free music available anywhere.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

MusicRevolution.com has over 30,000 tracks of high-quality, royalty-free music online. MusicRevolution.com also offers a variety of royalty-free music subscriptions that are a great value. For limited time, buy a 1-Year Complete Subscription (regularly $699.99 for up to 50 downloads) for only $599.99 and Save $100. That’s less than $12 for any track in our production music library. Tracks can be downloaded in either WAV or MP3 format.

Check out our subscriptions today at http://www.musicrevolution.com/subs_options.  This special offer to Save $100 expires August 31, 2014.

With a variety of royalty-free music subscriptions and over 30,000 tracks online, MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) has some of the best royalty-free music available anywhere.

______________________________________________________________________________

Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

As a performing piano player and studio musician, I often have the situation of dealing with either a poorly-tuned, ill-regulated piano, or a digital piano. Even with a fine instrument, the sound or monitors are often a problem leading me to play too hard or to choose not to be heard. And, being a working keyboard player, I don’t have the luxury of having a “Keith Jarrett” moment and walking out. (or worse)

After much thought, I realized that there were several issues with digital pianos leading to less-than-natural sound and feel.

• Changes in volume and tone are not proportional to energy input at the keyboard, forcing constant “tweaking” of the volume control.
• Ultra-bright samples are often used in order to “cut through” the mix, even though it is rare (and un-musical) to play that hard consistently.
• Due to these hard samples, decays are too short, making a “singing” tone impossible.
• Sympathetic resonance is missing, creating a “sterile” tone.

Measurements

To solve these problems, I took many measurements of my own piano using equipment I built myself and lots of head-scratching. Using a handmade key-playing device, (code-named Ted Stryker) I was able to perform tests of the following characteristics:

1. Key travel time: This is the time it takes the key to move from top to bottom, at a variety of dynamics. This ranged from approximately 8 ms for the hardest strike possible, to 100ms or more for the softest.
2. Key top and bottom to sound: This is how long it takes the piano to produce a sound after the key is pressed. I measured this both from when the key starts to move, and from when it hits the bottom.
3. Touch weight: This was the amount of force needed to achieve a particular dynamic.
4. Relative decibels: The actual volume of a note measured in decibels, both absolute, and relative to the loudest strike.

Here is one of many tables of measurements:

The Results

After much testing and analysis, I arrived at several conclusions about piano sampling and touch:

1. The dynamic range of a piano (at least mine) is approximately 33db. This is from the loudest (and it is LOUD) to the softest strike. I tested my physical ability to strike a key as hard as possible, and calibrated my machine to replicate this level. I also designed the machine to play notes at volumes as quiet as possible. (settings below this minimum were too low to get the hammer to the string)
2. Key travel difference between quiet and hard sounds is much greater on a piano than it is on a typical MIDI controller; in other words, you don’t have to play as hard to get FFF or as soft to get PPP.
3. Some digital pianos introduce a delay on soft strikes to simulate slower hammer travel. (I used to believe this was the physics of it) It turns out that while the delay from key top to sound varies with dynamics, the key-bottom-to-sound delay is nearly always the same, about 8msregardless of dynamics (!) Since digital pianos trigger towards the bottom of the key (it’s better this way) they don’t need this delay.  Upon reflection, this makes sense, since the key is coupled to the hammer, and only “releases” it at the top letoff point, just below the string.

The Sampling Process

Once these measurements were complete, I used the following process to record the samples:

• The key-playing calibrated device was used to play every sampled note. This removed any “human” variation in dynamics, and controlled the energy input to the keys precisely and consistently.
• The samples were recorded at 2-decibel intervals using consistent force for every dynamic across the keyboard. This yielded 16 samples per key.
• Pedal-down and pedal-up sympathetic resonance were recorded using the same machine.
• All samples were left at their original volumes, not “normalized.” This could have lead to “jumps” in volume between velocities, but a velocity programming strategy was used to smooth these. (remember, they are only 2db apart)
• Releases, hammer noise and damper noise were sampled for all 88 keys, and kept at natural as-recorded volumes.
• Various mic positions were tested to find the “at the keyboard” level of intimacy. These were the same mic positions used in the measurements.
• Each key was fully sampled in a single session, after careful (obsessive) fine-tuning. This way all the velocities would be perfectly consistent. If they had been sampled at different times, there could have been pitch drift.
• Every sample was hand-trimmed to absolutely avoid any truncation of the attack, and full decays of every note were recorded, up to 45 seconds. (This required holding my breath to avoid making noise!)

Programming

After the samples were recorded, I used the same device to test the characteristics of various MIDI controllers, and calibrated the samples to play at the same key-drop times measured on the digital keyboard. While all these keyboards are different, there is a pretty common level of correlation between travel-time and MIDI velocity across better brands of weighted keys. The keyboard used as the calibration standard was a Roland RD-700, which is pretty typical of digital actions. In a perfect world, everyone could calibrate the samples to match the ballistics of their personal keyboard, but this is pretty close.

The Result

It took more than a year from conception to final product, including engineering several versions of Ted Stryker, measurements, experiments, editing and programming, and then testing on stage and in the studio. I feel the result is worth it for me, since playing live and recording is more natural, musical and expressive.

Click here to hear demos and download a trial version.

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Randy Hoexter is a keyboard instructor & director of education at the Atlanta Institute of Music

Hip Hop and Rap music are a great way to stay trendy and relevant with your audience, in particular with younger listeners. We wanted to highlight some of the hip hop and rap royalty-free music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that could be used for a range of purposes including TV and radio ads, corporate videos, web videos, background music, on hold music and a range of other applications. We have a great selection of royalty-free hip hop and rap music.

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “hip hop” yields over 1,500 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=hip+hop&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=37&y=5

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “rap” yields over 1.200 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=rap&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=26&y=6

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “RnB” yields over 1,200 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=RnB&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=26&y=3

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “breakbeat” yields nearly 100 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=breakbeat&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=41&y=9

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “gangsta” yields the following 55 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=gangsta&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=29&y=5

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “trip hop” yields the following 51 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=trip+hop&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=44&y=3

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “crunk” yields the following 16 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=crunk&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=39&y=3

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “hick hop” yields the following 11 royalty-free music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=hick+hop&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&vocals=1&results=20&x=23&y=2

MusicRevolution.com also has a number of CDs, available in both physical CD and download CD formats, with hand-selected royalty-free music tracks.  We have compiled a vibrant collection of royalty-free hip hop music on “Hip Hop, Vol. 1” –

http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/hip_hop_vol_1/

Random female vocals, chest-pounding bass tones and politically charged drum beats are sounds that thrive right here in our home town of Atlanta. This is a world-class CD of royalty-free Hip Hop music.

With over 30,000 tracks of royalty-free music online in our production music library, MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) has some of the best royalty-free music available anywhere.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com http://www.musicrevolution.com, a royalty-free music marketplace with over 30,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, advertisers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of professional musicians. MusicRevolution.com also provides custom music production and custom music streams. The entire MusicRevolution.com production music library is available for third-party distribution and bulk licensing for background music for retail, restaurants and businesses, and for other commercial applications. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.