Turning A Film Score Into A Soundtrack: What Composers Should Know

[@Ms.kitty2shoes]

Finally. A composer/KZbinr who gives practical advice and not just another generic “5 things you should know” video. Thanks for all the info, looking forward to what’s to come.

[@jonasfriedman]

That’s a big reason I started the channel @erikaflores7871 - there’s to much info out there just made for the algorithm imho. So happy to hear you’ve found everything helpful!

[@KrystofDreamJourney]

Mr. Jonas - another great video pointing out an extremely important element, and sometimes overlooked. I have my personal story about importance of considering “where” your music is gonna be used and in what ways. Years ago when I started to compose music for the big sports arena events (for pre-game shows, presentations, awards etc.) I mixed and mastered my first piece before going to the pre-game rehearsal a day before the ESPN event. Thank goodness the day before, and not the same day 😂 I put a nice Hall reverb to make the orchestra track sound bigger than life… It was performed in the arena on the 25,000 watts sound system. The arena itself is huge - it sits up to 20 thousand people for the hockey game. It’s a huge building !! The reverb of the arena is tremendous !!! Guess what - I had to go back to my home studio and take the entire reverb out of the mix 😅 Then I drove back to the arena and checked it overnight. It worked perfectly for the arena, although in the car it sounded flat and with no depth without that nice reverb. The arena istself added tremendous depth and power to the mix, that you didn’t need any reverb, any limiter etc.(I never use compression on the orchestral mixes anyway). Lesson learned hard way… Love your videos BTW.

[@jonasfriedman]

Ha! Great example preparing the music for the medium it will be experienced in, thanks for sharing and for the kind words about the videos

[@KrystofDreamJourney]

@@jonasfriedmanAlways

[@nazarhadidian]

Your advices are truly for the sake of good. Thx for your honesty and helping the composers community with excellent advices.

[@jonasfriedman]

My pleasure!

[@ericheiberg3310]

great info and production ! The most practical and real world examples anywhere on KZbin. Thanks for being so accurate and direct. Is your rig more than one computer ? , I assume so ... maybe a video about your actual set-up ?

[@jonasfriedman]

Thanks for watching! Yes it’s a 2 computer setup - that’s my most requested video so when I return to KZbin shortly (just finishing up some projects) I’ll release that

[@nathan.rodrigues]

Really practical advice which I've never heard from any other KZbinr/Composer - thanks!

[@jonasfriedman]

My pleasure @nathan.Rodrigues - appreciate you checking it out

[@andrewmanzano]

Such great content! Really good advice. Thanks for the valuable tips! Totally agree.

[@jonasfriedman]

My pleasure Andrew!

[@pavelkravitch]

Man, What a pleasure it is to watch your content ! It's pro, clear and very informative for any composers. Thank you for your time and your knowledge. Best my friend.

[@jonasfriedman]

My pleasure @pavelkravitch ! Appreciate you watching and very happy to hear it’s helpful 🤘

[@NineteenEightyJuan]

Great video. Some Music Sups have so much to listen to in a day that they rely on looking at the waveforms. So getting to the point faster works even if they don't listen to the track.

[@jonasfriedman]

That’s such a good point about the wave forms - I find myself doing the same thing when people send me music to listen to.

[@IsiahKendall]

Awesome Tips! Thanks Jonas!

[@jonasfriedman]

My pleasure!

[@drewgriffith1037]

Thanks, Jonas! I'd love to hear your approach to processing stems for a film/tv project. Do you use any plugins on the stems, or do you do all of the sound sculpting on a track-by-tack level?

[@jonasfriedman]

Great question - 99.9% of my sound sculpting happens on a track by track basis - the only thing on all my stem busses is a slight 5db high end boost for added clarity … same for every stem and then as the music has instruments and eq added overall I’ll link all of my stems and lower the input gain as needed to make sure my master buss doesn’t distort. Other than that I have absolutely no processing on my stems or master buss :)

[@dpixvid]

@@jonasfriedman being an old fart(known loss of high end freq) I’m always afraid of too much high end boost( overcompensating). Since I’m really an indie filmmaker(part wannabe, part experienced) who loves scoring(emotional content) you’re content is always valuable. The mix to picture is a fascinating mix of dialogue, Sound effects, foley and music. Many thanks! 👍👍👍

[@jonasfriedman]

If your concerned about trusting your ears (I actually have problems with my left ear from damage when I was younger) this is where plugins like OZONE EQ or Eynamic eq come in really handy. They allow you to visually see what the EQ is doing and then have the have added ability to reference other peoples mixes or tracks for both audio and visual comparison. This way is you don’t trust your ears or you’re using monitors in an untreated room which can be equally misleading it helps a lot. I have another video coming out where I specifically go over mixing plugins and talk about this feature that is available on several products i use, ozone being just one of them!

[@dpixvid]

@@jonasfriedman thanks for sharing - encouraging!!! - I DJ'd 15 years(bass spill), played drums and worked in a video control room for 5 years with a recurring feedback loop in my headset that messed up my right ear. I just got Ozone 10 standard and am thinking about upgrading to advanced for the Tonal control. Looking forward to said video. You're awesome

[@jonasfriedman]

I have had similar incidents, when I was 16, playing in a band and setting up a speaker / sound system for a live show nothing was coming out of the speaker…I put my ear up to it to listen for any humming and someone pressed a button on the mix console causing feedback to get me… everything sounded like an old radio for a few days 😫 unfortunately years later something similar happened again in the same ear…fool me twice shame on me!!!

[@Skrscores]

Bro This Video One Of The Best 👌

[@jonasfriedman]

Thanks so much @saimaxstudios6902, Happy to hear you liked it, thanks for commenting!

[@niclasnightflame]

Thank you for sharing these amazing advices with us. May I ask, if there are also differences between mixing and mastering scores for video games instead of film music? I just had this thought, because in a game there are always options for the player to literaly create their own mixes with increasing the loudness of voice, music, sound effects, etc. So do we need to mind that a lot while we do our mix/mastering?

[@jonasfriedman]

My pleasure @niclasnightflame! This is a great question - I happen to be scoring my first video game right now and I am producing / referencing my music in the same way I discuss in this video. The game studio will typically send videos of game footage from cutscenes to gameplay for referencing a rough mix. At the end of the day if this sounds good - it will sound good for the games final mix and then players can adjust to their liking from there.

[@Ohleysmokes]

Should we bounce the tracks at around -6db or what is the norm?

[@jonasfriedman]

I just make sure my master buss at its absolute loudest point does go over 3db - I don’t worry about it after that tbh

[@mistral-unizion-music]

Great tips and also video production is very nice.

[@jonasfriedman]

Thanks so much @mistral-unizion-music !

[@Theprettyone234]

Super helpful !

[@jonasfriedman]

Happy to hear!

[@OldChannelAdrian]

This is quality advice ❤❤

[@jonasfriedman]

Thanks @adenima - so happy to hear you’ve found it helpful

[@Monkeywrench92]

What??

[@jonasfriedman]

?

[@Skrscores]

My first Like ❤

[@jonasfriedman]

Thanks @saimaxstudios6902 !