Copyrighted music

Greetings,
I had a quick question regarding music/soundtrack for films. When creating a film, what is the process on must endure to gain ample rights to use someone else's audio in your project?
Thanks for any help
Miles
 
Do some searches, many threads on the topic, bottom line:

You'll need multiple rights that may be owned by different people. There are rights to the composition as well as rights to the recording of the performance. If you are creating a festival film you might be able to work out something you can afford. If it's a film you may profit from, and it's a major artist, odds are they will not even talk to you unless you look like you have tens of thousands of dollars to spend.
 
Right - so i need to make friends with people who make their own music..
Thank you sir!

Yep.
My audio guy is a musician and composer. I was in a band for years as well, and so I'm very plugged in to the local music scene. My audio guy writes all the incidental music and we use a combination of midi and live musicians to record it. We also sometimes approach bands with "We'll give you a studio session to record your song in exchange for the rights to use it in our film".

Make friends with a talented musician who owns a home recording studio. It's the best move you'll ever make.
 
Real quick - could you explain a midi band vs. the more obvious live band?

I'll field this one! Real quick: MIDI composing is a way to use computers, samplers and synthesizers to play back the music you create. Handy if you don't have an orchestra on hand! Often composers working on their own will use MIDI sequencing to do most of the music. Layering one or two live instruments on top of it can add a more "human" element to it which IS noticeable (even to those who can't tell you what they're noticing). Which is not to say that MIDI recordings can't be expressive and realistic, but that depends on the sample libraries the composer has.

Less quick: MIDI is data. It can be created by playing an instrument (keyboard or other MIDI controller), sequenced by hand or a combination of the two. In addition to basic data (when the note starts, what note it is, and how long it lasts), you can record any number of "control changes", which can modify the sound in an expressive manner. They don't need to be recorded at once. For example, I'll play a passage, recording it. Then I'll play it back, recording knob motions to add expression. I'll do several passes on each part; depending on the complexity of the piece, I usually have over 30 tracks of MIDI at once.

None of this data is sound. The next part is to assign the data to an instrument. For electronic textures, a synthesizer is usually employed, which creates sound from basic electronic components (I could write a book here, but the important thing is that sounds are constructed, rather than pre-recorded). For organic textures, which is to say instruments that sound like real life instruments, the composer would use a sampler. A sampler takes a tiny recording of an instrument, and essentially loops it for playback for as long as you hold the note. You can raise the pitch, which essentially plays the sample faster, so that it sounds like the instrument is playing the note that you want. It gets more complicated from here, but that's the basic gist.

The advantage to doing this is you can say "what if that piano part was played by an oboe" and easily switch the instrument that the MIDI data is playing back. It's also cheaper because you don't need to hire an oboe player to come to your studio if you don't happen to play oboe. However, it's good to settle on the arrangement before you add expression; every instrument is played differently, and if you want it to sound like said instrument, you need to work the MIDI to recreate the sort of expression that instrument would have.

I said cheaper, but definitely not cheap. Good sample libraries can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Synths aren't cheap, hardware-wise, though there are some interesting free plug-in synths available on the internet. Let alone the time and experience that the composer needs to put in to end up with decent results.

Anyway, that's the basic concept. Composer and MIDI for orchestral score work, find a band for incidental music (or end credits). Not hard and fast rules (one of my favorite scores is Neil Young's score to Dead Man...almost entirely solo electric guitar), but guidelines to get you thinking along the right lines!
 
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I'll field this one! Real quick: MIDI composing is a way to use computers, samplers and synthesizers to play back the music you create. Handy if you don't have an orchestra on hand! Often composers working on their own will use MIDI sequencing to do most of the music. Layering one or two live instruments on top of it can add a more "human" element to it which IS noticeable (even to those who can't tell you what they're noticing). Which is not to say that MIDI recordings can't be expressive and realistic, but that depends on the sample libraries the composer has.

All good and true. It's amazing these days what's available in the way of soft synths. If you layer things well, and know what you are doing, you can create some pretty realistic stuff with keyboards and midi alone. Adding live instruments to them as well, often brings extra life and realism to this, as you have stated.
 
We usually use live drums, bass and guitar. Sometimes the strings are real as well (We know both a violinist and a cellist). He writes and arranges it all digitally, then we re-record the parts where we have access to a live musician.
 
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