can I officially consider myself a professional musician?



I set this up:

http://fiverr.com/dtcurrie/create-and-r ... your-video

to make some cash on the side, and got my first gig today. I am making $5 off it. They want me to do a instrumental "cover" (read rip off) of this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU6yRsIkH04 which I am doing with SD2, VST synths and DI guits and bass. Should be easy, and I am going to get credit for it which means more fluff for my portfolio.

Also, if you have a skill that is worth $5, you should post a gig on Fiverr. My gig is an absolute steal, but people make money doing some very easy/stupid shit on there.

What will they think of next?

You will have to keep us updated with your progresses. $5 is ghettocheap for two minutes of original song, but at the same time, i suppose that it is not super likely, that someone might go and turn around and use it for the backing track of a national commercial or a top 40 pop single.

And it could work out to be a good writing exercise.

I might consider putting some further elaboration about terms of use of the song. That is, if you are going to be doing any work you really like. I don't know what form that elaboration might take, possibly simply stating that the produced track is licensed for non-commercial use or something? Though that is tricky what with folks making dollars off of youtube vids ads...

As usual, i am probably just overthinking it all. If you don't care about all that shit, and can just crank out the toonz, it works.

They don't give you much room to explain, so before I accept a gig I always clarify that the song is basically just going to be 3 looped sections structured to match the video, and that I won't do anything over complex.

I also tell them I want credit for the song, and a copy of the video for my portfolio. They paid for it so they are pretty much free to do what they want, and yeah these are not big time clients at all. Actually this is a student project as far as I can tell

As long as I get credit, and a link to add to my portfolio, I couldn't really give less of a fuck what they do with it. I have turned a lot of stuff down on there because they wanted way more than $5 worth of work. Basically this is just an exercise in production, giving me an excuse to work with recording and mixing without having to stress out so much.

Noted.

fuking genius whoever came up with that site.

Anyone know a good VST Synth that can nail the synth from this song:



Or give me some hits on how to nail it? Right now I am using ReaSynth with a bunch of FX on it to get a close approximation, but it isn't quite nailing it.

Sounds vintagey. Like a farfisa, rhodes, hammond, etc. You could probably get anything in that style to get close enough. Especially the Hammond style, as it sounds like a bit of that old Leslie warble to it. It is sharper and thinner like a Farfisa though.

A borrowed copy of NI B4 would probably do the trick. I don't know what there is out there for freebies, but you could search kvr or whatever for such beasts. Probably there is something free/shareware for that.

This is a free one that you could probably make work:



That demo doesn't really cover many sounds. But i suspect that you could fiddle with it and make it work. If it can't drive itself into OD, i would probably just hit it with a TS9 vst or a tube saturator style jibjab.

Get it here to see if it will go:

http://www.gtgsynths.com/plugins.htm

Another one that looks interesting:

http://iliadis.orgfree.com/organ.html

(the first one: Combo Organ)

Dude, i just gave it a quick looksee, and the Combo Organ one is pretty much right on, especially for freeandlegal. Even before messing with the settings, the default is basically a solid-enough Farfisa. Screw with the vibrato depth, and it will be pretty close to what you have in the vid there.

Ah yes that is perfect.

Many thanks.

I am actually glad you asked about it, because a decent vst farfisa has been on my list of requirements for like a couple years now, but the first time i looked i didn't find shit(i had a copy of NI B4 for a spell, but it didn't do exactly the cheaper shittier sound i wanted really), and since then i haven't remembered to look again.

So I tried to get as close as possible while avoiding lawsuit territory:

http://soundcloud.com/devin-currie/mrcmh93

This is pre mixing and such, but what do ya think?

The parts sound close, but i would go bigger on the drumsound, and i would go brighter/midsboosted and more vibrato on the organs.

Think more "Be My Baby", or Fatboy Slim, on the drums.

And aim for the keys to have almost a bit of sawedge to them. Let them cut through everything. Maybe even hipass them so that the bass is all coming from the bass element, and the keys are mostly 200hz and up, or worse.

Also, play the keys an octave higher. If you did that, probably the other things i mentioned for the organ would not be necessary, as i think of it. Or alternately, possibly just double the part, with one where you have it lower like what you have now, and then another an octave up, where the mix between the two is like 70% high octave, and 30% low.

Lastly, i don't know if it makes it too close to lawsuit for you, but i do miss that T.Rex "Metal Guru" style guitar part from the example vid.

Those are the main elements to the thing, as i hear it:

1. Be My Baby drumsound. This probably includes the tambourine on the every other dealio.
2. 96 Tears Farfisa sound.
3. Total Marc Bolan riff stolen from Metal Guru, but played off the A instead of the low E.

You get those, and you have the song.

Yar, sounds like good advice.

Yeah I am going to add a live guitar to it. I just wasn't willing to invest the time on it just to have to redo it. He just approved the rough so I am going to finish it up tonight/tomorrow.

I decided not to add the tamborine bits because it isn't worth the extra effort for a $5 gig, if he wants that he can pay another $5. Right now he is getting the equivalent of a 5-piece band.

http://soundcloud.com/devin-currie/mrcmh93-final

A dollar a member, fair enough.

Sounds good dood. If it was your own rock for yourself, i would say the guitar could come down a little in the mix, and maybe pan bofe it and the keys a bit more centrally, but for what it is, i would obviously leave it.

Yeah it is for a video too so I wanted to leave the more important bits a bit extra loud in case he needs to quiet it a bit for something, the main melody can still be heard.

Cause I am dick like that