# How to make a demo reel?



## Evan Gamble (Oct 30, 2005)

SO when you guys make your demo reels do you just import all your waves and then edit? Or do you re-edit the original midi data from each piece to make it flow better?

EDIT: FINISHED! http://www.evangamble.com/music/2005_Demo_Reel.mp3


----------



## xylophonetic (Oct 30, 2005)

I would just edit the wave files on the right places. If you haven't set up a standard template, used in all scores, joining all compositions in one project is overkill. Many people tend to max out their DAW's performance with 1 composition already.


cheers,

Thomas


----------



## Christian Marcussen (Oct 30, 2005)

Agreed... I could never do anything but edit the waves


----------



## Evan Gamble (Oct 30, 2005)

Thanks Thomas and christian..how long would you guys recommend i make it? SOmewhere between 8-10 minutes? Or more like 4-5? Trying to consider the attention span of a director :wink:


----------



## Christian Marcussen (Oct 30, 2005)

I'm really no expert in the field... But I guess it cant hurt making in 5-10 min if the material is good enough, and you catch their attention during the first 20 secs.


----------



## Evan Gamble (Oct 30, 2005)

Allright and one last question...whats everyones opinion on narrating the reel?


----------



## christianobermaier (Oct 30, 2005)

>how long would you guys recommend

I'd say it depends on the content. If you are harping on on the same three chords, it would not seem clever to be doing that for ten minutes :D 

Seriously, if you have lots of fundamentally different things to offer, then expanding it to, say, 10min might be cool. Otherwise, keep it shorter, like from 5min up.

And as Christian Marcussen rightly pointed out, grabbing their attention right away is important, so don't fiddle with long intros.

>narrating the reel?

Oh dear. What do you say ? "Watch out folks, now here comes some reeeeally cool stuff ?"

Christian

http://www.artofthegroove.com/logic/mp3/Christian_Obermaier_demo.mp3 (show reel) http://uk.geocities.com/christianobermaier/home.htm (home page) http://uk.geocities.com/christianobermaier/Studio.htm (studio pics) http://uk.geocities.com/christianobermaier/Gearlist.htm (gear list)


----------



## Ed (Oct 30, 2005)

Evan Gamble said:


> Allright and one last question...whats everyones opinion on narrating the reel?



Unless you are talking of a general demo reel, some good advice I heard about when sending out demo cds to potential clients is to make custom showreels based on the kind of thing the client might be looking for. If you send your cd to a childrens tv producer, dark horror stuff probably wont interest him or her, but childrens animation type music would. 

Just my 2 cents. Actually I dont have 2 cents... and i dont really have much sence either.

Ed


----------



## Ed (Oct 30, 2005)

christianobermaier said:


> Oh dear. What do you say ? "Watch out folks, now here comes some reeeeally cool stuff ?"



Composers commentary?

"Ok so heres the part where I got totally sick at the time while I was writing it and had to take 3 weeks off, then my hard drive broke. .. ooh ooh I like this bit...... yea that was a hard part, look me ages.... oh my, I had to redo _that _bit 7 times... I should have used a kazoo"


----------



## PolarBear (Oct 30, 2005)

...you forgot the "it was great to work with everybody (including me)" commentary, Ed. Well I could imagine a short guideline in a cover or so telling the listener what is playing - like "Action - Horror - Contemporary - ..." But then again, what would it be worth if you couldn't recognize it without that guideline...


----------



## Evan Gamble (Oct 30, 2005)

allright started a 7am and finished before lunch...

Here is my First Demo Reel!

http://www.evangamble.com/music/2005_Demo_Reel.mp3

I decided to do commentary because When I hear Simons i think how cool it is :? 

PLease tell me if you think its corny though and I will most likely take it out.

Also please tell me if it sounds like its too long

Thanks alot for the help do far!

Allright done loading! Comments?


----------



## Christian Marcussen (Oct 31, 2005)

i like your music, and i reckon its a good demo reel. not sure about the voice over thing, but thats just a matter of taste. if you want to keep it then have the voice over be loader.. or better yet, fade the music down and then up when th vo is done.


----------



## Evan Gamble (Oct 31, 2005)

Christian Marcussen said:


> i like your music, and i reckon its a good demo reel. not sure about the voice over thing, but thats just a matter of taste. if you want to keep it then have the voice over be loader.. or better yet, fade the music down and then up when th vo is done.



Thanks Christian, I already decided to take the VO out, just forgot to change the name of the file on the FTP :oops: 

So now its shorter and no VO


----------



## SteveDunster (Dec 2, 2005)

Evan

I don't know if it is too late, but the BBC has what look like excellent tips about showreels.

fyi

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/distribution/tvworkp01.shtml

Steve


----------



## Peter Emanuel Roos (Dec 6, 2005)

Interesting link, Steve (and welcome aboard from me as well!),

I once saw Alex during recordings for a Dutch film. Very relaxed session, as opposed to what we see in American docu's. A very easy and modest guy and his stuff was recorded within a few takes. Very professionally but absolutely no stress as far as I could discern.

Funny though, that they brought in a UK composer for a Dutch film.

Just some side-remarks, let's continue with the show reel topic.

I am currently working on a cue in which I seem to hop from style to style. Currently my purpose for this cue is to improve and update my templates, including more recent libraries and looking for a more ambient sound (which I am getting closer to now). 

Do you guys think you can make demo pieces this way as well? I mean in midi? My target is not music for picture but library/production music.

I think it is too hard for me to have the ambition to switch from my (independent) IT-consultancy work to music for picture, but creating library music is something I can combine more easily with my current work.

Regards,


----------



## Herman Witkam (Dec 6, 2005)

Peter Roos said:


> Funny though, that they brought in a UK composer for a Dutch film.



That happens more often lately, mostly on TV gigs. We'll have to show Dutch directors what their own little country has to offer :wink:


----------



## Peter Emanuel Roos (Dec 6, 2005)

We are waiting for Maarten's breakthrough!


----------



## Waywyn (Dec 6, 2005)

Hey Evan,

my 2 cents:

to be honest if you ask me, i wouldn't do a showreel which is just one big file for around 10 minutes and pack it full of stuff where you think it is most effective or most sophisticated stuff you did.

if i listen to this as a producer it is just chaos for me. you have some action phrases, then you hear some weird notes for the next 5 seconds. there is absolutely no time to breath and i don't think a producer who listens to like 10 composers for a certain project generally doesn't like to scrub around in a 10 minute file until he finds some quiet or electronic sounding parts or whatever he might think it fits to his project.

i would suggest the following:

- do short snippets or 10-30 seconds and name them like: happy, angry, heroic, future, love ...

i think a producer couldn't find something about a track which is named:
"the hero awaits the princess at siklirothtatilopus" ... (just to prevent that )

- the other thing is i would send a cd with a big envelope. even if it's like double or triple the size of the cd i wouldn't care about. size does matter sometimes and if you send a cd with a little bio and a short description it wouldn't be wrong also.
imagine you are a producer and you get a letter 4 or 3 format envelope which is really big. would you throw it away or be excited what's in that big thing?
files can be deleted but a cd is THERE, it is on the desk. for a file he has to just delete something but a cd is THERE. of course he can throw it into the trash bin, but it takes a while to get rid of that compared to a file 

if you go for the online thing anyway, i would get a server and do a directory which is password saved (or not) and place all those files into it.

if you then have producers who are interested in your music and are ready to download or listen to your stuff they would download the stuff only the like (remember .... love, hate, heroic, future etc.)

i know there are so many option, but personally i would listen to a 10 minute files.

you always have to think about that as a producer, not as the musician ("... and now comes the part where i go from Dmin to wholetone scale while changing from 4/4 to 5/4 and then go to a metric modulation in E lydian")

who cares ....? certainly not the producer


----------

