My track is finalist in a music contest for a new cartoon

[jpfeifer]

Hi Everyone,

I've been away from this forum for a while, busy with work stuff.

I recently entered a music writing contest for a new cartoon that is being produced on the internet by William Shatner. It's a kind of comedy Sci-Fi cartoon. Willam Shatner is one of the judges of this music contest. I found out today that my music has been picked as one of the top 40 finalists. I feel darn lucky as many of these entrants are professional composers. I didn't think I would even get this far. You can hear my music on the following page, just look for my name Jim Pfeifer on this page with the finalists:

http://www.myouterspace.com/index.php/Music-Contest/semi-finalists.html

I was going for a kind of surf-guitar sort of tone for this song. I used my new Tele-style guitar with TV Jones Filtertron pickups since it does this sort of tone really well. I also used my Line6 POD HD400 for the amp sounds. I've been able to set up a decent rock-a-billy preset up on the POD and I use it for a lot of stuff.

--Jim

[Bookkeeper's Son]

I like it!!!!!

[R_of_G]

Very nicely done Jim!

I'm a big fan of both surf rock and the space-surf/sci-fi rock that developed as well. I think your tune is great for this project. The tone throughout is perfect (more of why I want a Tele). I haven't listened to the others yet but regardless, here's hoping yours is the winner. Congratulations on making it this far, that's quite an accomplishment in itself. Best of luck!

[Robert]

Great job Jim! That is a cool little tune.

Can you describe your recording process?

Thanks for posting!

[helliott]

Congrats Jim. That's terrific.

[Pickngrin]

Great job, Jim! Best of luck to you. I like the composition and the tone alot.

[jpfeifer]

Thanks so much guys! I really appreciate the comments.

Here is the Recording/Writing process I used:
For this contest they gave us a 39 second video clip with only a voice-over of the person describing the goal of the contest. They asked us to come up with a theme song for the opening segment of the cartoon. Their only guideline was that the theme song had to be exactly 39 seconds long, no longer no shorter, but no other guidelines on the style, instrumentation or anything.

I loaded the video clip into Cakewalk's Sonar on my PC so that I could watch it play in sync with my tracks as I worked on them. Then I started thinking of the sounds I wanted to use to capture the feel of these aliens being chased by the bad guys, and what kind of tempo I wanted for the main groove. I thought that a surf guitar sound would fit, so I started coming up with some progressions and a melody and a basic drum groove to capture that feel. The melody took the longest part since I was trying to state the main theme and key change at the right spot, all in just 39 seconds, without trying to sound too rushed. (this was the hardest part from the writing end of it) For recording the guitar parts I used a PODHD 400 and with my own preset ( Fender Deluxe model, and compressor with slapback delay and reverb) to try to get the guitar to have more of a surf-rock /rockabilly tone. I used my Tele-style guitar with the Filtertron pickups (and Bigsby) since this has a great tone for surf guitar and rockabilly sounds.

For the drum parts I used a plugin from Toontrack called EZDrummer. There's a add-on kit for EZDrummer called the Nashville kit that I used since it has a more vintage rock kind of tone to it. For the keyboard parts I used one of the Sonar plugins to get a Whirlitzer electric piano tone. After recording all the parts, I mixed the tracks down to a final stereo mix, and then used a mastering plugin called Ozone from IZotope, to do the final EQ/Compression to the final mix to get a fuller sound. I also added a touch of reverb on the whole mix to give a more cohesive sound to the tracks, to make it sound like a band playing together. It was a lot of work, but a great learning experience also.

--Jim

[aeolian]

Great work, Jim! And I really appreciate you detailing how you composed the song. I also randomly listened to a couple of the other entries, and I like yours the best.

[Algonquin]

Nicely done Jim! I think the grove and vibe is up there with the best of the others... good luck with the contest.
Cheers :beer:
David

[guitarhack]

Well done, Jim! Your tune fits the animation to a "T".

[Rockermann]

Perfect work! The surf rock genre fits the animation very well. And the melody is already stuck in my head after ONE listen. Congrats... I hope you make it all the way.

[Tig]

I love it! The timing works perfectly with the animation, and your music fits the production style.

Of the others I listened to, the only one that will be a serious contender is from "Hop Litzwire".

[jpfeifer]

Thanks Everyone!

Yes, I liked that one from Hop Litzwire too.

--Jim

[Robert]

When do you find out if you go to the next round/win, etc?

[jpfeifer]

They're supposed to announce the top 10 finalists tomorrow. Then they open it up for public vote.

I have no idea if I will make the cut or not. This stuff is so subjective. I was happy just to make the top 40 list.
I consider this a learning experience. I'm finding out how good these people are that do film and TV composing all the time.
There are some incredible composers out there. It has made me work harder and re-evaluate what I should focus on for the next time. The cool thing though, is that I'm finding out that there is a whole group of musicians that compose music for things like video games, web sites, radio spots, and commercials as a career. It would be cool to get into some of those projects if I could find the right fit for the type of things that I do. But it is extremely competitive, just like the rest of the music business. You just have to keep doing your thing and try to be the best version of yourself that you can, and hope that someone connects with what you like to do. I think this is the lesson I'm learning in all of this. For now, I'm just glad that I have a day job!

--Jim

[Eric]

I just listened to this now, and I think your version is very cool. Please keep us updated on the results!

[jpfeifer]

They finally posted the results of the top 10 finalists. Unfortunately, I didn't make the next round but it was a great experience.
You can see the 10 finalists here: http://www.myouterspace.com/index.php/Music-Contest/music-finalists.html

Cool contest. It has motivated me to work on some other stuff and keep trying.

--Jim

[R_of_G]

Great attitude Jim. Your track was awesome. I'm looking forward to hearing more of your work.

[Tig]

That bites, but you did an excellent job and I feel you deserve to be in the running.
I'm sure you learned plenty, which will make future projects easier.

[Algonquin]

Win or lose... doesn't really matter, as long as you're enjoying what you are doing.

Excellent job Jim!