If you happen to be in to Sony Acid Music Studio (or Pro) you'll know what the 8-Packs are. For the rest of the world the 8-Packs downloads are a song and all the source loops required to created that piece that Sony releases to the world, generally each week. You have one week to download the current 8-Pack and then it's gone forever. With the help of my handy RSS reader I've been religiously downloading the 8-Packs for a year ot more. The loops they contain are valuable. Deconstruction the songs is inspiring. The fact that it's all free, Royalty-free music that you can customize easily yourself makes them invaluable.However, I've recently been thinking that I should be doing more with each 8-Pack than downloading it to my Acid resource repository on my PC, rendering out an MP3 and then forgetting about it. I should take advantage of these little collections of loops and see what I can come up with using them as opposed to the 'official' song that comes with them. I've done this for the past 2 weeks and I'll try to keep doing it for the next 50. It's a great way to learn how to score for your own movies - even if what I come up with is not as good as what a real musician would make at least I'm learning the techniques and language and that has to be worth something doesn't it?
I've looked around and I'm surprised that no one else is doing this but here are my first two efforts. In the future I'll post a month's worth at once. Of course, if you want to use anything they're all available under the creative commons licence from SoundCloud.
Post-Apocalypse Revisited by the other Martin Taylor
They Rise Again ... Again by the other Martin Taylor
Okay, you've totally convinced me: I'm downloading Sony Acid Music Studio. These sound really good. I can play Beethoven Sonatas, but I don't know beans about creating this stuff. Want to start learning.
ReplyDeleteDaniel - I'll be really interested to see what a real musician can come up with. It doesn't seem like Acid has a big fan base anymore but is really cheap and amazingly powerful. The training here http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/training is aimed at the pro version of the tool but is 90% applicable to the studio version too. LMK if you need any help. It would be great if you laid down the backing in ACID and then record live piano over the top (a little like the Social Network theme). Just an idea. ACID can deal with live audio and MIDI as well as loops - they're what I want to explore next.
ReplyDeleteHi Martin - what an amazing resource! We'd love to use some of the loops for a short film in production now.
ReplyDeleteI could not find an RSS feed anywhere on the site. But have registered. Please give us a heads-up on how you did it!
Regards -- HowardG
howard_g at fastmail dot com dot au
Hi Martin - what an amazing resource. We'd love to use some of the loops for a short film we have in production now.
ReplyDeleteYet I can not find an RSS feed anywhere on the siet despite even registering. Can you pls give us a head-up on how you're using a reader for the updates, or a link would be most appreciated.
Regards HowardG
howard_g at fastmail dot com au
Hi Howard
ReplyDeleteThe RSS link for Sony's 8 Packs I use is http://feeds.acidplanet.com/ap/sitenews
To this site it's http://geek.theothermartintaylor.com/feeds/posts/default
Regards - Martin