How to make a showreel for music libraries?

[007]

Music library, showreel request, etc, what exactly is the project?
Are there any visuals involved or is this simply music-based?

If they just want to hear some tracks you've made to be considered for pitching, then you just need something like SoundCloud. Upload a dozen of your best tracks and send them a link.

[A440]

Sorry, should have made myself clearer. I have a project that the library wanted to hear, so I uploaded it to soundcloud and they listened. But they also wanted to hear a showreel of my other work. My question was what's the best way to construct a showreel...how long, how many clips, how long should the clips be etc...just wondering what other people have done. No visuals involved, just audio.

[Boneman]

Why don't you ask them?

[A440]

Originally Posted by Boneman

Why don't you ask them?

good question. It just doesn't seem right to ask them...trying to project a good image.

[Jeff Hayat]

You would never ask a potential client, or someone you will be doing work for, how to make a showreel. I could go into why, but that would take too long.

IMHO, Simon Ravn has one of the best demo reels out there. I actually modeled mine after his.

Epic Sound - music, sound design and voice acting - listen

Click "Hear Demo CD" and then click any of the three on the right; "Orchestral" is probably the best one.

If you dont have the voice for that (few of us do), then hire someone. That's what I did. Obviously, you would need different text, which would have to be applicable to what is is you are doing.

Now, that may be overkill for a showreel which is just for a music lib, so maybe you want to skip the vo and give them just music. I wouldn't put entire tracks on the CD - do about 20 - 30 sec of each, and do not leave blank spaces inbetween each; crossfade the tracks, so the individual tracks become one long track. 5-6 tracks will be good enough; if they like what they hear, they will get back to you with a more specific request. Typically, you want to put your best track first, but if your best track is slow, mushy underscore, you wouldn't put that first. You want something fast, upbeat, that is going to grab the listener's attention, and pull them in. Give them a variety, but dont go overboard and give them 1 orch track, 1 rock track, 1 jazz track, etc. Variety is good, but there should be some semblance of focus on what it is that you do.

If you are putting a CD in the mail, dont just send the CD with some hand-written jibberish on the disc. I do that when I send CDs of new work to libs that I am already with; that's fine. But you want to make a good impression the first time. Make sure the CD and package look good. If you are sending them a web link, make sure the player can play the (elongated) track on any browser, and that it doesn't take too long too load.

Good luck!

[A440]

Thank you Jeff. Just the sort of pointers I needed!

[Dave.R]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

IMHO, Simon Ravn has one of the best demo reels out there. I actually modeled mine after his.

any other good ones you can point to?

[Jeff Hayat]

Originally Posted by Dave.R

any other good ones you can point to?

Umm, nope.

[Dave.R]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

Umm, nope.

you said it was ONE of the best...

<sigh>

[Jeff Hayat]

Originally Posted by Dave.R

you said it was ONE of the best...

<sigh>

Uhh, the other being mine?

[VitaEtMusica]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

Uhh, the other being mine?

Classic

[Antibalas HiFi]

Soundcloud is great for demos, and way better than most of what they get. The key is to make it easy, which Soundcloud generally is... and the waveform view helps them skip around to different sections of your track, which will help them go faster and stay unfrustrated (trust me, it's a thing). And no need to make short clips, they'll skip around whether you want them to or not. If your website doesn't look about as nice as Soundcloud.com, you can just give them a link to the Soundcloud set. In any case, don't sweat it too much, just send emails, be professional and capitalize your I's, if the music is good they'll come to you remember, it's in their best interest too, they aren't doing you a favor per se

[A440]

Thanks Nathan, that's useful info.