Music by composer Peter Weis placed in the show Wreck Chasers. You can hear the cue at the beginning and end of the clip with the Wreck Chasers logo.
This is a video reel of some of my music being used on TV. One of my favorites is the SNL parody of MTV’s Sweet 16 with Scarlett Johansen. The full skit isn’t in the video but you should definitely go browsing for it on youtube.com. Its worth a good laugh.
Music for film trailers grabs our attention. It pulls us in and often combined with the editing makes the movie look a lot better then it is. I have been studying this style of music for a while now. The two things that stand out the most are the energy and the dramatic changes the music can go through in such a small amount of time. The music is usually made to follow the highlights of the film. The music can showcase drama, high energy, emotion, action and power all in 60 seconds. Below is one of my takes on “Trailer Music”
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I also edited a short video together using some of my favorite quotes about music.
NBA Highlights From 1987
(Total Reading time less then 1 minute)
The cue used in this video is from a reggaetone project I did a few years ago. The cue it self has been used in many places. I came across this video while randomly browsing basket videos from the NBA channel. You know your write a lot of music when you randomly start hearing on videos you find on youtube.
In 2001 I had my first piece of music used in a television show on MTV called Undressed. The song “Let Me Hit That” was produced earlier in the year by myself and written by rapper Seldom Seen.
The production was done almost entirely on a 61 key Korg Triton and transferred to Protools 5.1 LE running on an Apple G4. It is always amazing to look back and see how far the technology has grown in such a short time.
New Beats
(Total reading time less then 1 minute, Listening time 3 minutes)
A Quick tast of some beats I have been working on for future use in television shows and movies. Now that I have found an HTML5 compatible audio player I hope to post these little listening tastes more often. Enjoy.
All of the production for these tracks was completed in Logic Studio 9 using the onboard plugins as well as native instruments komplete.
Thats all I have to say.
Peer Weis
In The Studio
(Total reading time 1 minute)
Last night I spent a bit of time looking for a new wordpress plugin so I can feature some new music and video clips on the website. Enter MediaElement.js
MediaElement.js is a wordpress plugin that works with both Flash and HTML5. I was looking for a plugin that would play both audio and video and be compatible devices like the Iphone, Ipad. Hope you enjoy the quick clip of music. Now that I have got a good wordpress video and audio plugin I will be uploading more clips.
The track is a 60 second cue of some middle eastern war like music called:
Persian Assault
Would love your comments on the track and the player.
Thats call I have to say.
A Quick Demo
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Some more about the technology being used.
For the past few days I have been working on putting together some cues for a new demo. I’ve also been using this time to get to know Native Instruments Kontakt 4 a bit better. I have been a long time EXS24 user, and have a large collection of my sound libraries in EXS format. EXS24 is Logic Studios sampler, a virtual instrument that lets you use your computer and MIDI keyboard to play back the sound of just about any instrument. I have had Kontakt around in my studio since version 2. The program was a bit CPU heavy for the computer that I was using, a G5 dual 2.0. In February I installed Logic Studio 9 on my mac book pro and have been working mostly with Kontakt from that point. Logic Studio 9 has a great new feature called Bounce Regions. Using this function you can get around almost any CPU problem. It makes things so much easier, especially if you are dealing with a lot of AU plugins, high track counts and heavy sample libraries.
I have been doing most of my MIDI programming with a MAudio 88 Key controller. In addition to that I have been tweaking more and more of my sound libraries so they work my Akai’s EWI USB. The EWI is an instrument that lets you work with MIDI, except playing an instrument similar to saxophone instead of a piano.
Most of the sounds you heard in the demos above are from Kontakt, EXS and the Garage Band Jam Packs. Their are also a few of my own custom goodies in their as well.
If you have any questions about the technology or the process in creating these tracks cues just leave a comment below and I will answer.
Thats all I have to say.
Peter Weis
Take A Listen
(Total reading time less then 1 min, Total Listening time 3 minutes)
I finished a project this week and wanted to share a few snippets from some of the tracks I have been working on. Unfortunately these are just snippets. All of the tracks were completed in Logic Studio and mixed “In The Box” only the standard Logic Studio Plugins were used for mixing. Virtual instruments from and various sample libraries were used for the production and composition, including a few EXS instruments I created just for the project. Thanks in advance for listening.
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The week is almost over.
(Total reading time 1 minute.)
With a long week coming to a close I feel as I am straining to breath life into yet another blog post. The cold weather has kept me indoors except for the occasional walk for lunch or coffee. The studio in which I do all my work is rather small measuring only ten feet by eleven feet. My only window is sealed tightly by a layer of ice. I dream of warmer weather.
On another note this weekend I am finishing up the demos for television music project. If all goes well I hope to have another 10 cues of music out the door by the end of next week. I am aiming to place at least 100 cues with various music publishers this year, hopefully more. Sounds like there is more coffee in my future.
Thats all I have to say.
Peter Weis
