In each, a face. And from each face, a voice.

Eric Whitacre is a composer of classic music. One day a friend stumbled on a YouTube video that’d been posted by Britlin Losee for him. It was of her singing the soprano part to one of his compositions.

That’s simply how it began.

An idea formed, and he pursued it. He blogged regularly, each entry explained his vision. He hoped to gather together 50 participants to join his Virtual Choir. He created a dedicated YouTube channel and Google Hangouts where he posted singing lessons. He recorded himself conducting the movements and voices that would combine to create the visualization of his song. He asked those who wished to join his virtual choir to record themselves singing a voice to one of his selected compositions.

That was then.

This is now, and Eric’s third Virtual Choir video is called “Water Night”. It contains 3,746 individual videos – all singing in one of six choral voices. Contributors represent 73 different countries.

For most of another man’s life he’d wanted to express himself vocally in a choir along with others. Being legally blind prevented him from joining, as he could never get close enough to see the conductor’s prompting

Now he sits directly in front of his computer screen. Now he’s one voice among the many that together are the Virtual Choir.

Never underestimate the power of music!

This is an excerpt from our SVP of Sales, Phil Macko‘s, upcoming book,”Make Others Greater.” We originally ran this on May 13, but we decided to feature it again in honor of the book launching today. Congratulations, Phil!

The post The Virtual Choir and The Power of Music appeared first on Megatrax Blog.

Featured on Hot Vocals 2:

TS078_7, Tell Me Show Me: Thumping, bumping dance floor groover w/ yearning male vocal

MX272_4, You And Me Tonight: Pounding dance/club groove w/ banging synths & female vocal

MQ008_2 It Ain’t Ov3r: Exuberant urban pop/club uplifter from famed international dance artist Mike J

DEM027_3, Can Do: Jangly bubble-gum teen pop w grit. Hooky “Eh Eh Oh Oh” vocal.

DEM027_1, Over You: Knows-what-she-wants’ female vocal. Super-modern, super-confident pulsing synth pop.

And much more!

The post Hot Vocals 2: Listen Now! appeared first on Megatrax Blog.

Isaac Simons

Isaac Simons has been releasing tracks and quietly amassing a loyal following for the past 10 years. Having toured solo-acoustic, with a full band, released an EP with a reggae group, and shot a series of music videos directly for the internet, Isaac’s musical career has been as unpredictable as the music itself. Recognized more recently for his acting roles in various feature films, Isaac continues to defy categorization and pursue creativity, but always with his songwriting closest to heart, and we’re so lucky to have one of his tracks in our Marquee Music catalog: Strange Place (MQ005, Track 3).

Isaac is in the spotlight for the months of May and June, and he took a few minutes to bring us up to date on what he’s working on and share some of the story behind Strange Place.

Megatrax: How would you describe your sound?
Isaac Simons: I play the guitar and sing while I play it. It started that simple, and I hope it always will be. Everything additional comes afterwards for me, so most of the music is based around a single guitar and voice. I want to make sure I can play all of my music on my own, any time and anywhere.

While Strange Place is no exception, I was thrilled with what we got to do with it in the studio, and loved how smooth all the instrumentation came out. It really helped to build the energy in the track.

MX: What’s the story behind Strange Place?
IS: It’s a song about the feeling of waking up- in a morning or a moment. Any time that objectivity smacks you in the face and suddenly your whole life makes no sense to you. I’ve had the feeling many times, and find it usually leads to some kind of change. Growth. But it can be terrifying. It’s an unnerving feeling, the possibility that you may have been wrong, that the life that you’re leading may not be your own.

I wanted to write about that feeling as a universal condition, and wrote verses about various people in society experiencing the same thing- that awakening.

MX: Is there anything about this track that stands out for you?
IS: David Eaton engineered and produced the track. The man is a genius, and I love working with him. We were lucky to have each other; I remember an easy creative rapport with him. It’s important to work with people that you trust so you can avoid attaching ego to your ideas and really reach a state of free collaboration.

MX: Where can you imagine hearing this track?
IS: The track has a pretty mainstream sound to me. A 4-corner demographic, as they say in film. Men and women, above and below twenty-five or thirty or however you choose to divide those things.

I’d love to see the song in television or film, ideally. It’d be a thrill to have my music help build a visual story.

MX: You feature a lot of covers on your YouTube Channel. Who would you like to hear covering your work someday?
IS: I love hearing my own music covered! I’ve had a handful of people online send me videos of them playing my music- it’s a fantastic feeling, knowing what you created is feeding the creativity of others. That’s the aim in the first place, to inspire and be inspired.

If I can get a metal band or a rap group to remake one of my songs, I can cross one off of the bucket list. It’d be too hilarious to resist.

MX: What are you working on now, and what do you have in the pipeline?
IS: I’m focusing on film lately. I have a couple more acting roles upcoming and have been working on co-writing a couple of screenplays for future projects.

I’m always writing new music though, and want my next musical project to be an EP recorded in one go in a rented cabin deep in the woods somewhere. I want to start bringing location into the songwriting and recording process. There’s something contrived about bringing a song back to a studio, back to LA. I’d love to find a way to start to record the songs in the same place that I write them- to bring the energy of the moment into the recording process. Maybe capture the sound of the place as well—the cabin or the forest or the hotel room or wherever. Make the final product less segmented; the result of one place and one experience rather than many. That’s the idea, at least. Time will tell.

Isaac is currently in development with two original screenplays, and is polishing a new batch of songs for an acoustic EP. Check him out at www.isaacsimons.com or on twitter at @isaacsimons. And look for Strange Place in our Marquee Music catalog and on his YouTube Channel at YouTube.com/SimonsIsaac.

This article originally appeared in the Megatrax newsletter. Click HERE to subscribe!

The post Isaac Simons Aspires To Recording In A Cabin In The Woods… appeared first on Megatrax Blog.

1. They both should have the skill sets to communicate and evoke emotion.  Both are art mediums.

2. Framing the shot = Creating the musical arrangement.

3. The photographer can make multiple adjustments to lighting and color in editing just as the music house can do with balances, pans and equalizations  in the final mix mode.

4. A photographer’s gallery should show a diversity of wedding environments, yet both the gallery and a music house’s sizzle reel should showcase their abilities to creatively capture the moment and personality/uniqueness of the event or message.

5. You usually get what you pay for.  Yes – you could have hired a friend who “knows photography” and maybe gotten lucky with some shots.  With an array of consumer level hardware and software available today, just about anybody can be creative to a point.  Quality lenses and cameras cost a lot of money, but they’re worth it in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.  The same goes for audio and music hardware.

I believe the depth of both a well-taken photo and a well-produced custom score should have the staying power to strongly communicate their message after seeing or hearing the piece many times over.  With rare exceptions, the value of experience  will result in work provided that is right the first time and enhances what you thought the job should look or sound like.

Best wishes for a bright future to all of you……..

- Randy Hart

Creative Services Director for Aircast Custom

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While wearing his Music Supervisor hat for the recent Halle Berry vehicle, The Call, Helfant selected six tracks from the Megatrax catalogs for use in the film. This caught our attention, and we tracked him down for a conversation about his career and the music he selected for this picture.

Helfant & JC Dwyer at The Call premiere

Megatrax: When you started working on The Call, what mood were you trying to evoke overall with the music you were choosing?


David Helfant: Brad Anderson, the Director, and I discussed the direction of the music needed for the film and, clearly, it had dark overtones.  Also, Brad wanted to use a few “hit” records from the 70s to invoke and remind the viewers of the music that the villain and his sister (who died at an early age of cancer) were listening to growing up.  So, we ended up using “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club and “Puttin’ On The Ritz” by Taco.  But, these songs were used in an eerie way, given their placement in the Film.

MX: At what point in your creative process did you start searching through Megatrax’s offerings?


DH: Early on in the process. We wanted to work with a great music library to utilize music cues that could evoke a certain mood.  Also, it was a low-budget film so, unfortunately, we didn’t have a huge checkbook to draw from.  I knew Ron and J.C. from Megatrax and thought that their music libraries would be a perfect fit for the film.  So, Brad and the music editor started temping certain music cues to picture and were delighted to see and hear how well they worked.

MX: You used six of our tracks in the film. Can you talk a little bit about the moments in the film in which they’re used and how these tracks complemented these scenes?


DH: Several of your music cues were used as source music for a radio playing in the car scenes of the film, (MX232_28 Partly Cloudy; MX207_27 Dream Seeker; TS078_1 Turn The Lights Out; S058_8 Angel Face), of which there were many.  We also used a great cue at a murder scene that took place at a gas station (SN003_18 Cumbia Dinamita).  Finally, we needed a music box for two places in the film, and Ron and J.C. had composed a great cue based upon a theme from “Sleeping Beauty” by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (MX100_28), which was in the public domain.  We tried to use other music box cues, but that cue worked the best of everything we tried.

Brad was delighted that we had access to the Megatrax libraries, and Ron and J.C. were great to work with.

MX: Have you used Megatrax to good effect in any previous projects?
DH: I have never used Megatrax for any previous motion picture projects, but I certainly will in the future.

MX: What’s coming up next for you?


DH: I am currently in pre-production for a new film called “Drop” with my partner, Robin Nixon.  It is a love story about a young DJ who falls for a girl and goes to Las Vegas to spin records at the nightclub she works at. I am also working on several films for The Weinstein Company, and a new television series based upon The Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood.

Check out the tracks David Helfant used in The Call HERE, and look for the perfect tracks for your next project at Megatrax.com.

This article originally appeared in the Megatrax newsletter. Click HERE to subscribe.

The post Our Guest Music Supervisor, David Helfant, Talks About The Music For “The Call” appeared first on Megatrax Blog.

In the world of urban music production, there is very little that Christian Salyer has not yet done.  He has worked with Brandy, Tyrese, Justin Timberlake, Maya, Mario, Howard Hewett (Shalamar), FourPlay, Back Street Boys and many other hugely successful recording artists.

He has also composed music for a whopping 700 TV shows including:Access Hollywood, Bones, Chappelle Show, CSI, Dancing With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, Friday Night Lights, Gossip Girl, Joan Of Arcadia, Malcolm In The Middle, Medium, So You Think You Can Dance, The Shield, The Simpsons, Tonight Show, Top Model, Ugly Betty, The Office, 30 Rock, Melrose Place and X Games , just to name a few.

And if that’s not enough, he has also scored more than a dozen video games, composed jingles and handled production and engineering for hit recording artists including Luther Vandross and others.

Most recently, adding to the urban mix of the Beat Bites catalog, Christian has created, for the first time, an amazing new series of vocal CDs called Song Bites.

Tell us about the artists you worked with on Song Bites?

There is a great variety on Song Bites. The first CD is Rap, the second is Rap  with some singing hooks and the third is R&B/Pop . I work with extremely talented artists. Most of my team has produced records with major artists. Right now, one of the singers is on tour with Alicia Keyes. Many of the artists I work with are as talented as the recording artists that they tour with.

Right now, one of the singers is Grammy nominated recording artist Marc Nelson of the male R&B vocal group Az Yet. Some of our artists have sung on Tour or on Records with major recording artist like: Baby Face, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Toni Braxton and Beyoncé to name a few.

What makes your work unique?

I make records, I don’t make production music. I’m not a film composer making some hip-hop. I make music that is record quality and good enough to be recorded by major artists.

Who were some of your inspirations?

There are so many – some of the big ones are Michael Jackson, Prince and New Edition.

How did you get started in the business?

Seventeen years ago, I worked at a music store in Arizona. A composer hired me to create some hip-hop sample kits. I told him I also do Hip-Hop, R&B, and Dance songwriting and production.  A few months later I got a call from one of the people he worked for in L.A.. They needed Rap Songs the next day for a Disney TV show but it needed to have legitimate street rappers, without curse words.  I spent all night in the studio with some of my people, making a few songs.  I finished the mixes at 6:00 in the morning, drove to the airport, and he had the music by noon!  This made such an impression on him, he hired me to do my first music library CD!

This post originally appeared on 10/26/2010.

The post From the vaults: Christian Salyer & Beat Bites present Song Bites! appeared first on Megatrax Blog.

Whether you’re working on a project about summiting Everest, or just working on a project that feels like it, Megatrax has you covered. Here are a few tracks to check out for your next summit attempt:

- Everest, INX017_7: Nostalgic, Romantic, Sweet and Calm

- Mountain Top, DEM007_9: Determined melodies build and converge

- Top of the Mountain, MX195_19: Swaying, evocative groove w/ echoing guitars

- Reach the Summit, TS033_5: Confident, spirited rock w/ soaring guitar lead, piano & drums

- Eiger Summit, MX119_1: Tense building thriller, Helicopter FX at 1:07

For more ideas, visit Megatrax.com and try our “Find it for Me” button. And if you need some inspiration while looking uphill at your next project, look for the upcoming “Make Others Greater,” from our SVP of Sales, Phil Macko, and Everest pioneer Gary Guller!

The post Celebrate May’s Everest Anniversaries with Megatrax! appeared first on Megatrax Blog.

zz Man Record Shop, for which he won the “Best Research in Recorded Jazz” award from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC).

Cannonball Adderley was an influential alto saxophonist who helped introduce soul and gospel to jazz in the 1960s. He met impresario Quincy Jones when he signed his first contract with EmArcy Records in 1955, and Jones has contributed a touching foreword to Walk Tall. Adderley’s most famous recordings were “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” written by pianist Joe Zawinul, and “Work Song,” written by Adderley’s brother Nat, a cornetist who played with Cannonball throughout his career. With lyrics added, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” was made famous by the Buckinghams in 1967.

Cary Ginell encountered Cannonball Adderley while at UCLA in the 1970s. Adderley was giving a speech outside the campus radio station while Cary was on duty, and the jazz great struck the student as being “erudite, but not elitist.” Cary recalls being “most impressed with the fact that Cannonball wanted more than anything to educate our youngsters as to the history of jazz. He spent a lot of his time conducting clinics on jazz history in high schools and colleges across the country.”

Beyond his contributions to jazz, Adderley’s involvement with Dr. Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement and his public pride in his African heritage distinguish him as a significant figure in modern American history. Additionally, says Cary, “His story points out the fact that if you are honest, hard working, and enjoy what you do, you can have a happy life, no matter what field you go into.”

Walk Tall:The Life & Music of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley is available now at Amazon.com

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