Indigo Run

I have to start off by saying that this was far and away the most enjoyable project. With the past two projects, it has been tempting to make the songs longer and see it through to completion, and this project provided the opportunity to do so.

My inspiration from this project drew a lot from Trip-Hop, House, and Rock forms, and was heavily influenced by the band Ratatat.

Compared to my other projects, I composed this song much differently than the previous ones. I started out with a laid-back, Trip-Hop style beat, with a lot of syncopation on the snares and hi-hats. I added a classic-sounding electric piano chord progression in a minor, and to complete this part of the song added a thick bass line which utilized a high degree of passing tones to tie the chords together. After looping this progression three times, I shifted to a more four-to-the-floor drive drum beat, and changed up the chord progression, utilizing a clavichord type instrument. Over this I layered a string section, and added a violin lead.

At this point, I decided to start adding the guitar tracks. To record the guitar, for the sake of the objective of the class, I opted to record directly into the computer using an M-Audio Fast Track direct-in box. While I believe that a better sound could have been achieved using the standard miking technique, I wanted to have a chance to use the amplifier modeling software in Logic Pro. The first guitar track I added was the first riff heard over the first progression. I opted to use a phaser (among several other effects) to achieve both a fuller and somewhat other-worldly sound. After this, I added a quiet, reserved, descending guitar line that utilized the delay designer. On the next progression, I recorded a guitar track that uses the chords, and ran it through overdrive and filter effects. The overdrive gave it a thick, heavy sound, and the filter, with its rate set to run every bar, which gives it that rising, pumping type feel. Towards the end of this progression, I also added an additional guitar riff based on the progression, voiced in a higher register.

After 8 bars, everything but the guitar and and drums, which have switched a kick-only pattern, drops out. The guitar stays in the same register but switches to a progression based in C major. Soon after, a guitar lead and snare claps come in. Another lead follows soon afterward, and as the song builds, a final lead fades in. Suddenly, everything but a single lead and the claps drop out, providing a sense of resolution to the song.

Perhaps the most valuable part of this project was getting significantly more comfortable with mastering in Logic. I had a hard time grasping how to effectively use compression and similar inserts in previous projects, but I became much more adept this time. I used compression on most of the instrument tracks, and learned how to use the Multipressor in the master track. I found the Multipressor to be an extremely valuable tool, as it allowed me to adjust the levels of compression across the frequency bands that needed it most. Using the Multipressor allowed me to create a much more polished sound. After the Multipressor, I ran the master track through both EQ and finally a Limiter to make sure the signal didn't clip. I also learned to love Panning and automation. In the first part of the song, I panned the keyboard slightly to the left and the guitar slightly to the right, which gave the track a real feeling of space. I did the same things with the guitars and violins in the second part, and in the final part, I panned several of the leads wavily to the left and right to avoid cluttering the sound too much. Obviously, it sounds best through headphones (where the feeling of space is more noticeable) but overall, it also makes the track sound much finished and polished.

This was an extremely enjoyable class that I learned a TON of useful skills from that I will certainly continue to use in the future. I have to give a big thank you to Juraj and Matt, and without any further ado, Indigo Run:

Blog 5

I'm kind of going to shoot from the hip on this one, but there's a bunch of different things I wanted to talk about.

Having spent the semester working with music production software, I was surprised with how well the different components work together. It appears that from the beginning, the designers of music production software have kept this point in mind. When it comes to the higher-end products such as Reason and Logic Pro, the ability to run them through other programs sound engines is a huge advantage in music production. In my opinion, Logic is a fantastic program that pays incredible attention to all aspects of music production, and includes an extremely powerful group of synthesizers and samplers with which to create a vast array of instruments. Yet, Reason contains another extremely good set of instruments and the ability to have access to all of these within Logic is an incredibly powerful tool.

What I'm most impressed with is the judgment on the side of the software designers to allow such inter-connectivity between programs for the sake of music production. Beyond the example I have given above, other examples abound; take for example the proliferation of .rex files or as far as inter-connectivity is once again concerned, the ability of programs like Logic and Reason to synchronize with Ableton Live, one of the premier live electronic tools.

On another and completely unrelated note, I also wanted to comment on how impressed I was with the discussion of the trip-hop genre. Trip-hop was one of the genres we covered this semester that I had never really heard (or at least realized I had heard), and I was especially drawn to the Massive Attack body of work. I was able to see how it had partially influenced a lot of the Ratatat I listen to now. I loved the dark feeling of tension building as typified by the song "Angel" and how the drum beats conveyed a feeling of their own.

--X

Assignment 4

For this assignment I chose to create a song in the genre of trance. To start, I set the tempo to 137 BPM (the "magic number" for a dance song, since the average heart rate of someone at a club is roughly 137), and created several beats. The song opens with a kick drum and a slowly evolving pad building on an e minor triad. Shortly afterward, the four-to-the-floor pattern enters with a very analog style bass riff. A snare roll signals a change and the claps in the drum beat enter along with a synth pad and lead, in addition to a new bass riff (which is an entirely different bass track, using the "sub-bass" effect to create an extra deep resonance). Another snare roll signals a change, and only the kick drum and pad are present, which plays a different progression. Again, another snare roll signals a change back to the previous progression and the lead enters again for another eight bars. Suddenly, the four-to-the-floor pattern drops out and the original kick pattern returns accompanied by a new lead (which is an arrpegiated Malstrom slaved from Reason via ReWire). The drum pattern builds back up, and is accompanied by a new bass and synth pad arrangement. After a few more bars, only the kick drum and driving bass remain, setting the transition to a new song. I used compression widely throughout the song to try and get a good overall mix in which all the elements are able to be heard, and while certainly not perfect, I learned a lot in the process of messing around with compression. Additionally, I also realized one of the problems of composing trance music, which is the fact that it relies on very harmonically rich instruments which when layered on top of each other can compete for the same registers. To combat this, I applied some filters to block out some of the higher frequencies of the pads to create more listening room for the leads.

--X

Critique Electronique

For this blog post I chose to review Brendan's piece, a piece described as a 'techno-style remix of “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music”,' and it is a fine piece of work by Mr. Schlagel. What stands out most to me about this piece is Brendan's mastery of working with effects in reason. Immediately, I was struck by the fatness of the bass; it has a warm tone that is not available on any of the stock Subtractor bass settings. But there is hardly time to focus solely on this well-executed bass line before you're hit with Julie Andrews' eerie vocals, also the result of some effects expertise. By pitch-shifting the vocal samples and running them through the Unison effect module, Brendan creates a vocal track with an unearthly feel, evoking the Therimin type vibrato. Speaking of the vocals, I would be remiss to not mention the stellar job that Brendan does with the Dr. Rex sampler. I can tell by listening to his track the amount of time he put into programing the Dr. Rex, and I enjoyed his use of chromatic sampling to create a more complex melodic structure using the original melody of "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music." One small critique, however, is that I felt in one or two little instances, the timing of the samples was slightly off, but I believe that with a little more editing this could be easily fixed.

While Brendan's use of vocal samples is the focal point of this piece, it also contains some very good melodic synth and drum patterns as well. I loved the melodic line using the arpeggiator, especially since it added a nice "dancy" feel to the piece. I do believe, however, that the drum pattern, while solid, could have definitely used a little more "umph." The drums sounded pretty filtered, which in-turn made the bass kick sound a little on the weak side. I think a deeper sound from the bass could have really given the song some drive. I also liked how Brendan modulated in the middle of the song, which really mixed it up a bit, since even a minute on the same few chords can get pretty boring.

Overall, I was very impressed with Brendan's work; it demonstrates a very firm grasp of nearly all aspects of Reason and provides a cool, new take on a classic song. Well done Brendan.

-Listen to Brendan's piece here: http://pantiltshift.wordpress.com/

--X

Assignment #3

For Assignment #3, which required making a one-minute song in reason, I chose to do one in the House genre. The song itself contains two distinct parts, which are structured somewhat similarly. In the first part, the song opens with a drum beat which has undergone a filter sweep via automation. I configured the MIDI controller so as to be able to bypass the filter unit once the sweep had been completed. Following the introduction of the drums, the song adds a bass line and piano chord progression with reverb, and finally a melodic synth line which is routed through a phaser.

In the second part of the song, the drums change abruptly into a kick-heavy pattern, which after several measures adds hand claps. Additionally, two similar melodic lines constructed on the Malstrom synth, using the patch titled "Malpeggiator," which provides a modified arpeggiator effect come in. On top of this, a synth pad is also introduced, by means of a filter sweep done via automation.

White People Going Crazy: The Parliament Funkadelic Story

This past Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the Parliament Funkadelic concert at Toad's Place, and I can honestly say it was one of the top concerts I have ever attended, as evidenced by the amount of white people going crazy:

(Actual Concert Photo)

Led by funk legend and the "grandfather of hip-hop" George Clinton (far right in the tye-dye), the Parliament ensemble delivered, going well-beyond my expectations.

Parliament was brought up in class discussing our discussion of the Moog Synthesizers, featured prominently on their seminal works of the 1970s, notably hits such as "Flashlight" and "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Of the Sucker)." During the concert, I was positioned opposite the two keyboard players, but as far as I could tell, they appeared to be using mostly Roland model keyboards and synths. In any case, though, they provided the musical backbone of the P-Funk set.

The set lasted roughly 3 hours, and began with a run through over their classic P-Funk hits, and later moved onto a more free-form jam style format, which focused heavily on the guitarists. Later in the set, George Clinton also showcased his influence on hip-hop using some freestyle lyricism. Overall, the concert was an amazing example on how much a classic band has influenced the artists of today, all while managing to stay true to their roots while keeping an eye to the future at the same time.

--X

Dance Loops