For this project we had to "remix" a song. But there really wasnt much to start with so I wouldnt necessarily call it "remixing". Anyways, I basically put the instrumental part together around the supplied vocals. Dont give me alot of credit, most of the synths are just editted versions of presets. And most of the effects I used (vocoder, chorus, distortion, etc.) are basically left on the default settings. Almost the entire song is consisting of the same 3 notes. These notes are just used in different ways with different instuments to make up the riffs. This song doesnt have much to it really. I got some sounds I liked so I just stuck to them. There was a setting of Fruity Kick supplied with the vocals which I kept, I used a synth preset called Depthcore, an instument (string) clip called MIXO_C2(L) which I randomly put through the chopper and it sounded fine as a not to centerpeice to the song. Also I tried out a synth prest called Designer Drug on basically all the riffs I already had, and I kept a few, just to add some varitation. I did something in Sytrus, I cant really remember what, but I got that saw wave sort of sound played every beat beat for many parts of the song (Its pretty simple and kinda misplaced, but the song is completely empty without it). Mr. Rabuse gave me some pointers and I did some re-remixing and got this. He had alot of helpful advice on the setup of the song, stuff you tend to forget about while working on it. There really isnt much else to say about it. Enjoy.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
NIN Remix
For this project we were supposed to remix some Kanye West song, but I did not because... I dont like Kanye West. I remixed My Violent Heart by Nine Inch Nails instead. This project was a difficult mess. Remixing a song that I know very well proved difficult because I always wanted to place each part with the other parts it went with in the original song. Remixing a song in general was difficult. I had stuff cut and pasted all over the place, the final piece consuming 23 lines of the playlist.
There isnt a whole lot to say about the remix really. Just alot of cut, paste, and added effects. There was one long bass note in the original song that I had to recreate in sytrus because I somehow broke it and saved it... So I made a new one, its not great, but I like it. It has the same effect as the original. When I played it along with the drums (especially towards the end of the remix) the bass overpowered a bit, slowing down the drums temporarily and when the bass note ends the drums suddenly speed up to catch up with themselves, at least thats how i would describe it. I noticed afterwards that it does this slightly in the original song, but mine has more of the effect since the bass has more power. I added a ton of effects to everything. Theres either distortion, delay, or the vocoder on basically everything. As with almost all my projects, the vocoder gives you this crumbling noise in the background when its not in use. Luckily its not very apparent this time. The drum parts at times seem to be a little... not on beat? But i dont know of any way you could fix that, its just been to cut up to change much.
Overall I think it sounds cool, but gets boring at points, and doesnt keep the same feel throughout the song. Thats hard to avoid though since the original song is also like this. It switches from very quiet to very loud a few times throughout. But I hope you like it anyways. Finally, I would like to thank Trent Reznor and anyone else who helped write the song for the sick parts used here and the brilliant idea of letting me download the multilayer tracks from your website. Ill probably upload my remix to there eventually.
There isnt a whole lot to say about the remix really. Just alot of cut, paste, and added effects. There was one long bass note in the original song that I had to recreate in sytrus because I somehow broke it and saved it... So I made a new one, its not great, but I like it. It has the same effect as the original. When I played it along with the drums (especially towards the end of the remix) the bass overpowered a bit, slowing down the drums temporarily and when the bass note ends the drums suddenly speed up to catch up with themselves, at least thats how i would describe it. I noticed afterwards that it does this slightly in the original song, but mine has more of the effect since the bass has more power. I added a ton of effects to everything. Theres either distortion, delay, or the vocoder on basically everything. As with almost all my projects, the vocoder gives you this crumbling noise in the background when its not in use. Luckily its not very apparent this time. The drum parts at times seem to be a little... not on beat? But i dont know of any way you could fix that, its just been to cut up to change much.
Overall I think it sounds cool, but gets boring at points, and doesnt keep the same feel throughout the song. Thats hard to avoid though since the original song is also like this. It switches from very quiet to very loud a few times throughout. But I hope you like it anyways. Finally, I would like to thank Trent Reznor and anyone else who helped write the song for the sick parts used here and the brilliant idea of letting me download the multilayer tracks from your website. Ill probably upload my remix to there eventually.
Friday, January 22, 2010
My New Ringtone...
I do not currently have a cell phone, I smashed it into a million pieces, enough said. I do not like cell phones, and when I used to have one, It was always on silent. If I missed a call and it was important... LEAVE A MESSAGE!!! Anyways I had to make one for music tech. It was easy. Mostly because its intended to be very short and just there. I used Sytrus and a kick drum. I used the electric guitar preset on sytrus and put some effect on it, I cant remember what. The kick drum goes off on every four steps. It has Fruity bass boost, delay bank, and fast dist. on it. The guitar (sytrus synth) riff was just a chord I found with the chop tool (I know nothing about chords, they scare me). I chopped that up manually and kind of did something sort of like arpeggiating??? (im not good with musical terms) Anyways thats it really. Reminds me of Psyclon Nine quite a bit. Ive posted it below since I dont have a cell phone...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Theyre doing alot of renovating at the school...
I want a new work station in music tech. Who do I need to talk to about this?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Project 7 [more synth]
So far Ive put together a drum loop. This is much slower than I usually have. I definitely like it, but I might have to change it since I havent even considered making the synth parts yet. The drums so far consist of a snare drum, a slight cymbal hit, a hat, and a kick drum with the high end sound cut off a bit to make it more apparent. I was having trouble distinguishing the kick drum from the snare. The drums kind of progress slowly, changing slightly every 16 beats. Again, I like it but it was probably a bad idea to make a drum loop without any real direction or idea for the song.
I have two synths in the making. One I just left with the default sound for now and sent it through the riff machine. Its a long progression thats generally some very high notes and very low notes. The other synth is a simple square wave. I set the panning to move from the right ear, sustain at center, and then continue down to the left. The pitch also is set to quickly rise, lower, rise, sustain, then lower. It sounds pretty cool, but it definately restricts possibilities. I have copied the lower notes from the other riff and this synth will play those. The lower notes on the default sound were so apparent and boring that I knew they must be accompanied. Ive changed the default synth to a triangle wave and played with the shape slider to get basically the same sound just sharper and more apparent at the higher pitch. I also put a delay effect on it and played with those sliders but all I can remember is it is on the ping-pong setting. So far it sounds pretty cool, very industrial which I Love, but I havent a clue as to how to continue. Sounds fine on repeat, but that wont get a very good grade, will it? Im editing the A Pattern by taking the initial progression teh riff machine ised and chopping that a different way to get something new. Its working nicely so far but it isnt finished and i dont know how the two patterns will fit together.
Today i finished the vocoder project so I didnt get much done on this one. Odd coincidence, Mr. Rabuse decided to show us this thing to do with harmonics and multiple tones being played at once that we could use to get a much nicer sound with our synths. The funny thing is that I was just playing around with that very thing the other night on the demo version at my house. Except I was attempting to make the most obnoxious noise I could make, not the warmest or richest sound. He told us to make a downward slope in the OSC in one of the operators (this made a trumpet like sound), so I made an upward slope on the other end of the OSC and got a noise that reminds me of a computer issuing alerts or something. So I have this playing a high pitched quick riff, I have no idea if Ill actually use it but it might be a cool intro or outro. Or maybe I could just turn the noise all the way up and make static (pathetic cheap way out but fun).
Ive basically been stuff all period. Ive been looking for where to go with this project. Ive tried two things, not sure which im going ot stick with. Ive used slayer and the grand piano preset in sytrus. I did nothing yet to the grad piano but im sure I will if I stick with it. With the slayer I moved the pickup all the way to the neck, put on the tube amp and dry cabinet settings with no effects. I used the dampening knob to make it more of a palm muted sound. I figure im either doing a fast piano melody or a deep guitar background sort of thing. No idea which yet. I ran both through the riff machine a million times to try to get ideas. Im thinking about having an AAB(C?)pattern for the song. Ive got mostly silence for the C part, and the B part is undecided yet (guitar or piano).
Right off the bat today I made a simple piano part. This part continues right where the original piano part left of, but it only plays the second time through. Its a very simple part, but its sounds very nice where it is. This is going to be that "C" part on the second run through of the pattern. Ive taken the same piano part and edited it slightly and have it running as the first part "C", but through the guitar (slayer as mentioned earlier). I put an automtaion for the slayers volume on just to fade in and out (it over lays the surrounding parts a bit). Ive added two sustained notes at the very end (from slayer) to play with the drums. The feedback kicks in a little and then the song cuts. I added the fruity chorus effect to the slayer (in all occurrences). I like the sound, its like a mix between a synthesizer and guitar, and I like that (yes, I know a synthesizer is supposed to sound like other instruments, for the most part). Im just doing minor changes now, done with this for the most part. Ive played with the volume on everything alot so everything can be heard better throughout the entire song.
Today I just did more minor changes. I got nicer headphones, so it doesnt sound as nice (just different). Im done with it though. Hopefully its not as bad as I hear it being right now.
I have two synths in the making. One I just left with the default sound for now and sent it through the riff machine. Its a long progression thats generally some very high notes and very low notes. The other synth is a simple square wave. I set the panning to move from the right ear, sustain at center, and then continue down to the left. The pitch also is set to quickly rise, lower, rise, sustain, then lower. It sounds pretty cool, but it definately restricts possibilities. I have copied the lower notes from the other riff and this synth will play those. The lower notes on the default sound were so apparent and boring that I knew they must be accompanied. Ive changed the default synth to a triangle wave and played with the shape slider to get basically the same sound just sharper and more apparent at the higher pitch. I also put a delay effect on it and played with those sliders but all I can remember is it is on the ping-pong setting. So far it sounds pretty cool, very industrial which I Love, but I havent a clue as to how to continue. Sounds fine on repeat, but that wont get a very good grade, will it? Im editing the A Pattern by taking the initial progression teh riff machine ised and chopping that a different way to get something new. Its working nicely so far but it isnt finished and i dont know how the two patterns will fit together.
Today i finished the vocoder project so I didnt get much done on this one. Odd coincidence, Mr. Rabuse decided to show us this thing to do with harmonics and multiple tones being played at once that we could use to get a much nicer sound with our synths. The funny thing is that I was just playing around with that very thing the other night on the demo version at my house. Except I was attempting to make the most obnoxious noise I could make, not the warmest or richest sound. He told us to make a downward slope in the OSC in one of the operators (this made a trumpet like sound), so I made an upward slope on the other end of the OSC and got a noise that reminds me of a computer issuing alerts or something. So I have this playing a high pitched quick riff, I have no idea if Ill actually use it but it might be a cool intro or outro. Or maybe I could just turn the noise all the way up and make static (pathetic cheap way out but fun).
Ive basically been stuff all period. Ive been looking for where to go with this project. Ive tried two things, not sure which im going ot stick with. Ive used slayer and the grand piano preset in sytrus. I did nothing yet to the grad piano but im sure I will if I stick with it. With the slayer I moved the pickup all the way to the neck, put on the tube amp and dry cabinet settings with no effects. I used the dampening knob to make it more of a palm muted sound. I figure im either doing a fast piano melody or a deep guitar background sort of thing. No idea which yet. I ran both through the riff machine a million times to try to get ideas. Im thinking about having an AAB(C?)pattern for the song. Ive got mostly silence for the C part, and the B part is undecided yet (guitar or piano).
Right off the bat today I made a simple piano part. This part continues right where the original piano part left of, but it only plays the second time through. Its a very simple part, but its sounds very nice where it is. This is going to be that "C" part on the second run through of the pattern. Ive taken the same piano part and edited it slightly and have it running as the first part "C", but through the guitar (slayer as mentioned earlier). I put an automtaion for the slayers volume on just to fade in and out (it over lays the surrounding parts a bit). Ive added two sustained notes at the very end (from slayer) to play with the drums. The feedback kicks in a little and then the song cuts. I added the fruity chorus effect to the slayer (in all occurrences). I like the sound, its like a mix between a synthesizer and guitar, and I like that (yes, I know a synthesizer is supposed to sound like other instruments, for the most part). Im just doing minor changes now, done with this for the most part. Ive played with the volume on everything alot so everything can be heard better throughout the entire song.
Today I just did more minor changes. I got nicer headphones, so it doesnt sound as nice (just different). Im done with it though. Hopefully its not as bad as I hear it being right now.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sytrus/Riff Machine
All I started today was playing with Sytrus and coming up with "my sound". I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I navigated through all the little switches and shaped up a cool sound. Its kind of space-y and has a delay. I really like the mid and low pitches but the high pitched notes remind me of video game music so I'm trying to stay away from that. Since it has the delay on it I’m planning on doing short notes spaced a good distance apart to utilize the delay. I’m kind of imaging watching the stars glimmer in an intense way, each shine being this sound, at an almost random pitch. If I need to (and I will) I can do something like the guitar solo in some Muse songs and a few other riffs by other various guitarists. I’m thinking if (when) I need to speed things up I will do some fast transposing riff with random "tapping" of the high notes. I’m sure that will be nice. But, I’m still stuck working on the vocoder project, so hopefully I can finish that up and get on to this project.
Still I have not had the chance to work on the vocoder project. I didn’t like that project anyways. This is much more fun. I’ve got two or three riffs from the riff machine saved using the synth sounds from the Sytrus. I feel like it will be pretty easy to put them together. I need a bass line for this. The drums are simple and something else is needed. I feel if I get that done all ill have to do next is put the pieces together and export. I’ve already got alot of rough automations and effects and short transitions in mind and experimented with but not set in stone. I feel like I never have this class and when I do it is for only 15 minutes. I don’t have much else to say with this, feel its going good, but still have to do the vocoder project so I'll be busy.
Today was pretty productive I would say. I added in a bass line that is ran through the vocoder a little (I turned down the effect to avoid too much fuzz). It matches with the kick drum very well but transposes with the synth riff from the Sytrus. I repeated the A-A-B-A pattern again but with distortion on the main synth sound and the bass. The distortion on the synth fades in and then holds while the drums start back up. Then I put the little intro riff in again at the end, but with distortion and thats all I got. I’ve just got some tweaking left I think. I’ve changed the very beginning from fading in volume wise, I added in a filter shift. I added in a preset synth sound from Sytrus and put a few long (crunchy?) notes in towards the beginning to help with the transitions. I don’t know if those will stay for the final piece though. I am suprised to say i dont have much influence in this project. Just what comes to me by playing random notes on the keyboard with the synth sounds selected.
Today i finished this project (hopefully). I mostly made a few small changes. Mostly small timing changes. I changed the vocoder effect on the bass to . I also added "fruity fast dist." to both custom synth sounds and the second Boobass channel (which barely does anything through the song). I have the second Boobass playing the bass line of the A pattern deeper in te mix of the B pattern. I didnt feel the two patterns fit together nicely so I kind of cheated. I also added kick drums to go with the main bass line in the B pattern. I put a flanger effect on the bass, a small but nice effect. I edited the snare drum pattern i had slightly. Its a bit more apparent at the very beginning and the change doesnt make a big impact on the rest of the song. Im hoping that everything is in this post somewhere... I have alot of unused automations and channels laying around in the file so its hard to tell if I missed any details. Hope someone likes it...
Still I have not had the chance to work on the vocoder project. I didn’t like that project anyways. This is much more fun. I’ve got two or three riffs from the riff machine saved using the synth sounds from the Sytrus. I feel like it will be pretty easy to put them together. I need a bass line for this. The drums are simple and something else is needed. I feel if I get that done all ill have to do next is put the pieces together and export. I’ve already got alot of rough automations and effects and short transitions in mind and experimented with but not set in stone. I feel like I never have this class and when I do it is for only 15 minutes. I don’t have much else to say with this, feel its going good, but still have to do the vocoder project so I'll be busy.
Today was pretty productive I would say. I added in a bass line that is ran through the vocoder a little (I turned down the effect to avoid too much fuzz). It matches with the kick drum very well but transposes with the synth riff from the Sytrus. I repeated the A-A-B-A pattern again but with distortion on the main synth sound and the bass. The distortion on the synth fades in and then holds while the drums start back up. Then I put the little intro riff in again at the end, but with distortion and thats all I got. I’ve just got some tweaking left I think. I’ve changed the very beginning from fading in volume wise, I added in a filter shift. I added in a preset synth sound from Sytrus and put a few long (crunchy?) notes in towards the beginning to help with the transitions. I don’t know if those will stay for the final piece though. I am suprised to say i dont have much influence in this project. Just what comes to me by playing random notes on the keyboard with the synth sounds selected.
Today i finished this project (hopefully). I mostly made a few small changes. Mostly small timing changes. I changed the vocoder effect on the bass to . I also added "fruity fast dist." to both custom synth sounds and the second Boobass channel (which barely does anything through the song). I have the second Boobass playing the bass line of the A pattern deeper in te mix of the B pattern. I didnt feel the two patterns fit together nicely so I kind of cheated. I also added kick drums to go with the main bass line in the B pattern. I put a flanger effect on the bass, a small but nice effect. I edited the snare drum pattern i had slightly. Its a bit more apparent at the very beginning and the change doesnt make a big impact on the rest of the song. Im hoping that everything is in this post somewhere... I have alot of unused automations and channels laying around in the file so its hard to tell if I missed any details. Hope someone likes it...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Vocoder
For this project I need to take some sort of audio file and send it through the vocoder, and then fit that into a song. I have two audio files I cut from one of Winston Churchills first speeches as Prime Minister. Ive heard this speech a few other places and I just like it, I dont know why. It took forever to get a .wav file of it, I had to download it as an .MP3 at my house and use a program to convert it to .wav and then bring it to school. That was a good waste of my day. I ran those through two separate vocoders, since one line has a different tone to it and I tried to make them sound like the same line, but with a pause in between. I came up with a little piece using SimSynth and some drums. I would say that was influenced by NIN. I put the speech pieces in and Im planning on intensifying the patterns after Churchill says "heavy losses have been inflicted". When I put the speeches through the vocoder, I had a big problem. The vocoder had been set to produce a harsh effect, and then I started to get static throughout the song. So I had to set it to a gentler sound. Im hoping to use Sytrus like Mr. Rabuse mentioned to lay some long background notes ran through the vocoder in the more intense part of the song. Ill probably fade in some distorted note and then transpose a little.
I basically wasted my day today trying to move the song along and away from what I had already had. I had a nice pattern in SimSynth, but it would never fit into the song so I moved it into Slayer and edited it a little. The vocals are abour war so the song needs to be loud and crashing. Mr. Rabuse showed me how to modulate the X and Y parameters of the beginning snare drum beat which I Love, but Im having trouble recording the modulations so they automate during the song. I feel if I could get that down i would have no problem moving into a new part of the song. Im beginning to feel that I might be getting myself wrapped up in too many technical edits. Im hoping im able to finish this project without losing everything by just getting lost in confusion.
Well I feel like I havent worked on this project in like a month. I despise this project and I hope I can finish it up next class, whether I like the outcome or not. It needs to be done. I started the next project with Sytrus today, didnt even open this project...
Well I finally got around to finishing this off today. I gave up on recording the automation so I simply made a separate automation for the X and Y factors of the filter on the snare drum at the start. It builds up in pitch (bass is cut) then when the bass part and such comes in it quickly fades back and into the mix till you can barely hear it anymore. I also repeated pieces of the clips I found throughout the rest of the song and then it ends with "Inflicted, inflicted, inflicted...", not original but I like it and cant specifically name a song that does that off the top of my head so im not copying. Last I just messed around with the volume of some parts so you could at least hear everything. Glad I finally decided to finish this. Hope its okay.
I basically wasted my day today trying to move the song along and away from what I had already had. I had a nice pattern in SimSynth, but it would never fit into the song so I moved it into Slayer and edited it a little. The vocals are abour war so the song needs to be loud and crashing. Mr. Rabuse showed me how to modulate the X and Y parameters of the beginning snare drum beat which I Love, but Im having trouble recording the modulations so they automate during the song. I feel if I could get that down i would have no problem moving into a new part of the song. Im beginning to feel that I might be getting myself wrapped up in too many technical edits. Im hoping im able to finish this project without losing everything by just getting lost in confusion.
Well I feel like I havent worked on this project in like a month. I despise this project and I hope I can finish it up next class, whether I like the outcome or not. It needs to be done. I started the next project with Sytrus today, didnt even open this project...
Well I finally got around to finishing this off today. I gave up on recording the automation so I simply made a separate automation for the X and Y factors of the filter on the snare drum at the start. It builds up in pitch (bass is cut) then when the bass part and such comes in it quickly fades back and into the mix till you can barely hear it anymore. I also repeated pieces of the clips I found throughout the rest of the song and then it ends with "Inflicted, inflicted, inflicted...", not original but I like it and cant specifically name a song that does that off the top of my head so im not copying. Last I just messed around with the volume of some parts so you could at least hear everything. Glad I finally decided to finish this. Hope its okay.
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