funkmeisterk-blog

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Original Score: "Paving The Way"

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iJwJMmstgzM

For my final project I created an original score for my best friend's animation project, an introduction to a video called "Paving The Way: The Gift of the Blue Flame." Creating the score was an adventure, because he asked me last-minute.

I used Reaper to complete this project because it is my program of choice. The process was as follows:

First, I wrote down a list of visual and audio events from the ankmation, along with the time.

I then started brainstorming a general layout for the piece, and figuring out the tempos I would use.

I scored the piece in Finale 2012. Finale's video player did not work, annoyingly, so I had to go back and forth between Finale and VLC.

I opened Reaper and began playing piano parts and creating clean midi piano rolls.

I imported the string, english horn, and percussion parts. I played guitar parts through midi.

As I was putting these parts in, timing had to be greatly adjusted to match the video more closely. My greatest challenge in creating this was figuring out how to adjust the click track. I can change tempos, but I can't drag around individual beats (or at least I haben't figured out how yet).

Of course, I added reverb and did extensive pan and volume level adjustments, with volumes changing all throughout the piece.

Creating this score was a great pleasure - I hope to figure out how better to manage tempos in this program, so I can create better music in the future.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Best Song That You’ve Ever Heard

https://soundcloud.com/kechones/best-song-that-youve-ever-heard

This, the best song that you have ever heard or will ever hear (anywhere), is the song that I created on my mobile phone.

I created the song using Soundtrap mobile on my phone. This was not the best experience; my phone is pretty new (Galaxy S8+), but it had a hard time running the program once the tracks started piling up.

I performed midi drums, synths, clarinet, and strings, and you’d THINK that, it being soundtrap, you can edit the midi data as a piano roll. it seems that this is not the case, because I couldn’t find out how to access such a feature. The quantization feature mostly saved me, but it made me have to perform simpler parts. When I was first recording, I could also slow down the tempo, play, then speed it back up - but that stopped working once I added more tracks.

There was also a lot of recording lag that the program did not compensate for, and it was difficult to drag things once the program itself started running slowly. It would paste or move things to random locations without me asking it too - pretty frustrating!

Anyway, I sang some stuff and added it, overdubbing myself. Everything turned out ok.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Remix of Kaylin’s Song

https://soundcloud.com/kechones/ich-mache-musik-ja

I remixed Kaylin’s song, “A Beer, A Light And A Crappy Guitar,” in Reaper. While in the process of making the remix, it occurred to me that Ableton would do the job much more easily - but I was at home, so I powered on.

I took the sounds from Kaylin’s original song, chopped them up, and added various noise cancellation (eq), reverb, and pitch doubling filters. I layered them in specific ways to make beats. It was cumbersome because I needed a ton of layers.

I then pitch doubled my lowest voice to make a cool monk-sounding effect, and sang some German lyrics (”Music is my favorite action, I make music, yeah”) with harmonies added.

I added some panning to try to create a sense of space.

I really liked Kaylin’s song - her found sounds were excellent! That is why I remixed this track.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Sample Genealogy

This song is called “Hot Guacamole (feat. Doom)”. It can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoB_XLBh2TU

I’m not sure what’s going on in this song lyrically, but they lay down the introduction guitar groove from CCR’s “Down on the Corner”, and it’s a really jamming groove. Here’s the original song from CCR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clJb4zx0o1o

1. By adding a background beat and a bit of rhythm guitar, they have all they need for a really great background beat in this song, which continues through the whole track. It certainly makes the beat more interesting, because the drums themselves are a very simple beat. It is the entirety of the background texture, other than the aforementioned rhythm guitar.

2. This is a song by Pogo called “Murmurs of Middle Earth”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJfGnqKoXYY. It contains vocal sounds from “May it Be” by Enya, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7MLT4MmAK8. It also contains sounds and vocal clips from the Lord of the Rings films.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Is sampling without permission moral?

The question of whether sampling without permission is moral or not is complicated because there are many different uses for sampling. I feel more comfortable sampling a song or sound if it is meant to be recognizable to the user. This makes it feel like more of a reference, homage, or even parody/subversion.

However, if the sampling is merely meant to use someone else’s work to give your song a cool beat or effect without the listener knowing that you didn’t create or obtain that sound yourself, it is similar in my mind to not properly citing an essay. Therefore, in my mind, the most important distinction between morally acceptable sampling and morally questionable sampling lies in whether the sampling is done in a way that evokes another work in a recognizable way.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Song Remix: Destructoid 2: The Final Conflict?

Song link: https://soundcloud.com/kechones/destructoid-2-the-final-conflict

I revisited the first song that I made for music tech, and decided that I liked it enough to remix it and and improve it. First, I downloaded all of the track stems from Soundtrap so that I could import them into Reaper. Then, I set out making a variety of quality changes to the track. These included adjusting volumes and balance, applying panning to provide a sense of space, doing some EQ on various tracks, and putting tasteful reverb on all the tracks.

Next, I searched through YouTube for audio clips to put in the background of the song. All the links are listed below. The snippets I took included cat meow sound effects, explosion sound effects, a voice clip from “Mission Impossible,” a news reel, a video of people saying “What is that,” and a Buzzfeed video about “Cats Vs. Dogs.”

I am pretty happy with how the track came out – I think it not only sounds to be of better quality, but also keeps the listener’s attention better.

List of sound clip YouTube links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdYE3Wm6jX8 - Meowing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0tNw4jNp28 – Mission Impossible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVXsbSBtxG4 – News Reel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHjCgtQFoo0 – Explosions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKyKbkPMdRU – Cats Vs. Dogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77pepoBdSCg – What is that?

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Production Analysis: Michael Bolton – Go The Distance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu6ze1wmSxA 

I chose this song for two reasons. The first is that Hercules is a great movie with great music by composer Alan Menken and lyricist David Zippel. The second reason is that I find it to be an interesting combination of acoustic and synthetic sounds – it is very 90s for sure.

I spent a while trying to identify some specific synthesizer sounds, but could not identify a specific model of synthesizer used. The synths used for string and piano sounds are of good quality and I’m assuming that, this being recorded for Disney, the latest and greatest late 90’s synth modules were used.

The piano sound in the beginning is electronically synthesized, as are the horns. The timpani, cymbals, and drumset are recorded live, and there is an electronic guitar.

Bolton’s voice comes next and seems pretty unchanged, other than a healthy dose of 90s rock ballad reverb. The strings augmenting the piano are obviously synthesized. There is no obvious compression here, though I would assume a de-esser might have been used.

The next additions are a harp and oboe. They seem to have been performed live, by the sound of it. I judged that by the direction of the line and the dynamic contrast in the passages the oboist and harpist played.

There is a bassist playing in the background, and it sounds like a standard electric bass guitar being played, not like a synthesized bass.

The drumset doesn’t seem to have too much on it in terms of special effects, other than a similarly healthy dosage of 90s rock ballad reverb.

The trumpet playing in the background before the bridge may be real, but I doubt it. There is an electric guitar solo in the bridge, performed by a human being, not a computer. I do not know enough about guitar effects to say what is being applied, but the guitar is fairly clean.

Interestingly enough, Jeanie Tracy is listed as being a background vocalist in this song, but after several listenings, I still cannot find any background vocals. Other than reverb, I assume they recorded Bolton a few times for some of the higher belting to make it sound fuller, but it is done to sound like there is only one person singing.

The arranger is Jeremy Lubbock, the director is Louis Levin, the engineers are Bill Kinsely, Chris Tehis, Glen Marchese, Greg Gasperino, and Steve Milo, the song was mastered by Bob Ludwig and mixed by Mick Guzauski, the music is by Alan Menken and the lyrics are by David Zippel, Michael Bolton and Walter Afanasieff produced and arranged the song, Dana Jon Chapelle recorded it, and David Gleeson, Dave Reitzas, and John Kurlander were assistant recording engineers. It takes a lot of people to make a good-sounding song.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Realistic, Hyperrealistic, Surrealist

Realistic – “The Sound of Silence” (original version from Simon and Garfunkel’s “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4

Ah yes, this moody song. This song accurately represents the sound of people performing live in my opinion. I can imagine sitting in a room with nice reverb and listening to those two perform this song with just guitar and singing. I am sure that the reverb was added after the performance in studio, and that there were might have been a number of takes that they pulled from, but for the most part, but it was done subtly to sound like they were performing live.

Hyperrealistic – “Twilight” Live by ELO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYuVTTwTNKk

VS the album version from “Time”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U52sP25ynE

I classified this song as one that sounds like a “perfected or enhanced live recording”. Though the effects on the album version of this song are extensive, many of them could technically be done live, and some of them are done live in the live version also linked above. It is difficult to draw the line between “hyperrealistic” and “surreal” when there are so many live effects that can be added to performances nowadays, and snippets of recordings can be acceptably added to enhance live performances.

A lot of the singing is Jeff Lynne’s voice with specific compression and reverb/chorus effects added. Some of this would not be added in a live venue because of natural reverb provided by the location. Of course, in addition to one other background singer, Lynne often doubles his own voice in the background for harmonies, which cannot be done the same way live without more people.

There is gated reverb on the drums, there is some singing into a vocoder throughout the song, the synths are panned from left to right, volume levels are adjusted, and many synth sounds and analog recording snippets are added. While a lot of this can be added, it is easily discernable by listening to the live recording that it was too difficult for them to do a lot of it live.

Surrealist – “Yoda Yodel” by Pogo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb-rfS54qA8

I classified this song as “one that could not possibly have been recorded live using instruments”. I feel that the complicated panning, syncopation, and layering present in this song are too extensive to be performed live, even by a talented Ableton Live user (maybe I’m wrong). If we’re talking about a live performance with acoustic instruments, it’s *really* impossible to get the same effect.

This recording is built off of you recognizing sound clips from the Star Wars trilogy. Perhaps you could get live singers to say some of the spoken words, a talented singer to do Yoda’s laughing, a bass player, drummer, and horn player to cover the instrumentals, but even then, there is so much that would be missing from this recording. The snappy sound of the sound recordings starting would be gone. The panning, reverb, and volume adjustments would not be present in this current form. The drumming would not sound perfect enough to compete with electronic drumming. This can only successfully be an electronic composition.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Beethoven CD Sounds - Song 3 (Found Sound)

Here is the completed track on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kechones/beethoven-cd-sounds 

This song took a lot more time and work to make than I expected, and even then did not quite match my vision for the project.

The “Found Sound” that I used can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/kechones/various

It is a collection of various noises from my computer including fans, clicking, and sounds from my optical drive. I was intrigued by how rhythmic the sounds of the optical drive were, so I set out to capture that and make something cool. I slowed down the CD portion of the track greatly, then started working with that.

This is where I started running into trouble: there was so much background noise with fans and such, and the actual rhythmic noises were so quiet in comparison that it wasn’t musical. I used a frequency analyzer to figure out where most of the fan noise and such was, and then I reduced those frequencies. I also boosted some frequencies that made the rhythm a little more “biting”. I also used reverb to make things resonate a bit more. I quieted some sounds, such as the door opening and closing, and loudened some other sounds.

I found that some of the CD drive sounds had a bit of discernable pitch to them, so to make them louder I also used an effect that doubled octaves and such to create some harmony on those. This was also useful on some of the background noise that I incorporated into the song. When all was said and done, you can hear the various aspects of the piece, even though I had a very difficult time getting everything to an acceptable level.

The rhythm was also very off-beat, so I used stretch markers to get things into more of a groove, then chopped up the groove quite a bit.

The song needed something, so, the CD I put in having been a Beethoven CD, I found a midi transcription of Beethoven’s 14th Piano Sonata online, pitched it up to Eb minor (because there were Eb pitches in a lot of the CD sounds), and put it on an organ VST. I also added a bit more organ VST stuff.

This song was a challenge and didn’t come out as some groundbreaking, lifechanging song, but I had fun figuring out how to make it sound interesting.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Song Sketch - Peter and Sean

https://soundcloud.com/kechones/peter-and-sean-song-sketch

This is an instrumental, purely synthesized sketch for a song me and my friend Peter are working on. I created it in Reaper using VSTs, all free from the internet from various sites.

There is a ukelele VST that I enjoyed using, though the sound is a bit low-quality. The drumset and the choir sounds came from the sounds that come with my version of Finale notation software. I used a glockenspiel sound and a trumpet sound from a free soundfont library I got online. The bass came from a separate VST; I am still looking for good bass and guitar VSTs to use, since I do not play the guitar. The Organ was another VST I found online as I built my collection over time.

As this is an original song we are working on, all of the midi data was played by me using my keyboard.

The end result was pretty satisfying, although I think it would have sounded less synthy if it was augmented by singing and a few real instruments. I plan, in the future, on finishing this song and singing it with my friend Peter. One of the things I would like to work on the most is how to add small effects like reverb (I added some reverb to this one, but I have a difficult time making it tasteful), compression, etc. I feel like the little details make or break a song.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Groove Pizza

I made a simple groove, but can’t tell if it is Hip-Hoppish or Latinish. It is definitely not a rock beat or classical beat of any kind. It is more funky, physical, and engaging. Not even my grandma would try to clap on beats 1 and 3.

https://apps.musedlab.org/groovepizza/?source=pub&museid=rJMhZzlwf

Groove Pizza is a cool little app. I’m not sure if I prefer my beats to be represented in a circular manner like this, but the colors are really cool, and i like how you can view the angles of the shapes you create and such. Visually, it’s very interesting. I had my groove alternate between a Hip Hop drum set and a Techno drum set, because the color change was cool and I liked the slight timbre change. This is a very accessible way to get students creating beats quickly. Tools like this and Soundtrap (I see there is a link to Soundtrap in this app, so they might be affiliated) are great ways to make electronic musicmaking feel more accessible to people with little or no experience.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Destructoid, The Obnoxiously Adorable Kitten

https://soundcloud.com/kechones/destructoid-the-obnoxiously-adorable-kitten

Here is my newest composition, which I wrote about my cat Cloe when she was being particularly misbehaved.

I don’t generally use Soundtrap because I have and prefer Reaper, but Reaper doesn’t come with any loops, so I found myself on the website for this assignment.

I chose loops that I found particularly obnoxious first. Then I began looking for loops that went with that acoustically. While loops can usually be transposed or tuned a certain way, the chord progessions can keep them from going together properly.

Finally, I began looking for sounds at the end that freaked me out a bit and gave me a planetary, apocalyptic vibe. These are the strange lasery effects that go on at the end of the song.

I tried not to be too complex with my approach to structuring the song. I attempted to give each track room to breathe and develop (I didn’t want to be impatient), and give the listener time to enjoy the ways that different tracks went together.

I also found it important to give the listener time without the original drum track to give their ears a break. When I brought the beat back, I also put in the aforementioned lasery effect to shake things up.

I consider this to be a legitimate form of creativity as much as anything else. it takes some effort to make a song structure that helps you appreciate each track while also moving the song along.

[funkmeisterk-blog]

Bad Moon Rising: Song Analysis

“Bad Moon Rising” is a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival from 1969.

This is the song’s structure:

4 bar introduction

   Starts at 0:00

16 bar verse 1

   Starts at 0:05

8 bar chorus   

  Starts at 0:27

16 bar verse 2   

  Starts at 0:37

8 bar chorus   

  Starts at 0:59

16 bar instrumental   

  Starts at 1:09

16 bar verse 3   

  Starts at 1:31

8 bar chorus  

  Starts at 1:52

8 bar chorus again   

  Starts at 2:03

In terms of structure, it is a straightforward song from a time in our past that couldn’t have been less straightforward!

A link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmEGm-mraE

[funkmeisterk-blog]

A song I despise, and a song I love!

Let's start off with a song whose absolute terribleness will transcend the ages: Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime". Follow the link and prepare for your ears to bleed: https://youtu.be/V9BZDpni56Y. Why people continue to listen to and send McCartney royalties for such a lousy song completely eludes me. You know how music ALWAYS sounds crappy at the supermarket? Those tiny speakers in a large space result in a washed-out, synthetic sound. It's as if McCartney set out specifically to emulate that sound in order to convince people that Christmas should sound commercial, impersonal, and unloving. The synth used can only be described as abhorrent, especially in the parts of the song where it is multi-layered. This layering effect makes the instrumentals sound like a mistake, not like music; indeed, the entire song sounds like a mistake, or at least like a song idea that was never considered good enough to put in the effort to develop and make sound decent. The song serves to show us how even a talented musician like McCartney can slip up sometimes.

Rebecca Black's "Friday" was on the short-list for this post, but whereas I only think about how bad that song is every Friday, "Wonderful Christmastime" haunts me any day that I ponder the existence and meaning of terrible music. At least "Friday" is terrible in a fun way, like watching Tommy Wiseau's "The Room"; "Wonderful Christmastime" is as fun as biting hungrily into a piece of fruit and realizing it's rotten, while doing your taxes last-minute on your outdated, CPU-throttled Apple iPhone 4s on that horrible TurboTax app as you sit in a dented Smart Car in dead-stop traffic on a hot summer day. You have no air conditioning, and Pennsylvania drivers keep laughing at your car because a. it's a Smart Car and b. your bumper fell off last week. You just ran out of cellular service right before submitting the finished tax return and the app crashed. That is how I feel listening to this song.

The song I love for this post is not a Christmas song, but it is from the same decade. Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is an excellent song for many reasons. Feast your ears: https://youtu.be/H_a46WJ1viA. The song has beautiful lyrics with a comforting message. The song does not sound washed out like McCartney's song, though it uses that echoey, "large space" effect popular in this era. Art Garfunkel is one of the greatest singers ever, and Paul Simon harmonizes with him very well. In contrast to the unfinished sound of McCartney's song, Garfuunkel's attention to detail is immediately apparent. Everything about this song is better than McCartney's in every way.