Friday 17th december

Sweet child synth pop btw..

Today was more of a "tweaking" lesson, where i just changed certain areas of the song and sounds. I completely re-did what i originally had for bass, which was to slowly increase the filter frequency and then i thought it sounded too modern so instead of increasing the filter frequency, i did away with the filter and simply increased the volume from teh master mixer. I also re did what the bass plays, in the first 4 bars or so, i have the bass playing single, long held notes and the more rapid bass comes in after the master volume has increased.

I got rid of what i called a trance pluck and instead used a lead that i later used in a breakdown section, i used a ddl digital delay line to make the "pluck" fill more space and it sounds effective.

I also changed a few drums for build ups but nothing OTT.

i have the main riff of oh sweet child playing on its own after my own intro and then the other sounds build up around it using master volume, not filters. Filters are not a part of synth pop.

Next lesson i plan on creating a new synth and trying to incorperate the "verse" but completely "remix" it and try to make it fit into my into, i've now realised that i've given myself extra homework. Great.

Mondays lessonn... the 5th maybe?

Okay, to start off with i shall explain the main lead and other random synths i have made for my piece.

It all starts with thor, initialising the patch, i then add 3 analogue oscillatorz and depending on whether i want it to be a main lead, i shall detune the oscillators against each other to widen the sound up and make it sound "phatter" and give it a nice lead-like feel. I don't detune the oscillators if i want the sound to be bassy, instead i turn the attack up to give it a few milliseconds before the sound starts to give it a "pumping" effect.
The other sounds are too complicated to explain but i have their ...whatever file type they are, they are saved in combinators so i can just load them up and take a look on the final write up.

Coming up with ideas for the piece: i started by writing in the actual notes for the riff of o sweet child of mine, then noticing a nice pattern, i deleted where appropriate and replaced the notes, creating a small riff which i used after my intro. To build the sound up, i played around with the notes and literally cut the riff that i had done in half so that i could double it in the next section to feel like the piece is building, if that sounded complicated, here are screen shots:

This is the "cut" part, to build tension for the next part to come
Then here is the "full part" with a nice drum beat with the bass drum whacked up on full bass on the eq to block out most other low end frequencies and thus making the beat "bounce" anyway here's the picture:

This is a nice riff using a musical technique called retro grade at the end, retrograde simply means inverting the pattern or whatever.

For things like the delay lead which i call my trance pluck, i simply repeated my pattern above but a third higher and with some variation so that the notes do not always appear on the same beat, to distinguish between them.

Weds 24th

Havent made any synths today, just recorded in the chorus completely, finished off the drums by adding the random electro bongos, i also started work on the breakdown part.

weds 17th

Today i added the vocal line, i edited an "epic poly" sound, i used a mastering suite and edited the oscillators and decay, sustain and release & frequency.

Started to lay down a drum track for the chorus, 4 to the floor and hi hats, need to find out what the other sounds are in the drum kit, i also started to add pad, just need to edit it.

Monday 15th hallelujaaa

Today i added in different parts to the drum beat, adding an extra bass kick and some off beat hi hats to add to the texture.
As an introduction i strangely added what should be the chorus but it fits perfectly and i'm leaving it at that, it isn't the full chorus though.
I also decided to double the offbeat guitar plucks to make the music move more and feel like a beat rather than something dragging itself along.
I need to research more into reggae and more ethnic instruments and how i am going to fit the verse in as i've decided to write the piece in 4/4

12th nov

Today i messed around with instrument tracks, tweaking certain areas to match the original as closely as i can. I made the drum more punchy and bassy by use of a mastering suite and the mixers bass booster. i recorded in the synth breakdown part very early and have just left that on one side, i have added in a copy of the "brick" an octave lower and shall soon see whether it fits, i also added another oscillator, synced it as well.

Weds 3rd

Today i listened to a load of reggae, including Bob Marley and ub40.

I tried a few techniques and i still cannot understand the drum beat, but i figured out that a chord every off beat makes for a very reggae sounding piece, also a low bass guitar accenting the chords and moving chord sequences helps a lot. I now need to find more sounds, more textures and more ideas to play with.

Todays work

Started today by creating the breakdown synth used later in the song, i initialised the patch on an instance of thor and then created the sound from there, i understand that it is too early to be thinking about the synth at this stage, but i had an idea in my head and believe it sounds perfect so that is saved for later.

Next on my list was that i created the hand clap and compressed it to make it sound punchier, like in the original song, and wrote the notes in as for the first 4 "blocks" on the sequencer, the hand clap is the only "drum" instrument playing.

i quickly produced a simple wah-like synth so i could compare all the different parts added together, i only played around with a preset, changing the drive, frequency and oscillator octaves.

I started to create "synth 1" which i tried to recreate myself my initialising a thor and adding all wavetable oscillators and playing around, i believe i got reasonably far, i just need to EQ or fine tune the sound some more.

lastly today i created the bass sound which was relatively simple, an initialised thor and 2 analog oscillators,  turn down the frequency and then automate the frequency to get the "reverse" effect.

This is how my sequencer looks at this point:

And the rack:

friday 22nd

Brought up a piano sound on reason and played along to individual parts while the stimulus song was being played.

Found out, well it's a hunch, but i believe that the score in wrong with the chorus. When the words: "colourless colour" are sung, the score wishes you to play 4 notes to the three/two syllable word colourless and to me it doesn't sound right. When i played it without the addition of the extra D which the score wanted me to do, it sounded perfect so...

Todays work

Today i've simply been learning how to play part of laroux - colourless colour, i played it in time with the original piece playing just to help perfect timing.

I also recorded in the basic backing parts just so i could experiment with the drums as i cannot read tab.

What i've done

Apart from being lyrics to the easiest expert song on guitar hero world tour, this blog is about what i've done in music tech over the weeks...

I've attempted to recreate pet shop boys shopping and was successful apart from not matching sounds up, so i need to work on editing sounds more. I've started to recreate abba's lay all your love on me in an ambient style and i've really enjoyed the creativity and freedom in comparison to the strict creating of shopping.

Music Tech

Here's a post (: