Project 7- Day 1

Today was our first day of working on project 7 and I got next to nothing accomplished. I spent the class experimenting with synths in Sytrus. I ended up with one in the beginning of class that I kind of liked, but I hated how harsh it sounded. I want one that flows nicely but I'm beginning to think that's not possible. Every one I make is either too bouncy and "elastic" or it just has a plain annoying sound to it. So basically, I spent my class making a ton of synths that were absolutely terrible.They all sounded too harsh and twangy. The one I liked (which I proceeded to mess up) has a kind of smooth sound, nut not nearly as much as I wanted to. I started with a sine wave, but altered it quite a bit. What I have right now has a shape at about 17%, tension at about -5, skew at about 35%, and I left the other 3 alone. That's all in operator 1. My operator 2 kind of ruins the other synth, so I'm going to take it out. I think one of my problems with the other attempts I made was making them too complicated. I complicated pitch envelope along with a complicated volume envelope used in two different operators sounds.. bad. Unless you really know what you're doing and exactly what alterations every single slider makes, which I don't at this point. Therefore, I'm not going to talk about my operator 2, because I'm just going to take it out. I made a volume envelope that was too complicated in operator 1, so I ended up changing it to just a gradual upward slope. I can never really hear the volume envelope settings anyway, so it doesn't really concern me right now. My filter is set at LP 3. For effects, I have a chorus level set at 9 right now, but I'll probably change that. I have the delay set at 6.00 and the volume at about 15%, and that's the only part of my synth that really sounds good at this point. I'm beginning to think that I just don't like synths. Maybe I just don't like making them. I didn't really enjoy today, mostly because I spent the whole time listening to unpleasant sounds.

Sytrus Project

I finished my sytrus project today! I decided that I liked the bass I added last week, so I left it. Basically, my loop consists of two different melodies with one of my synth sounds in the required AABA pattern, and my other synth (the saw one) plays continuously in the background making the "chirping" sounds. I Used a basic bass sound and used the ghost channels to match them up. I also put in two basic drum patterns, and some drum roll-ish things and some hits. I put some reverb on both of these. This project was put together pretty simply, and the only thing I really had trouble with was the bass. I think the bass came out okay in the end though. The whole project seemed to come together without my usual issues.Because of the required format and the fact that we had to use the synth sounds, there wasn't much decision making involved, which might have been good for me. I'm not sure. Anyway, here's my project.

Project 6- Day 2

Today I mostly worked on getting some bass into my piece. I started off by using a plain bass sound, and used the ghost channels to match it up with my synth parts. In the beginning of the class I used long sustained notes that matched exactly with the notes of my synth. This wasn't really working, so Mr. Rabuse helped me find a new bass sound from one of the channels. I don't remember which one at the moment. I knew I liked the sound, but the notes were fading out strangely when I used long sustained notes. Mr. Rabuse suggested shorter notes that were an octave lower then the notes of the synth. I really like how this sounds, and I finished putting these in. I think my bass is just about done now, so the whole piece just needs some fine tuning.

Project 6- Day One

I feel like I got a lot accomplished today. For the last two classes we've been working on creating our own synth sounds. Today I made my final decisions about which patterns to use that the riff machine created. I also created a pattern using kick drums and put some reverb on them. I put in some bass but I need to change it because it doesn't really match with my synth pattern. I also put in some hits and they sound pretty good. So far it sounds pretty good.

Project 5- The Vocoder

So, I was really basically just running out of time with this project. I decided to just add some bass, even if I wasn't completely happy with it. I chose a bass sound and used a riff machine to make a pattern to put in the background. I "threw the dice" quite a few times until I came up with one that wasn't so busy that it would overthrow the rest of the piece, but not too simple either. I had tried simple sustained bass in the background and it wasn't working. In my opinion, this doesn't really work either. For one thing, it clashes with my drums. It also seems to choppy to really gel the whole song together, which is what I wanted my bass part to do. It also sounds a little louder than it did in FL Studio, which I'm not terribly happy about. Even with all of that considered, though, it sounds better than it did without the bass. What I was looking for was some really strong "glue", and I ended up with scotch tape holding my piece together. Scotch tape is obviously better than nothing. This piece was really difficult for me, mostly because I got too wrapped up in something that wasn't working. I got too far along to start over, so I had to make do with what I had started. Anyway, this is how I created my song, because I feel like I can do better posts when I do it all like this, rather than in little pieces after working each day. I started with getting my voice from freesound. This is probably where I started to lose enthusiasm for this project, because I couldn't find anything I liked. Eventually I settled the creepy guy asking if you wanted a cup of tea. It amused me. Kind of. Anyway, I downloaded other tea-like sounds while I was there (stirring sound, pouring water). Then I started with sytrus, and made up my own little melody. I was very proud of myself, it was the first time I didn't rely on the chop tool. This is the melody you hear for most of the song, along with the bass. I decided this wasn't right for the intro, though, so I used The sound of the tea pouring and a simple little melody (orionstring). I added the vocals I had created using the vocoder where I thought they would sound good. I though this was hard because they sounded like I had placed them randomly no matter where I put them. Then I added in a couple other little details (the stirring sound, a couple bell sounds that you can't really hear...)because it sounded pretty monotonous (or maybe I just have a short attention span). I kept creating drum patterns that didn't work with my piece, until I finally decided to use tom drums. They had a deep enough sound to complement my sytrus sound. They sounded good originally, but now that I've added the bass they don't really flow the way I wanted them to. Anyway, I added a fade in at the beginning and a fade out at the end. Eventually, I ended up with this.

Project 5 Day 3

Today was really frustrating. I got my instruments into the places I wanted them, and I thought it sounded okay but not nearly the way I wanted it it. I felt like it was too choppy. Also I just felt like it needed something else (or maybe to start over...). Today was technically our last day to work on this and I don't like how it sounds. I need some kind of sustained pitch but I can't find one I like with the rest of my piece. I tried boobass and that didn't work. I also tried a bunch of pad sounds but none of them really work either. I'm going to see if I can find a way to fix it before I post it. So far, this is probably one of my least favorite projects. I like using the vocals, but I wish I made the rest of my loop completely different.

Project 5- Day 2

Today I feel like I got a lot accomplished. I added in a few more pieces of vocals. I took parts of my whole sentence and used them by themselves, using different sounds on them with vocodex. I think I have all of the voices that I want in my piece now. I also added in a sound of a cup of tea being stirred which I think will sound really cool once I find the right place to put it. I added in some sustained bass notes but I think I'm going to either redo them or take them out next class because they sound awful!

Vocoder Project Day 1

Today I started building the loop around my vocoder voice. To start I added in a sound of tea pouring as my intro, which I got from freesound. Then I started in with the actual music. I added in a melody with the Styrus tool. I also put in a quieter base melody in the background. I put in drums, but I haven't gotten the pattern exactly the way I want it yet. I put my kick drums through the vocoder, and they sound cool that way. I haven't found other drum sounds I like, though. Basically everything needs a lot of shifting around.

Project 4- Automation

Once again, the hardest part of this project for me was coming up with the inspiration that would actually get it started. I had a goal that for this project, my loop would have a slower drum beat and just be more "tame" overall. I finally got going after I picked a base sound and a chopped melody that I liked. I ended up picking 4 chopped melodies that sounded good one after the other and using the bass sound for them. The bass sound doesn't really sound like bass, actually, but it is. It ends up sounding more like a piano in my opinion. After I did this, I transposed each of the 4 melodies down a level and had them play in the same order as the first ones. This made up the bare bones of my project. After this I added in the drums. My drum patterns alternate. The one that plays second has 2 snares and a tambourine hit that sound at the same time, which I put reverb on. I chose to have another bass sound fade into the beginning (using an automation clip) as an intro. Also, Mr. Rabuse helped me add an autogun sound over the top of my chopped melody. That's the two notes you hear repeating throughout the loop. I kind of wish I had made them quieter, though, so that you could hear the bass better. I put a phaser on both the bass and the autogun. Finally, also with the help of Mr. Rabuse, I used an automation clip on the sound "fieldchorus" to make the volume go up and down quickly. This plays through a majority of my loop. Finally, I made the whole song fade out at the end using the automation. This is something I wish I knew how to do sooner, because I think my second project would have benefited from it. All in all, my loop reminds me of those movies where 2 people see each other from a distance and start running towards each other in slow-mo. I picture two people running across a field towards each other, with the camera switching back and forth between them. This probably seems pretty strange, but hey, it's what I see.

Project 3- Effects

So, this was definitely my favorite project so far this year. I feel like I understand FL Studio more with each project. As always, the hardest part of this project for me was just getting it started. In every project I've done so far, I've basically wasted a whole class period trying out different sounds and waiting for inspiration to strike. When I find a sound I like, I still end up starting over because I can't find other sounds that will work well with it. Eventually, I came across the sound you hear in the very beginning of my piece, the kind of creepy, haunted house-ish sounding (to me, anyway) sound called "tollings". When I heard that I knew I wanted it in my loop. To start, I put it in the beginning, and that's where it ended up staying. I decided to go for a creepy, Halloweenish sound throughout the loop. I came up with a few drum patterns, trying to go for deeper sounds (footsteps?). I also tried making them more complex than the ones in my last project. The new clone selected thing came in handy for these drum patterns. I put reverb on the drums because I still wanted each beat to be clear (delay didn't work so well for that) but I felt they needed something. I don't know how to explain why except that it sounded good. I tried a bunch of effects before deciding on that. Originally, I had only the really fast tom beats to transition from the drums to adding in the bass. Later Mr. Rabuse showed me how to reverse the crash sound, which made it all the better. It sort of sounds like a sharp intake of breath, but I'm probably the only one that thinks so. Because the crash sounded pretty good, I went and added in some high hat into my drum patterns. I put a delay on them to make them less clear and give them more of a ringing sound. The bass sound is just a chopped melody (called Superstition- fits in well with the Halloween feel I was trying to get ;) ) transposed a couple times. It sounded a bit flat and boring initially; that's where the phaser came in. The phaser fixed the boring aspect and just made it sound better overall. At around 20 seconds or so some new instruments come in. At the beginning I had just an orchestral string sound come in and use the same melody as the bass. The strings have the same phaser effect on them. This sounded okay and I was ready to call it finished. Then Mr. Rabuse suggested that I add a melody over the top of it. He added the airy- kind of sound (I'm awful at identifying instruments) with the two notes that you hear come into the melody over top of it. This also has a phaser effect. Mr. Rabuse also tried out the whistling sound but didn't put it in. I did that later. I wasn't sure on it at first, and I'm actually still not sure I like it. I meant for it to sound ghost-ish but maybe it just sounds silly. I'm not sure. I put the phaser effect on the whistler also to give it more of a shaky, eerie sound.

Project 2

When I first started this project, I used Slayer. After working with the other instruments I wanted to use, though, I found that it didn't work. I didn't like the way the Slayer sounded with my drums, etc. So, I decided to look for a different sustained pitch that I liked. In the browser I found a sound called Orionstring that I liked a lot. I thought it sounded really good after using the chop tool, because the noted flowed together really well. As for form, I started with just the Orionstring and transposed it a couple of times. I started with just the melody playing and slowly added in drums and other percussion instruments a few at a time in different patterns until I got to a point where I thought there were enough. I didn't want to overwhelm the Orionstring. Throughout this I alternated between the different transposed Orionstring tunes (I had 3). In the middle I cut out the Orionstring altogether for a measure or two to keep it from getting too monotonous and to bring out the drum pattern. After this I went back to the same drum loop and slowly pulled out the drums in the same order I had put them in, eventually ending up with the Orionstring on its own again. Finally, I added wind chimes where I thought the project needed a little something more. I think that my kick drums are a little too loud again. That always seems to happen. They sound good in FLStudio but once I export and upload it to Divshare they end up too loud. I don't know why. I enjoyed this project a lot more than the first project, because I understood what I was doing more.

Project 1- Drum Loop

Hey Everybody.
When I first started experimenting in FLStudio, I didn't think any of my drum patterns sounded good at all. After a while I found out that adding in different sounds that I liked more than the default sounds fixed this. In this drum loop, I tried to use sounds that blended together well. I ended up leaning more towards "jungle" sounds like the tom drums and wood instrument beats, because those were my favorites. I especially tried to do this in the middle pattern, with a little more variation in the other two. I ended up liking the way it sounded all in all before I uploaded it. If I were going to re-upload, though, there are some things I would fix.
a) All of my fills basically sound the same, thanks to the rattle sound . Oops.
b) After listening to it on my blog, it occurred to me that the kick drums are maybe a bit too loud. I'm not sure if that's with my home speakers, though.

Test

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