Project 7- Day 2

Today was only our second day on project two. It's been a long time since we've had this class, though, so I had forgotten exactly where I was going with my project. I think this is just going to end up being the worst project I've done, because I'm not enjoying it at all. Designing synths is not fun. At all. I feel like I'm getting too hung up on finding a sound I like. I don't think that's ever going to happen. I decided to leave my synth as it was last time for this class (see last post), and just work on creating the rest of the song. I got really nothing done though. I got two patterns that were okay using the riff machine, but I'm not crazy about either of them. I set them up in (I think- I'm typing this at home, so I'm not sure I remember right) an ABBA pattern. I played it through, and didn't like it. I don't like my synth, and therefore I don't like my song. But I'm just so frustrated with the whole synth design situation that I don't really care at the moment. Anyway, my next attempt was drums. Mistake. Nothing (nothing!) I tried worked. I wanted a pretty basic beat, because my synth riffs are complex-ish. I couldn't hear kick drums no matter what I did with them, and tom drums sounded off and odd with the synth. Pre-created loops were all too complex/ they sounded awful anyway. By this time, I was running out of class time because I needed to write my post. It takes me a long time to write a decent post (which is why I'm continuing this at home), so the whole 'post at the end of class' deal doesn't work out for me. If I want to write a good post, I hardly work on my actual piece. If I actually manage to get absorbed in working on my song, I end up with 5 minutes to post. That's what happened for the first post of this project, which is why it is so short and (for the most part) nonsensical. I feel rushed in music tech in general lately. I feel like everyone else finishes projects before me, and the projects themselves come too quickly. My last project especially felt rushed, and is therefore (in my opinion)my worst one. Maybe I just don't like working with sytrus? I never used it in my projects before 6, I didn't even know it existed. I can tell that it's capable of cool-ness, but I just don't seem to have the enthusiasm for it. Basically, I'm unhappy with my last project and this one, and I don't know what to do about it.

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.