Sylvia and I worked on our latest song today. We spent several hours on it and ran into a couple of glitches with Apple's GarageBand program. At one point, it changed 1 of our "audio" Regions (recorded Violin notes from our Korg Krome) into a "MIDI" Region (digital notes), which it cannot normally accomplish. We could see the converted Region and the notes but GarageBand wouldn't play them. (I tried to play them only because I was curious as to what that program did.)
It even added frequency modulation (a "wobble") to the Bassoon part I recorded a few days ago.
Since we have the latest version of GarageBand, I have a feeling the problem is in our 2009 Mac Mini computer… I'm thinking it's just not 100-percent compatible with Apple's latest Operating System — Mac OS X 10.11, "El Capitan". I did a quick, troubleshooting search on the Internet but found nothing similar. The song itself is almost finished. Besides doing the final Mix, I have to reinforce my recorded Vocals. I really don't want to re-record them. So I'm hoping I can simply bring-up the volume in the syllables that sound faint. I also need to search through the sounds in my electronic drums, in order to find a better Cymbal sound for 1 spot. The sound I used, from the Krome, is a typical, drumset Cymbal "crash" but the sound I'm hearing in my head is a Symphonic Cymbal "crash and choke" or, even better, a Cymbal being scraped with another Cymbal or a metal stick. (I only searched within the Krome today but I think there's a Cymbal "scape" sound in GarageBand.)
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After digging into our latest song, "N.O.A.T.Y.", yesterday, it finally started coming-together and is now able to maintain its own identity.
Since I knew Sylvia wanted this to be an "Orchestral" piece, there were a few guidelines I needed to stick to:
Anyway, this song is not quite done yet but it's a LOT further along than it was 2-days ago. Right now, unless something else changes, this song:
Although this song calls for "me" to sing it, I had a very difficult Time "figuring-out" and then "learning" the Vocal part. Typically, modern music stays within a 1-to 2-note jump, especially in Vocal melodies. This song has a 5-note jump in it! When I 1st Streamed it, there was a 6-note jump in the Vocal line but Sylvia changed that part of the melody but still left a 5-note jump. This song is a bit haunting and the melody will stay with you for a while… or maybe it's just because we've been working on it for about 2-weeks now… and listening to "parts" or "all" of it MANY, many times. As I mentioned before, I really wish we could share the songs on this album, as we finish them, with at least a few of you. It's so boring, exciting and frustrating to not be able to share the "music" part of this journey as Sylvia and I travel through the sonic landscape of this upcoming album.
Today, I was finally able to gather enough energy together, within myself, to work with Sylvia on the 1st song in our upcoming album.
I had forgotten that we already recorded some starting-thoughts for this song. So I turned on our "Korg Krome" keyboard, set it to Sylvia's favorite "Piano with Strings" sound and placed my fingers on the keys. I immediately found myself (with Sylvia's help, of course) playing a simple but nice-sounding chord-progression. Just before turning on the built-in Recorder, I used the "Tap Tempo" feature to indicate the speed of this song. When I did this, the keyboard showed a Tempo of "81 bpm" (Beats Per Minute). After recording this, I decided to quickly Save it, before I started modifying it. When I did, I thought: "I better save it as "Chaos 2", in case we already Saved a "Chaos 1"." Once it was safely Saved, I checked and, yes, there was a "Chaos 1" already Saved. So I Loaded it in and listened to it. Not only were the chords fairly close to what I had already played but the Tempo was… exactly "81" bpm! That was the "melodic", "sane" part. About a week or 2 ago, I had created a Patch (instrument sound) on our ARP 2600 for the "chaos" part. I listened to it but it never sounded right. So I cleared it and started from scratch. While creating that sound, I realized (or Sylvia made the suggestion) of just what that sound should be. So I cleared that Patch and started over… again. Needing yet 1 more modifying source, I also used 1 of the "Gate" Outs, on the BeatStep Pro, to trigger an extra rhythm, which is slightly random We also did a brief test with the vocal software, "Cyber Diva". Its "strangeness" may work along with a mirrored voice, in order to give that 1st song a cold, sad, empty, chaotic feel. We'll see. We still have to work-out a Drum part. |
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November 2018
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