New Material

So yesterday I decided to mess with Ableton and ended up with this tune instead of studying for a Physics test. It doesn't really sound like it's going anywhere, the effects kind of mess up one of the synths, and I don't really know what genre it would be considered but I decided to post it to be an intermediate update because I actually do like it for whatever reason. I'll keep working on it, see what I can do, and like the last one I'll post new editions of it as they come.

Update: Met with my mentor today and he definitely had some good ideas, like to make goals for the end game and such. But I think it's a very good change me and Jon will be DJing for the Senior Black light dance in the Black Box Theater which me and Jon then took a short field trip to and investigated its treasures: four bilt in speakers, many lights, and a sound setup that's seriously professional and very complicated. Things are looking good but to learn more about the technical aspect of putting on a show I'll be shadowing Jon at our school's Cabaret night because he's helping run the sound and he's possibly quite good at it.

Project Research: The 4 I's (from 3/26)

A lot of what I've been posting has been sources of inspiration like songs with good melodies, hypnotic synths, or kickin' bass-lines. Songs that I would try to copy in one way or another in a song that I would make. I think I need to post more insight on how to actually make these sounds and emulate them correctly and insight on how I'm progressing in my musical taste and how the playlist I'm going to organize for the dance is coming along. I need more information on the actual dance. I need to plan what the setup will be and possibly meet with Jon more often to see what updates he's found. I should post more frequently on my developments, such as updates to the songs I'm working on or the plan for the final venue so far. And finally, I need to post about the macro problems I'm having such as problems with not being able to see my mentor as often as I'd like, or know how to move along with planning the final venue.

A Lesson in Bangers

SHM.

Banger: A slang term for a good high-energy, pumping, dance music song, usually of the electro house genre. (Wikipedia)

I happened to post three journal entries which were supposed to be posted a while ago, but to cover that all that up I'm posting a few songs I've recently found (and wouldn't be surprised if Jon found).

Here are a lot of pop-esque electronic/ electro house songs: Artists like Alesso and Chris lake in the mix. It's about time I've done one of these posts considering the billion more songs I've found in the past few days thanks to soundowl.com.



Chris Lake with his stunning Sundown original. Classic Lake sound with his kickin bassline and female vocals. The Lazy Rich remix is also very good.



LMFAO is awesome, but an Alesso remix is just better period, except for the complete lack of lyrics.



This one's got a tiny bit more soul and thats always good. More house influences, especially the vocals.



And this one's one for the hell of it. Not really. The vocals sound alternative which fit really well, and as an Alesso remix, I'm forced to like it so there.

Past WISE project reflection (from 3/12ish)

The past WISE project I read was about a girl who was learning about DJing, much like me except solely on planning and running a dance, instead of also making her own music.

Some pros include how she talked to a lot of people including the business owner of a sound and lights company which eventually sponsored the dance she DJ'd at. She cooperated with unusual but reasonable places such as frats which have notorious parties and who occasionally have fraternity brothers DJing high school dances (which I'm considering at this point). She also showed more of her research which I need to do for the macro parts of my project.

Some cons include how she could have been a little more intricate about how to perform other than only writing about planning, as in, what she could be doing to the music as the music is playing (filters, reverb, volume control, etc). I think as a tech person, it'd be nice to see what software she used as to get some perspective on what others would use.

Overall, she was definitely more on top of her journal then I am, and had a lot of good information, but I feel like just planning the dance, and playing songs isn't really much. I'm going to use some her resources because they definitely seem reasonable, and hopefully have this thing done on time.

Current position (from 3/5)

I have just under ten entries at this point but the content in them is to me, very sufficient. They include music which I find, music which I've made and new resources. Together, these posts adequately show my progression  through the early stages of my project. Sometimes there just isn't enough time to post what I want to. Things happen fast, and only the most resilient ideas get posted, but I'll work on this more as the project continues.

I've had about 2 or 3 mentor meetings with Jon, my co-DJ, and they seemed to be helpful. But usually I'm very good alone with time management especially when it comes to something I like to do.

As far as time spent goes, when my music searching is counted in I easily spend over 8 hours a week on this project. About an hour a day of looking for music and listening/analyzing music, and playing with Ableton Live (music making software) on the weekends which adds up very quickly.

Barn Song (from 2/27ish)

How does the knew knowledge from watching Barn Song, a previous WISE project documentary on a another students journey to build a barn, effect our own project?

The documentary Barn Song was well not only well made, but had other intentions. The student building the barn is not only learning to build a barn, he is learning about his ability to have new experiences. Personally I liked the fact that in the end he didn't complete the barn. It shows that changes occur and problems happen but he works through it and ends up raising the barn even when the year is over and it's not required to. Through his journey, to raise the barn, he meets others who not only help him for free, but encourage him to complete the barn. These people come to his aid in the end, when he finally raises the barn, for no reason but to see him complete it. In some ways without the communication to other people, his project may not have been completed at all. The world seems like a harsh place, but people really do want to help. Big things in life don't happen alone.

Moving Nicely...

So I this is the most recent version of the most recent song I've been working on. Basically, I changed some of the effects, changed the beat, put the beat in at different places so it would be more active, added two extra minutes because it sounded good, raised the tempo, and changed the melody of the main synth at several parts. So not much. And at least listen to the last two minutes, thats where the real change is. For the next I'm definitely looking towards house music though (not to say I'm done with this one):



A serious club banger in my opinion, the vocals definitely help. As far as my playlist goes, and my music researching, I've been looking into more pop-esque dance music from artsist like Basto!, Bingo Players, Swedish House Mafia, Soundprank, Adrian Lux, John Dahlback, Cosmic Gate and Afrojack.

And finally as far as the performance aspect of all this goes, I've been informed that there is a possibility of performing at our senior Black light dance thanks to my mentor being heavily involved in activity planning for our senior class this year. Very exciting.

Old Garageband songs

I thought I might as well share old garageband songs. The following two I made last summer due to boredom, but they're definitely some of my favorite out of the Garageband bunch.

The first one is a little strange, and very simple, but I like the strings near the end despite their repetitive nature.



The second is a dance type tune with some (maybe too) hard hitting beats. But the bass-line is flattering nonetheless.



p.s. This is the second post on this day because the last was meant for before today.

Genre Focus: New 80's

The 80's.

I've been doing a lot of research on this genre and I have to say its actually awesome. I'm definitely going to try to incorporate some of it's sounds into my music in the future.


Download The Wombats Tokyo Vampires Wolves Grum Remix

Most of the good songs of this genre happen to be remixes of some of my favorite alternative artists which means awesome lyrics from Passion Pit, The Wombats, and many more. Grum works his magic on the one above. He seamlessly adds a groovy bass-line, crazy synths, and steady beat to already excellent English vocals.


Download Cassette Club 4 Me Bestrack Remix

This Cassette Club remix by Bestrack is another awesome example of 80's-esque synths, another groovin' bass-line, and nice vocals. Some artists to note: Bestrack, Cassette Club, Blue Satellite, Grum, Barretso, and the great Allen Walker. If some of these songs happen to land in my final mix I wont be surprised.

Back to Business

So I made a new song, like my teacher may have remembered I said I would. Anyways I really tried to do more background work, as in changing some effects; delays, filters, etc. Instead of just changing the volume (which is lame). Of course I happened to find some sounds I really liked including the synth lead which may be why it's just the same thing over and over again. This one I'm definitely planning to work on some more, maybe not right away, but I feel like making this was a positive thing. I feel closer to better emulating the pros, but I have very far to go. I'll continue to post this song as I work on it, hint: it just might have different beats next time.

Update

Seriously a happy song. I haven't made any real advances in music making recently and in these droughts I shall post music which catches my interest. They will act as sort of inspirations for songs to come. I'll look for good bass-lines, drums, synths, vocals, all that good stuff and hopefully at each point try to emulate whatever I find with Ableton. This is sort of a re-organization of my plans for the coming weeks in that I'll spend more time looking and copying, so that I can make those awesome sounds at some point, instead of making bad sounds forever. But seriously, this song is happy.