Mashup time

So I made a mashup of a few songs I really liked. I was listening to the song "No Going Back" by Gui Boratto and I really liked the lyrics so I used a remix of that song which has a better build up than the original. The drop is not really much of a drop so I combined it with another song with a lot of bass: "Toulouse" by Nicky Romero. Finally I thought at times it needs more action and I really haven't really dabbled in combining three songs at a time so I put some lyrics to "I'm in Miami Bitch" by LMFAO to add some spice. In the end I really like how it turned out, more so than my other mashups, although the volume should be adjusted at times. I would be excited to play it at the dance but it would have to go under the radar because of some profane language. I could have changed it but some files were accidentally deleted so I can't even edit it now which is frustrating.

About that drop I promised a while ago, I'm still waiting on Dada Life to release that track. As far as my track goes, I'll probably find some time to work on it this weekend if I'm not working on the WISE presentation and essays the whole time. Finally, I'm still waiting to get my flash drive back with the sample of songs I gave to the principal so he can look them over, it's getting close to the dance so I'm pretty nervous.

Run Through (Sly #4 by BOI CHIPS)

As you can see, I start off by placing a few simple clips in the beginning. I usually start with a beat in the beginning so that in the case I decide to DJ with the song I can easily match the beats with the song before it and fade into this one. After that I sort of feel my way through. In this case I decided to go beat-less shortly after the beginning of the song and build up to another beat. After I make a simple layout which works pretty well and play with effects as I go. I then listen to the songs and focus on what I can improve, this allows me to isolate certain sounds without distraction. From here I edit parts individually until it sounds decent. For my song, A New Look, I spent a LOT of time doing this, unfortunately it's hard to appreciate all that work unless you really focus on those parts. For me it's easy listening to certain sounds because I made those sounds and I know what to look for. When I listen to other songs I almost never listen for those things and honestly it's almost frustrating because I'll never really know what my songs sound like when other people first here them.

About this song. It's a basic house song and I have to say, it sounds pretty bad without bass friendly speakers or headphones. Again, using what I said before about the differences between what I can hear and what others can, it bugs me that the bass doesn't always work in this song but I like the parts that are decently groovy. Overall, it's a decent song, whether or not it's a Blacklight dance worthy song is another matter.

Katy Perry Bootleg

Finally a remix. It's not the most conventional remix. Essentially what it is is an a capella of E.T. by Katy Perry and the rest of the song I made after. It's seriously some of my favorite work despite its edginess. I have to say, Jon and I listen to some crazy electro, and this pays tribute to that. I based the bass of artists like Clouds and various French artists. What I did mostly on this one was that I played with the effects of the bass track a lot while it was playing. I recorded myself playing with the effects as it played, and it gets pretty crazy, especially at 4:30. One thing I'd really like to mess with is the kick, so while this one is definitely going to played at the dance, I'd like the final to be slightly tweaked (maybe the equalizer of the bass-line: the frequency of the sound). I'll have another look at the source I found yesterday which explains how to make sounds sound more professional and see what I can do.
I also have pictures!

Overall view of the mix.

The instrument Jon's envious of.

The amount of sync at 4:30. 

Because it was recorded live, it's a little messy

Mashup Time

For the dance I'm thinking of playing some of my own mashups but there are a few problems. It's hard actually finding acapella's and you have to find songs with near to correct pitches. This one is a problem child due to how hard it is finding acapella's of U2 on the internet and how at times the pitch's don't match at all. But I think over all it works well, also I hope it works well because I lost some files and I can't change anything on Ableton without complication. More mashups and possibly a remix to come!

Also on Tuesday, me and my mentor and possibly Jon are meeting with the principal for logistics and other important stuff relating to the dance a month from now. What I should really think about now as well is finding more sources on music making, DJing, etc...

Back again, again.

So after a few days I'm back posting due to technical issues and my computer being very slow for some reason. Hopefully it won't be slow for the Black Light dance, which will be held on june 7th in the Black Box theater at IHS from 7:30 to 9:00, but me and jon are hoping to extend the amount of time it'll run for. It will most likely actually run for two hours but we absolutely have more than enough energy and songs to play for longer. Fingers crossed.



In other news, I made another song and this time, it's a little basic but thats sort of what I was going for. Still, only the songs I feel are very refined will be played live and I think this one could use some work. I'm currently making another song which is a remix of Katy Perry (oddly enough), but it should be pretty cool and slightly weird. It'll definitely have roots from French electro.

After Break

It's been a long week with not a lot of time to work on my project but I did have time to make this mashup between Jay Z and Bootblack (explicit language). Played a lot with DJing software and worked out some logistics with Jon. I think now we need to decide the playlist and get on with practicing together and at maybe some mock venue with all the necessary equipment. It should be good to meet with my mentor tomorrow to get myself back on track and moving along. It also might be when we hear if we are officially DJing the schools Blacklight dance at the end of the year.

Nice.

Ableton Live, a DAW

So a lor of things have happened recently and I've been too busy to post much but there's a lot to say.

I met with my mentor and we spoke more about how the chances of DJ-ing one of my schools dances at the end of the year is going and it looks good. I said I was planning on working more on DJ-ing, hooking up my controller to DJ-ing software and using samples and effects.

I shadowed Jon at Cabaret Night last week where he was the one controlling the sound board. I learned about amps and speakers which will be essential to the dance at the end of the year. I really should've taken a picture.

Other than that, I've made a pretty ridiculous song in about half an hour. It's not necessarily good as much as entertaining at times. Something you make with a group of friends and laugh at. This I have a picture of (above) and it's available for DOWNLOAD! AW YEAHH!

Good stuff.

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.

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.

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.

Building up, bringin' it down

So after some initial playing around with the software, I discovered several techniques to better emulate techno. I realized that many things were missing from some past songs including white noise and better beats. I tried to make my drums sound like the one's in my favorite songs but it just wasn't happening. So I found some youtube videos which were very helpful:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ff0AcOsH3E&feature=related (beats)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI5IDZw8G88 (white noise)

The first was an easy alternative to making my beats sound as good. It basically tells you how to take a beat and extract its sounds. 

The second is a very quick tutorial on making white noise build up commonly found in techno.

This song was made very quickly thanks to these videos. Its essentially me just playing around with these things, and a kickin' bassline. Although I got the drum sounds from One Last Ride by John Dahlbäck, the beat pattern is my own.

The First of Many

The first of many. I played around a bit with some software (Ableton Live) and came up with this. It's simple and unedited so some work needs to be done, especially with effects. I think the genre would be experimental but I have no idea.