Yeah, sex really is overrated, but that isn't the point of this post. First of all, it's been a while since I last posted. Actually I stopped when classes started, but to be fair that's not what's been keeping me from posting.
I've been writing stuff for my new band, been working on another possible band and another possible solo project. I'll post about all of this when the time comes. In addition I have also been invited by Step Back! (good friends of mine) to temp for their bass player in two Spanish gigs (Leon and Vigo). And man, did we rock...
For now let's get back to this blog. This song has been waiting to be posted since May:
Nothing really experimental here: just some drums and steel pans I recorded with Reason. And the real reason why I wrote this song was to try to record in the bathroom. I'm not kidding, I always loved the natural reverb when I was singing in the shower :p so I decided to record both the vocals and the cavaquinho solo there.
And, yes, about the cavaquinho, it's my new toy. My girlfriend gave it to me on my birthday (yeah, I know, she's the best :D).
Almost forgot, I created a myspace account and I'll be posting the songs there. Just another way to get to people...
Once again, I'd love to listen (read) your comments, so please don't hold back!
7.7.09
7.1.09
Pure Data
I'm just writing this post to tell you I recently downloaded Pure Data. It's supposed to be a kind of open-source Max from the same creator, Miller Puckette, although still in development. If this open source software follows the behavior of other open source versions of famous software it will someday be even better than Max itself thanks to all the developers around the world.
Right now I'm still learning the basics and let me tell you that it is pretty hard to find decent tutorials on the internet. If you know any website with step by step tutorials or code examples I'd be most thankful.
Please share anything useful in the comments!
Right now I'm still learning the basics and let me tell you that it is pretty hard to find decent tutorials on the internet. If you know any website with step by step tutorials or code examples I'd be most thankful.
Please share anything useful in the comments!
2.1.09
After-Xmas Carroll
First of all, hope you had a good holiday. Keeping the spirit of the season, I wrote this little song the day after Christmas. Every musician should write his own xmas song at one point, so here's mine:
Cold, uh? For the song itself, nothing fancy. That synth that's pretending to be the bass, the one that sounds like tv static, is one of my all time favorites. Added some nice 8bit sounding melody too, plus a synth-choir with some overdrive to make the ending more powerful. I was aiming for that contrast between cold-minimal verse with just vocals and beat to a simple-yet-epic-sounding ending with the choir.
This is a song that really asked for a decent voice. I dream one day I will have a group of musicians under my command muhahaHAHAHAHAHAah *gasp* sorry..
Everything except the voice was done on Reason 4. If you are a musician, have a mac and never tried Reason, you don't know what you're missing. Then you ask, "don't you need a midi keyboard to play with Reason?", well, you do, unless you use MidiKeys to turn your normal computer keys into a virtual keyboard. I also have seen many people using Max/MSP to the same effect (as well as all the other wonderful things Max/MSP does), but I'm yet to get my hands on that piece of software.
Actually, the response time of Reason to my input is not perfect: it's a split second since I press the key until the sound actually comes out. This means that if I have something really really fast to play, the sound will not keep up. I believe this is a limitation of MidiKeys, not Reason. I am yet to try a real midi keyboard to see if it solves the problem.
The "recording" process went something like this: I chose some midi synths as my instruments, played some lines with my keyboard then edited the midi to give the notes an absolutely perfect timing. When all the loops where done, I muted all of them except one at a time and exported the result as an ".aif".
Garageband was still used as the tracker, that is, where I put the sound loops exported from Reason in order. I also recorded the voice there. Why did I use Garageband if Reason can be used as a tracker as well? Simplicity: I just love how rearranging recorded pieces feels so easy on Garageband. Plus, in the former is way easier to record and control the effects to add on the recording.
And that's all for now. Hope you have a great 2009!
Cold, uh? For the song itself, nothing fancy. That synth that's pretending to be the bass, the one that sounds like tv static, is one of my all time favorites. Added some nice 8bit sounding melody too, plus a synth-choir with some overdrive to make the ending more powerful. I was aiming for that contrast between cold-minimal verse with just vocals and beat to a simple-yet-epic-sounding ending with the choir.
This is a song that really asked for a decent voice. I dream one day I will have a group of musicians under my command muhahaHAHAHAHAHAah *gasp* sorry..
Everything except the voice was done on Reason 4. If you are a musician, have a mac and never tried Reason, you don't know what you're missing. Then you ask, "don't you need a midi keyboard to play with Reason?", well, you do, unless you use MidiKeys to turn your normal computer keys into a virtual keyboard. I also have seen many people using Max/MSP to the same effect (as well as all the other wonderful things Max/MSP does), but I'm yet to get my hands on that piece of software.
Actually, the response time of Reason to my input is not perfect: it's a split second since I press the key until the sound actually comes out. This means that if I have something really really fast to play, the sound will not keep up. I believe this is a limitation of MidiKeys, not Reason. I am yet to try a real midi keyboard to see if it solves the problem.
The "recording" process went something like this: I chose some midi synths as my instruments, played some lines with my keyboard then edited the midi to give the notes an absolutely perfect timing. When all the loops where done, I muted all of them except one at a time and exported the result as an ".aif".
Garageband was still used as the tracker, that is, where I put the sound loops exported from Reason in order. I also recorded the voice there. Why did I use Garageband if Reason can be used as a tracker as well? Simplicity: I just love how rearranging recorded pieces feels so easy on Garageband. Plus, in the former is way easier to record and control the effects to add on the recording.
And that's all for now. Hope you have a great 2009!
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