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[tittyalchemy]

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[lucasmis2014]

Entry #26 - A Bid Farewell to MiS

Posted 26/9/14

Finally, after the lengthy duration of this course, my MiS has drawn to a close and is ready assessment. Over these months I have come a long way, learning how to use a DAW program and carry that knowledge onto any other besides Studio One, and also learn to be a better songwriter and interpreter of music styles.

With my application of musicianship skills and learnt theory over the previous years at Darwin High School, taking Extension Music, to Stage 1 Music, to now the climax of Stage 2 Music was great experience that is reflected in my discussion of songs and styles. 

The process of mixing and writing also taught not to be a perfectionist and that writing music takes time and thought into each process, a valuable lesson learnt over the last few months as the due date closed in. I also learnt to be more communicable to others in wanting feedback for my work, ideas, demos and drafts, which I gracefully received and worked on the the recent weeks. 

I found this course to be very relevant to my future interests in being a musician, audio engineer, songwriter and mixer, teaching me the basics to the sophisticated details of producing music for others to enjoy and interpret themselves. I effectively reflected and evaluated my progressions over the year, stating my growing knowledge and understanding of the styles I took interest in, personally applying relevance from my own sources, and communicating with others as a means of confidence and constructive criticism. 

The people who have heard my tracks, being Luke Kohler, Jordan Gibbs and John Byrne so far all enjoy different songs more than others. This makes me happy to see that there is no definable selectivity and that all of my tracks mean something different to those who listen, wether it is the funky vibes from track one, or the epilogue soundscape of track 4. 

This photoshopped picture, courtesy of fellow MiS classmate John Byrne, portrays the euphoria and happiness of finishing this Music Individual Study and it will be the cover for the final product CD case.

This experience was one to remember and learn from and it is with a sigh of relief and feeling of accomplishment that I can now say my Music Individual Study and time as a working Grade 12 student in Stage 2 Music at Darwin High School, has come to an end.

[lucasmis2014]

Entry #25 - Completed Songs; A look back on perceived Styles

Posted 25/9/14

With my final product ready to be burned onto a disc and placed into a folder for a hard copy, this blog is almost ready to draw to a close for now it is time to reflect on my tracks and analyse them in reference to the styles I pursued in them from early in the MiS.

Track 1 (Get The Funk in Here):

I'm proud to say how well this tracked turned out, using the twang settings on my amp to increase the treble in audio and layer several delay, wah and volume effects along with Luke's studio programmed drumming, I have been able to make a funky piece inspired by funk over the decades. This track stayed true to my influences and perceived styles in my own taste with the tremolo strumming in the first few seconds similar to "Get On Top" by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, to the controlled strumming and wah control in reference to contemporary jazz incorporated into funk. This continues with the influence of walking basslines present in general funk, all complimented by the low drive distortion that gave a fuzzy solo with the tremolo floating arm bridge like classic Jimi Hendrix, providing bends and harmonisation. The song was constantly moving forward in guitar parts besides the initial wah riff returning to towards the end of the song, showcasing similarities to "Get On Top" and more modern funk. I also took reference to playing barred and select note minor jazz chords to sensibly resolve into a G major bar chord when transitioning into a solo, bridge and the end of the song whilst switching into different time meters. 

Track 2 (Ki Kangakki):

Staying true to the pentatonic mode and techniques used by YouTube user RokinGhostTown with the taiko drum setting and asian cymbal samples found by Luke and I, this track went great in my opinion. I was able to finger pick, pick strum and rake the pick along the tight tension right above the bridge of the guitar for this song, demonstrating my skills. With the base chord being an open C#/E 7th Sharp 9th, Suspended 4th and Sharp 5th, the Pentatonic "Yo" scale could melodically be played by an electric guitar with activated delay beside it. The synth before the introduction of raked strumming, consistent drums and percussion rattles is simply reversed audio by right clicking the track and selecting "reverse audio". This feature allowed a contemporary sound of my influence to be introduced and make the song truly my own along with the knocking on the wood of the acoustic to reference the various amounts of percussion in Traditional Japanese music. This song turned out the best in my opinion and I couldn't have done it without the help of this video I listen to as a study method to put me into a working mindset. Not all tracks should be listened in the video to understand the traditional and contemporary styles of Japanese music. 

Track 3 (Better This Way):

This track was probably the second hardest to mix, considering the extended time it for, relating to the long choruses and progressive lead guitar alongside the percussive and palm-muted open string heavy distorted guitar. I got to demonstrate my fade-in intro finished with a natural harmonic as I talked about previously with my volume pedal and delay knob on the amp while using the the saturated bass drops for A and C# I got off a YouTube link discussed before. I asked Luke to program a second drum kick into the high hat pedal, creating double kicks, a tool often heard in syncopation with the guitars in modern heavy music. It can be heard in the song that I played palm-muted triplets on the low open A E A strings alongside the triplets of bass kicks. I believe this track is similar to modern heavy music like "Afterglow" by In Hearts Wake due to tuning and chord progression but furthermore similar to the song I initially referenced this to, being "Via" by Volumes with similarities in extended choruses and pentatonic lead guitar. As primarily heard in 1:30, I took inspiration from modern heavy music known as a "breakdown", a reduction in tempo to increase the groove and perceived heaviness of a song, accompanied by programmed bass drops. I tracked the bass guitar in drop A playing bass notes and sometimes 5th above the  C# to B to A progression in the clean guitar parts. This lead guitar is heard to be switching between minor and major scales in the key of B, using the technique of rapid pull-offs and hammer-ons and tremolo picking while the rhythm plays a step down in A. The "AM" Preset on my amp came to good use before using more bass drops and now, double tracked guitars (as I stated in the naming of the songs entry) at 4:45 in the song. This song was also had multiple electric acoustic interludes to build up the song, to which Luke and I figured to use the "Savannah" preset in the last outro of clean guitar to signify the end of the melody and rhythm. 

Track 4 (Phantasmagoria):

This track was my most difficult to mix but I feel I succeeded greatly in creating a delayed reversed audio synth with the "Private Place" guitar preset on the amp, showing style relatable to the previously referenced band, Being As An Ocean. Using EQ and Compressors on the reversed synths with lowered bass, higher mid and lowered treble, it gave a unique sound to the audio files and had made it a soundscape that surrounds the listener, a factor I wanted present in this track as it is a conceptual track. The base chord of the song is an F minor descending in a minor chord scale with lead guitar doing the same but in single notes more freely and fluently sweeping up and down the scales on higher strings with delay and the use of the volume swells with the pedal and slight wah sound effects.

If I could change anything about these tracks it would be the time I allowed myself to mixing them and that I would dedicate much more time to making the songs sound tighter between the audio files in each mix. All together I am very happy with how the tracks turned out and how well my first time as a learning audio mixer and interpreter of musical styles into my own influence had turned out. 

[lucasmis2014]

Entry #24 - Drum Tracking and Mixing

Posted 24/9/14

After the rush of the performance assessments and the MiS due date coming to a close, Today I have managed to be able to access the Roland Electric Drum Kit for Luke and I to track drums along my songs.

I had two leads to plug in for stereo tracking but found mono sounded much better and focused as opposed to the echo the stereo produced when both inputs were used. Here is a picture of the AudioBox 22VSL and the stereo input setting to which I removed the right input to track mono drums instead.

To rid of the clipping and getting maximum output from the kit at full volume, the bottom dial on the left represents the optimum volume I found for tracking drums at 0 decibels in the program with max volume being produced from the kit control panel.

For tracking Track 1 and 3 Luke I had prompted Luke to use the "Studio" preset on the kit sound bank which came back with a great direct sound in mono especially when put through the EQ and Compressor effects. For track 2 and 4 we had gone to choose a preset called "Savannah" which had interesting gong and cymbals showing influence of Traditional Taiko drumming from Traditional Japanese music in the far East. 

Luke's drumming to these songs is impeccable and I am mixing the full tracks tonight and tomorrow in preparation for handing the blog in and the final product and I couldn't be happier with the drums we both worked on in this short time frame. 

Here is the preset EQ and Compressor effect I'll be using for all drums in the final mix with a slight decrease in volume and increase in bass, slight decrease in mids and a reasonable reduction in the soundscape between the mids and the slightly increased treble.

[lucasmis2014]

Entry #23 - Learning How to Burn to CD-R

Originally 25/8/14

While completing these tracks I found it useful if I learnt how to burn to an audio disc for the final product. This link to an apple support forum helped me figure out how to easily burn any audio to a disc

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38263

I had gone to Woolworth's shopping centre earlier today to see if I could find any multiple CD-R disc packs that I could burn to as samples. I was able to find a 10 pack TDK CD-R pack which I brought home and followed the steps on the apple forum by making a playlist of the demo tracks in itunes. 

I simply put the first blank disc in the disc drive and the option to burn the audio to the disc was given when right clicking on the playlist. To see if the audio came out well I tested in the CD 

[lucasmis2014]

Entry #21 - Naming the Songs and Changes that Influenced them

Posted 29/7/14

I have felt the need to name my songs as it delivers the initial influence in the perceived styles.

Track 1 - I named track one Get The Funk In Here simply due to due to it being an "in your face" funky, melodic song that sports positive vibes and keep tradition to classic funk song names such as "Get the funk out of my face" by Brothers Johnson and modern funk song names like "Get On Top" by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, all prompting something to the listener with the title.

Track 2 - For this track I have translated wood string into Japanese, resulted in the words Ki Kangakki, a suitable title for my track that shows direct influence of sounds from Asian stringed instruments and percussion.

Track 3 - This track was named Better This Way because during quad tracking of the song, I had realised that double tracking was actually more beneficial to my desired sound and way less time consuming, hence naming the track because it was better that way. It also would be a song title that I would expect to be suited to the style of modern heavy music when the titles aren't a noun. 

Track 4 - The final track was named easily for me and called Phantasmagoria as I made the song to be a melodic soundscape that may emotionally induce imagination and images that connect to that of a dream and or deeper thought as the word defines.