Archive for the Spoken Word category
Grant
December 3, 2015
Day 99: Thursday 3 Dec 2015
The Money Shot:
A Song.
The main element here is an arpeggio from iSem recorded to AudioShare, which I effected with Dedalus and DubFilter before adding both versions to Auria. Then I added the synth crashes using Addictive Synth and gave some lyrics to Trudi using iSpeech TTS, AltiSpace, AUFX:Space, and TwistedWave.
Grant
December 1, 2015
Day 97: Tuesday 1 Dec 2015
The Heels Of Time:
A Beatscape with Spoken Word/or a poem/or a lyric/or something.
Whew, that was a hard track to put together! I started as usual around 8.30 this morning and finally finished at 8.30 at night. Of course there was the usual interruptions, driving wife and son to work and school, washing clothes and dishes, cooking etc etc. But it took ages to come together and that’s for sure. I didn’t think I’d pull it off.
I used Poseidon, Fugue Machine, ElasticDrums, and AnalogKit along the way; but they all ended up being ditched before the final product.
What did end up getting used were Auria and AudioShare (of course), TwistedWave, and Sector. Along with Emo Chorus, Vandelay, Altispace, and Dedalus on the vocals.
Time for a lie down.
Grant
November 30, 2015
Day 96: Monday 30 Nov 2015
How Come It’s So Smokey In Here Ma?:
Genre unknown. From now on if it’s got drums and bass and notes and vocals and stuff…I’m just gonna call it a Song.
I started with Arpeggist driving iMini, MitoSynth, iFretless Bass, Animoog, and Animoog For iPhone, through MiMix in AudioBus into AudioShare. That’s a lot of apps to make one little bassline, but there you go. It actually ended up as only a small part of the track.
I made a matching beat in ElasticDrums and recorded it into AudioShare before adding Dedalus and AUFX:Dub. Then I combined all three in Auria and made an arrangement.
Next I turned to Addictive Synth and added: an occasional synth stab, another occasional synth stab (with a different patch of course), two long synth crashes (slightly different and panned hard left and right) which became the intro, an arpeggiated line, and another arrpeggiated line at twice the speed.
Now it’s already a much more complicated track than I usually do; 14 apps and 9 audio tracks. My stuff is usually far simpler, not necessarily in app numbers but certainly in tracks, but some people regularly get much more complicated.
I’m confused about this. Am I too simple? Should I aim to be more complicated? Is my modus operandi of ‘making shit up as I go along’ and ‘do it, move on’ enough? Does it produce decent music?
I don’t know.
It does suit this blog I suppose 🙂
Anyway It was beginning to sound a little song like, so I decided to try some vocals. Gulp.
I wrote some words and sang them into two tracks which I panned and effected etc. I’m not sure I did a good job but what the hell…
Oh and I decided that one of the arpeggiated tracks didn’t fit so I muted that.
Thanks for listening.
Grant
November 29, 2015
Day 95: Sunday 29 Nov 2015
Bald Headed Prophet:
Soundscape with vocal.
This track began in Cyclop with a noise patch that I made months ago, I changed the sample which is at the heart of it to Day 93’s ‘Profit Of The Bored’ (so this track already utilises all the apps from that track: iSpeech TTS, AudioShare, Altispace, TwistedWave, Patterning, Dedalus, Poseidon, Auria, and PhaseRings) and recorded a take into AudioShare with Dedalus, AltiSpace, and AUFX:Dub before slowing it a lot in TwistedWave and putting it into Auria.
Next I loaded the vocal from ‘Profit of the Bored’ into Sector and did two takes with different settings, loaded them into Auria, and added some synth hits from Addictive Synth.
Grant
November 27, 2015
Day 93: Friday 27 Nov 2015
Profit of the Bored (featuring Trudi McBoody):
Genre Unknown 🙂
Another play with my Patterning drum kit into AudioShare effected with Dedalus was the start of this track. I loaded it into Auria and added a Poseidon arp bass patch that I made the other day. Then I loaded PhaseRings into a track and jammed along.
Finally a wrote a little lyric and typed it into iSpeech TTS, imported the result to AudioShare, effected it with AltiSpace, slowed it by 80% and lowered it by 1 semitone in TwistedWave, and imported the result to Auria for arranging.
Ta Da!
Grant
November 18, 2015
Day 84: Weds 18 Nov 2015
Interference:
Soundscape with vocal.
Today I took a file that I made in October using AnalogKit, Muckraker, and AUFX:Dub. Thanks to Stuart Kilbride whose ‘Synthanator ‘ patch I used. I loaded it into Auria, reversed it, duplicated it on a second track, and effected that with Emo Chorus as well as the inbuilt reverb and delay.
Next I recorded Figure into another track and time stretched it within Auria, I did a fairly random and extreme time stretch as I was looking for added artefacts.
Finally I recorded myself speaking some words. I tried using the voice from iSpeech TTS but couldn’t get it right, so did it myself.
Grant
November 17, 2015
Day 83: Tuesday 17 Nov 2015
Mr Black’s Rude Awakening:
I began todays track in the same way as yesterday by working with Nick Lau’s Drum TX project in AnalogKit. I programmed a variation on yesterdays beat and recorded it twice to AudioShare with AUFX:Space; each time with different settings.
Both went into Auria and were panned. The next step also echoed yesterday; I added a kick drum from Patterning for emphasis. The third step too; I added the clashy klangy preset sound that I made in Addictive Synth yesterday.
I finally moved in a new direction by programming an arpeggio in Addictive Synth and recording it twice with different presets that I had made earlier.
And last but not least I recorded myself reciting a line from the 1963 film A Comedy Of Terrors.
I had fun 🙂
Grant
November 13, 2015
Day 79: Friday 13 Nov 2015
The Purpose:
A Beatscape with vocals.
I’m not singing today so you can relax. Just speaking some lines over a beatscape 🙂
iMaschine 2 was released today so I began by making a simple beat; to feel my way into the app. I then effected that with Dedalus and Reverb FDN, added it to Auria and added two tracks of Poseidon for weird droney madness. Finally I wrote some words and added them straight into a track in Auria with a little inbuilt reverb. Oh and I forgot iSem for the simple baseline.
The Video:
I made a quick film of the timeline in Auria, just by holding my iPhone up to the screen for a minute or so, using ProCamera. Then effected that a few times in CinemaFXV, combined all of those in Pinnacle Pro as Pinnacle Studio is now called, ran it through Generate twice with different effects, blended those in Vjay, blended the result with an earlier version, again in Vjay, and ran it once more through CinemaFXV.
Grant
November 11, 2015
Day 77: Weds 11 Nov 2015
Medusa:
Oh oh more singing!
I don’i know what genre to use to describe this one. It’s got a synth arp and vocals, so in my book that makes it pop 🙂 Or Electronic Pop…or something. Give me your opinions please.
I began by playing in Addictive Synth until I came up with this arpeggio which I recorded into AudioShare with my ‘special secret sauce’ i.e. Dedalus, AUFX:Space, and AUFX:Dub, then I moved it to Auria.
Next I made a simple drum beat in DM1 at half the bpm of the arp and recorded it into AudioShare with the Secret Sauce. It seemed a little straight so I added another DM1 beat at the full bpm with just high hats that I blended in at low volume.
I still wasn’t happy with the drums so I loaded up DrumJam and recorded an African beat while hitting some snare here and there. Then I did it again with a different beat.
Okay, so far so good.
I’ve had this little lyric lying around for getting on to two decades, intending to turn it into a song; but somehow it never happened. It’s been living in my head for the last week or two, and I’ve been hoping to find a place for it. Today was the day!
I spoke and sang it straight into Auria using my headphone mike. To my ear it sounds like I’ve sung it with a slight english accent, I’m not sure why that is.
Anyhoo…enjoy 🙂
Grant
November 3, 2015
Day 69: Tuesday 3 Nov 2015
Needless To Say:
Beatscape with vocals.
Experimenting with iMPC Pro today, I bought it as soon as it came out but haven’t come to grips with it. I still haven’t, but I got something anyway.
As I was fumbling around trying to figure things out I made a mistake and ended up with this weird beat. Which I then looped in AudioShare with Dedalus and AUFX:Dub. [Cause I was sick of not knowing what was going in :)]
Then into Auria where I added some finger clicks, recorded through Amplitude, some MitoSynth droneness, me saying some stuff, and two tracks of Soundscaper.
Then it was back to the real world of cleaning dishes, cleaning clothes, taking out the rubbish, sweeping, cooking, walking the dog, and driving son and wife to and from work.
You know the important daily stuff that we all need to do.
So ‘Needless To Say’ here’s cheers to finding and maintaining our balance between the important stuff and the important stuff 🙂
Peace Out.