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This week I had a video project to produce for one of my graduate courses at school. Naturally, this seemed like a good opportunity to come up with a new tune to use as a soundbed for the project. Check it below (the new tune comes in at around 4:00 minutes). The video also features a tune I posted a few weeks back as the intro and credits.
A few new plugs I haven’t really used before: the Rob Papen RG Muted CM rhythm guitar plugin intros the piece with a funky little delayed guitar lick. Also featured is a cool little Reaktor plugin called Aerobic, which is providing a pretty cool little drum machine track. Also pulled out the trusty ‘ol LinPlug Alpha CM for a cheesy organ pad to flesh out the middle section. Other plugins used:
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Now for something a little different.
Inspired by a commission for a video game project I received the other day, I decided to go for a real campy type of sound this week. In fact, I wanted to post the tune I’d written for the game, but I’ve decided to hold off until the game goes to market. Instead, I wrote another tune based very much on the same feel and sound as the original tune. The premise of the game is quite silly, and I thought that a goofy samba-with-drum-machine type of vibe, a la Burt Kaemfert or Herb Alpert, would fit the bill. This tune is not quite as light-hearted, but you’ll see what I’m talking about when I post it in the next couple of weeks. Check back regularly. As you can see, the tune is not completely finished, but I really didn’t want to drag it out any longer than it already was. A special mention today for the Datsounds Obxd, a freeware AU/VST Oberheim OBX emulator plugin, used to double the Rhodes melody throughout the piece. Plugin instruments used in this piece include:
I have a completely legitimate excuse for being a full week behind schedule on the posting of this week’s song…..namely, that my harddrive crashed.
I’d started on this one about two weeks ago and even had a mix ready last Tuesday, but I was planning on tweaking it during our two-day snow-in. Then, it happened. Fortunately I was able to move all of the important stuff off of the drive before it totally went kaput, but it still put me behind by a couple of days. Not a lot of notes here on this one. The main little riffs came to me as I was playing tag with my son at the park (and I’m very thankful for the voice memo app on my iPhone). I was feeling a set of odd-metered set rock riffs, which I just strung together here. I’m still trying to figure out how to program a convincing drum track with the Abbey Road library. I’ve been using the Rough Rider compressor plugin from Audio Damage (another freebie, of course) to thicken the drums up a bit, as well as NI’s Superchargercompressor. There’s still a lot of work to be done on the mix, but overall I’m enjoying the groove to this one! I already have a tune or two in the hopper for this week, and should have something posted in the next couple of days. Feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts or suggestions! Thanks, and enjoy! Other plugins used:
Having a day off last week on account of the snowpocalypse that completely shut down the entire state of Georgia, I had the opportunity to write another song of the week. I took to the interwebs to look for some ideas and inspiration, and ran across some pretty cool videos over at The Keyboardist Blog, and also found some really cool free plugins.
The first one was an iPad app called Yellofier VW, by none other than Boris Blank, which I ran across on Synthtopia. Yellofier is a loop creation program, that allows you to sample any sound directly from your iPad, and then very quickly and easily turn those samples into playable loops sounds. It gives you the ability to edit the samples, and play them back in a drum-pad-style sequencer matrix. I didn’t really use it for actually arranging anything, though it give you enough space to arrange an entire song. The introduction percussion track was created by sampling a fork on a counter and crumpling up a piece of plaster. Hunting around a bit more, I found another interesting synth by Futucraft called Kariatune. A very flexible synth with tons of cool and very playable presets, Kariatune sounds like it’s geared towards dance and electronica artists. It has a great effects section (a delay with HPF and BPF), a phaser, and a spread function for stereo field effect. This synth can be heard as a “delay synth” in the beginning of the song at about 0:05. Another freebie that made it’s way into this tune is Automat by Alphakanal. At first I had some difficulty in getting it installed correctly, as there’s no manual indicating where to put the support files, which contains some .WAV file samples. But once I did, I was very impressed with it’s big sound. It’s being used for the massive saw synth pad stabs and chords, and doubling the bass in many passages, mimicking a Prophet 5 or CS-80. Another interesting synth is the free Piano One by Sound Magic. Admittedly the application of this piano in this mix doesn’t allow you to hear the nuance of this synth. It does have some strange properties, like a weird off-pitch squeak whenever you release the notes in the higher registers, but you can’t really hear it in this piece. Just the same, it was free, and sounded good enough to use. Below is a list of some of the other instruments used in the song:
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Pat Strawser
Musings about keyboards, synthesizers, and music in general. Archives
March 2019
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