We had a nice, quiet Christmas; both kids were here, my mom, and our friend Gina. I made everyone breakfast, and then we did our gift exchange. Rather than buy presents for specific people, we each buy two gifts to bring to the table. Then we roll dice, and depending on the number, pass them left, right, across the table, etc. The randomness is fun, and some hilarity is bound to happen. For example, my mom ended up with the Cuss word coloring book my daughter brought. Mom said she was going to get markers, color the pages and stick them to her door.
Pre-Covid, I would typically go to Gina's house (Gail dislikes NYE, so she opts to stay home). Covid put a stop to that, and this year we ended going out to sushi with some friends. I don't like fish as a general rule (but I love tuna fish on crackers. Go figure), so I got the cashew chicken the place offered. The wife had something called a Steeler roll, which I tried. And liked. A lot. And then my buddy offered another couple of pieces of his.
Lemme tell you what... I might not like fish, but I think I'm changing that to "cooked" fish. Sushi is awesome. I can't wait to go back.
Otherwise, it's back to normal. Work has me figuring out some Salesforce stuff (yuck). We've been having some house work done, and are planning a re-plumb ($$$), and we're looking to head to AZ for the wife's and her dad's birthday.
Along with some personal family issues, I had two freelance clients decide that they wanted updates this week. That does put a crimp into the creativity time when it's needed to complete work for clients. I ended up completing that work early last night, and jumped back into my piece of music I've been building on with @LNADoesAudioStuff's 12 Days of Creativity Challenge. My previous blog entries were specific to the particular challenge I was working at that time, but this particular entry is going to wrap up the last few days all together. I'm writing this, having done (what I consider to be) steps 7 (vocal production), 8 (Arrangement), and 9 (Lifts, Drops, Swells, and Fills), and will publish this entry after completing 10 (Adding Life To Dry, Boring Production), 11 (Creative Automation), and 12 (How You Know When Your Track Is FINISHED!). I have to complete all of this tonight... after tending to some of the aforementioned family issues. Tomorrow is a friend's holiday party, and then it's Saturday, which is the last day of the challenge, and I need to submit my piece, for better or worse!
Day 7: Vocal Production Details
As stated in the previous entry, I've opted to go with a vocal sample from Loopcloud. I found a cheesy little vocal that has a nice hookey (hookie? hook?) poppy-vibe to it. I duplicated it, pitched it up by an octave and gave it some EQ to remove any lingering low harmonics. I also discovered in Loopcloud that you can adjust the timing of the clip. That was handy, as I spent way too long trying to get the 115bpm clip I'd found to sit nicely within a 128bpm tempo. Loopcloud took care of that for me.
I found a second "filler" vocal and chopped that a bit as well, and plopped it down in a couple of places.
Day 8: Arrangement
I've never been good at structuring a song, so this has been one of the more challenging parts of this, er, challenge. I did manage to take my original 8-bar loop, and structure it more like a song, with definitive sections. I have an intro, in which I add instruments, a middle section where most of the instruments are playing, drop some during the breakdown section, and then an outro, where I remove tracks until I have only three left. It seems to work.
Day 9: Lifts, Drops, and Fills
I found a finger pop sound (not a snap or a click, but you can definitely tell it's a finger noise) that I turned into a small 32nd-note run down in one part, and then reversed it and sent it up later. It adds a bit of "what was that?" to the song and keeps it from becoming monotonous. At least, that's the hope. I also have the typical reverse cymbal that rises into a --what else-- cymbal crash.
Day 10: Effects
I used Valhalla Supermassive in a couple different parts of my track, along with Bitwig's own Reverb and Convolution Reverb devices. I also added delay to specific instruments and I'm hoping I didn't go overboard. That seems easy to do when adding everything in, so hopefully I didn't make the track too muddy. I also attempted to add some panning in, specifically to the finger clicks I mentioned under Day 9, but either I was doing it wrong or the fills were just happening too fast; I couldn't get it to accomplish what was in my head. A challenge for my next project I suppose. There is panning on some of the percussion elements so hopefully that comes through.
Day 11: Automation
My automation starts right off the bat, with my swell at the beginning of my track. I use automation to cut the reverb in and out, adjusting the volume from ∞ to -4.8db. I'm sure there was a more efficient way to go about doing this, but it's how I accomplished what I wanted. I also added some automation to a cutoff filter on one of the synths during the break to give it more oomph, and get it towards the front of the mix.
Day 12: Finishing the Track
After spending some time adjusting the volume on various tracks, and spending even more time on various minor issues, I decided to call it done. Let's face it, I could have (and should have) spent a lot more time working on this, but the one and only goal I had here was to finish a track. I wanted it to be structured like a finished song might be, and have a definite beginning, middle, breakdown, and end. And that's what I got. Is is polished? No. Is it's mixed and mastered properly? No. Is it good? Hell no. But it's DONE. And that was my end goal.
As expected, I've learned a lot through this process. I've taken some notes, and even screen recorded my process as I was putting together the pieces of this track. I'm hoping to do a "postmortem" entry here later, and maybe I'll even manage to put together the screen recordings into a pared down video with some narration about my thoughts over it.
Big thanks go to Liina, from LNAMusic for creating this amazing challenge. It's purpose was the create a track, which is what I've managed to accomplish. Amazing.
I feel like I was just here. And checking the date from the previous post you can see that I'm posting this on the same day. (Editors Note: leaving dates as same caused the order of the posts to be wonky. Changed date of previous entry to be the day before. Meh)
This post should be a quickie; I'm working on Day 6, which are vocals. I started with the Emvoice One plugin, and after some trial and error, had a little vocal hook in place. It wasn't horrible... but it wasn't really doing it for me either. So I loaded Loopcloud, and after waiting for the update to install, and then having to go through and read the all the little tool tips that popped up regarding how to find and use the new features, I found a vocal track that fit in nicely (at least I think it fits in nicely) with my current little ditty.
Because I'm "behind" the challenge dates, I'm going to keep working and go right into Day 7. Which works well, as Day 7 is Vocal Processing. If I can complete Day 7's challenge, and Day 8's, I'll be caught up with the challenge. So... better get myself to it!
So, tomorrow, when Day 5 takes place, I'm going to challenge myself to complete that day's challenge. On time!!
That was written three days ago. So we can see how well that little challenge of mine went. I can make the usual excuses (work, chores around the house) and the not-so-usual excuses (holiday shopping, holiday parties), which are all true. But I could have found a half-hour here and there to complete - or at least work on - these challenges.
To that end, this morning, while still in my pajamas, I sat down with my coffee in hand, to work on the next challenge. I started working on a solo instrument, got a lick down, and then brought in the rest of the tracks to listen. And... something was off. Investigating what the discordance might be, I realized I'd recorded my lead in a different key. Whoops! Easy enough to fix. Then I took another listen, and while it was better, something was still off.
Turns out I had not one, but two other tracks in the wrong key. What the heck! So I fixed that up, made sure everything was in the right key, listened to my track and... wait. Why is the second note on my pluck bass not playing on the beat? And same with some other notes down the line?
After about 20 minutes or more, I finally realized I had STFU sitting on the Bass Group, which was ducking the pluck enough that it was very noticeable. Once that was removed and placed on the individual Glide Bass and Sub Bass tracks, everything sounded better!
Or did it? Everything sounded like it worked together, but now I didn't like my piano chords. Or my synth lead. Or... well, much of anything at all.
OK, well...
Shit.
At this point, I'd been working on all this for just over an hour. The wife and I had plans, so I went downstairs to get ready for the day. We were going to breakfast, and then a cute little town about 45 minutes away to do some holiday shopping. I told her I wanted to get moving, as I wanted to get back to my challenge (I've been telling her all about this, so she's aware of what I was referring to).
The day itself was cold and gloomy, with rain coming and going. And after breakfast, while we were sitting in the car, we decided we'd rather just stay home. The wife had some things she wanted to do, and, well, I wanted to get back to music.
Once I listened to the tracks again, I realized that I liked the bass line, and the percussion was OK. So I fixed up the pads and the pluck synth to be more inline with the bass. I removed one of the instruments and I think I'm slowly getting back on track. Originally this piece was in a minor key, and the notes I'd come up with worked within that minor key. Once I reworked the key signature, it was in a major key (B-flat major to be specific), but the old notes now didn't sound like the "correct" notes. So those were reconstructed and now the notes along with the rhythms are more upbeat and peppy, and much more keeping in step with the major key.
And now on to Day 6, which in reality, will be a continuation of Day 5. We're doing vocals now. And I don't sing. So thank goodness for the Liina-recommended Emvoice Virtual Singer. And if that doesn't work, I can maybe try to find something within Loopcloud for my vocal needs.
Day four's challenge, the astute among you will notice, is Synths. And I spent a surprisingly long time on trying to get a sound that I was ok with. It didn't have to be perfect, but I wanted it to at least fit in with what I have so far. I'm a bit late in starting this challenge according to Liina's schedule: Step 4 was supposed to happen on the 6th of December, but here it is on the 7th (and, as I write this, about 8pm local time) and I'm just now finishing up. Going to have to be a bit more proactive and carve out time (instead of sitting in front of my iPad playing poker!). On her YouTube channel, Liina (LNA) wraps up this challenge's video with some thoughts about time. We're all given the exact same amount of time; do you want to spend it creating? Or yelling at the screen about why someone would call with only a pair of sixes and then winning when the last card is another six? (I may or may not be guilty of the yelling part). So, tomorrow, when Day 5 takes place, I'm going to challenge myself to complete that day's challenge. On time!!
This is my progress so far. Purple is my synth color, and Will from EDM Tips would say "it's the natural color of Synths in the wild" Not sure about that, but it's my color today. As stated, I spent a lot of the time trying to get a Polymer synth to sound right, and I just wasn't getting it to dial in like I wanted. I was loosely following along with the video tutorial LNA did, but after grouping two Polymers together, fixing each with their own EQ, Reverb, Delay, even some compression (which, honestly, is still a mystery to me), I gave up. Copied the notes to a new track and decided on a different synth. Pigments by Arturia is an all-around beast of a synth, and does wavetables as well. And after about 5 minutes, I was getting a sound much closer to what I had in my head. Sometimes you just have to pick the right tools.
Then it was a matter of picking notes that fit better, adding a few effects - I have a short reverb and a tiny bit of delay - and then messing around with the notes again. It's definitely not anywhere close to good, but you know what? I don't care at this point. It's at least not a complete train wreck and I'm building towards something. As a bonus, I'm getting some ideas of what would be a neat bit here and there when it comes to arranging.
Tomorrow's challenge is leads. I'm thinking an epic saw might do the trick. We'll have to see how it goes!
Last entry ended with me asking for some good vibes to be sent my way, as my audio had completely disappeared. Well, you all (all two of you maybe? Probably my wife and my mom) must've had the good mojo flowing, as once I came back to it, I not only managed to get by audio back, but it appears I now know what to do when I want to record audio from the computer while monitoring on headphones as well. Success! 🎉
While this entry won't have a video to go along with it, hopefully I'll manage to do that before this creativity challenge ends. Speaking of...
Day 3's challenge was chords. None of the sounds I picked resonated with me, so I followed along with Liina and loaded a piano sample to lay down the first attempt. I also used Bitwig's Polymer to load a wavetable to accompany the piano. This was supposed to be strictly chords, and for the piano, that's what I ended up with. The Polymer track turned more into a lead, or maybe something to accompany my plucky bass. Which, I discovered, isn't playing all the notes. Not exactly sure why, but I hope to come back to it. Delay offsetting, or LFO, or phasing, or...
This is the chain I have for the Polymer preset I picked, a pad called "Didgeripad". I mostly left it as is, though I did tweak a few parameters: The cutoff on the on the XP filter was raised a bit, boosted the input on the Compressor, and finally changed the delay from 4 right, 6 left, to 2 right, 6 left, and boosted the mix a bit. I have a feeling I'm going to come back to this and turn it into my lead, as opposed to accompanying chord instrument it originally set out to be. But music and creating is something that grows and flourishes and typically blossoms into more than what that seed of an idea expected to be. That's part of the beauty.
Today was all 'bout that bass (bass, bass, bass, bass), and I ended up with three different instruments filling the role. I have a glide bass utilizing Bitwig'sPhase 4 instrument, a sub using Serum, and a plucky bass with some delay, also using Serum. Nothing too special here. The glide and sub are sharing the same notes, while the pluck is doing some on-and-off beat stabs. It's also sitting an octave higher (sub not shown).
I imagine I'll be working this bass pattern a bit more, but the goal of following along with this challenge is to complete a track. I'll never get anything done if I spend all my creative energy tweaking sounds and trying different patterns. Yes, that's an important part of music, but I tend to get distracted rather easily. So I need to get these ideas down to where they're good enough in an expedient manner. They don't have to be perfect, or even great.
In somewhat related news, I now have no audio coming from my speakers. 🤦♂️
In trying to get my Screenflow software working properly so I could record my process, I somehow managed to bork the whole setup. I'm trying to record my screen along with computer audio, while monitoring the audio on my headphones (which are connected directly to my Mac). It seems I can either get sound through the headphones, but Screenflow doesn't capture the audio in the recording, OR I don't get sound through my headphones but the screen recording DOES have audio. And then, after about an hour of fussing with it (and several reboots), I discovered I have no sound what-so-ever.
At that point I just decided to take a break, write up this blog post and tackle it again in a couple of hours. Please send me some good vibes that I'll get this sorted!
Day 1 of the 12 Days of Creativity starts off with the foundation of pretty much all EDM, drums. As I don't know what sort of piece I'm creating yet, I'm going with a typical four-on-the-floor type of beat, at 128bpm.
One of the (many) challenges I've had when creating is getting lost in the myriad of sounds I've curated over the years. I've yet to really organize my drum hits, and if you were to look in my favorites, I have all of three, and all of them are kicks. So I started there. I auditioned the three kicks (didn't take long!) and then moved on. This is going to be my kick, this is what I'm going to work with, onto the next piece of the kit.
The only real pattern I had in mind, was an off-beat hi-hat. So that went in on the "and" of the "one-e-and-a" when counting. And after the kick and hat, what would you think is typically next? If you said snare, you'd be right! (I would've accepted clap as well 😉)
After the snare, I started filling in the spaces; added a shaker, an open hat, ride cymbal, and three different congas. I don't want to overwhelm myself, and I think it's fairly busy as it is. The thought process behind this is to add bits and pieces of this kit in, one at a time, until eventually they're all a part of the song. The whole composition won't be this busy. Hopefully!
Once I had a pattern that I was OK with, I started trying to give it a bit more life, so to speak. To make it sound less robotic, I've introduced various velocity levels on the congas, shakers, ride, and snare. The kick I left as is. After velocity, I played with the panning a bit, but tried not to go too crazy. Congas are where I spent most of that effort, and the shaker received a bit of the same treatment. I also nudged the midi notes off the grid in places.
And to get a bit weird and goofy, I did one last thing: In my snare effects chain, I have a distortion device. Bitwig (my DAW of choice. For the moment.) has wonderful modulators. I attached a random modulator to the Bell Filter Frequency and have it bouncing around the spectrum and it mixes up the sound quite nicely. Definitely makes it more interesting!
That's about it. I have a nice four-bar loop, and I've completed Day 1. Huzzah! 🎉
I follow many YouTube channels from creative types, mostly in the electronic music space. Easily one of my top five favorites -- LNA Does Audio Stuff -- is holding a "Creativity Challenge" for the month of December. From the Challenge site:
12 Days of creativity is a production challenge, designed to help, guide, and inspire music makers to finish their songs. The intent is to challenge producers and musicians to finish a track in 12 - steps during December. It is based on creative workflows, proven to enhance confidence in the artists' skills and creativity, as well as limit insecurities during and after the process.
I'm going to give this a shot, and I'm going to (attempt to) track my progress here. I have too many DAWs, more VST plugins than I should, and a ton of samples along with a subscription to Loopcloud. For all that, I don't have a single complete song. I have a ton of ideas, four- and eight-bar loops, even a piece that's close to a minute long... but nothing that's actually complete.
I hope to change that with this challenge. I don't expect the finished piece I come up with to be any good. I just want something that actually sounds like a complete song: Intro, buildup, chorus, drop, outro... you get the idea.
So here we go, with fingers crossed (though that makes working the keyboard tricky). First up: Drums!
Yup. I did it again. Switched out my current Content Management System (CMS) for something new.
Or, in this case, old.
I'm back in Grav CMS, having grown tired of having weird issues happening with my domain on Github Pages. Sometimes it would just not load, other times I would get weird errors. I decided I wanted to move it more "in house" as it were.
My original idea behind moving to Jekyll was to have something I could use on my iPad, that was also a flat file system. Based on other bloggers I follow, I chose Jekyll after trying a few others (including Grav). After much swearing, configuring, and experimenting, I finally found something that worked with my iPad.
And then I realized my setup only worked with my iPad. What if I wanted to update from my laptop, or work computer? Sure, I could configure either to push to my Github repo that stored the jekyll files, and it wouldn't have been that difficult even. I don't have any good excuse for not setting those up, other than being lazy.
Plus, while I do consider myself a geek, I consider myself a creative geek; meaning I want more than just a command line or blank text file. I want the dashboard, I want the simplicity of the GUI, I want the pretty buttons.
So, I'm back to Grav CMS, and back to my own hosting provider. That's the plan at least. I've spent the better part of three days moving older posts out of Jekyll (and the Wayback Machine from an old domain I'd forgotten about) into Grav CMS and setting up the blog to look similar to what was already there (added a sidebar on the home page this time around. Gotta have some fancy widgets yanno). So, currently, I'm still only seeing pages served up by my localhost. But I think I'm pretty close to prime time with this new iteration of the blog.
But not tonight. Had to take my ma down to NC so she could get the title to her car in her name only, so she could register the car here in VA. But that'll be a story for another day.
This is the chain I have for the Polymer preset I picked, a pad called "Didgeripad". I mostly left it as is, though I did tweak a few parameters: The cutoff on the on the XP filter was raised a bit, boosted the input on the Compressor, and finally changed the delay from 4 right, 6 left, to 2 right, 6 left, and boosted the mix a bit. I have a feeling I'm going to come back to this and turn it into my lead, as opposed to accompanying chord instrument it originally set out to be. But music and creating is something that grows and flourishes and typically blossoms into more than what that seed of an idea expected to be. That's part of the beauty.
I imagine I'll be working this bass pattern a bit more, but the goal of following along with this challenge is to complete a track. I'll never get anything done if I spend all my creative energy tweaking sounds and trying different patterns. Yes, that's an important part of music, but I tend to get distracted rather easily. So I need to get these ideas down to where they're good enough in an expedient manner. They don't have to be perfect, or even great.
Once I had a pattern that I was OK with, I started trying to give it a bit more life, so to speak. To make it sound less robotic, I've introduced various velocity levels on the congas, shakers, ride, and snare. The kick I left as is. After velocity, I played with the panning a bit, but tried not to go too crazy. Congas are where I spent most of that effort, and the shaker received a bit of the same treatment. I also nudged the midi notes off the grid in places.
That's about it. I have a nice four-bar loop, and I've completed Day 1. Huzzah! 🎉