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Making Music. Tunes by Idle Thumbsters

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Clyde, the earlier videos you posted and now these are super interesting to me. I love to play things, but have learned everything I've done without formal instruction and want to learn theory stuff really badly. Do you have some master list of links like this or anything? I would love to see what your playlist of this kind of video looks like.

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I don't have such a list. One of the reasons I put that stuff here is because I want to be able to find it later.

Every once in a while I decide to watch a video on music theory and so I browse through them until I find one that interests me. The beginning lectures of that Yale class were very useful to me because I didn't realize that chords were typically in the same key. Before I watched it, I thought that changing a chord was the same as changing a key. So right now I find myself looking up "chord progression music theory" on Youtube.

Also, if you have an ios device, I recommend the Musicopoulos app. It seems like a good way to get really familiar with some of these concepts through memorization (learning each note's fifth as if you were memorizing the multiplication tables for instance).

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I wanted to distract myself for a bit from my inability to do work, so I remembered that someone recommended some freeware (NanoStudio) here, which I promptly downloaded and tested out.

Sadly NanoStudio's copy function is so limited that it drives me insane. You can't copy notes between instruments, which makes the testing out of some ideas much too arduous (you basically have to recreate a part for a new instrument then), which is a shame because otherwise the interface is easy to get used to.

Anyway, here is the fruit of my one-day fun with NanoStudio. I only used the pre-fab samples that came with it, so yeah, it doesn't sound particularly original. Still, I like the thunder of drums at the end.

https://soundcloud.com/ted-ist-tot/trommelgewitter

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Been looking at MIDI-keyboards lately and I'm finding myself wondering about the necessity of having a full set of keys (88?) or if a half-length i just fine.

How much do you who use these keyboards use their full length? Or are you, as Clyde notes, just modulating whenever you need to?

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Been looking at MIDI-keyboards lately and I'm finding myself wondering about the necessity of having a full set of keys (88?) or if a half-length i just fine.

How much do you who use these keyboards use their full length? Or are you, as Clyde notes, just modulating whenever you need to?

 

i've got a 49 key and that's perfect for my use with both hands. i'll note that i've only one semester of keyboard from community college as training though, so there may be an advantage that i don't recognize in having a full 88.

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So, I already bounced off of FL Studio/Fruity Loops twice. I guess it's hard for me to wrap my head around its interface, and I'm still too intimidated by it to give it a third try. Maybe it isn't the right tool for me anyway.
I don't have big demands. Mostly I've used Audacity so far, and what it lacks for me is a proper support for sampling (you can do sampling in Audacity, of course, but it's clunky) and real time effects (in Audacity you can apply effects on tracks, but not in real-time, instead it processes the selection and bakes the desired effect in). Maybe synthesizer/MIDI stuff would be fine, too, but I don't think I need it.
Does anyone know the right tool to recommend to me?

 

 

It's a cyber diablo!

It doesn't remind me that much of the Diablo soundtrack, now that I listened to it. Well, the drums do a bit.

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So, I already bounced off of FL Studio/Fruity Loops twice. I guess it's hard for me to wrap my head around its interface, and I'm still too intimidated by it to give it a third try. Maybe it isn't the right tool for me anyway.

I don't have big demands. Mostly I've used Audacity so far, and what it lacks for me is a proper support for sampling (you can do sampling in Audacity, of course, but it's clunky) and real time effects (in Audacity you can apply effects on tracks, but not in real-time, instead it processes the selection and bakes the desired effect in). Maybe synthesizer/MIDI stuff would be fine, too, but I don't think I need it.

Does anyone know the right tool to recommend to me?

 

so are you looking for something that just does multiple tracks and live effects? also, in which part of the process do you get hung up in FL Studio? i think clarifying that will help give a good recommendation. what other desktop recording tools besides Audacity and FL have you tried out? if you're looking for a low-investment solution, maybe reaper?

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so are you looking for something that just does multiple tracks and live effects?

I guess so, yeah. And is better for sampling than Audacity.

 

I tried out Nano Studio and KRISTAL Audio Engine. They're both freeware and have annoying limits, but are easy to work with.

I think I need to give FL Studio another try before I can tell you what bugs me about it. Since I just found out that my MIDI interface works after all, I might even do that. Reaper looks interesting, thanks for the recommendation!

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Ended up ordering a Nektar Impact XL49. Package sent today, really looking forward to getting it.

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I guess so, yeah. And is better for sampling than Audacity.

 

I tried out Nano Studio and KRISTAL Audio Engine. They're both freeware and have annoying limits, but are easy to work with.

I think I need to give FL Studio another try before I can tell you what bugs me about it. Since I just found out that my MIDI interface works after all, I might even do that. Reaper looks interesting, thanks for the recommendation!

 

i'm an ableton Live user and that's mostly because of how good Live does sample manipulation(warping and chopping are a breeze). were it not for that, i just need something that does VSTs well as i do a lot of midi synth stuff.

 

with your FL hangups, if i were watching you record- from plugging stuff in to exporting a track- at what part would i see you start to get frustrated?

 

Ended up ordering a Nektar Impact XL49. Package sent today, really looking forward to getting it.

 

exciting! my keyboard is an older M-Audio 49, so it doesn't have the feature of even newer ones and i sometimes wonder about getting a board with knobs, sliders and pads so i'm not always futzing around with mouse. tell us how it works out for you.

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I'm a big Ableton Live fan for just how easy it makes it to translate from brain -> song once you get past the initial hurdle of the jam-packed interface. Even the version that comes bundled in with some hardware is pretty powerful.

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Really appreciate of the theory stuff folks have posted on here. Been playing and trying to write music purely on intuition for years now but having no real method's made it difficult to see ideas through to completion.

 

Couple of questions:

  1. I'm not a drummer and am pretty hopeless when it comes to laying down patterns that aren't total snore fests. Any tips?
  2. What makes a good bass line?

Guess a lot depends on the genre your working in but I reckon there's got to be some shared principles

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Really appreciate of the theory stuff folks have posted on here. Been playing and trying to write music purely on intuition for years now but having no real method's made it difficult to see ideas through to completion.

 

Couple of questions:

  1. I'm not a drummer and am pretty hopeless when it comes to laying down patterns that aren't total snore fests. Any tips?
  2. What makes a good bass line?

Guess a lot depends on the genre your working in but I reckon there's got to be some shared principles

 

I'm not particularly impressed with my percussion sections or bass-lines, but I think about this scene from Naked and Famous all the time.

 

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Really appreciate of the theory stuff folks have posted on here. Been playing and trying to write music purely on intuition for years now but having no real method's made it difficult to see ideas through to completion.

 

Couple of questions:

  1. I'm not a drummer and am pretty hopeless when it comes to laying down patterns that aren't total snore fests. Any tips?
  2. What makes a good bass line?

Guess a lot depends on the genre your working in but I reckon there's got to be some shared principles

 

if i were speaking in general terms, try to figure out what kind of sound you like from drums and bass and then attempt to imitate. for instance i really like closed drumming that feels like it was made in a machine. i also like swing in my rhythms, so boom bap hip hop with its small kits really appeal to me:

 

 

New Order's drummer does a straight rhythm style of this that i really enjoy:

 

 

that said, Timbaland has this great, syncopated, manic style that is infectious:

 

 

bass is interesting in how many roles it can play even in one song. you can just the play the root note of whatever chord you're on every 4th or 8th note and it works as a rhythm instrument. you can give it more motion and counterpoint the melody. you can even play it as a lead instrument. i think an interesting bass line does at least a couple of these things in a song and makes room for other sounds because of how easy it can overpower a mix/song.

 

this New Order song has the bass doing all of those things:

 

 

i think the bass in this track from the Lisa: The Painful OST is incredibly good because it dips into lead melody without being one, and how the rhythm of it interacts with the drums. it does the same thing the whole way through, but it's not boring;

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1a_LxEW2bU

 

so there's a lot of examples of things that i find good and why, but i think you need to break down stuff you like first.

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So I got the Teenage Engineering PO-20 Arcade and messed with it a little: https://soundcloud.com/eotf-seork/supergun

 

It's super fun. I've never been a big chiptune guy, but they did a good job of putting together some fun, usable sounds, and the workflow is pretty awesome for this style of device. It's ridiculously easy to chain pattern and cord changes together on the fly, and the FX are very immediate.

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So I got the Teenage Engineering PO-20 Arcade and messed with it a little: https://soundcloud.com/eotf-seork/supergun

 

It's super fun. I've never been a big chiptune guy, but they did a good job of putting together some fun, usable sounds, and the workflow is pretty awesome for this style of device. It's ridiculously easy to chain pattern and cord changes together on the fly, and the FX are very immediate.

 

:woohoo:

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Thanks Sgt!

 

First beat is real smooth, liking it.

 

That example from Lisa is pretty much exactly what I was looking for - track I'm working is also pretty slow and mellow. Been thinking "simple and syncopated" is a pretty good mantra for composing bass lines.

 

Never listened to much New Order beyond Blue Monday but I gather Peter Hook is something of a bass playing diety. I feel like bass players don't get enough credit, and the one's who do tend to be the more showy types like Flea. That being said, I'm all about Thundercat.

 

Hopefully I'll have something to post up here pretty soon. 

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does anyone have any good advice or pieces about changing tonality and/or using substitution chords? feel like that's the next thing i need to really get at in my composition skills. 

 

on the engineering side, i still feel like i've no idea what i'm doing in regards to mixing, so anything on that would be appreciated as well.

 

other than that. how's everyone doing? ya'll make any new pieces that you're excited about and want to share?

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I've been playing my melodica at my job lately which is interesting and nice. Mostly what I do is play major and minor chords in variating keys and paying attention to how they share notes. So for instance, Cminor shares C and E flat with Gsharp major. I am having fun moving around the keyboard and mixing chords this way.

Have you looked into the "circle of fifths"? I think it is related to modulation, but I'm not sure.

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Do you guys know where I could get some good quality, very clearly marked WAV samples? By clearly marked I mean I need to know which notes they are, if they are only labeled with a number it gets too cumbersome. I'd love to have several instruments, but even a set of 88 piano samples would be appreciated.

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Do you guys know where I could get some good quality, very clearly marked WAV samples? By clearly marked I mean I need to know which notes they are, if they are only labeled with a number it gets too cumbersome. I'd love to have several instruments, but even a set of 88 piano samples would be appreciated.

 

you're going to have to convert them into WAV, but you can get recordings of individual notes from Bb0 to C8 here:  http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MISpiano.html

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Cheers, that'll do. Ugh, why don't they have an archive with the lot...

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