Mix 9

Long Day. Short Post. Here it is. Mix 9 of my piece

ROBOTS!!!!

I'm in the School of music at the moment spending time trying to find a good sound to represent the robotic/mechanical part of my piece. It's a slow process and I'll have to leave at ten but it's progress nonetheless. I'm using one of the music technology labs which have Roland keyboards for each computer with MIDI so I can just play directly into Garageband. Very handy. I'll get a mix up soon when I feel it's getting there

tippin' away

Recording went very well. The Piano adds a nice bass frequency to the piece. I'll post the updated piece soon. Now that I am happy with the human aspect of the song, this week will be focused on developing the robotic / mechanic part. I want to have a good draft ready for the presentation next week before we break for Easter.

School of music facilities

Later today I'll be recording in the Cork School of the Music. After booking a room I'll go home and get my ZOOM recorder and come back to get started. I'm looking to get a room with one of the Steinways. It would be fantastic to be able to utilize the piano in my composition. On top of that, the rooms have fantastic acoustics - ideal for recording.

At the same time I want be careful not to just mess around for a while as is my tendency when I get behind a Piano! Neither college are open tomorrow because of St. Patrick's day so I don't know if I'll be able post the results until then be cause I won't have internet access.

Mix 3

Here is a mix of last night's work. I'm really going to have to condense ideas into less time!

Reverse the Process

I spent tonight recording more new material. This time I reversed the production process by recording ideas on guitar first an then going to drums to flesh them out. I wanted to see if this changed how I approached. I also changed the position of the kit within the room and the position of the mic. This change in acoustics had a significant effect on the output. This time I think it work against the sound. Also, I forgot to change the Gain setting on the recorder when I switched from guitar to drums. Because the guitar is lower in volume you have to increase the gain or sensitivity of the mic to capture enough signal to use. Using the same Gain setting for the drums just sounds horrible - all fuzzy and harsh. I had to re-record the drum beats again which was a tad anoying. Hopefully that won't happen again!
On the whole I must say that it is very difficult to depict a visual idea with music. Having to narrow all this down to around 1min feels daunting at the moment but I will take it one step at a time. Right now is about getting the foundation done.

Recordings 2

I've recorded more drum tracks using 128kbps encoding this time. This makes it FAR easier to move around within my computer and the quality is more than adequate for basic recording. I'm not going to play along to these tracks on guitar with my iPod so I can start layering. This is where it gets interesting!

Recordings

Got some basic recordings done. This time I actually pressed the record button properly! The files are huge. I must have recorded in 93,252,349,870,326 kbps judgint by the upload speed. I know now how to change it before recording though. These small changes save huge time in the long run when you're moving stuff arounf and backing stuff up.
Click here to hear the basic drum pattern which will come to the fore at the end of the track. This pattern is to represent the inevitable, robotic, industrial fate of mankind as he continues to develop artificial. Fairly heavy stuff for a simple, LOUD drum beat!