UHG... blog

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I completely started over on my project. My first track that I had started, seemed like it was going in a decent direction but it ended up being three completely different ideas being crammed together into one song. So I scrapped it and started a new track. Using some of the same drum beats and some of the same synths. This track is around 100 bpm and has some house influence in the swing. I have attempted to learn better use of sidechaining, which is where you take a compressor and have it be dynamically triggered by and input, such as a drum hit. Compression compresses the incoming signal and allows you to more dynamically adjust the volume of a signal. Compression also helps with controlling and smoothing out the signals and waveforms. Using this technique it can create dynamic patterns in synth sound that is being sidechained. You can use it to cut out interference between a specific drum hit and a synth sound. So I am almost finished with this track but have left it for now to start work on a new track. I am not sure which one I will submit yet. The second track I have started is more downtempo. It uses heavy bass sound that is altered dynamically by sidechaining. I am also focusing on the dynamic use of pad synths and creative drum programming. Using a variety of shakers I have started an interesting drum track but it still needs work.

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So there are a few things that I need to figure out before starting a new track. Upon beginning I have an idea of where I want to go with the project. What style of beat/music and what tempo. I have a tendency to stick around 90 – 100 because I spin music around this tempo, but for this project I want to go a little higher. Either 107- 109 or 120. This will take complete shape the more I work on it. I started collecting drum sounds already. I am looking for a bass hit that has a strong bass but with a sharp poppy sting to it. I have also started to collect some beeps, claps, and high hat hits to add to my drum rack. The drum rack is a module inside ableton that holds all of your samples. They are each assigned a midi note and you can play them out with any sort of controller including your computer keyboard. I start working on my beats using a controller to tap out some beats from the drum rack and I play along with a click track to keep pace. Right now it seems the track will be a round 112 bpm. In Ableton you can make a clip and then record to it. So this is what I have done. I can play out a beat on the keyboard and record directly to the drum sequencer, then rearranging and cleaning up the notes I have recorded into a cohesive phrase. There are 2 modes in Ableton, the clip mode, and the arrangement. In clip mode you can keep all your stems and loops that you record, then in arrangment you can sequence all the clips out to make a track. Some people work in one or the other, most people work in both.

I chose this theme because it seemed streamlined and simple.  Blogs have a simple elegance to me, and many times blogs can be too in your face and can distract from the information contained within.  I like the smooth graphical interface tumblr has, as well as the ease of use.There are not any serious changes that i can think of to make.