It's not the technical problems that I was talking about, but the fact that after the song's finished, it doesn't seem like mine. I know the trouble it took to make the song, and how much control I exerted over the source material, but somehow I don't get the same satisfaction as I get when I know a drum track, laboriously put together beat by beat in the MIDI editor, works splendidly in a track. It's probably a stupid mental glitch on my part, but it's kind of like being a film editor instead of the writer/director. Not quite a good analogy, as the mangling one can do puts you more in the creative seat . . . but still.Barnadine wrote:Yeah, I love the little serendipities that crop up when you work like this, but without the right software, an element of tedium weasels its way in.emdot wrote:Personally I find working this way to be interesting but not very satisfying...
october ordeal ... GOSSIP
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- KVRAF
- 6496 posts since 26 Nov, 2004 from Frederick, MD
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- KVRAF
- 7672 posts since 9 Nov, 2003 from Netherlands
Something I should have picked back up eons ago, but I was too selfish I guess......
bitshift - and in the footsteps of the mighty You this was a quick, yet top offering for the contest at hand. The opening windy bit sounded cool and creepy, but personally I must admit that the drums half in half distracted my listening ear to the stuff that is being built underneath.
farlukar - Quite the interesting stich you made here where I would almost think one of the sounds to be a saw gnawing into a wooden coffin where the only thing missing was the lady screaming. Then again it missing that 'cliché' made this only more interesting. Cool rhythmic offering
Wopelka - One of the harder parts of this months contests is while using other's sounds to still maintain your own sound. You succeeded cum laude. Even the cat is scarily looking round the room where these sounds are coming from.
mystahr - ehm.... wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Barnadine - Top notch entry that sounds like a complete story. When's the movie due?
Patrick9 - About the only thing I regret so much about this entry is that it feels like an intro and build up only. I think getting to the point more sooner and have a spooky ending somehow would have worked better. That said, this in no way is a bad entry at all
Hanglowskank - it wouldn't connect through the grave-radio; I'll try another time
You TM - Applause
As usual you pulled of an amazing feat with your entry. Fantastic; and I completely forgive the added 'own' vocals... drop dead 
Fucanay - Now there's a cemetary I want to be buried. A fun tune and groove where I only felt perhaps a grand lead guiding into a spooky melody as after half a minute it does tend to become a bit repetitive.
Knockman - You know what; at first I wanted to mention how 'hearable' some of the loops were, but then this tune in a sense reminded me of the sample-art of the Avalanches and I heard riding horses...... frontier psychiatrists all over again. Man I love this
WattTyler - Welcome to the contests, and a great entry you do make. Although perhaps slightly repetitive (and in that sense the drums feel more repetitive then the melodic content) I quite like the build up and the eery sphere you create. That sword in the end is one fine touch.
Scoops - There's some vocal harmonies in here that are cleverly arranged. The slowed down vox only adds to this Knarf monster but what got me off my chair was the pfew at the end. Great entry
Emdot ambient - Wow, in a sense very serene yet also horrifying. Perhaps a tad too friendly to become really scary, but nontheless a very exciting offering. And as I suspected this one grows on me more with each repeat.
bitshift - and in the footsteps of the mighty You this was a quick, yet top offering for the contest at hand. The opening windy bit sounded cool and creepy, but personally I must admit that the drums half in half distracted my listening ear to the stuff that is being built underneath.
farlukar - Quite the interesting stich you made here where I would almost think one of the sounds to be a saw gnawing into a wooden coffin where the only thing missing was the lady screaming. Then again it missing that 'cliché' made this only more interesting. Cool rhythmic offering
Wopelka - One of the harder parts of this months contests is while using other's sounds to still maintain your own sound. You succeeded cum laude. Even the cat is scarily looking round the room where these sounds are coming from.
mystahr - ehm.... wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Barnadine - Top notch entry that sounds like a complete story. When's the movie due?
Patrick9 - About the only thing I regret so much about this entry is that it feels like an intro and build up only. I think getting to the point more sooner and have a spooky ending somehow would have worked better. That said, this in no way is a bad entry at all
Hanglowskank - it wouldn't connect through the grave-radio; I'll try another time
You TM - Applause
As usual you pulled of an amazing feat with your entry. Fantastic; and I completely forgive the added 'own' vocals... drop dead Fucanay - Now there's a cemetary I want to be buried. A fun tune and groove where I only felt perhaps a grand lead guiding into a spooky melody as after half a minute it does tend to become a bit repetitive.
Knockman - You know what; at first I wanted to mention how 'hearable' some of the loops were, but then this tune in a sense reminded me of the sample-art of the Avalanches and I heard riding horses...... frontier psychiatrists all over again. Man I love this
WattTyler - Welcome to the contests, and a great entry you do make. Although perhaps slightly repetitive (and in that sense the drums feel more repetitive then the melodic content) I quite like the build up and the eery sphere you create. That sword in the end is one fine touch.
Scoops - There's some vocal harmonies in here that are cleverly arranged. The slowed down vox only adds to this Knarf monster but what got me off my chair was the pfew at the end. Great entry
Emdot ambient - Wow, in a sense very serene yet also horrifying. Perhaps a tad too friendly to become really scary, but nontheless a very exciting offering. And as I suspected this one grows on me more with each repeat.
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- KVRAF
- 7672 posts since 9 Nov, 2003 from Netherlands
I fully agree.... one minute is hardWopelka wrote:mystahr: very cool noisecape. this genre needs more time to evolve, tho. i want more of this.
but makes it a proper challenge
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- KVRAF
- 4878 posts since 13 Jun, 2002 from Montreal
How do you tweak knobs without destroying the preset? I seem to always either effect no change at all or end up hurting my ears.Beardedone wrote:
...I have no faith in being able to program anything useful in any VI - be it a sampler or synth. This limitation has somewhat blunted my enthusiasm of late.
Well, to tell the truth, since I got my new DAW November last, I've been a bit of a preset whore myself. But I've always found that synth programming (on hardware or VI) easier if I start with a preset that's somewhere close to what I'm after, and then reverse engineering it . . . or just tweaking it by fiddling with the knobs.
I don't know if you heard my song Draconus Benedictine for the Benedict plug-in contest at the auditorium last month, but pretty much all the sounds in that were made by fiddling around with presets.
For my song this time, I went into Absynth3, loaded up a preset and then replaced the wavs in the preset with samples from the Graveyard. Once I found ones that seemed to work, I just fiddled with the envelopes and sample transpositions and the like.
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- KVRAF
- 6496 posts since 26 Nov, 2004 from Frederick, MD
Well, in the case of reverse engineering a preset via knob tweakulation (nice word, eh?) You make note of where the knob is prior to tweaking, then wiggle it around to see what it's doing to the preset.Beardedone wrote:How do you tweak knobs without destroying the preset? I seem to always either effect no change at all or end up hurting my ears.
If you're after a particular sound, then you start with a preset that's as close as you can find, tweak and listen to see if your tweaking gets you any closer to the sound you're after. If it doesn't, then you put it back where it started and move on to the next knob.
If you're just messing around and have no idea what sound you want to end up with, then you just tweak each knob until it sounds good and move on. If the tweak doesn't seem to do anything, then there may be a relationship between that function and some other. For example, if you have a filter cut off very high, adjusting the resonance of the filter will not seem to do much until it's set very high as well. With the cut off very low, resonance will have a more pronounced effect. Speaking of that, I generally go very easy on filter resonance, that seems to be the one control that always ends up hurting my ears.
With complex synths like Absynth, I find it harder to do deterministic programming just through tweaking. It seems easy to create fnucked up sounds . . . but I'd really have to spend a couple weeks of concentrated effort (and maybe actually study the pdf manual since friggin' Komplete doesn't ship with a hard copy of the real thing
) before I could set about programming it from scratch. I've got too many synths at my finger tips to have dedicated that much time to it as yet.-
- KVRAF
- 4878 posts since 13 Jun, 2002 from Montreal
A very time consuming affair, isn't it?
Thanks man! Maybe when I can get up some drive for it I'll try again.
Thanks man! Maybe when I can get up some drive for it I'll try again.
Last edited by Beardedone on Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 6496 posts since 26 Nov, 2004 from Frederick, MD
A tad too friendly to become really scary? Yeah, probably. I became so focused on just making the arrangement work that I didn't pay much attention to the scary part . . . sounds more like loathing and dread than out-and-out fright . . . but that's part of the whole spooky thing, too, isn't it? I mean, it's not just the threat of a zombie chowing down on your brain that gets you, it's the loathing of its actual form . . .mystahr wrote:Emdot ambient - Wow, in a sense very serene yet also horrifying. Perhaps a tad too friendly to become really scary, but nontheless a very exciting offering. And as I suspected this one grows on me more with each repeat.
. . . or something
Actually, to me it sounds more like the aftermath of a bloodbath. Like the horror has just happened and the few survivors are looking around horrified by what they see--the lull just afterwards when the survivors aren't sure if the danger is over, the urgency of violence is gone and the consequences of it are just starting to sink in.
Thanks for the great comments!
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- KVRAF
- 4878 posts since 13 Jun, 2002 from Montreal
Well with the weekend nearly here I hope to finish my track, which may (or may not) be suitable. I will say pHATMatikPro came to the rescue. And I learned the ancient art of mapping a smple in Kontakt 1.53. Layering velocities I'll leave to the big boys for now.
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- KVRian
- 1367 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from Australia
Okay, here are some brief subjective comments:
bitshift - Imaginative tangent. Satisfying ebb and flow in the background, waves of wind. Drum sounds don't seem to interact deeply with the rest of the track, which suits the bolted-on theme this month, but leaves me with a general feeling of disconnection. I'd be interested to hear more about your process here - drum patterns derived from utm's pics as well?
farlukar - Very physical and earthy, brings to mind some wayward lab experiment not designed to live, but battling on through sheer determination. No easy flow here, and a genuine sense of struggle. Forward progress must be fought for, every inch.
Wopelka - Disparate elements blended with customary skill to create something extra. Builds to a spooky shrill climax, like a zombie orgasm, or a squeezed pimple, or abduction by aliens and/or god.
mystahr- Another orgasmic swell, built out of static and metal this time. Love where it's headed post-coitus, would like to see those last few seconds extended upon.
Patrick9 - Nice spacious opening. Squeezes quite a bit into a minute, as the diabolical machinery gears itself up. Then small children being minced at the end. Delightful. And big ups for the cheesy necrophilia pun in the submissions thread!
HanglowSkank - One of the more complete songs this month. An extra eerie element for me hearing my doppelganger - creative use of the vocal, tweaked into strange Arabic inflections. Hypnotic and dreamlike.
You™ - Redrum! Another complete song. Enjoyed the fruity 'sahk your blahd' inflections of the vocal. Didn't recognise much source material - you have broken your victims completely to your will. But as with all evil masterminds, your attempts to tame chaos will prove your downfall, when the dull sanctimonious forces of good inevitably defeat you in the third act. Sigh.
fucanay - Excellent choice of riff. Man, I love that aerosteak song. Bubbles along infectiously, tastefully ornamented. People often forget the fun side of being undead. Nice one.
knockman - Skeleton cowboys, trapped under a black sky. Ghostly tumbleweeds. No-one left to shoot, but still pacing the streets.
WattTyler - Love the sharpening knives. The guitar sounds a bit clean-cut, but you do put a new spin on that old nursery rhyme by quoting it here. 'He played knick-knack on my spine'? Eep.
Classic slasher ending. (edit. the penny just dropped - that cretinous fat Barney dinosaur thing knocked off 'This Old Man' for its theme song, didn't it?)
Scoops - Live ylbainednu si sdrawkcab. I like how, rather than building up to the final shock, you put the zombie brainfest in the centre and linger on the chewing, so you can almost hear the zombie thinking 'Mmm, now what? Maybe take in a show or something?'
emdot_ambient - The word 'filmic' popped into my head. It's an ugly word, though. Let's upgrade to 'cinematic'. Moody, widescreen suspense. Less strident than most this month, with a level of detail that rewards attention.
rachMiel - I was reluctant for a moment when multiphonic asked me to post the Flown vocal, didn't seem especially appropriate for this month, but I've been pleased to see how those using it have creatively twisted it and made it their own. Here we have the granular bee burblings of lost souls, clustering around a hollow whisper. The most intriguing part of this for me is the brief resurgence at 0:55 after the pause.
bitshift - Imaginative tangent. Satisfying ebb and flow in the background, waves of wind. Drum sounds don't seem to interact deeply with the rest of the track, which suits the bolted-on theme this month, but leaves me with a general feeling of disconnection. I'd be interested to hear more about your process here - drum patterns derived from utm's pics as well?
farlukar - Very physical and earthy, brings to mind some wayward lab experiment not designed to live, but battling on through sheer determination. No easy flow here, and a genuine sense of struggle. Forward progress must be fought for, every inch.
Wopelka - Disparate elements blended with customary skill to create something extra. Builds to a spooky shrill climax, like a zombie orgasm, or a squeezed pimple, or abduction by aliens and/or god.
mystahr- Another orgasmic swell, built out of static and metal this time. Love where it's headed post-coitus, would like to see those last few seconds extended upon.
Patrick9 - Nice spacious opening. Squeezes quite a bit into a minute, as the diabolical machinery gears itself up. Then small children being minced at the end. Delightful. And big ups for the cheesy necrophilia pun in the submissions thread!
HanglowSkank - One of the more complete songs this month. An extra eerie element for me hearing my doppelganger - creative use of the vocal, tweaked into strange Arabic inflections. Hypnotic and dreamlike.
You™ - Redrum! Another complete song. Enjoyed the fruity 'sahk your blahd' inflections of the vocal. Didn't recognise much source material - you have broken your victims completely to your will. But as with all evil masterminds, your attempts to tame chaos will prove your downfall, when the dull sanctimonious forces of good inevitably defeat you in the third act. Sigh.
fucanay - Excellent choice of riff. Man, I love that aerosteak song. Bubbles along infectiously, tastefully ornamented. People often forget the fun side of being undead. Nice one.
knockman - Skeleton cowboys, trapped under a black sky. Ghostly tumbleweeds. No-one left to shoot, but still pacing the streets.
WattTyler - Love the sharpening knives. The guitar sounds a bit clean-cut, but you do put a new spin on that old nursery rhyme by quoting it here. 'He played knick-knack on my spine'? Eep.
Classic slasher ending. (edit. the penny just dropped - that cretinous fat Barney dinosaur thing knocked off 'This Old Man' for its theme song, didn't it?)Scoops - Live ylbainednu si sdrawkcab. I like how, rather than building up to the final shock, you put the zombie brainfest in the centre and linger on the chewing, so you can almost hear the zombie thinking 'Mmm, now what? Maybe take in a show or something?'
emdot_ambient - The word 'filmic' popped into my head. It's an ugly word, though. Let's upgrade to 'cinematic'. Moody, widescreen suspense. Less strident than most this month, with a level of detail that rewards attention.
rachMiel - I was reluctant for a moment when multiphonic asked me to post the Flown vocal, didn't seem especially appropriate for this month, but I've been pleased to see how those using it have creatively twisted it and made it their own. Here we have the granular bee burblings of lost souls, clustering around a hollow whisper. The most intriguing part of this for me is the brief resurgence at 0:55 after the pause.
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- KVRian
- 1367 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from Australia
Some people get impatient with subjective comments, so for those who prefer a more rigorous kind of analysis, I've decided to rate all the entries this month as well.
Don't let it depress you though. It's science.
Don't let it depress you though. It's science.
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- KVRAF
- 3266 posts since 22 Sep, 2003 from under the sun
Barnadine wrote:Some people get impatient with subjective comments, so for those who prefer a more rigorous kind of analysis, I've decided to rate all the entries this month as well.
Don't let it depress you though. It's science.
that's wonderful.
note that french scientists often use pears instead of oranges in their comparison, and swiss ones are keen on using different varieties of grape.
and thanks for the comments
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 3066 posts since 31 May, 2002 from My chair
Markleford's band, The James Rocket: http://www.TheJamesRocket.com/
Markleford's tracks: http://www.markleford.com/music/
Markleford's free MFX, DXi2, DR-008 modules: http://www.TenCrazy.com/
Markleford's tracks: http://www.markleford.com/music/
Markleford's free MFX, DXi2, DR-008 modules: http://www.TenCrazy.com/
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- KVRAF
- 2093 posts since 19 Jun, 2003 from UTM 18 317254E 4295335N (WGS84/NAD83)
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- KVRAF
- 3726 posts since 30 Jan, 2005 from rochester, ny
und here's my submission reuploaded with its leading numbers corrected to adhere to zee rules (i also changed the url in the submissions thread):
http://www.rachmiel.org/kvr/0510_rachMiel_fLown.mp3
also: i increased the volume so that the piece's eldritch subtleties could ooze through more effectively. if you already downloaded the old version, please replace it with this new (slightly) louder version.
my apologies for the confusion: it's my first kvr kompetition and i'm just beginning to katch on.
rachMiel the heiNous
http://www.rachmiel.org/kvr/0510_rachMiel_fLown.mp3
also: i increased the volume so that the piece's eldritch subtleties could ooze through more effectively. if you already downloaded the old version, please replace it with this new (slightly) louder version.
my apologies for the confusion: it's my first kvr kompetition and i'm just beginning to katch on.
rachMiel the heiNous
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- KVRAF
- 6496 posts since 26 Nov, 2004 from Frederick, MD
Thanks! I was just lucky to come up with something that didn't sound like completely random ramblings!Barnadine wrote:emdot_ambient - The word 'filmic' popped into my head. It's an ugly word, though. Let's upgrade to 'cinematic'. Moody, widescreen suspense. Less strident than most this month, with a level of detail that rewards attention.