So in the OSCs I came in 20 out 22, 36 out of 51, 30 out 39. I deserved better each time but I wrote a less popular genre and didn't use drums. These people want a lot going on and definitely drums. Good drums. So for the 4th try that's what I have done. I don't quite like it. Perhaps it will score slightly better I guess..? Trivigaunte using Odin2. Complextro. Some good comments. Next up Hy poly, which I guess I better really figure out some drums first and foremost and then
Otherwise still writing ambient/new age in odd time sigs. Think my sounds need to improve though. Samples. Acoustic stuff. Maybe piano. And have to write more stuff using just a couple things. Like reaktor and/or Massive x. The free synth stuff just doesn't quite fit.
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
It seems I may have been forgetting to log the books I've since November! Or maybe haven't read much. Had been primarily doing music.
Read some slightly goofy novel about shipwrecked humams and alien snail like creatures. Intelligent but very slow moving. Eric Flint. Mother of Demons. I won't continue the series though it was ok really. Initial motivation to read was silly.
Finished the Solar Cycle. All the Long Sun and Short Sun. Of the whole cycle Urth was my favorite. Short Sun was better than Long, which was longwinded. The whole Silk vs Horn thing was drawn out so long and a bit silly.
Awake in the Nightland by John Wright was excellent. The setting is so captivating. The sense of mystery about the watchers. So dark. The Nightland by Stoddard was pretty good but Wright is a superior writer. I read another Wright novel then, Count to a Trillion. Didn't care for it. Won't finish the series. The romance felt so 1950 kitsch. And the math seemed very much like showing off that didn't really add substance. Checked out Wright's website. Some interesting thoughts but ultimately a massive blowhard who is caught up in the politics bullshit. A tool to be wound up and pointed at an enemy.
Partial reads of a ton of stuff. Matthew Hughes who is vancian and ok. Hasn't quite really caught me.
The Devil in the Forest by Gene Wolfe was very good. Not sure what to think of the surprise at the end.
Next up The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear.
Read some slightly goofy novel about shipwrecked humams and alien snail like creatures. Intelligent but very slow moving. Eric Flint. Mother of Demons. I won't continue the series though it was ok really. Initial motivation to read was silly.
Finished the Solar Cycle. All the Long Sun and Short Sun. Of the whole cycle Urth was my favorite. Short Sun was better than Long, which was longwinded. The whole Silk vs Horn thing was drawn out so long and a bit silly.
Awake in the Nightland by John Wright was excellent. The setting is so captivating. The sense of mystery about the watchers. So dark. The Nightland by Stoddard was pretty good but Wright is a superior writer. I read another Wright novel then, Count to a Trillion. Didn't care for it. Won't finish the series. The romance felt so 1950 kitsch. And the math seemed very much like showing off that didn't really add substance. Checked out Wright's website. Some interesting thoughts but ultimately a massive blowhard who is caught up in the politics bullshit. A tool to be wound up and pointed at an enemy.
Partial reads of a ton of stuff. Matthew Hughes who is vancian and ok. Hasn't quite really caught me.
The Devil in the Forest by Gene Wolfe was very good. Not sure what to think of the surprise at the end.
Next up The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
I have mulliganed my OSC submission. Definitely not Chocolate Falafel. I wrote 3 songs with Tricent. It's a frustrating synth. The third is Infinite Repository. I will go with that one. Trying to now wait very late to submit. Thinking of any way I can improve stuff.
My top ten:
A Journey's End
Quiet Peace Enfolding
Space Needle Rain
Real Life Caricatures
Roller Rink
I Slept As Never Before
Neptunus
Infinite Repository
Rucker Park
"Tricent Ambient"
Top 5 are pretty decent. Perhaps the piano one is a bit repetitive considering it's piano. But I really enjoy listening it. I need to mess with Neptunus. I like it yet it got voted almost last place lol. I still really think it's a worthy song. I will really shorten it and lessen the detuned strings. Possibly knock it from 5.5 to just 3 minutes...... Rucker Park is maybe badly named. Maybe goes on too long. "Tricent Ambient" needs improved I think. Somehow. Needs a name I guess. Infinite Repository I like. Just not very happy with Tricent. I Slept As Never Before I also like. It didn't do well enough in the OSC. That has turned me against it. Someone said it was "slow". ...It's called I slept as never before, were you expecting EDM? Space Needle Rain the brass is still a little iffy to me. But Rink, End and Enfolding are damn perfect. I spent forever mastering End. (Green Eugene, ValhallaSupermassive, Luftikus, TDR Kotelnikov, Loudmax, JS Event Horizon Limiter/Clipper)
My top ten:
A Journey's End
Quiet Peace Enfolding
Space Needle Rain
Real Life Caricatures
Roller Rink
I Slept As Never Before
Neptunus
Infinite Repository
Rucker Park
"Tricent Ambient"
Top 5 are pretty decent. Perhaps the piano one is a bit repetitive considering it's piano. But I really enjoy listening it. I need to mess with Neptunus. I like it yet it got voted almost last place lol. I still really think it's a worthy song. I will really shorten it and lessen the detuned strings. Possibly knock it from 5.5 to just 3 minutes...... Rucker Park is maybe badly named. Maybe goes on too long. "Tricent Ambient" needs improved I think. Somehow. Needs a name I guess. Infinite Repository I like. Just not very happy with Tricent. I Slept As Never Before I also like. It didn't do well enough in the OSC. That has turned me against it. Someone said it was "slow". ...It's called I slept as never before, were you expecting EDM? Space Needle Rain the brass is still a little iffy to me. But Rink, End and Enfolding are damn perfect. I spent forever mastering End. (Green Eugene, ValhallaSupermassive, Luftikus, TDR Kotelnikov, Loudmax, JS Event Horizon Limiter/Clipper)
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Guess I wrote 4 songs in last 3.5 weeks. A Journey's End. 5/4. But keep on revising.
Space Needle Rain. 9/8 and 4/4. Different from my usual. Almost twin peaks. My first 9/8.
Chocolate Falafel. For OSC. Not really a good one. Not the genre I want to do. Dislike Tricent vst. Submitted on 15th. Should wait till at least 25th.
Tricent Ambient. Probably should have submitted this. Again though, not quite happy with Tricent. I guess some people did decent stuff with it but I found it harsh and not versatile. So didn't want to spend too much time on it. But still should have waited longer.
I keep on making small revisions. I'd like to think I'm halfway to a decent O'Hearn like album. Maybe. Still need to improve. Enjoying odd times but I need to do more, change keys and times within songs. And more emulating.
Got 37th out of 51 for I slept as never before. It took quite a few weeks but I am gradually less enamored of it. 7/4 is nice and it has a pleasant feel. But still seems a tad slow and simple.
Space Needle Rain. 9/8 and 4/4. Different from my usual. Almost twin peaks. My first 9/8.
Chocolate Falafel. For OSC. Not really a good one. Not the genre I want to do. Dislike Tricent vst. Submitted on 15th. Should wait till at least 25th.
Tricent Ambient. Probably should have submitted this. Again though, not quite happy with Tricent. I guess some people did decent stuff with it but I found it harsh and not versatile. So didn't want to spend too much time on it. But still should have waited longer.
I keep on making small revisions. I'd like to think I'm halfway to a decent O'Hearn like album. Maybe. Still need to improve. Enjoying odd times but I need to do more, change keys and times within songs. And more emulating.
Got 37th out of 51 for I slept as never before. It took quite a few weeks but I am gradually less enamored of it. 7/4 is nice and it has a pleasant feel. But still seems a tad slow and simple.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
So the day after previous post I got vote results and came in 20 out of 22. I didn't expect to do well as I said but it was still surprisingly bad. Depressed me in that I think it was better than that. Wife and nephew (who has written a ton of music) agreed. Most entries were very EDM and it seemed like they showed that they're narrow minded. But, anyway, possibly it influenced me to spend money. Maybe not. Hard to say. Anyway I bought Komplete 12 which includes Massive X and a ton of other good stuff about ten days ago. I then redid my OSC 134 entry with Massive X,
I slept as never before.
And I edited up what I had called "Reasonable" but changed to Roller Rink. It's improved. Though still a tad bombastic and repetitive at the end.
And then I wrote two more. Rucker Park which was supposed to be EDM. Didn't work out that way but every time I hear I think it's actually really pretty good. And Quiet Peace Enfolding. I love the smooth flute sound in it from Massive X. It's in 12/8. I was hoping to write 3 songs a month. 36 songs in a year is really pretty good. (If they're any good.) I'm very easily going faster than that, though the quality still needs to get a bit better. I do feel like these recent ones are my best ever. Now I'm having some success with a trancelike song. Trying to be influenced by Paul Oakenfold.
Want to write borderline ambient stuff in weird time signature and also trance/EDM type stuff. Have recently written a 7/4 (I slept as never before), 5/4 (Roller Rink) and 12/8 (Quiet Peace Enfolding). They're all really decent I think...?? That's my one genre. Stuff that soothes. Not really ambient. But on the slow side. And I think I'm going to get the hang of trance/EDM it looks like. Stuff that gives energy. But that will surely be slower. I need to have patience with it and not get bored of songs and move on too quickly.
I slept as never before.
And I edited up what I had called "Reasonable" but changed to Roller Rink. It's improved. Though still a tad bombastic and repetitive at the end.
And then I wrote two more. Rucker Park which was supposed to be EDM. Didn't work out that way but every time I hear I think it's actually really pretty good. And Quiet Peace Enfolding. I love the smooth flute sound in it from Massive X. It's in 12/8. I was hoping to write 3 songs a month. 36 songs in a year is really pretty good. (If they're any good.) I'm very easily going faster than that, though the quality still needs to get a bit better. I do feel like these recent ones are my best ever. Now I'm having some success with a trancelike song. Trying to be influenced by Paul Oakenfold.
Want to write borderline ambient stuff in weird time signature and also trance/EDM type stuff. Have recently written a 7/4 (I slept as never before), 5/4 (Roller Rink) and 12/8 (Quiet Peace Enfolding). They're all really decent I think...?? That's my one genre. Stuff that soothes. Not really ambient. But on the slow side. And I think I'm going to get the hang of trance/EDM it looks like. Stuff that gives energy. But that will surely be slower. I need to have patience with it and not get bored of songs and move on too quickly.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
I for one am enjoying the pandemic. So far.
Thinking back on the previous 6 songs I posted. Neptunus, Real Life Caricatures, Stray Monsters, Cooperative Time Travel, Twilight Race and Flying Sebastians. Neptunus is really damn good. Vote results are today. It may not do that great in the voting as that competition is about complexity and making tons of good instances from a free vst. I didn't really have that many unique instances. But I created a hell of an atmosphere. And now I have found that for high pitched smooth (non-piercing) strings, what I made in cheeze machine 2 sounds better than bazille (130$), Hive2 (150$) and Minimonsta (1?0$) at least. So I have saved it as a template and added it to one more or less completed songs and am now using it on another.
Real Life Caricatures is pretty good though I suppose kind of dark. Not what most like. Cooperative Time Travel is ok. The others not quite as good. There is something missing but I can't easily put my finger on it. And I need to be able to determine what. I guess Stray Monster might be the weakest. But I might be influenced by some asshole ridiculing it. I enjoy listening to it. But it doesn't fit in any existing genre. It's out on its own. And that's a problem I guess for most listeners. One issue I think is that especially for instrumental music I do generally need a lot more instances. This isn't rock music. Without vocals it seems you need to compensate with a ton of different musical "voices".
Submitted for the next OSC is "I slept as never before".
I Slept As Never Before
Has a poem with it Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver. I like it a lot. For this month (April) could use any one synth. Just had to have birds in it. Again I didn't pander to what I assume is most likely to do good. Instead went with what most generically makes sense with bird song. Birds don't combine that great with 30 different synth sounds. So what I wrote is simple. I guess not as good as the previous month but I really like it. But I'm having to think of the poem a bit to do so. Others probably aren't thinking of the poem as they listen. It's in 7/4 time which is a first for me. I find the melody very iconic and memorable. Timeless.
So then right after that in just a couple days I knocked out a piece in 5/4. Something I hadn't done before. Having trouble naming it.
Reasonable
It's very happy and when too happy I automatically dislike. Happy equals sappy to me. Thing about happy in music is that what we equate as happy is really just the most simplistic sound ratios. This is in 5/4 though which adds complexity. But still it's bombastically happy. And it was so easy to write. Thus making it feel very simplistic. I could go back and add chords to turn it slightly less happy. I suppose. Or I could learn to not ridicule the concept of being really happy. For the latter how I name it could play a role. At first named this "Free at Last" as I was thinking of my poor nephew who is trying to survive till his freedom. (Which could be any day as I've offered to let him live at my house or could be one more year.) But when I think of that title I immediately think "Lord god almighty, I"m free at last!" and it feels like a parody. So then trying to think of synonyms for free....
...I think I'll just name it Reasonable. Though it sounds pedestrian it's actually one hell of an ideal that almost no one I personally know has succeeded in obtaining.
And the drums are too repetitive. I will randomly make them a bit less repetitive I guess.
I also wrote other stuff not as good. It's important to push yourself. Wrote some microtonal I wasn't quite happy with. Centrifugal. Asked on a microtonal group for feedback. 50 listens. Only a couple people said they like it. Of course I kind of like it. But when everyone else says they don't I feel a tad like I must be nuts and feeling like you're nuts, feels a lot like a collossal failure. Of course I only partially feel that way. Another part of me recognizes the problems with that. But the seed is there. Not necessarily growing but there. There was another worse microtonal. And then an attempt at industrial dub. I'm putting the microtonal on hold except for nuanced stuff (Young, Pythagorean). I will keep attempting industrial/trance/techno which I'm not good at. Next attempting to really use my TAL sampler.
Thinking back on the previous 6 songs I posted. Neptunus, Real Life Caricatures, Stray Monsters, Cooperative Time Travel, Twilight Race and Flying Sebastians. Neptunus is really damn good. Vote results are today. It may not do that great in the voting as that competition is about complexity and making tons of good instances from a free vst. I didn't really have that many unique instances. But I created a hell of an atmosphere. And now I have found that for high pitched smooth (non-piercing) strings, what I made in cheeze machine 2 sounds better than bazille (130$), Hive2 (150$) and Minimonsta (1?0$) at least. So I have saved it as a template and added it to one more or less completed songs and am now using it on another.
Real Life Caricatures is pretty good though I suppose kind of dark. Not what most like. Cooperative Time Travel is ok. The others not quite as good. There is something missing but I can't easily put my finger on it. And I need to be able to determine what. I guess Stray Monster might be the weakest. But I might be influenced by some asshole ridiculing it. I enjoy listening to it. But it doesn't fit in any existing genre. It's out on its own. And that's a problem I guess for most listeners. One issue I think is that especially for instrumental music I do generally need a lot more instances. This isn't rock music. Without vocals it seems you need to compensate with a ton of different musical "voices".
Submitted for the next OSC is "I slept as never before".
I Slept As Never Before
Has a poem with it Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver. I like it a lot. For this month (April) could use any one synth. Just had to have birds in it. Again I didn't pander to what I assume is most likely to do good. Instead went with what most generically makes sense with bird song. Birds don't combine that great with 30 different synth sounds. So what I wrote is simple. I guess not as good as the previous month but I really like it. But I'm having to think of the poem a bit to do so. Others probably aren't thinking of the poem as they listen. It's in 7/4 time which is a first for me. I find the melody very iconic and memorable. Timeless.
So then right after that in just a couple days I knocked out a piece in 5/4. Something I hadn't done before. Having trouble naming it.
Reasonable
It's very happy and when too happy I automatically dislike. Happy equals sappy to me. Thing about happy in music is that what we equate as happy is really just the most simplistic sound ratios. This is in 5/4 though which adds complexity. But still it's bombastically happy. And it was so easy to write. Thus making it feel very simplistic. I could go back and add chords to turn it slightly less happy. I suppose. Or I could learn to not ridicule the concept of being really happy. For the latter how I name it could play a role. At first named this "Free at Last" as I was thinking of my poor nephew who is trying to survive till his freedom. (Which could be any day as I've offered to let him live at my house or could be one more year.) But when I think of that title I immediately think "Lord god almighty, I"m free at last!" and it feels like a parody. So then trying to think of synonyms for free....
...I think I'll just name it Reasonable. Though it sounds pedestrian it's actually one hell of an ideal that almost no one I personally know has succeeded in obtaining.
And the drums are too repetitive. I will randomly make them a bit less repetitive I guess.
I also wrote other stuff not as good. It's important to push yourself. Wrote some microtonal I wasn't quite happy with. Centrifugal. Asked on a microtonal group for feedback. 50 listens. Only a couple people said they like it. Of course I kind of like it. But when everyone else says they don't I feel a tad like I must be nuts and feeling like you're nuts, feels a lot like a collossal failure. Of course I only partially feel that way. Another part of me recognizes the problems with that. But the seed is there. Not necessarily growing but there. There was another worse microtonal. And then an attempt at industrial dub. I'm putting the microtonal on hold except for nuanced stuff (Young, Pythagorean). I will keep attempting industrial/trance/techno which I'm not good at. Next attempting to really use my TAL sampler.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)