In what is certain to be the first of many re-brandings of my weekly delving into the world of music generation, I bring you gifts from times long past.
Also, really long sentences.
I didn't make these this week, as per usual, because of god damned exams. These ones are: FROM THE VAULT!
Anyway, on to business. The last one got a bit wordy for my liking.
Just a few... lets call them production notes... on this one.
I made it about a year ago, when I was first toying around with Fruity Loops. It was my first experience with the brick wall that is guitar samples in FL Studio. The final chorus is - for lack of a better word - difficult. The name is not affiliated with Journey the band. That is all.
And, rounding out our selection this evening, a curious aside:
Being only 2.46 in length means that this bad boy avoids the primary issue I have with most of my music: It get's too damn long! This one is concise. I'm not sure if there's such a thing as pacing in the musical world, but if there were, this would be the most likely of all my creations to have it. It also makes a great Audiosurf level!
It avoids the issue of Guitar-itus (patent pending) by making the guitar sound so low on the octave scale that it sometimes touches the line between real and digital. Sometimes. Other times, you know it's the least authentic thing since Kid Rock.
...or was that most authentic. I get those two confused.
Also, why did I call it Roids? I'm not sure! I've got a couple lined up for a future blog (because I tend to make a lot of songs half-way finished, before giving up and never looking at them again) simply called "asdfjiojejifoa" and "asjfoijop" because someone came into my room when I was making them, I felt embarrassed by them and had to remove them from sight as quickly as possible.
Anyway, I'm going to make something new (to celebrate my joyous completion of exams for the year) tomorrow night, because it's sure as hell 5am at the moment, and I can't think straight.
Oh, Re: Musicopolis: Combining my love for Music; cop; polis (fuck da polis, etc), and sico. Brilliant, I know.
Welcome back, for what will no doubt be another exciting escapade through my mind.
I recommend not reading the text and just listening to the songs. But then again, I recommend picture-books over regular ones, so...
Episode 2
The dangers of imaginary guitars
Fitting in with the theme of this being the second week of my musical experiment, I decided that I'd provide you with two whole, completed tracks for you to listen to, and hopefully critique until the proverbial cows come proverbially home. First of all, It's nearly Halloween!
Probably my favourite nostalgic holiday this side of Christmas, Halloween gives me an opportunity to revisit memories long-repressed, like the time my cousin let my brother and me watch Jurassic Park when he was baby-sitting us.
The memories of that fat guy getting killed by the acid-spraying dinosaur haunt me to this day... but I digress!
This thing I done is kind of Halloween inspired, by which I mean that I tried to make it sound Halloween-y, and it didn't work out especially well. So enjoy!
WARNING: I haven't actually listened to this all the way through, because apparently my downstairs neighbour "doesn't appreciate thumping bass at 2am". Well lah-dee-fucking-dah. So if some parts of it sound too loud, too quiet or cause your ears to melt down the side of your face, blame her!
So, the thing you'll first notice is probably the guitar parts. FL Studio guitars sound like crap! They have a weird way of not actually sounding like guitars, and more like someone using a cheese-grater on a subwoofer. But that's OK, because at least it adds texture, right? RIGHT?
My main issue with this song is that I reached the 48 second mark and ran out of ideas. While I can't test this theory right now, I suspect the song will probably drag a little, lord knows I felt dragged when I made it. The way the chords change don't work especially well for the first 2 minutes, and... I dunno, I think this is the musical equivalent of writing yourself into a hole. I didn't want to just abandon it, because I wanted to make a festive tune rather than a bog-standard wakawakapowpow sort of deal (yeah, one of those).
Making this also revealed my inability to smoothly transition from one part of a song to the other. I think, with the exception of one drum-roll kinda part, it just sort of stops doing what it was doing, and dumps itself into the next part of the song, with little-to-no regard for slickness.
Oh well, nobody ever said the learning curve for making music was flat I guess.
As for the second song, all I can say is that it's not especially Halloween-orientated. But for the sake of this themed blog, won't you pretend that it is!?
I don't have a whole lot to say about this one, except that it took a freakin' age and a half to make. Can you tell that I started making this then stopped for a day every 40 seconds or so? While Hallow was made essentially tonight (a few hours ago in fact), This took a few weeks. In fact, I stared making this before I started making this musical blog!
Well... sure, two weeks isn't an especially long time.
For my 2000th post (if this actually counts as a post - if not, well dammit...1999 was a great year too) I thought I'd start up a semi-regular shindig, which is basically going to consist of my musical exploits for the week.
"Musical exploits, that sounds like a shit idea!" you say?
Well, eff you, buddy! I'm doin' it anyway! This is the internet, and unless "musical exploits" devolves into "child pornography exploits", not even the Police can stop me!
Not only as an attempt to troll the musical geniuses amongst us, I thought it would be an interesting insight into (alliteration - but also...) the process of creating music from the viewpoint of the most layman of laymen. I don't understand Sweet Aunt Betsy about music, alls I know is that synthesisers are bad-ass in a nostalgic, cheap consumer electronics kinda way.
By the way, "Musical exploits" is a fancy way of saying that I'm gonna be posting a few half-to-mostly finished songs every week (that I have constructed all on my own, via the magic of Fruityloops, no less), talk a bit about how I don't like them, realise I should be studying for my exams and end this whole thing after the second week. Well, that's my contingency plan anyway, we'll see how it goes.
So, without any further ado (that looks wrong, but Chrome spell-check informs me otherwise - OH CRAP, IT'S MORE ADO) I present to you:
Episode 1
In which I discover my true calling
Or not, you know, whatever. So here is the first masterpiece, for your listening pleasure:
Alright, if that says this track is currently not available, then screw this whole endeavour!
EDIT: It seems to work about 20% of the time, so if you are one of the "lucky few" to actually hear it:
I played Sonic 4, was immensely disparaged by the ass music it contained, and made this in the space of 25 minutes. Two things I immediately discovered: It's really hard to make a chorus in FL Studio. You've got to re-jigger all your careful sequencing of notes, then construct something that is both cohesive with the first part, as well as sounding different enough to make it worthwhile. This song treads that line like a drunk clown.
The second thing I discovered was that after you've carefully re-jiggered the chorus, you (by which I mean I) have no idea where to take the song next. Going back to the first part is no good, because it's just boring build-up.
Rather than find an actual solution to this issue, I gave up.
I'll be a musician in no time with this attitude! Now all I need to do is start smoking meth, right?
But hey, that's not all this post is about.
It's also about 2000. 2000 representations of time that has been both absolutely wasted, and used for great justice. I'd like to thank the academy, for all their support, Buzz_Clik, for seemingly being the only other person on the planet who cares about Wip3out anymore, and of course, the rest of this lovely community, without whom I would be floating in an internet cesspool of anonymity.
Thanks, goodnight, and god damn the process of uploading audio!
EDIT 2: As a bonus for this upload business actually working, I'll leave this much longer, though still only semi-completed version of a different song I was working on. I started to do zany stuff like mess with the volume levels of different instruments..
Watch it. I don't know why exactly, but at a certain point in this video, I gave a shiver of what I've termed "Fuck-Yeah-osity". It's the moment in a game, or during a movie, or - although this isn't exactly pertinent to what I want to see from you - real life, where you are absolutely taken by a moment, In some cases, such as the moment above me, the build-up is important in other cases they can take you by surprise. It does't matter, so long as the second that moment happens, what ever you are looking at has stated in no uncertain terms: "It's on".
Do you guys feel like you've had this kind of experience before? Do you have it with this specific video, or is it my personal reaction?
Best "Sony Computer Entertainment Presents" ever. I don't know why most every game these days just has this at the very start, as a way to get it over with before they start whatever the hell it is that they want to do.
And speaking of nostalgia, and why-dont-they-do-it-like-this-anymore-isms:
So, you all remember that mishap with the New Zealand based TV3 basically stealing that Kevin Butler ad, but making it about TV instead of Playstation? Anyway, it seems comeuppance has been... comeupped. Stolen violently from Kevin Butler's Twitter page:
P.S. Aotearoa is Maori for "Land of the Long White Cloud", A.K.A. New Zealand. Re: PS3 AAAAND
I'm not sure how much of an "apology" the Marmite is. To the untrained palette, that stuff can be downright explosive. But thats only because people smear gallons of it onto their toast, not expecting the POWERFUL YEAST SENSATION.
Use it lightly, people. Lightly.
Flight of the Conchords is an unusual choice, because TV3 lost the rights of broadcasting that program to the Australia/New Zealand joint venture, Prime. Sucks to be them.
Pineapple Lumps are delicious.
Milo makes your milk go all chocolatey (I'm sure there's an American equivalent). However, the key is that it doesn't dissolve perfectly into the milk, leaving big clumps of choco-tastic crap floating around it it. Awesome!
Toffee Pops suck the dick.
That's all I have to say on this subject. I hope you've enjoyed my New Zealand history lesson.
Next Week, I reveal the reason that we got Rock Band 2 a whole year after the U.S. release! (Here's a hint: EA distribution is awful).
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So, what do you care? Well, I thought you'd like to hear my mini-review of it.
It's spoiler-free. For your pleasure.
This mini review consists of
The Good:
Characters. Uniformly interesting, with fantastic voice actors. Graphics. Once again, Blizzard proves that art style prevails over all. Tychus and Raynor particularly look amazing. Level structure: Every level, apart from the last two, was appealing for a different reason. VARIETY BABY!
The stuff I wish was better, but am mostly happy with: The music. At times, fist pumpingly awesome. All the right moments too. BUT, it wasn't the Starcraft 1 soundtrack. And unfairly, I wish part of it was. The ending. Remember how I said this was spoiler-free? Anyway, the ending went down, there was an exciting discovery, a well placed event, and then... ... It's going to cost me $40 - $60 to pick these story-threads back up again. I liked it, I did, it was good. This game is so great I wish it would go on forever. Even though I was expecting more from the ending, it delivered what it needed to at least. The more I think about the game as a whole, the more I think hey that ending worked fine. Take that for what you will.
THE THING I WAS BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED WITH EVEN THOUGH IT'S COMPLETELY UNFAIR TO EXPECT WHAT I EXPECTED.
Ok, I guess this part is an extremely minor spoiler. EXTREMELY MINOR!
**************************WARNING ************************** * EXTREMELY MINOR SPOILER UP IN THIS FOOL* ****************************************************************
Anyway, at some stage during the game, you hear a conversation that occured in Starcraft 1 taking place. It featured Duke, who said "Boy" as "Boyh". As in "you lookin' at me, boyh?" like the marines. But more drawl-y. Remember him? He was a Confederate
Anyroad, it didn't sound anything like Duke from Starcraft 1. It sounded like "vaguely western American guy"
I don't know. I just wanted so desperately for it to be him again that I let my emotions get the better of me.
Anyway this game is great five stars best single player experience I've ever had in an RTS yaddyaddyadda screw you Blizzard give me back my southern drawl
I guess nobody I actually had respect for before has said anything nasty, but a lot of less notable, newer and apparently more dickhead-related people have just come out of the woodwork. It's not cool, and it makes us all look like fucking assholes with no empathy or morals. I'm not trying to "white knight" or whatever else is flying around the forums, but reacting with such strength is just kinda rude.
Fuck you people. In the words of that black guy from Crash: "You embarrass me, you embarrass yourself".
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