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Adventures In Music Software


Hendo
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Garageband on the pad is pretty cool, been messing around with recording real instruments and adding virtual ones, did a rough cover of I Wanna Be Like You on the uke with added double bass and string section. I emailed the original recording with just the uke to a mate and he added drums, so then I added the rest to that.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F40255222&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

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I'm continuing to make stuff on Garageband, making an effort to try and make them sound natural rather than electronic.

I covered a track by my band The Crow Hearts, "Song of the Fallen", using piano, acoustic guitar, double bass and plucked strings.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F40305079&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

Last night I decided to cover "Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns 'n Roses, using piano, double bass and 3 ukuleles. Each uke was recorded live with no sampling or copying and pasting. I did try some vocals but wasn't happy with them so used a uke as the vocal part. It's missing the last half of the song as it's not finished yet but I'm happy enough with it as it is.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F40540148&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

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I've not really had chance to listen to these properly sine now, but I've had my headphones in and I've l;istened to all the songs a few times now.

Song of the Fallen and Sweet Child of Mine sound fantastic. You hit the nail right on the head there, I actually think that the GnR cover is probably one of the best ones I've heard, and considering every fucker covers it, that's saying something. It's nice to have a more mellow version of TCH song as well.

I'm not too sure about I Wanna Be Like You. It's fine until you start layering strings in and then it starts to clash. I don't know if you have put a few bum notes in there or whether you are putting notes in that don't fit the scale of the progression but certain notes really grind against the bass and uke. The pitch of the string notes doesn't seem to follow the flow of the accompanied instruments. Did you by any chance rip the lyric notes from a website? I know a lot of lyrics don't have much variation on scale, as the average human voice isn't designed to span many octaves (about 2) without training, so it seems many songs just seem to use the same 3 or 4 notes when covering lyrical parts. If you were to do it again and I was in your shoes, I'd take artistical merit and maybe bend the lyrics so they dont grind so much at certain parts, maybe alter them so that you are hitting a note that is currently being played in one of the chords as I think that's what's wrong for those notes.

Fuck me, I sound like a right miserable cunt. I'm looking forward to any more stuff you kick out. Any chances of the crying song being covered, I love that one.

Good work though H. It's not easy what you are doing, I always have admiration for people that can play multiple parts of songs without having the backing there to help funnel you where you are meant to be going.

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I'll go into more detail when I've got more time (off to work in a bit) but I made some mistakes on the uke on I Wanna Be Like You. The strings are played manually but triggered from notes that I don't really know what they are but I know they are in key. You tell it what the chords are and for each chord there are 4 buttons that give you a different note that fits that chord. I recorded the strings played live in one go and just randomly playing the buttons in each chord as they appeared. I'll take a picture so you can see how it works, maybe even make a video.

Glad you like Sweet Child, I'm most proud of that one. :D

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  • 1 month later...

I've been creating more tunes while the site has been down, compiled some into an EP of sorts.

<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F1834776&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

Actually gave some thought into which was the best track to start, which to end and what track should follow from the last.

I've also done some recording/production work in a festival I was playing at. Plugged my iPad into the mixing desk and recorded 3 acts, including my own.

Put the files on Audacity, gave them some more volume, added reverb and edited the tracks down. There's one each from them here:

<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F1901296&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

Sadly, the bass on my own band's set was far too quiet on the day, so that's barely there in the mix.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nice. I want to try this program and see what I can kick out. No Mac though, might have a look at some other software.

EDIT: I'm looking all over but cannot find a decent free program to used. Got any suggestions for sequencers that have all the instruments and loops within the software?

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Made this last night, I'm quite pleased with it.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F46102055&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

first time listening to this (while cooking) I had some lyrics to go over the top. Sat down to record them and all I got was shit. I like it though, starts off quite Pearl Jam

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Nice. I want to try this program and see what I can kick out. No Mac though, might have a look at some other software.

EDIT: I'm looking all over but cannot find a decent free program to used. Got any suggestions for sequencers that have all the instruments and loops within the software?

Fruity Loops? There's a free demo on there.

This most recent track is actually one of the most "real" I've done in that only the drums are pre-made, though I did make the hi-hat intro and crash at the end, the rest is a pre-made loop.

The guitars were recorded live for 12 bars and then it loops, same with the bass. The piano was played live and looped. Actually, there's an electric piano that's a bit of a cheat.

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I'm entering a remix competition, this is the song:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0gHco-Wr1Pg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And this is my entry, made entirely on GarageBand, with a slight pre-production work on Audacity to make sure the loops were all starting on the first beat (they weren't).

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F46691810&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

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I like it. Drums are a bit harsh though, I think brushes would suit the tone more. It's a laid back song. Very nice though, how long did it take? I'm thinking the gave you the song for free, as the quality on the voices on yours is much much clearer.

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They gave the files away, you get a guitar, bass, piano, vocals (both vocals together) and percussion. I took out the guitar and percussion and went from there.

In all I'd say it took me less than 2 hours, after the first hour I'd got the basic thing done and then another hour of tweaking, trying new things out and then giving up and going back to how it was.

Made a few changes to that remix, nothing crazy just took down some background vocal loops and some slight level changes.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F46886630&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

Also started working on a track yesterday, had every intention of making a massive bass that would tear your face off but couldn't find any sound I was happy with and then I started playing a bass line which led me to somehow make a doom/stoner metal type track, albeit as electronica. Very weird.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F47074051&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm currently doing a little project for Sly and he says I should post more stuff in here.

Now these aren't for Sly and they weren't made using Garageband, they were made with Ableton on the laptop, but might as well go here.

I re-worked a song I did from Garageband onto Ableton, quite dark, I love playing it live. Oh, all these were recorded with me playing the samples and arranging it "live" and on the fly.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F48206682&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

I had a couple of Tom Waits samples stuck in my head so made a little track out of them.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F48394176&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

I sampled "Satisfaction" by Benny Benassi and made a new track out of it. Also quite dark.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F48491379&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

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  • 2 weeks later...

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