Final Composition

1. The name of my piece is Cruisin'(4:15)

2. This song is supposed to be something to play while relaxing with friends or “cruisin'” in your car. I also wanted it to reflect more of what I would listen to on my own time.  I attempted to rewire my Live and use Reason instead because that is the program I am more familiar with and would allow me to create a better project.  I recorded it into Live but I’m not sure if I did it right.  I started with a small loop and went from there. In Reason, I used strings from the combinator and I labeled them as chord string (because I played a chord on the keyboard) and scale string (I played a scale on the keyboard). I used the Jazz guitar from the combinator and the saxophone from the combinator as well.  All of the percussion was done with the redrum machine.  I used an M-Audio Keyboard with drum pads (used to make the percussion parts) in order to make all the components of the piece. Unfortunately, I didn’t use any of my found sounds because the folder containing them is MIA.  So I had to rely heavily on sound banks.  I didn’t really put any effects on the sounds except for using the features provided in the combinator to enhance the sound bank sounds (mainly delay,brightness and compression) but instead I tried to focus on not making the piece get too monotonous because that was something I struggled with this semester.

3.  As far as originality is concerned all of the sounds used were from the sound banks provided I didn’t really use any samples than those.  It was influenced by the nice weather and summer being close by almost like a Will Smith “Summertime” type of feel to it. For me i’d say its about an 8 out of 10 because I enlisted some outside help (like todd suggested).

4.

5. http://www.rpi.edu/~farmem

(Final song)

Country Roots

1. Country Roots (5:20)

2. This song what directed at capturing the feeling of my country roots if you will. I chose a lick from a favorite song of my because I don’t play steel guitar yet. I was hoping to write some lyrics to it, but by the end my beat and composition was to intense to write words to in time. I used an auto filter on the melody at times to chill things out. I filled an instrument pack with favorite found sounds and finely tuned each. I made a different versions of the melody and subsequently a different beats to go with those. And then I was able to mix them up here and there, and find what relationships worked best.

I used arrangement view to compose mainly everything. I find its great to modify MIDI beats that I’ve created more easily in this visual timeline.

3. Country Lick Used: Country Comfort – Keith Urban
Everything else was “found sounds”.

Even though I only used one other source other than my own, I only give myself a 7 out of 10 because my use of the lick was extensive.

4. 

5. Country Roots          (http://www.blohr.com/public1/FinalCompilation1.mp3)

Jesse FREEDOM

1. The composition is called “Home”. (3:45) from my Interactive Arts Programming thesis presentation and (3:35) from the Computer Music performance (edited). Audio at the bottom…

2. As you saw in class, my composition was improvised live by manipulating loops & their effects with my touchscreen. Here’s a breakdown of everything.

Samples: All the non-drum parts were recorded by me. There are two guitar parts (rhythm & lead) and two bass parts. Along with the melodic content, there are two drum tracks – one is a simple kick/snare pattern that I programmed in with the Impulse, the other is a drum loop which was taken from a section of the song “Electric Wheelchair” by the Santa Clara Vanguard (SCV) drum corps. I loaded the Impulse with drum samples I took from both Tower of Power (“You Got To Funkifize”) & The Meters (“Good Old Funky Music”). That makes six tracks, each with one constantly looping clip (see screenshot below).

Basic Effects: The first thing I did was Gate the SCV loop, and adjust the threshold so that only the louder parts (mainly kick & snare) came through. I put a Beat Repeat after the gate, to get that sort of stop/start glitchy feel. Then there’s a Saturator & Compressor in the signal chain for warmth and, well, compression. Both bass tracks (and the lead guitar part) have some light compression applied to them, using Apple’s Dynamics plugin. The lead guitar also has a touch of the Chorus plugin & then I boosted the hi’s (+3dB from 5kHz and up) using the EQ.

From there, I used my touchscreen setup, which involves several custom Max/MSP patches & a really big metal box, to control parameters for each track. Basically, my patch turns finger movements into MIDI continuous controller messages (like a pitch bend wheel). I then used Live’s MIDI Map Mode to assign each continuous controller to a control in Live. Each track has its On/Off switch, Volume, and Pan setting assigned to a controller, and each track has two X-Y controllers for additional effects that I haven’t told you about yet. That makes a total of 7 controllers per track. Here’s a screenshot of the GUI in Max/MSP so you can see what I’m talking about:

Controlled Effects: OK, fun time! The rhythm guitar track has a Flanger & Resonators on it. The lead guitar track has Reverb & Filter Delay. One of the bass tracks has Simple Delay & Reverb, and the other has two Resonators and a Filter Delay. Finally, the Impulse drum track just has a Simple Delay, and the SCV drum track has Redux & a Filter Delay. Two parameters from each effect were controlled with the X-Y controllers on my touchscreen setup.

Note the parameters on the Flanger & Resonators that are mapped to controllers.

When choosing the effects, I was trying to pick those that I liked the sound of – but moreover, those that could dramatically change the sound of the loops. That way, I expanded the range of sounds I could get.

3. Originality Description: The guitar part was originally something that I came up with while jamming with my old band The Symptoms, and Mike, the singer/bass player, wrote the bass part. I really liked the feel, and I wanted to make something out of them. As far as other influences go, well…touchscreen-wise, I was influenced by Jeff Han, a research scientist at NYU, who sparked the idea of making my own touchscreen. Musically though, I guess The Album Leaf influenced the glitchy-style beats, and then the music that I played while in The Symptoms influenced the rest. So it would probly score a 6/10.

4. Screenshots throughout.

5. Audio: Version 1: Interactive Arts Programming | Version 2: Computer Music | “Electric Wheelchair” loop

Peter’s Final

Title: Wallace

I used Live to record in a couple piano and guitar tracks in Session View and added effects (I used the saturater, some reverb, and delay), and then recorded them into Arrangement View. Here, I just played around with the arrangement until I got something I liked. The loop you hear throughout are cymbal scratches run through all three effects, and also the piano, which is just run through the saturater and reverb. Other loops include harmonics at the 5th and 7th fret, and some sloppy fingerpicking run through delay and reverb.

All of my samples were original. However, I had a friend help me with the cymbals, so I’ll rate it a 9/10

Audio: http://www.rpi.edu/~paggip/compmusic/final2.mp3

Last Class – 2-5 Thursday, May 1st

Hey all,

We’ve come to the end, and it’s time to wrap up.  As promised we have this last class to do final project presentations and enjoy some time together.  Here’s what I need from you.

Currently I have Marquia, Myra, and Jennifer as not attending, anyone else?  I need to know how much food to order.  And Food will be primary, or at least first on the agenda, so try to save your lunchtime for 2pm (grin)

Next, I need to know exactly who will be performing or presenting and any special needs you’ll have tomorrow.   We’ll listen to everybody’s tunes together, however, present or not present.  Also, we’ll be doing evaluation forms as well.

Any questions on all of that?  Please be in touch.  Todd

Matt Strosnick finalllllllllll

1. Title:

Running Guitars (5:49)

2. Description:

As in most of my compositions, my samples consist of almost all guitar recordings. I also used some drum samples found in Abelton Live. To get my guitar samples, I recorded myself playing for a while trying to come up with original riffs that sounded good. After several minutes I stopped, played back the recording, and started to think about how to arrange the parts i liked. After listening to a few different arrangements, I came up with one I liked, and formed the rough outline for my final piece (which turned out to have the nearly inevitable golden mean curve). From there, I started building up the song with more recordings, more layers, some abelton effects, and many midi drum beats.

I organized my samples in different audio tracks based on what their future purpose would be (main track, back track, etc) and this is how I decided upon effects. My 7 audio tracks each have different effects ranging from slight to dramatic. In general, i wanted to fatten my back tracks, and brighten my main tracks. I did this using various effects such as echo, delay, flange, reverb, etc. In addition to effects, I also used a lot of volume level automation to get levels sounding good (at least good on my Klipsch’s). I also added effects and changed some properties of the drum kit I used to get it sounding how I wanted.

3. Originality Description:

I give this song’s originality a 7. I wrote each guitar part without referencing other riffs/songs/etc. Also, I made every drum beat except one by simply trying different patterns and deciding what sounded good. That one drum beat is a modified version of a generic beat i found on the internet. However, the structure and instrument usage of the song are not very original. The structure of my composition is a golden mean curve, making it have similar structure to basically everything. Also, just the fact that there is guitar, bass, and drums gives it a familiar sound. In terms of influences, I did not have a specific influence for this piece, but my background of listening to mostly different forms of rock is definitely there.

4. Screenshot:

5. Audio Files: (http://mstroz3.tripod.com/Running_Guitars.mp3)

Running Guitars

From Todd – Posting Final Project (help)

Dear 2020 folks.

It appears that a few of you are having problems posting audio files and screenshots. I’ve attached a screenshot with the linking and screenshot buttons highlighted. If this is still not clear, please consult with any other colleague who has been successful in his/her posting. thank you. If anyone is REALLY having problems, please call me at 917.576.6166… I don’t want you to have to miss the deadline for those sorts of reasons, and I’ll be staying up until 12.30 to be available should you need any assistance. To those who have already posted and done it completely, great job, congratulations. Todd

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Justin_Cassel_ Final

1.       The Edge (5:04)

2.       The Edge is a Funk/Rock composition created in Ableton Live.  For the piece I began with a drum sample from Stevie Wonder’s song superstition.  From there I took a song I had created on guitar and recrded a bass and guitar track.  From there I chopped these tracks into the different individual parts that I wanted and placed them in time to the drums.  From there I created the basic parts of the song so that trumpet and saxophone could be recorded.  I created the parts for saxophone and trumpet and then recorded them.  After recording the horns separately I chopped up the parts and placed them in the song.  Once in place I began to layer the different parts of the chorus and verse with new guitar parts and other sounds.  From this basic structure I decided the drum feel needed to be changed.  I edited the drums to give them a more hip feel and then replaced them in the song.  After this I added some effects to the guitar for the chorus.  I then recorded the chorus lyrics and layered them.  From here I found a clip on You Tube of Brian Wilson speaking on the NBC nightly news.  I chopped this clip and added some affects on it to give it an “airy” sound.  From here I began experimenting with lyrics for the verse.  I recorded them directly into Ableton but found the quality to not be as high as recording through a flash recorder.  I them played around with the verse words unitl I created some interesting mixtures of repeats.  It was during this I found the part for the pre-chorus that goes “I think I’m loosing control”.  After adding some delays, filters, eq eight, saturator, flanger chorus, eq three, crystal bass and other effect on different tracks I was near the net product.  To finish I arranged the different parts of the song so that they made sense in length and timing.

3.       This song is somewhat original with the combination of funk rock and electronic elements.  The main feel of the song is that of a traditional funk song and a rock song.  I think that it is original to comine these two feels as well as to write and created almost every element of the song myself.  It is clear for me to hear many of my influences in this song including Cake, Stevie Wonder, Jurassic 5, Beck as well as the songs I have heard others produce in class.  The drums are from Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and the opening and mid song talking is Brain Wilson from NBC’s Nightly News.  Jake Zerebynsky can also be heard on trumpet as well as Kyle from class on bass.  This song is my original composition and my own style.  I think I can see from it that I have a tendency to stick to melodic flashy parts as well as catchy lyrics for the chorus and interesting song structure.  At the same time I do stay true to different elements of my influences.

4. my music is having trouble uploading you can always listen to it on my web space www.rpi.edu/~cassej its called the edge

The type of paradise you can’t kiss.

1.”The type of paradise that can’t kiss.” (5:03)

2. So I took a basic drum loop idea and based my piece on that. The first loop was an electronic one, used mainly for background noise, I composed it myself, and added some reverb to it. The second drum loop was one I made myself using the instrument rack in live. I also had compression, and saturation on it. The next thing I did was add bass. My bass was recorded live, with effects added afterwards, including a filter, compressor, and saturater. As I added each of my bass tracks I found ways to elaborate my drum tracks, along with the bass line as well. After I had this foundation set up I went in and added synth lines and a vocal track. The vocals were from a poem I found online, the subject was especially interesting because It described a paradise with a beautiful woman that couldn’t get any better except for the catch. The beautiful woman could not be loved, if you were to “kiss her lips, then the garden of paradise would sink into the earth forever, and to you it would be lost”. That line pretty much sums up the message the poem was trying to get across. So I cut it up and used it.

3. As for originality, my sounds were all produced by me, either through a midi instrument or through my bass. The only found sound I used was the recording of Lori Lubeski reading poetry. The original audio sample can be found at http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Segue-BPC.html . I took inspiration from a group called Portishead that I’ve listened to recently. They have a similar emphasis on a driving bass, with minimal involvement of other instruments.

4.Screen shots: I took advantage of the arrangement view in live on this project. It really helped me see what I was working with. They can be found on my web space, http://rpinfo.rpi.edu/~deweek2/

5. My sound files can be found on the web space as well. Titled “The kind of paradise you can’t kiss.”

Chris Jaeger’s Final

1. Title: Bi-Coloured Suguri-Quartet (5:51)

2. Description: Bi-Coloured Suguri-Quartet is a medley of three songs from the game Suguri, done as if by a Saxophone Quartet. The song is 100% MIDI, crafted by hand alongside listening to repeated runs of the song multiple times. This listening strategy is similar to how I developed the drum track for Descadence, the second composition for this class. Each individual instrument was originally mapped to its own track, even if multiple such tracks would be addressed the same instrument in the end product. All the instruments were provided by my M-Audio KeyRig keyboard program, which is notedly a lot better for pianos than other instruments. But it still works well. While a drum track was created in the early stages of the work (you can see it hiding in the corner of the screenshots), it was abandoned in the decision for a quartet. I did not use any MIDI effects because while I experimented with the lot of them, I never was really happy with any besides Chord, which didn’t have a good place in this project.
The original inspiration of Bi-Coloured Suguri-Quartet was based on several pieces I happened to cross on my path while struggling on my initial idea, whose conception was so horrible it’s nightmarish to dare recall. One was a 10-minute medley of memetically popular songs, which made me consider doing a medley instead of sticking with some composition that I had no clear direction on. The second was a piece called “Touhou Ikaruga Style”, which was a remix of a song from one game done in the style of another. This was what inspired my original idea, to do the medley in the style of Ikaruga’s symphonic orchestras. This was complemented by my choice of songs belonging to the characters who use two colours of bullets, dichotomy being a strong theme in Ikaruga. As we figured out in class, though, this was not going to be feasible because getting the proper music samples to make a symphony was beyond the scope of a week’s worth of work. Trying to also decide on so many possible instruments made the task difficult. However, it struck me that the two characters for whom I medleyed songs from, are usually paired with two other characters. A quartet could easily be formed, and the instruments would each be assigned as if they were played by each character.
The choice for a Saxophone Quartet, with tambourine support, will be discussed under originality. Otherwise, to close the description, Bi-Coloured Suguri-Quartet is a medley that flows from Green Bird, to First Encount, back to Green Bird, straight to Rendevouz, and ending with First Encount. There is automation for volume to give focus on certain instruments over others, as the volume control on individual MIDI tracks was suspect at best. All the composition of the MIDI was done using the quantized grid by mouse, not keyboard. Notes were first composed based on the instrumentation of a section, and these were manipulated and repositioned to sound better (Saxophones shouldn’t hit C7 notes, at least as far as my ears could say). Since a drum track was abandoned for the lack of

3. Originality is an unusual thing to rate. On the one hand, this is a medley of existing music. The notes are not fully accurate (there’s a difference of one bar in the transition between the fourth and fifth parts, nevermind other differences in timing), but the song is, for all intents and purposes, constructed of existing material. In that sense, it is entirely inspired from the wonderful soundtrack of Suguri. But, without a doubt, the song is still original from many forms.
The selection of a Saxophone Quartet was inspired by the description I read of it. Beyond consisting of a Soprano Sax, an Alto Sax, a Tenor Sax, and a Baritone Sax or Bass Sax, the Saxophone Quartet’s other quality is its rarity in performance, as few groups that pursue record deals utilize such an arrangement. Thus, it was described that it’s a shame that its “unique sound” is not heard very often. So, this inspired me to take the song and, rather than seek some specific style, render it into its own unique sounding effect by creating it in a Saxophone Quartet. After all, that collection of four saxophones on the M-Audio KeyRig had been tempting for quite some time. Certainly, the song is unusual as a result. There’s only so much you can accomplish with a bunch of saxophones alone.
Saxophones have a notably different range of sounds that actually sound alright, compared to the vastness of a piano. Since I wrote most of the MIDI in piano (having learned that I could actually get those plinking sounds I wanted, I just had to go up more than two octaves), there was a lot of shifting up and down with the previously written MIDI to adjust for the saxophones. And, in some places, I decided to break the original flow of the song in favour of making the saxophones sound better, thus some of the drastic changes in pitch or tone in the original pieces were exchanged for much smaller gradients, or even in one place, a complete reversal of the original direction (from a rise to a fall).
The big note of the saxophone quartet was the lack of drums, so I opted to drop the drum track I had meticulously laboured on earlier. However, the Baritone Sax was apparently able to substitute in as a bass, so I used the Baritone Saxaphone as a bass/drum track. Without actual drums, of course. Since it is neither a bass nor a drum, though, I didn’t feel very happy simply duplicating the drum track into the saxophone. Instead, I wrote an original arrangement of notes for the bass track. This was actually very fun to do so, too, beyond being a nice additional flourish.
I didn’t stick with the quartet fully, though. I added a tambourine, which was present in the original drum track. This is because First Encount features a large amount of tambourine and maraca sounds in it, mimicking the fact that the character herself carries such instruments (albeit explosive). My maracas are at home but I did have tambourine samples. I thought that the addition of the tambourine would make the piece have more of a unique composition feel to it, add to the unusual aura it creates. As far as how it was played, for the most part the tambourine is always played when one of the players isn’t playing their saxophone. For the one point that it is, we can pretend it’s a kick-tambourine. On a stand. Yeah.
Overall, I’d rate myself as a 7 out of 10, 10 being fully original. While the songs are from a source, all of the MIDI was hand-crafted myself with no actual sheet music or guide beyond my ears. Additionally, the choice to combine them in the form of a Saxophone Quartet, and modify the songs as necessary to fit this decision, are forms of originality. A new bass track was completely written for this song, as was some very short tambourine sections. In the end, however, it is still a medley of existing songs, so no matter how much originality is expressed in the production, it’s still very much a derived work. 7/10, to restate.

4. As you can see from the screenshots, I’m extremely irresponsible and cannot actually focus on doing just work on the project, so I actually played Suguri constantly while composing. In a way, it helps understand the music better to be experiencing it as a rush of missiles or fiery tambourines to the face, and in another, it helps relieve stress.
While arrangement view is nice and all and allows you to view things in parallel, I started doing everything in session view and I intended to complete the project doing so.

This screenshot focuses on a section that I had to modify heavily from its original. The part highlighted was originally in the C7 range. Which, while sounding alright on a piano, does not sound like anything on a saxophone. Anything good, at any rate. Though the extreme difference in octave between that part, to me, was a crucial part of the original song’s work, I destroyed that difference in the name of a functional piece. Just to its right, you can also see the most annoying set of 32nd notes, crafted to make some kind of demonic archway in the name of an unusual roll on the piano. It never, ever sounded right when using the piano. For some reason, it didn’t sound half bad on the saxophone.

The Automation Screenshot is an example of how much automation I used. I considered more but for the most part, a lot of the song worked well without crazy pitch shifting and such. Volume automation was the full extent. The game looks fuzzy because it’s at the start of a slow-motion portion. The intimidation factor of this battle is totally lost with saxophones.
Another facet of the screenshot that’s visible is the array of instruments. While I narrowed the instruments down to only 4 from the potential massive it was before, I kept each track separate just to keep things easier to handle. Tracks end after they stop having more notes written, so they’ll grey out. The end will only have four tracks active, as all four Saxophones will be running. Oh, and the tambourine, too. The naming of the tracks is based on the names of the characters in the game or on what the sound felt like. Whatever fancy I had, really.

5. Links
Bi-Coloured Suguri-Quartet
This is the actual rendered file. AIF files are stupid huge, but I don’t really have an MP3 converter and no one else apparently listens to Ogg Vorbis. It is 5:51.

Selections from Green Bird, First Encount, and Rendevouz
This is a rendering of the original music played in the same sequence as the medley. Transitions are immediate, and of note, the piece is 5:50 in length. I shifted the medley back one bar between the fourth and fifth parts for flavourful matching, so the songs will desync at that point if you attempt to play them together.