Music Podcast: “Electric Rain Dance 8″

[Originally posted at RamblingLibrarian.blogspot.com]

I hope that you enjoy this. I had loads of fun making this — bit by bit, track by track, layer by layer. Took me maybe 2 weeks. Not grammy material but I’m pretty darn pleased with it anyhow.

“Electric Rain Dance 8” - 4mins 32secs
Genre: Rock

The drum beats and sound effects were mixed and matched from generic loops from GarageBand. The guitar rhythm and melodies were played from a ‘live’ instrument — specifically this baby here:
I had this guitar for more than 12 years. Mucking around with the Mac gave me a reason to give the good old guitar a good wipe down and a new set of strings.

The rhythmn and melody is based on the Em (E-minor), D, C and G chords. Pretty basic stuff.

Oh, don’t ask me to play it again ‘cos I didn’t write down anything. Thinking about it now, I guess how I create music is a lot like how I paint — each piece is an original and hard to duplicate. That’s because I’ve never been formally trained in music theory. What I learnt about up about the playing the electric guitar has been from friends and from library books (in that order). I probably could learn music theory from library books but nah, I’ll pass.

For me, each musical piece is like an original painting — once I finish it, it’s done. I enjoy it for what it is, and for the learning process, and start over.

Technorati Tags: garageband, mac, apple

How to convert MP4 audio files to MP3 using iTunes

[First posted at RamblingLibrarian.blogspot.com, 10 Jun 06]

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING STEPS WORK ONLY FOR NON-PROTECTED FILES

Here’s something I learnt — how to convert MP4 audio files to MP3 using iTunes (OS X):

Background: I’d created my Saturday In May in GarageBand and it was saved as an MP4 audio file. Apparently some of my friends were unable to play in that format so I searched for a way to make the conversion. Kevin described broadly how it could be done via iTunes.

I’d also found this freeware called Switch (www.nch.com.au/switch), which worked quite well but I realised iTunes, while a bit cumbersome compared to using a software convertor, allowed more control over the conversion (e.g. setting the bit rate and overall sound quality). So here’s a step-by-step process of how a conversion could be done using iTunes (click on the images for larger sizes):

#1 - Open iTunes:

#2 - At iTunes, select the song you want to convert. In this case, I’ve selected “Saturday In May” among my other song titles:

#3 - Go to your iTunes menu bar, select Preferences (or you can press ‘Command’ and ‘comma’ keys, i.e. “⌘,”):

#4 - At the Preferences window, select the ‘Advanced’ option:

#5 - At the ‘Advanced’ section, click on the button that says ‘Importing’ and then for the part on ‘Import Using’, choose ‘MP3 Encoder’:

#6 - Under Settings, choose ‘Custom’ (you can choose any of the options there, but ‘Custom’ settings ensures you set the right bit rate as you will see in step #7):

#7 - If you’ve selected ‘Custom’, you’ll see this window; just check that your Stereo Bit Rate and Sample Rate are to your desired settings (sorry, I can’t give through explanation on audio settings. I just know that it’s safest to set the Sample Rate at 44.1 khz or else the audio file you upload might playback with a Sped-up High-pitched Chipmunk effect)

#8 - Close the Preferences window; here I’ll just double check that I’ve selected the right song

#9 - At the iTunes menu, select Advanced -> Convert Selection to MP3 and the conversion would start (note: If you’ve selected something else in Step #5, you’ll see that respective option. E.g. if you’ve selected ‘AAC Encoder’ under ‘Importing’ at Preferences earlier, you’ll see Convert Selection to AAC instead)

#10 - Once iTunes has completed the conversion, you should now see TWO songs of the same title, like so:

#11 - To confirm, select that song title and press the ‘⌘’ and ‘i’ keys to view the file information, and you should see a new window with the file details:

Music Experiment: “TechnoJungle”

Worked on this on and off over 2 weeks or so, using my free time at night and on weekends. My most ambitious GarageBand project to date, in the sense that I tried to “paint” a visualscape using sounds.

Here’s the link to play via Odeo.com - “TechnoJungle“
(MP3 uploaded at Archive.org)

Created using iLife ‘06 GarageBand’s generic loops; Total playing time 6min 36secs. This piece is supposed to depict modern city life (which in many ways, isn’t that far off from a “jungle”).

It starts with traffic sounds, then a subway (mobile phone ringing). In comes the drums and beats (fade in the Ambient Guitar in the background) — they take centre stage for a few counts. Then fade out the Ambient Guitar and cue in I think a Rock Guitar Strum, then Electric Guitar Wah effect. Cue in the animal roar and Forest/ jungle sounds…

Cue in “Dream Guitar”, and then fade in the earlier guitar strumming. This part features a guitar riff pieced together from various roack guitar loops. You will hear the Thunder and lightning and rain.

Now this part is where I visualise the jungle giving way to the concrete jungle. Cue in the drum beats, ambient guitar (leaving the guitar strumming). You’ll hear a”Number Not in Use” telephone message, cue in other sounds like dog barking, young child laughing, then rooster, monkey sounds… fade out with Ambient Guitar and crickets.

The screenshot shows 10 layers/ tracks, but in actual fact there’s a lot more added. I can’t even remember what and how I put them together. While the GarageBand factory loops are there and the same for everyone, the end product created by individuals are really different. Which facinates me no end

Music Experiment/ Sound Clash Challenge: “So I Am A Werewolf”

Here’s my response to Sound Clash Challenge #4 (SC -4):

“So I Am A Werewolf“
(also uploaded to Archive.org)

The rules were:

Time Limit: 1:30
Application: Garage Band / Fruity Loops
Condition 1: Full Song
Condition 2: Evil / Dark style
Condition 3: 1 line / mic input - ie. turntable / instrument / vocals / synth
Condition 4: Photo and title accompanying track
Allowed: factory loops, mic input, manual input
Not Allowed: use of other applications (sorry no wave editors TTM)

I’ve managed to stick to all the conditions except the time. Exceed by 30mins, which automatically disqualified me. However, since I was almost done I decided not to submit a half-baked piece and completed it. My consolation was that I managed to create a new track from scratch in 2 hours, in one seating, with no prior planning except whatever came to my head as I mucked around with GarageBand.

Started working on this around 11pm that night, really on a whim. Started up GarageBand, remembered I had this Sherba picture and it could pass as a Werewolf:

The problem was coming up with the bass riff (I had to experiment with splicing and modifying from one of the loops) and also editing the loon call to make it sound more wolf-like. Getting those 2 parts right already took 45mins. Then I had to decide how to make it a complete song, piece them together with the appropriate drum beats and that took up 20mins.

Next I recorded the werewolf voice. Again, this was uncharted grounds for me. Played around with the vocal effects and had to think on the fly what to record. I settled on a grunting/ panting/ roar to start off the track; cue the first set of beat; cue in the werewolf saying “So I am a Werewolf” and then repeat, and added “Am I evil?” and “I wear my fangs outside”.

To end it off, I recorded “So I’m a Werewolf. I wear my fangs outside. What about you?” Kind of like a message to mean that what appears as evil could inherently be better than someone disguising themselves to look good but wearing their “fangs” hidden from view.

Ok, this was tough but quite fulfilling.

Tag: creative learning

Sound Clash: Music Challenge blog

[Full blog post at Rambling Librarian, "Sound Clash" 4 Jun 06]

After I posted my “Saturday In May” music piece done with GarageBand, a blogger from the other side of the world (real name, Greg Samborski) left this comment. Apparently he found me via a Blogger search and clued me to a project he and his buddies started, called Sound Clash.

The rules are simple: The amount of time you can spend on creating the track, the application to be used etc.

Tag: Web 2.0