Chapter 16 - Track Structure (part 1)

Track Structure Experiments

Finally, I catch up with myself :)

This is where I am writing as I do the things!
I am at the moment in the music structure, I have recorded the sounds, I have listened, I have made some decisions, and I will need to change:
1* Start of the track
2* Use more bass
3* Make more unrecorded sound movements with the Kaossilator

4* End of the Track

The reasons are:

1* The stars of the tracks are always the same way.
This is because I am working with no synchroniser.
First, I play the Improvised sound made in the Kaossilator, next
The Drums, next
The background, next
more sounds.
This is okay and probably will be the total structure of the track, but listening to 10 tracks that start and finish the same way can be too much. I think!


2* I listen to the tracks and they need bass... again, my girlfriend says no !
I will add more bass to the tracks and listen to how it sounds.

3* Make more unrecorded sound movements with the Kaossilator.
Some low parts in the track need to use more (spare) Sound FX, which helps to create movement in the track.


4* The end of the track, like the start, it's always the same way.


  The end of the track is the same, always.
Always start with the drums and finish with the drums.
At the end, I have to switch off
The background, next,
The FX and at the end,
The drums.

I can find different ways to finish the track; the structure will always have to be this way, but I can use other effects to cover the basic structure at the end.

* Track Structure
I start with a Kaossilator sound, and next come the drums. The sound looping with the drums will sound desynchronised at first, but after some time, looping together, they start to transform into a synchronised rhythm.
Next comes the background sound, which works exactly at the same tempo as the drum loop.
Here, the melody is created already from nothing, and I am just following the vibe by now:)

This makes all the difference because all the music produced is recorded just once and is never the same again, totally unpredictable. Although the sounds may be the same, the melody and effects are always played differently, creating a charming and mental ambient vibe to hear.
Yes, very nice  :)

BUT
Start the track with the drums, it's too violent!
For this reason, I start the track with the FX sound of the Kaossilator.
This even though the drums will come next and not synchronised with the sound played, but the drum loops + the FX, soon start to make sense in your head :) :) And at this moment, it is just a melody created with the FX and the drums.
After the first two sounds play together, I come in with the background sound. Then, after the background sound, I apply more sounds, change the rhythm, and so on.

Very fun :)

Chapter 15 - Add Instruments

New Instruments Experiments.

I had a friend visit me during a weekend, he is a shy musician but has a lot of instruments, including lots of drums (as it is a drummer:)

My friend brought me a Micro Korg.

The Micro Korg
It's perfect, but too limited to work.
It's nice to take some sounds, but just that!
It's a vocoder too, which is beneficial for voices as well as specific sounds. It can make a very original effect in the music.
It's perfect equipment for live performances, but not in the style of the music I try to make here.
It's more of a (techno-minded) music machine.

a Mixer

The Mixer
Here we connected everything.

and a Kaoss Pad

The Kaoss pad
It can be beneficial to add some final effects to the overall music or make slight variations in the final sound played. He can make some extra sounds on top and other special effects.
With Kaoss pad, I think it's good just to make some minimal changes in the total sound, but it's the only one I can see included as 1 more instrument.

For now, my friend has left me the Kaoss Pad for me to have a try, but he will take it back in some months' time.
I end up not using this much.

Chapter 5 - Keyboard instruments

Keyboard Instruments

The keyboard instruments have 18 buttons, each of which represents a channel on the keyboard.

This is the MIDI part of the software program that works in conjunction with the Korg!
In the software, I have 16 channels, each representing a sound in the channel buttons of the keyboard.
For example, I can choose one instrument for the first channel, but I can select from 127 different instruments for each subsequent channel.

That means I can have the sound I want in the keyboard if I select the instrument in the channel button.
Again, these 127 instruments are fixed sounds, but this time, because they are to be played with the keyboard, I can change the octaves of the keyboard and get different sounds.

This is not my favourite part of the machine.

1-I am not brilliant with keyboards.

2 -The keyboard has an off tempo. He just does the sound after I have pressed the keyboard tab.

There are 18 buttons and 16 channels for instruments; the 2 extra buttons are:
(see image 1)
1 - Enter silence (wish stops the FX sound from the WAV Effects panel) 
2- The FX button, this one triggers the sound of the WAV effect playing and passes it to the keyboard, which I wish aloud to me to play the FX sounds in the Korg.
3- Channel 10 is always Drums. I can also trigger the drums on the keyboard, but in this case, the octaves do not change the drum sounds.

This part includes the FX channels and the wheel to create pitch bend and scratch effects.

As you can see, the extra "Silence" and "FX" buttons allow me to do what I have explained before!

 

I do not plan to make much use of the wheel scratch feature of the machine, unless I need to add some extra sounds while changing the background sound or other elements.