Altered States Opus 5 - Video

Altered States Opus 5 - Video

Track on: 19/01/2010

Video on: 30/09/2010
13:06 Minutes/sec. Track

Equipment:

WAVDJ VM108 + Kaossilator

The sounds in the tracks are progressive. This is live music and is not made on the computer, will take time to have all the tracks constructed.

I am making this fractal video to see how it works and because I always can send a message with the music.

To make these images, it take a long time and patience. The videos take lots of images too, so I will be short of images soon unless I get a different program to make fractals with different scripts.

I think is a good idea to have images and video at the same time. A big projector will be good.

The first video (altered states opus 4) was about art in Dadaism.

This one is about Albert Hofmann and Timothy Leary.

The images will tell you :)

Music, again, is a minimal progressive (live) 

Please note that this is only the first track I am posting.

I have plans to make different music, not just the minimal, ambient, industrial, and experimental, I am doing at the moment.

Enjoy it ;)

Altered Stated Opus 5

(Industrial Ambient)

DOWNLOAD

http://www.sendspace.com/file/weebte

Chapter 17 - Track structure (part 2)

Track structure (part 2)

NO BASS !
After some experiments with bass in the tracks I decided, bass is not very good to be included in this type of track.
The track's structure is minimal, when I drop the bass in the track, most part of the other small sounds are inaudible. I don't know why but this can be because of the frequency of the sound.
Another thing that put me off of the bass... the minimal feeling of the tracks changing totally and I am forced to have a melody, wish to change all the direction I want to take on this project.

At the moment, I am choosing the right sounds of the kaossilator for each background sound and drum loops More updates soooooooon :)

Chapter 16 - Track Structure (part 1)

Track Structure Experiments

Finally I catch up with my self :)

This is where I am writing as I am doing the things !
I am at the moment in the music structure, I have recorded the sounds and I have listen, I took 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* Star of the tracks are always the same way.
This is because I am working with no synchronizer.
First I play the Improvised sound made in the kaossilator, next
The Drums , next
The background, next
more sounds.
This is ok and probably will be the total structure of the track but listen 10 tracks starting the same way and finish the same way can be a bit too much !?  I think !


2* I listen the tracks and they need bass... again, my girlfriend , say no !
I will try to use some more bass in the tracks and listen 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, this helps to create movement in the track.


4* The end of the track, like the start, its always the same way.


 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 some different ways to finish the track, the structure will have to be always like this 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 in the drums. The sound looping with the drums will sound desynchronized for a start but after some time looping together, they start to transform into a synchronized rhythm.
Next come the background sound, that works exactly at the same tempo of the drum loop.
Here, the melody is created already from nothing and I am just follow the vibe by now:)

This makes all the difference because all the music produced , is produced and recorded just one time and is never the same again, totally unpredictable, can be the same sounds but the melody and effects are always played in a different way and this create a ambient vibe very nice and mental to hear.
Yes, very nice  :)

BUT
Start the track with the drums, its too violent !
For this reason, I start the track with the FX sound of the Kaossilator.
This despy the fact, that the drums will come next and not synchronized 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 this first 2 sounds are playing together, I come in with the background sound and after the background sounds , then I apply more sounds , change the rhythm, etc...

Very fun :)

Chapter 14 - Loops VS Kaossilator

Him and Her !!

Kaossilator and WAVDJ .
Now I have the background sounds in the buttons (by now I have 18 backgrounds)
and I have 6 different drum loops in the 6 drum buttons this make:
18 background sounds
6 drum loops
= 3 background sounds for each drum loop, like that I can change the background sound 3 times in 1 track.
They are all at the same 110BPM.

Putting all together and start to play....

After I have both playing at the same time, I start the kaossilator at the same BPM and I make some sound effects; by now, the drums and the background are looping at the same time and the kaossilator sounds are giving a color to the music as I ad many other effects.

As I go along with the sounds and loops , I can play with the mixer of the machine (wavdj) and have the drum loop ,on and off or the background sound or the kaossilator on and off  too.
This is a good help to dont have the same sounds looping for to long.

The kaossilator is a very nice complement for the wavdj.
I have been construct this track with a vision of a Industrial Ambient, so I haver been looking for Industrial sound loops for background and I make the Drum Loops to sound Industrial too but the sounds of the kaossilator make the track much more soft and Ambient.

I recognized that my Drum loops are a bit too (breaks) even be at 110BPM.
(Later I will writ about the Track structure)

This explanation of the track construction, is just the result of my first experience, I probably will be changing things and the structure of the tracks , tempo or other.

Chapter 13 - Project Start

 Project Start - The Intro

After all the story and all the wavdj and Kaossilator presentations, I will start now to be more specific with the project and what I am doing.

First, I need to make:
1 - Background sounds
2- Drum loops
3- Ad 3 background sounds for each drum loop
4- Make short keyboard melodies
5- Make the background sounds at the same tempo of the drum loops in Ableton
(no sounds synchronized here)
6- Found the best sounds in the kaossilator to use in each track.
(I will specify all this later)

This sounds easy, but is not !
The wavdj software have too many bugs and dont work as a professional music program.
The wavdj (machine = console) make delay in the sounds.
(NOTE)  Delay is the time it takes for the sound can actually be heard on the speakers after I press the buttons of the wavdj (machine)

For delay example:
If  I press the keyboard, the sound take about 2 seconds to be hear in the speakers. (delay)
If  I press the FX buttons, the sound take about 1 second to be hear in the speakers. (delay)
If  I press the drum loop button, the sound take about 3 seconds to be hear in the speakers (delay)
This makes a hard job to get the music all synchronized (drums + background sounds + keyboard)
in this case, I have to know exactly the tricks of this machine, but the most important thing is to have the sounds and drum loops at the same tempo.
IF I press the FX button (background sound) just 1 second before or after the beat of the drum loop, the sound will start out of tempo... I really need to be precise here or all the music go in a mess !
Luckily, I am able to stop the sound if I press the button at the wrong time and I can restart again, wish makes kind of a sound intro, wile the drum loop still playing.

Experiments for start.
My first experiment was to make Minimal Ambient music but soon I realize that the drums of the wavdj dont let me make much, as the sounds are the same and just the loops can be changed (as I writ here before) but I did have a go anyway.

My second experiment (still on going) is to make Minimal industrial. A'm a bit more satisfy with the results but still a long way to go as I have to search a lot in the web to find some good free sound loops and after that, I have to put the loops on Ableton to make some arrangements and get the background sounds at the same tempo (bpm) of the drum loops of the wavdj.

My last experiment (I think) will be minimal Ambient but this time with no drum loops , just sounds !

I would never get into this, if I didn't find the kaossilator to be a good supplement for the wavdj.
The fact is, one time I have the wavdj looping the sounds and the drums at the same tempo, I will have time to go into the kaossilator and ad more sounds.
After I have enough sounds playing in both machines, I can go back to the wavdj and change the background sounds, make short melody's, stop the drum loop and drop in again or any other sound playing, because the wavdj have a 6 channel mixer where the sound can be on and off.

In fact, I can go more mad and connect all this to my cd decks mixer, wish have a surround button and will give me the possibility to equalize the sound wile I am play (low, med, high).
But I am not that mad... am I !?
If so, is just a music issue ! :)

Chapter 12 - Kaossilator

Kaossilator - The other off

After all the explanations about WAVDJ, I like to go now into this little korg.
Kaossilator is a Dynamic Phaser Synthesizer.

Specifications

• Programs: 100 sounds
  
• Program Categories: “NOTE” Sound = LEAD: 20, ACOUSTIC: 10, BASS: 20, CHORD: 10
  “SE” Sound = SE: 20
  “DRUM” Sound = DRUM: 10, DRUM PATTERN: 10
  
  
• Musical Scale Patterns: 31
• Key Range: ±12
• Types of Gate Arpeggiator: 50
• Connectors: LINE OUT jacks (RCA phono jacks), PHONES jack (Stereo mini phone jacks)
• Sampling Frequency: 48kHz
• DA Conversion: 24-bit Linear
• Power Supply: four alkaline AA (LR6) batteries (6 V) / AC Adaptor?Sold Separately?
• Battery Life: approximately five hours (with alkaline batteries)
• Included Items: Owner`s Manual, parameter sheet, four AA “test” batteries
• Dimensions: 106 mm (W) x 129 mm (D) x 29 mm (H) / 4.17" (W) x 5.08" (D) x 1.14" (H)
• Weight: 154 g / 5.43 oz. (without batteries)
  

Options

AC adapter ( DC4.5V )

I have a look in youtube and I choose this video just to show,how the kaossilator work.



Thanks to Bratenstein
http://loops.bratenstein.de


Later I will try to make a video of  the all happening and post on youtube.
For now, my mission is to get background sounds to add to the wavdj and make drum loops.

Kaossilator have drum loops already but I am making the drum loops direct in the wavdj software, this way I am able to drop the drums and the background sounds in and out any time I want and they dont need to be repeating all the time

The background sounds, I get from websites with free loops and samples and I am making a choice of the more similar sounds I need to make this music project.
This Background sounds (loops) I am doing with the help of ableton software before I add them to the machine.
Like that, I can make the loops long as I like and I can add different patterns and other sounds.

Back to Kaossilator
A part of all the technical explanations above, I have to specify something for people who dont know about this techy stuff:

The kaossilator have 
7 sound category's
1- Leads
2- Acoustic
3- Bass
4- Chords
5- Se (FX)
6- Drum (single beats)
7- Drum (Patterns)
This is the basic 100 sounds

Scales (key)
Kaossilator have 31 different keys, like C / C#/ D / E #/ E# / G/ G# etc...
Some examples are:
Chromatic
Ionian
Dorian
Majore Blues
Major Pentatonic
Gypsy scale
Arabian scale
spanish scale
Egyptian Scale
Octave interval
And go on, and on, and on..........

Gate Arpeggio Patterns
This is effects that can be ad to the sounds a part from the normal effects wish cut the sound into short beats
The kaossilator have 49 different arpeggio patters

Mush more can be say about the kaossilator but for now, I think I did explained the best of my knowledge.


More about this in the next chapter ;)