I got a Launchkey and I need to go to bed, but the Launchkey came in the mail today and I got to play around a bit and I made a thing!! 😀 I could not abstain from taking a couple minutes to at least document this here, since it is very much part of my journey into the world of electronic music.
Now, goodnight! I hope I’ll have regular updates on my Launchkey adventures! ^_^
I’ve had a couple struggles in making sounds in Ableton so far:
I’m looping a 10 measure drum track (recorded into Ableton using a Korg WaveDrum) in part two of my composition, but if I just loop it, then it clips the end of the sound at the end of the loop and sounds really choppy. In order to make it smooth, I have copied the track, and I alternate between them (triggering one to start at the end of the 10th measure, and the other to stop at the end of the 11th measure). It’s not the most refined way, and I’m sure there’s something better, but this works and I don’t have time for optimization at this point.
I don’t know of a way to get the voice/electronic glissando to work as I want it, but I can monitor the voice input with a tuner in Ableton, and trigger a track with an electronic glissando that enters on a certain pitch. It’s a fairly clumsy solution, but it should be good enough for a demo/workshop session. What I would like to do, is sample the performers voice, stretch out the duration without altering pitch, and add a dramatic glissando to the stretched sample in real time. I don’t think that’s possible with the equipment I have, so I’m using my clumsy little compromise.
So many learning experiences!!
I am bad at enforcing my own deadlines.
I am most motivated right before a deadline.
Independent study is HARD.
I have learned a lot, but I have not been a diligent or consistent student.
All of this is okay. I’m slowing working on getting better, and this (never-ending) course has shown me many of my weaknesses, as well as some strengths.
I’m good at learning SOMETHING when I do almost ANYTHING.
I am good at finding ways to put ideas and abstract concepts into musical ideas.
Independent study is REWARDING when I actually buckle down and pursue something interesting.
I have an interesting mix of knowledge that can mingle with electronic music and lead me to career opportunities I never would have considered without this course.
Messing around with a sequencer like the BeatStep is a really fun way to brainstorm and play around to get ideas. The way the interface differs from what I’m accustomed to (a piano) for brainstorming is more freeing: I don’t know the exact pitches I choose, and I view the rhythm differently, because I can get easy feedback on complex rhythms at the push of a button. In addition to the freedom of a non-traditional instrument, this exercise provided me with an opportunity to further explore colouristic possibilities with filters, which opened my ears to the possibilities of expressive nuances in electronic music.
I have now notated and written some performance notes for parts 1 and 2 out of 4, and I’ve put some of the sounds together. I will not be able to make it work with the Arduino node for now, but some day I will, when I have time to learn everything involved.
I still need to make the rest of the sounds and plan how to perform them with vocals well enough to workshop it. I need to notate parts 3 and 4. I might need to expand on my performance notes a bit. I need to organize a time to workshop parts 1 and 2.
In order to plan out the sounds for the piece, I think I just need to map them out on paper in some colour-coded way to indicate when to trigger various things.
I just need to get this done so I can reflect and move on!!
I need to cover some bit of Arduino learning and MIDI structures, but I just messaged my prof this morning to see how best to wrap that up, and I’m waiting on a decision.
Lots of learning done, and lots of work left to do, but I’m getting there! It’s like trying to sprint up a hill after jogging for a while on a bumpy surface and constantly losing traction.
It is MUCH harder to finish up this project with all my other classes happening now, but here’s a thing I made today! One of the little exercises I had to do is to control an external instrument via a Digital Audio Workstation. I chose the GAIA as my external instrument and had some fun:
Still so much to do, but now I have one less thing to do!
I’ve decided on using Ableton Live for my composition project, so today I played around with it to get familiar with the software and working with a launch pad. It was really helpful to just mess around with the purpose of making something, but not having to make something amazing, just … something. That something ended up being Pink Panther, because reasons. It was a fun time.
Electroacoustic Playground 