Song Of The Month Club - March 2024

AlexY

@DavidEnglish said:
This is a music track that I improvised on two MIDI keyboards connected to Bitwig Studio on a desktop PC. There the MIDI was routed to Solo for the English horn, trumpet, cello, and flute; Pianoteq for the piano; Orchestral Essentials for the choir; Dolce for the basses; and Omnisphere, ZebraHZ, and Alchemy for the other instruments.

After bringing the audio recording into Vegas Pro, I applied the Lurssen Mastering Console plug-in to the audio mix.

It's titled The Long Goodbye.

Love it. It has an elegiac feeling to it.

How did you use the mastering console? I'm still struggling with mixing and mastering, so I'm wondering what it did for your track (which sounds so good).

AlexY

@Ailerom said:
Not sure what more I can do with this. Any suggestion welcome but I'm a bit over it now.

wow, really nice progressions and the instrumentals, vocals, and everything are on point. I like the lyrics and I think they have a great hook. Very inspirational.

AlexY

@unlink said:
Anyway, not sure about this one. Started with one idea and then at some point I completely changed everything, so that's absolutely not what was in my mind in the first place but I still liked it. I'm still unable to create something which I really like with SWAM Cello but I suppose it will happen at some point.

Awesome track! Good sound selection, and very well put together. It actually moves along very nicely.

AlexY

@ecamburn said:
I don't post here often but I do appreciate this thread.

This piece began as a weird beat in Koala. The cello parts are from Thumbjam

This is the second tune I've released with vocals. Props to @richardyot for this thread (and his book) for motivating me to try vocals and for helping to nudge me out of a bit of a dry spell.

Major action movie vibes on this one at the beginning. Very tense. I was thinking of a heist scene or like a scene before a showdown. Then the vocals kick in and wow.

AlexY

@yellow_eyez said:

Here’s my offering (it’s from my Op-1 Field tests EP if anyone wants to hear more)

Man, this song goes hard with the fuzzy guitar and the kick. It's got that rap rock type of thing without being cheesy.

AlexY

@klownshed said:
@AlexY said:

This is the first time I give writing lyrics a try. I can't sing, though, so I used Chipspeech to test the melody and the words to see how they flow. It doesn't pronounce everything right (for example, 'scars' sounds like 'cars' as the leading 's' is barely audible, but hopefully the gist is there.

If the song is worth a damn, maybe I can convince someone to sing it. 🙂

The Chiptune vocalist has its own quite cool character, I'm not usually keen on the sound of AI or robo-singers but I found this one quite charming. I also really loved the idea of the cute robotic voice singing about heartbreak, it worked even though it shouldn't

I also enjoyed the synth melodies, the track was enjoyable throughout and well-arranged. If it was me I would probably have made it a minute shorter, but otherwise it was very well produced and put together.

Good song. I like the synth lines and song Melodies. I think a real singer would improve it but some of the chip tune vocals would still fit alongside a real singer.

Thanks for the feedback all! @richardyot @klownshed @DavidEnglish

squeals

Work in progress. Needs an ending.
All done on iPad. Logic, Auria, gadget, weepingwall, Klevgrand percussion ones, the brush one, Shaka, luxe, timeless, scatterbrained, perforator, Hilda,

All done in bed on phones cos I’m forever sick and feverish these days.

https://on.soundcloud.com/f23zEEoJ5CPp2XaY9

DavidEnglish

@unlink said:

@DavidEnglish I really liked the trumpet around half of the track, very sweet. I read you are using all SWAM instruments right? How do you use your keyboards to add expressiveness? I'm struggling to find the best way to work with SWAM Cello.

I’ve tried the SWAM instruments, but couldn’t get the hang of them. I use the Solo instruments from Audio Imperia. I’ve been able to connect with those much better. And I’m just using two old 1990s-era synthesizers (a Yamaha EX5 and a Korg Triton Pro), strictly as MIDI-input keyboards.

@klownshed said:

I'd be interested to hear about your improvisation technique though. Do you do much editing after you improvise? Do you make an instrumental backing over which you track the improvised melodies?

@ecamburn said:

Appreciate hearing the details about your process.

It’s a fairly simple process. I select a few synth presets (I might overlay a piano with one or two solo instruments). Then I just improvise. I’ll do that a few times and choose one of the MIDI recordings that seems promising. I’ll slow it down to let it breathe (in real life, I tend to play too fast). I’ll then paste those MIDI notes into different preset tracks within BitWig Studio and attempt to orchestra something interesting out it.

So far, I’ve never added any new notes to that original improvisation, though I will delete or alter a misplaced note. Any instruments that you hear are playing those same original notes. That said, I will drop or raise those notes an octave or two to bring them within the natural range of a particular instrument.

For me, the whole point of improvising is to retain the subtle variations that are part of a live experience. Just like the listener, I’m not sure where the music is going to go. If done properly, the uncertainty of this high-wire act gives the music an added dimension.

@ecamburn said:

How did you use the mastering console? I'm still struggling with mixing and mastering, so I'm wondering what it did for your track (which sounds so good).

I use it to warm up the music a bit at the final video-editing stage. The real mixing and mastering occurs beforehand in BitWig Studio, mostly using FabFilter plug-ins.

richardyot

@squeals said:
Work in progress. Needs an ending.
All done on iPad. Logic, Auria, gadget, weepingwall, Klevgrand percussion ones, the brush one, Shaka, luxe, timeless, scatterbrained, perforator, Hilda,

All done in bed on phones cos I’m forever sick and feverish these days.

https://on.soundcloud.com/f23zEEoJ5CPp2XaY9

You might want to post this in this month’s thread:

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/60252/song-of-the-month-club-april-2024

klownshed

@DavidEnglish said:

@klownshed said:

I'd be interested to hear about your improvisation technique though. Do you do much editing after you improvise? Do you make an instrumental backing over which you track the improvised melodies?

It’s a fairly simple process. I select a few synth presets (I might overlay a piano with one or two solo instruments). Then I just improvise. I’ll do that a few times and choose one of the MIDI recordings that seems promising. I’ll slow it down to let it breathe (in real life, I tend to play too fast). I’ll then paste those MIDI notes into different preset tracks within BitWig Studio and attempt to orchestra something interesting out it.

So far, I’ve never added any new notes to that original improvisation, though I will delete or alter a misplaced note. Any instruments that you hear are playing those same original notes. That said, I will drop or raise those notes an octave or two to bring them within the natural range of a particular instrument.

For me, the whole point of improvising is to retain the subtle variations that are part of a live experience. Just like the listener, I’m not sure where the music is going to go. If done properly, the uncertainty of this high-wire act gives the music an added dimension.

Thank you for that, I find it interesting to hear different people's methods. There's always something new to learn...