Is there a such thing as too much technology for your studio? Really, do I have to even ask the question? Of course there isn’t. Having technology available at your fingertips just makes it that much easier to do and create projects exactly as you have imagined them. The real tragedy lies in not having enough technology to accomplish your goals.
Now, my studio is just a few components all mixed together, thus, not really a studio at all. However, I have just made two exciting additions to my setup… A 32″ monitor (using it at 720P via HDMI) and an HK 5.1 surround sound receiver! Overkill you say? Well, first let me explain why I added these components.
It really has to do with the fact that I moved all of my A/V equipment downstairs so I could dedicate the upstairs to living and the downstairs to more recreational affairs. Not only is the room perfect for surround sound and the LCD TV,
…butit also allows me to do what I have always secretly dreamed of doing… Fully integrating my audio/video equipment with my PC and “studio!”
The Setup (Relevant Components):
- AMD Athlon 64 PC; 3 GB RAM; 500MB ATI GPU; Windows XP
- 19″ LCD 16×9 Monitor @ 1440×900 + 32″ LCD 16×9 Monitor @ 1280 x 720 (720P) (Extended display)
- Sony DVD-R
- Sony DV Camera
- PSR-3000 Keyboard
- Samson CO1U Studio Condensor Mic
- Yamaha UW10 Audio Interface (16bit)
Note: My system may not seem like the hottest thing on the market, but consider that it seems to take half the amount of RAM to run XP as it does to run Vista. Personally, I see no reason to upgrade right now. Main Software I Currently Use:
- Finale 2009
- Sonar 8
- Adobe Design Premium CS4
- A bunch of free video and audio editing programs from NCH Software
- Gimp (for image editing)
That’s it really. That’s all the hardware and software I have to work with. Not too exciting, but it does the trick. New Found Benefits:
- All of my recording and editing can be done in one location, as well as playback
- The audio sounds much better now through the HK receiver. I’m still pumping it through the Yamaha UW10 before it gets to the receiver for now. I could go 5.1 out of the on-board audio. Still need to get some near-field monitors speaker though.
- Everything is 2.5 times larger now.
This is particularly awesome when it comes to using Finale or Sonar when I Need a ton of space. It is also a dream come true for video gaming!
Note: Keep in mind, the right 2/3 of the above screen shots appear approx 2.5 times larger than the images on the left 1/3. The screen shot eliminates this effect.
- I definitely do not have to strain to see anything
- I can play all my games in High Definition and the field of view is so large that I feel Like I am actually in the game.
- Netflix online videos play very clean and with surprisingly good resolution with no need to change my setup
- I can watch a movie and use the computer at the same time without using a laptop
- Icons are the size of my thumb
- My video frames per second (fps) have tripled! Using the DVI to HDMI cable has apparently lessened the load on my PC overall, presumably by requiring less effort in the conversion process. I watched my fps jump to an amazing 258 fps in some areas using the highest resolution and texture settings in CoD2 (way too much, but cool anyway). Most moderate game play areas hung around about 140 fps. Intense game play hovered between 55 and 90 fps. Needless to say, there was no lag or visible refresh rate. The most amazing thing is that these huge increases were gained by playing the game at a much better resolution… in HD (720p)!
Note: I can play it in 1080i, but lacking the progressive version of 1080, I like the way 720p looks.
– Half-Life 2 can be played at FULL resolution and perfect clarity
- CoD4 looks sharper than ever and almost all of the lag I was previously experiencing has ceased (didn’t check the fps).
Those are just some of the immediate benefits I could think of off the top of my head. There is a very interesting post from a professional game music composer (Breaking In as a Composer, Part II) that basically says you need a minimum of $14,000+ of software and equipment to even get a foothold in the gaming industry. I can’t remember if he mentioned needing a gigantic monitor anywhere, but it certainly can’t hurt. Anyway… As you can see, I am nowhere near that threshold, so I have a lot of catching up to do. Right now I’ll have to just be content to play the games and hope to win the lottery.
So, the moral of the story is…
If you have the chance to add new technology or software to your setup, do it!
The possibilities are endless. Even if your expense account is not.
The Final Episode of The Lost Book was released on the 24th of July. It was a nice conclusion to the collaborative book experiment. By now you have discovered that this experiment is much more than just a book. It involved the collaborative efforts of many artists/animators, writers, musicians, composers and fans. I am speculating that the animation and rendering process was the most time/resource intensive portion of the project, and no doubt, why the episodes are somewhat short. That alone would slow down most projects, but adding in original scores and performances by live professional musicians is just amazing, given the time constraints for each episode. Overall, they did a great job of making a fun, interesting and even suspenseful series of episodes. I think the nature of the collaborative, quasi-choose-your-own-adventure concept for The Lost Book actually helped keep the storyline suspenseful. After all, literally no one knew what was coming next!
In the final episode there are many book references, probably for obvious reasons. I happened to like the way the animated the newspaper during the opening sequence. The Otto character still seems a little creepy to me… Probably the mustache… But the dog, Watson, gets to show off his skills while jumping through laser beams, and that is always cool. Finally, just when it seems everyone can sit down and enjoy “a peaceful evening and break from adventures,” a text message comes in:
All Operatives: ALERT! Report to base.
The FULL 6 episodes:
Looks like they are leaving the door wide open for another series of episodes. I can’t wait! If you haven’t taken a few minutes to watch the whole series, make sure you do. You’ll want to be ready to follow the next one. I plan to participate any way that I can.
You can do two things to join the storywriting team. There will always be a post on the home page inviting suggestions – about the plot or characters. If you’ve got a great idea, tell us about it by leaving a comment. Don’t be shy!
Or, there’s also a poll (sometimes two!) in the sidebar to the right. We use these to collect together everyone’s ideas and choose the best. You can let us know which storylines you prefer by casting a vote.
And just in case you missed the profundity of this “experiment,” here’s a quote to remind you:
“The most interesting collaborative book-writing experiment of the decade”Jasper Fforde
I agree, it is, at least, a most interesting way to write a book… I watched some of the actual videos and wasn’t exactly spellbound, but certainly intrigued. …Intrigued by the concept.
“You see, the thing about animation is that it’s all visual. You can only see it – there’s nothing to hear but silence. Animated characters can’t speak for themselves; even their footsteps are soundless.” Cool, right? Well, here’s the part I really like. Not only do they use real musicians (Scottish Chamber Orchestra… for the real episode anyway) and commission composers, they have a competition for soundtracks too!
Soundtrack Winners More Info On Soundtrack Competition
Check out these winning entries:
Check this one out only if you aren’t afraid to be out-composed by a 16 year old:
Good work… And good luck on the High School graduation.
Highly Commended:
Oh, there is one little trick… The competitors don’t actually get to have their music in the final soundtrack. Here’s the REAL soundtrack with the episode. You will note that the soundtrack is a recording of live musicians:
I found it very interesting to listen to and compare the different entries and the final version of the soundtrack. The Lost Book certainly offers some unique opportunities for composers and fans in general. I wonder if many of the fans involved are more interested in the process and concept like me, or the actual story. Either way, this project is certainly worth following.
I almost forgot to mention… The final episode comes out tomorrow, the 24th of July!
So, I ran across this guy’s YouTube video. Turns out, he has a lot of them. This one is particularly cool and one of the finest examples around of improv, at least that I have seen with this style of music. Torley is a very up-beat character that happens to have a lot of great information and demonstrations on just about every facet of music technology, it seems. I suggest checking out his website at http://torley.com/.
You will discover that he also has a wide range of textures (visual) created by him, available to you. If technology or music don’t do it for you, surely you can use a little lift by watching the crazy antics Torley brings to every video.
Below is his “Friendly Synth Breakdance Jam.” Oh, and get ready to dance!
Critics of the video you just watched have issues with the feet on the keyboard thing. Hey, maybe they stink, but his skills sure don’t. I think he may have fallen asleep during part of this recording…
Next is more of why I am so interested in Torley’s work. Here is a video he uses to give you a demo of Audio Ease Speakerphone. This software simulates real and unreal audio environments. If you are like me before I got into audio editing, you are probably wondering what use this would really be to you. Well, once you’ve had a chance to dabble in the audio editing arts, you very quickly realize that sound environment can be one of the most useful tools in your arsenal. It doesn’t come with a Torley plug-in though. I’m not sure that can ever be accurately simulated.
**Some mild language contained in the following video–You are hereby notified**
In The Chair is a program designed as music education software. Most people will never get the chance to play with professional musicians, particularly if you happen to like symphonic music. This program not only lets you play with the pros, it gives you feedback on your performance. It does seem like fun, but the question is raised: Is it useful?
I will answer ambiguously… Yes and No.
Yes, if you want to have a little fun with your computer and, no doubt, troubleshoot software and interface problems. Yes, if your kid likes to play video games more than their instrument. Yes, if you will buy anything that is peddled by someone with an English accent (or Australian, I’m not sure).
No, if you are already paying for real music lessons. No, if you are still paying off the instrument you bought for your kid in the first place. No, if you want your kid to actually learn something from practicing their instrument.
I know, it seems a little harsh, but I have never seen a lot of value in replacing real instruction with synthetic environments. Music is infinitely more dynamic and complex than any software can represent or teach. You may be fooled into thinking you are playing with professionals, but real musicians are not computers or recordings. It’s almost like saying that one can experience a cheeseburger by using a computer simulation that reproduces the look or even smell of the experience. The experience of In The Chair seems more like the Back to the Future ride I once rode at Universal Studios. I was a lot of fun and even fooled a lot of my senses… But in the end, I never really flew through space or time. It was all an illusion.
My recommendation? Get lessons, play with real people and leave the computer performances to Guitar Hero. Otherwise, you might find yourself sitting in the backseat.
This video is a little old (Dec 2006), but the subject is very interesting. A slick hi-tech video/audio interface combined with real time feedback offers performers a chance to express themselves in a whole new way. One can manipulate the video from a DVD “in the same way and at the same time as audio.” This means you can “scratch” a video just like you can a record. Pretty cool. I usually see this kind of technology (although not in turntable form) used in ultra new-age classical performances, but this the first time I have heard of stepping-up the beat at a night club with cutting-edge technology video/audio turntables.
I know someone who is a DJ. I wonder how much his business would increase with one of these… I wonder how much his wallet size would decrease… Anyway, I haven’t seen anything like this in the local music stores lately. There was a disco ball. My, how far we have come.
Start video around 2:55 to see only the DVJX1 portion.
I tried reinstalling WMM, deleting it and renaming qedit.dll in Windows/System32 (I haven’t tried uninstalling IE7 yet, but I was hoping to avoid that for now). None of these fixed my problem with WMM. I am still using XP, so I can’t use the most recent version of WMM, 2.6. Fortunately, I have a laptop, and WMM works fine on that computer. I have several video editing programs to work with, but I sometimes enjoy the simplicty of WMM. If anyone out there has a fix for my WMM issues (see previous post), please let me know…
I have recently written about projects that used my Sonar 8 compatible Samson CO1U USB Studio Condenser Mic. It has been a great, versatile mic for under $100. However, I was never really able to use the provided software (not required to use mic), because it would always unexpectedly shutdown. I just discovered that this is directly related to driver conflicts with Finale 2009. Initially, I had no problems, but recently, Finale would refuse to open, offering only the dreaded Microsoft software problem reporting pop-up.
I clicked on the little “to see what data this error report contains: click here” link. Upon careful examination, I noticed something strange.
Under “ModName, “the pop-up banner mentioned a driver named something like samsonsoftpre.dll. I can’t remember the exact name, but it was obvious where it came from.
Next, I opened up Start/Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs and proceeded to uninstall the the Samson SoftPre Software. Finale opened just fine once the removal was complete. So, if the rare occasion arises that you are using both a Samson CO1U Mic and Finale 2009, this may help you solve the problem without reinstalling Finale, or at least, save you some time.
One last note… I am obviously having issues with Microsoft Windows Movie Maker too, as the screenshots reveal. I will be troubleshooting that problem shortly, but suspect the driver conflict is related to Internet Explorer 7. It as been suggested that I uninstall IE7 and see if the problem persists… I’ll let you know!
I found this video by accident while searching for something of my own that I posted by a similar name. I was amazed to see how many hits the video had after being posted for just a short time. So, naturally, I had to listen to it. Wow, I said to myself, she has a great voice. The next thing that occurred to me was that she appeared to just be recording this stuff with her laptop. How could she sound that good just using a laptop? Raw talent, I guess. Maybe this is the test for it you can really sing. Sit in front of your laptop, sing a song and post it on YouTube. If thousands of people watch it in a few days, you are either a sensation or so bad everyone’s friends can’t stop laughing about you.
In this case, I happen to like Chung’s version of Thinkin’ of you, much better than Katy Perry’s. Plus, the thing I really like about Jen Chung is that she seems to be normal… Kind of like one of those talented music nerds that were always fun to hang out with in college. Perry seems a little to cliched to me.
I will admit, that a little better equipment and software could have prevented all of our ears from bleeding on the high notes. I still liked it though.
Next week I will post a video of me singing this song… Just kidding.
This YouTube video has been incredibly popular (well over 5 million views), but I think a lot of people think the guy in the video is actually singing it… Well, he’s not. It’s a group from Utah called Moosebutter. It’s not nearly as cool once you know that little fact. The guy in the video comes right out and says it’s not him, but if you just watch the video, you will never know…
I’m not just writing about this video because I like it. I actually thought it was a good example of what you do with music technology. Granted, in this case most of the technology used by the video guy was video software, but it obviously relates directly to music. What is so cool about the video, is just how well he was able to lip-sync and match up his movements to the recording. Amazingly accurate, really. Or maybe I was just too distracted by the cool music to notice. Plus, he seems like a funny and likable dude. Apparently, his collaboration with Moosebutter went so well, they are working with each other on several new projects. I listened to a few other of their songs, and I wasn’t nearly as impressed… But you can go to their site and buy their Star Wars theme if you are so inclined.
My final project was way too much fun to make, but turned out to be way too much work to fit into 1 week. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to sacrifice a little in the video department and leave out some details. There are one or two pauses that I would have liked to eliminate… A few more tricks that I could have pulled with PowerPoint… For that matter, I really wanted to do the traditional Star Wars scrolling introduction, but knew I would waste a bunch of time searching for the right program to do it. Overall, I am happy with the final product though.
Like the previous project, I started out by writing a little Star Wars themed story, but decided to change it up a little with new character names and settings. I also composed new Star Wars-like theme music and changed the title to play upon a short scene where “Duke” tries to stare down “Lord Fader” using the “Farce.” Why did I change all these little details? Well, a couple of reasons.
First, I wanted to be as original as possible creating my little parody… Not just one of those 50/50 deals where 1/2 of it is new and the other is a recording of John Williams’ soundtrack. Or the other way around… You know what I mean.
Second, I do like to avoid as many issues with copyright as possible, even in an educational setting where I am teaching other students how I made this project. I believe in Fair Use, not over use.
THE ANIMATION
So, with those things in mind, I decided to go as far as creating the minifig-like characters from scratch in paint and Gimp (an awesome free Photoshop-like program that I highly recommend). I wanted a sort of 2-D/South Park animation feel and knew this would work particularly well for my PowerPoint-imation idea. Originally, I made a Paint head for Darth Fader, but thought it looked too hokey. This gave me the idea to just go ahead and use photos of real minifigs and “animate” them in Gimp… Which turned out to be an excellent way to make the star ships as well.
TIP: One thing awesome about Gimp is that is is very easy to use. It allowed me to create an “alpha” channel, deleting the background of any image I needed. This means I was able to paste all of my images into PowerPoint with a CLEAR background. Without this ability and Gimp’s ease-of-use in creating this effect, Stare Wars would never have been a possibility.
One of the first responses I receive from people who view this project for the first time is, “you did this with PowerPoint!?”
Well, yes, I did… And you can too! It’s really not that hard, just extremely time consuming. Specifically, I used PPnt 2007. In fact, there a lot of other effects that I could have created with PPnt, but I just didn’t have the time. Here’s how I did it:
1) I cut off all of the appendages from my characters… Sounds cruel, but this allowed me to move each appendage separately.
2) I used each slide as a frame. By advancing each frame, I created a very simplistic version of stop-motion animation. Obviously, this could have gone on for months, creating a much more fluid motion with 1,000s of slides. But what fun would that be?
3) More spectacular effects were accomplished by assigning various PPnt effects to an object, such as spin, fade-in/out or fly-in. For example, the light sabers retract and extent using entrance effects set at a slow timing. Shaking effects were created using scribbled motion paths.
See, not so hard. Once all the Hollywood CG effects were added, I had to make a couple of Lego-like backgrounds. It turns out that Gimp has this handy little fill texture that happens to look like the surface of a Lego. Very convenient and convincing. Varying transparency allowed me to create various shades of gray. The other elements, such as signs and control pads were actually made in PowerPoint with the shape and text tools. When that wasn’t possible, I went back to Gimp again. NASA is kind enough to provide the American public with lots of photos or concepts of space, so that was handy for this project. And believe it or not, that clip-art feature in PPnt will help you find a lot of graphics that can be used as backgrounds too… Like monkeys, for example.
Due to lessons learned from the previous project, I knew that making a better quality product would require me to complete the video portion of the project first, then match up the audio. Essentially, this would allow me to do voice-overs. But before I was able to record any voices, I had to first turn my PowerPoint slides into a video. How was this accomplished, you ask?
1) REHEARSED TIMINGS – I used a feature in PPnt that allows one to “rehearse timings.” I read the script and advanced the slides manually. Once the rehearsal was complete, I saved the timing. Next time the show was played back, it played automatically for me.
2) RECORD TO VIDEO CAM – The best way to make the PPnt show into video, still preserving the timings, was to use the S-video out on my laptop to the camcorder. S-video feeds analog video and audio out. This is important, because I don’t know of a way to send ieee 1394 (Firewire) out unless the source is already a video.
3) VIDEO CAM BACK TO THE PC – Now all I had to do was play the video camera back into the PC, this time via the Firewire, preserving the full resolution of the recording.
4) IMPORT VIDEO INTO SONAR – Importing the video into Sonar really became the starting point for creating the audio portion of my project.
See the PowerPoint show below for more info on the final video conversion process. It was a huge headache and ate up a lot of time. Had I not attempted to integrate video into my previous project, I am sure that I would have never finished this one on time.
THE AUDIO
Just explaining this whole process takes a while, so you can imagine how much effort it took to create the final product. We’ll look at this portion of the project in 4 phases: Voices, Score, Sound Effects and Post-Editing/Down-Mixing.
Voices:
Again, due to limited resources, I was forced to do most of the voices, but did get a lot of help from my son and daughter. The script was already typed-out, so I just read along with my newly imported video. I used my trusty C01U Studio Condenser Mic for all audio recordings. Like the Star Wars series itself, I made a lot of different characters by simply changing my accent or voice inflection. Some voices required extra creativity, such as Lord Fader. For him I had to speak into a large plastic pickle jar and lower my voice. When I just wanted some more variety, I called in the kids. My son “read” the part of Don Solo, and did a fantastic job, I might say. He also lent his voice for one of the pilots in the space battle scene. My daughter did a couple of lines for Princess Faya, but soon tired of the harsh demands of voice acting… I thought she did a great job with the character though. All other voices were acted by me, some more successfully than others. Believe it or not, I even did an overlay for “Shewy’s” voice.
Score:
The musical score was composed and synced with the action, so-to-speak, as was the case with the opening title and its fade to the background. The instrumentation for the score was entirely from my keyboard. I thought the high quality of sound from the PSR-3000 and the fact that this was a farce made midi and acceptable choice. Not to mention that I don’t have free access to studio musicians… I didn’t write anything out, just sort of winged the score, largely because I had no time to spare. Overall, I was very happy with the way the score turned out, even though I spent dramatically less time on this element than any other in the project.
Sound Effects:
Star Wars (or Stare Wars) just isn’t Star Wars without certain obligatory sound effects. Unlike the previous project, I felt that creating all the effects from scratch would destroy the feel of the piece and opted for the cliched light saber, laser and battle sounds. Some were sampled from live game play (I.e. recorded with a mic as I played an N64 version of Star Wars or my SW Battlefront II). I discovered, however, that there are tons of free Star Wars sound effect downloads out there and found just about everything I needed online.
Post-Editing/Down-Mixing
Suffice it to say, to do any project of this sort, many hours will be spent making the smallest audio edits. I applied everything I had learned up to this point and tried to be as conservative as possible. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of trial and error in this process. Not just for the effects, but for the balance and export of the overall project. If you haven’t tried it a hundred different ways, then you are already an expert or you are not going to get the final product that you really want. For me, it was a time constraint. The hardest part of the whole process was balancing all the different tracks. Each track has a different volume and characteristic, demanding the most meticulous attention to detail when integrating each into the overall sonic environment. To make matters worse, the product you thought you had may not be the same when it is finally exported and burned to a CD. I don’t own monitor speakers, but I hear they are key to eliminating a lot of these sorts of problems. The PowerPoint presentation below will describe a lot more about the little details associated with audio and video editing in general.
Below is a PowerPoint presentation that describes the process of creating this project in Sonar 8 as a whole. It has been converted to video. Each slide is 7 seconds long, so fast-forward or pause as needed.
NOTE: You can play back the actual presentation at the same time as the PowerPoint show to give you a better feel for what the PPnt is talking about.
Project number three was really a test run for project number 4. You see, video was not required, but I wanted to see just how difficult it would be to incorporate it into my final project. It proved to be even more difficult than I had imagined, as I ran into just about every problem you can think of. In fact, I almost didn’t get the project turned in on time.
The first thing I did was finish the audio portion of my project. Since the assignment was audio-related, not video, I felt it would be wise to finish the part I would be graded on first. I decided to really put Sonar to the test and do a project that would allow me to use as many features as possible without ruining my work. That’s where the video game promo idea came in. Now I could make a bunch of sound effects, do voice-overs, and combine midi and live instruments to create Half-Life 2 game environments.
I began with a storyline only loosely based on HL2, adding a few characters and not really making an attempt to integrate the plot into existing HL2 games. In fact, I couldn’t seem to remember everyone’s names correctly and mixed them up a little. Given how little time I had, I didn’t feel it was necessary to fix. My intention was to create a game-based environment and storyline. HL2 was just sort of a model.
Once a story was developed, I recorded the voices and began to manipulate them as needed to simulate alien or foreign characters. I believe the PowerPoint that I will attach describes the kinds of effects that were used to create these characters. Essentially, I experimented with all kinds of reverb and started messing with effects like time/pitch stretch, amps, modulators, and distortions. Time/pitch stretch is particularly effective when trying to change the character of one’s voice. When I just needed something completely different, I brought in the kids to do a little voice acting. For this project, I ended-up only using a very brief portion where my daughter’s voice is made to sound sort of haunting and distant.
While I didn’t use much of the kids’ voice acting for this one, I did use a surprisingly large amount of instrumental and sound effects that they helped create. My daughter played a toy lap harp and a triangle, while my son played the tambourine and the sleigh bells. I played the recorder separately. To my delight, Sonar allowed me to completely manipulate the instrument sounds into train sound effects. Almost all the effects you hear throughout the piece are created in this fashion. Only a few, such as weapons fire and the train-track sound, were generated from my keyboard.
The effect that I am most proud of is the steam-release effect during the train station scene at the beginning. This effect was created by making a recording of my daughter over-blowing a plastic recorder. The clip was then subjected to tons of reverb, but not before time/pitch stretch was applied, raising one layer of the sound up a couple of octaves. Once layered, I added a very long decay to the sound. Finally, I had to add a track “envelope” that allowed me to very precisely change the volume and pan of the sound. Specifically, the initial attack of the over-blown recorder was enough to make your ears bleed. Using the envelope, I was able to even that part out with the rest of the clip, then add a pre-defined decrescendo.
Another reason I chose the video game concept was my determination to find ways that midi generated sounds would actually sound appropriate for the work. I used a distortion guitar from my Yamaha PSR-3000 keyboard and another cool completely digital sound (called Fargo) underneath. Putting the two together seemed like a perfect match for the game, so composing a Euro distortion guitar theme to end the project was effortless. Using my keyboard sequencer again, I added a beat that worked very well with the feel of the piece. Strangely, it was a Salsa…
After the voices, effects and music were all put together, I moved on to the video. Well, a series of slides that were turned into a video using a Creative Labs program called MuveeNow 2.0. It offered some nice transition effects and definitely made the slides more interesting. However, it nearly melted down my PC during the video conversion process. This seemed to be a problem unique to this program, as my other video processing products don’t cause the same problem.
Once my PC cooled down for a bit, I imported the video into Sonar and made sure it was approximately the right length. Sonar does not allow any video editing, so I exported the whole project as a video file, then imported into WinDVD (because that’s what I had on my computer and I couldn’t get Windows Movie Maker to work at the time). Here I was able to crop and match up the video to the audio (just enough to kinda follow the storyline). I imported a few of the stills used to make the original slide show and inserted them where I needed to extend scenes or wanted a high resolution still. Lastly, I added a title and date to the beginning.
Now it was time for a final product. I spent hours and hours perfecting the balance between voices, effects and music, then normalizing and compressing them for extraction.
TIP: If you recorded something at a low level, normalizing will bring all the highs and lows into a normal range, making it a lot easier to hear and work with.
I made several versions of the audio portion, extracting them in sequence (initial bounce, normalized, compressed, normalized and compressed) so I could hear all the different versions. Once I was happy with the version I was going to use, I imported the final audio and video into a freeware program called VideoPad. You can find all kinds of great free software from NCH via this link: http://www.nchsoftware.com/software/index.html
DEFINITION: Bounce – This is a track that is a composite of other tracks. For example, I used over 25 different tracks to create Black Mesa, but you only want one for the final product. The bounced track is the one track made from the 25 original tracks.
TIP: If you have the time, bounce from real-time audio, not a “fast” bounce. This will sometimes yield better results. Also, make sure you have all the tracks that you want bounced selected and that the appropriate tracks are soloed or muted as desired.
Until I discovered VideoPad, I was at a loss concerning the conversion of my video to a .mov format. People in an educational setting love to use Macs, so I was required to make it work for Quicktime. To make it even more complicated, Sonar refused to properly import any .mov videos, though it is supposed to be able to do this. It would not export to .mov either. I recommend exporting in a basic format from Sonar and using another program to convert to the format you really want. VideoPad works very well for this and it does it quickly without over-heating your PC. I also used it to convert videos to an iPod format. Don’t forget, you convert video for other reasons too, like the size of the file. Original raw AVI files can get easily into the GB range. By down-converting, I was able to get a clean 720×480 version at 29.97 FPS that was only 19.7 MB compared to its original 887 MB.
NOTE: Use VideoPad NOT Prism, as Prism only converts the video portion. If you are not careful, you will suddenly discover that your video no longer has audio!
Below is the PowerPoint show that describes the process I used to create this project in Sonar 8. Each slide is 9 seconds long and the original audio portion of the project plays in the background. If you wish to just read the slides, mute the audio and pause/fast-forward as necessary.
Ok, Now that you’ve learned a little about what not to do and just how hard it can be to learn new software in a week, let’s talk about applying those lessons learned to our next project. Honestly, I was so disappointed with project 1, that I felt a recovery was in order. I don’t know if it was the obvious humor the class found in the quality of synth generated brass, or the confused look on the professor’s face in regard to my addition of a hip-hop beat to a brass quartet. In either case, I learned that the creative process involves many failures in order to achieve success. To look at it in a more positive light, I will qoute Thomas Edison (probably somewhat inaccurately):
“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”
I quickly tried to replace as many of those things that didn’t work, with ones that would. First, I decided to play live as much of the music as I could. That includes vocals, right and left hand of the piano (separately), bass, and trumpet. The piano was actually my Yamaha PSR-3000 keyboard. Its awesome 96KHz sampling offers a very realistic piano sound. The bass and drum set are also from the keyboard. The drum set was the only instrument not played live, but I was able to pre-record a sequence using the sequencer built into the keyboard. The variations offered were actually quite nice, and the professor, a percussionist, actually had to ask me if the drums were real! That’s a pretty convincing argument for the quality of Yamaha’s voice sampling.
I broke down and purchased a Samson CO1U USB Studio Condenser Mic, coincidentally, made to work with Sonar products. It cost me around $90 and was well worth the expense. As the recording will reveal, the mic does a great job of capturing vocals, as well as instruments (although using different methods/distances). The following is a PowerPoint slide show that has been converted to a video format. It better explains the overall process and familiarizes you with the Sonar 8 interface. Each slide is 7 seconds, so pause or fast forward as needed. There is no audio.
The first thing the professor told us was that if we were unable or unwilling to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software, we should drop the class. So, we all quickly forked over the cash and hoped for the best. I was able to find Sonar 8 Studio Edition on eBay at a student price of around $200. The Producer Edition was also available at around $400, but some reviews I had read led me to believe the extra expense was just not worth it. Here is a list of what I am missing using only the Studio version:
LP-64 Linear Phase Equalizer™ for mastering
LP-64 Linear Phase Multiband™ Compressor for mastering
TL-64 Tube Leveler™
VC-64 Vintage Channel™ with sidechaining capabilities
Roland® V-Vocal™ 1.5 with Pitch to MIDI conversion
Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 L
Perfect Space™ Convolution Reverb
Lexicon® Pantheon™ Reverb
Sonitus Surround Compressor
Dimension Pro™ 1.2 virtual synthesizer with Classic Keys Expansion Pack
TruePianos Amber VSTi
Beatscape™ looping instrument
Hollywood Edge Sound FX library for Dimension Pro
Z3TA+™ 1.5 waveshaping synthesizer
Surround mixing in over 30 formats
SurroundBridge™ technology to use stereo FX in surround
Of those exclusive features the one’s I think I might find useful are any reverbs, compressors and sound effects in general. You can never have too many tools for sound manipulation. V-Vocal sounds interesting, but I question its usefulness in comparison to products like Melodyne. Any of the synthesized sound features will just add more unrealistic sounding midi voices to your library… Unrealistic, because, even if they sound completely real, you will get terrible results unless they are played into Sonar live. In which case, you will probably want to use an external keyboard/synthesizer/microphone instead of internally generated synthesizers. One other important note… You’d better have a fast processor and a heck of a lot of RAM if you plan to use a lot of internal synthesizers. Sonar likes to work best with straight audio files. Overall, there are a few features that would have been helpful, but I like saving $200 right now.
TIP: If you choose to use a lot of synthesizers and Sonar decides it does not want to open properly anymore, try this: Hold down the Shift key while opening the file you want. This will start the file in Safe Mode, allowing you to choose which synthesizers, etc. to load.
Ok, so now you know a little about what Sonar has to offer, let’s take a look at what I was able to do with it first time out. For starters, keep in mind that I had only a week to do each project for this course and had never before used any DAW software. The first thing I had to learn was what one does with such software. In short, it allows you to record from various sources such as midi, mic, or internal synths (or, you can import any audio file you already have) and digitally edit/manipulate/mix your music.
What does this mean? Well, if I want to make a recording of myself playing all the parts of a band, I can do that. If some of those parts are midi, some are live and some are pre-recorded, I can do that to. I can take all these elements, add proper reverb, panning, compression, normalization and balance (all stuff that I will discuss later), then properly down-mix the project into an audio file that sounds good on just about any audio system… Even to the professional level, given the right recording/audio/mastering equipment. As with any audio project, the better the initial recording, the better the output (I.e. Live recordings of professional musicians using $1,000 mics in a recording studio will always sound better than midi played back using a synthesizer). There isn’t much yo can do to make a bad recording sound better. But, there is a lot you can do to make a decent one sound good. You might be surprised just how much you can do with just a good microphone and a keyboard at home.
My first project is an excellent example of WHAT NOT TO DO. In fact, it is so bad, that I hesitate to use it as an example… But it taught me many lessons.
LESSON 1: If you don’t have a fast enough computer, a good enough microphone or keyboard, you won’t be very happy with your products. Invest in some good equipment.
LESSON 2: You will not be able to adequately use Sonar in just one week. There is a huge learning curve if you have never used this type of software.
LESSON 3: Trial and error is really the ONLY way to discover what effects and processes work best for your music. Your trial and error will also be very important when trying to export/down-mix your finalized audio project, and may actually be the most frustrating part of the whole process.
LESSON 4: Never take a perfectly good piece you have already written and ruin it by trying to experiment with it in Sonar, adding effects, instrumentation, hip-hop beats and playing it back using the internal synths in Sonar.
LESSON 5: If at all possible, play everything into Sonar live, even if it’s midi generated. It is the only way to avoid making your music sound mechanical.
LESSON 6: Unless you have 100% realistic sounding midi generation capability, always use real instruments when possible. There are cases when midi can be great, but they are always context specific.
LESSON 7: If you don’t very much enjoy the process of learning new software, recording music, performing and creating, then DAWs are not for you. If you do, then Sonar 8 will open up a lot of possibilities for your creative process.
Below is my first disastrous project. Most of my time was spent learning the features of Sonar and how to implement them, rather than writing any good music. Good News: There was only one way to go from here. If you want to hear a much better version of the original brass quartet, follow this link and click on the little Windows Media icon:
This will be my first post, so I felt an introduction might be in order. The purpose of this blog will be to discuss various applications of music technology and provide examples of personal and study-related projects. I will include details on the processes used to create each project in addition to tips, tricks or obstacles I have encountered along the way. Initially, I may be spending more time on learning how to blog than posting anything useful. I may go ahead and post the completed projects and add explanation as time permits.
Currently, I am working with Sonar 8 Studio Edition and have found it to be more powerful than any tools I have used to date, yet limiting and frustrating at the same time. As my posts progress, they will describe not only the projects created in Sonar, but the process of learning how to use the program as well. The learning curve will be apparent from my first projects to the last.
I will present various other projects and/or compositions that may be useful to discuss and hope to talk about the work other people are doing too. I want to learn as much as I can and share what I have already learned with others that might be interested.
My work is published through D. M. Gardner Music in an effort to distribute it in a more personal manner. Any music purchased directly supports the creation of new music.
I enjoy collaborating with ensembles to tailor music to their specific needs, a very rewarding experience for both composer and performer. While I sometimes find myself doing arrangements at special request, I prefer to compose completely original music. Occasionally, I will also compose original texts. I enjoy writing for many different types of ensembles and am always looking for ways to expand my horizons.
If you have questions about my work or are interested in collaborating on a new composition, please contact me directly at composer@dmgardnermusic.com. I look forward to working with you and your ensemble.
The Music of Jeff Harrington
Music that is tonal and intensely contrapuntal inspired by New Orleans and classical music traditions.
Think Denk
(the glamorous life and thoughts of a classical pianist)
Torley Lives
Excellent resource for information on music technology, software/hardware reviews and creative thinking.
My Little Disclaimer
The links on my blog exist because, at one time or another, I found them useful or interesting in some way. My linking to theses sites does not necessarily mean that I endorse their subject matter or content, and I do not want to limit my exploration of the creative aspects of music.
Other Sites & Links
Lorelle on Wordpress
Want to know something about how Wordpress works? Try looking here.
The Lost Book
This is a great find… A collectively written (and scored) story!
Composition, D. M. Gardner, D. M. Gardner Music, Misc, Music Technology, Music-Related, New Music, Technology | musictechtalk | 
July 30, 2009 | 
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