Jimbo 88

So I started reading this thread and was dying to know...did the mixer ever come???

Just finished skimming thru everything and , fheeeew...it final came.

Back in the day, I would order something from Sweetwater before noon and it would be on my doorstep the next afternoon around 3.    Once in a while I would miss the delivery and would hustle down to the Fed Ex distribution center around 8:30pm  (the drivers came back around 7 ish and they closed at 9.)

Of course I was literally blocks away from the distribution center.  That did have it's perks.

This is outstanding...everything about it.

Pretty dang cool Jack!  You always are stretching, which is so cool watch.  It reminds me of the interludes Blood, Sweat and Tears use to do in the middle of a set.

2 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

Hi - I think sounds excellent - what AI Choir program did you use

Cool Stuff

Nigel

 

Using Synthesizer V with 3 paid, programmable voices and one free "lite" female singer.

You can get the "choir" effect by creating 5 versions of the same part and tweaking each of the 5 by programing different types of vibrato, timing, breath, etc...and change the timbre of each voice.  Not perfect just yet, but unless I'm hiring a bunch of top professionals, its probably easier and better.

I have not been able to get a gospel, or a country, or a blue-eyed soul  sound just yet.   I'm still working on it. 

So I don't think this has been done before.  I'm working on a Choir piece for High School students.    Song with an AI choir.

...By different I mean post a Choir song!

Any choir directors out there?  Let me know what you think.  It's greatly appreciated!

https://youtu.be/UiiE2PPnUJk

And can someone let me know why you have to click on the "YouTube" thingy at the bottom to watch instead of the spinning ball?  I've seen other Youtube videos just play.

ChatGTP is just a great thesaurus...

I love AI, but that is all it is.

Is this not the greatest forum ever?

12 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

What OS is on this laptop?

If it's at least Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and it can connect to your home network, you may be able to transfer the files via Windows networking. The newer the OS (Windows 95, 98, XP), the better your chances.

Thanks for the idea.  I'll check it out, I think the OS  could be 3.11, it is something in the the 3's.  But I really don't think there is a physical way to network on this laptop (Gateway... back when they made really good laptops)   except perhaps out the parallel port that as now, is configured to handled the midi/sympte card.  All of which still works very well. 

1 hour ago, Bajan Blue said:

What program did you use for the video?

I purchased a year's subscription (really 12,000 credits) from Kaiber.ai to generate the images.      I actually have a well paying project that needs images (I'm teaching middle school kids how to score to picture) and it more than justifies the $120.  So I'm going to take advantage of that and use the subscription for projects like this also.  The video editing program is a lite version of Vegas Pro I purchased many years ago.  I imagine that AI will have drastically changed by the time (one year) my credits for Kaiber.ai run out.

1 hour ago, daryl1968 said:

AI........scary . Great song and video. 

The future is gonne be weird

 

Thanks for the compliment.  The future IS gonna be weird for those who don't jump in.  I've learned that the hard way a couple of times over.  I saw it in the 80s when I midi allowed me to grab lots of work from the old guys in the biz.  I saw it again in 2000s when computers, social media and the internet took work away from me when I did not embrace the new technology.  And so I'm not going to fall behind this time.  You shouldn't either.  Jump in and hand on! 

11 hours ago, bitflipper said:

And that's not guaranteed. Not because of Win10/11, as they'll be able to read a floppy no problem. However, diskettes can become corrupted over time, and unless the original drive and the drive you're reading from were/are aligned correctly (or equally mis-aligned) the diskettes may not be readable on the new drive. Unless you have other drives available, you'll be outa luck.

Man, I forgot about all this.  And the fact that the disks are magnetic.  I've seen what happens to audio and video tapes over years and it's been almost 30 since I put that rig together.    I'd better fire up that laptop and see what loads before I invest in this thing.

1 hour ago, Michael Richards said:

I’m a little confused. Are you saying you want better notation tools in staff view, or are you saying something positive about PRV?

I have been using PRV quite a bit in the past year, but it can’t replace what notes do on a staff. They are so beautiful. I wish the new Sonar would  have a staff view on steroids. But, I may be outnumbered in this dream.

Both,  I do want better notation tools.  But the argument I hear a lot is that are many who don't read music and CbB is will never be good enough for publishing.  Which is fine.  But inputting midi data using Staff View can be an advantage and possible for people who don't read music all because of the great Piano Roll View in CbB... and having a better Staff View will pay off in the long run.   And the long run is coming up fast!!

Found My solution:  $17.99 on amazon

https://www.amazon.com/NEWSTYLE-3-5-External-Floppy-Drive/dp/B00KX8EMOO/ref=asc_df_B00KX8EMOO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=321499553671&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=293805867202239948&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021511&hvtargid=pla-637234400848&th=1

Hey, so many years ago I made the argument that the Bakers should pay more attention to Staff View.  My argument was that technology will inevitably change,  DAWs will change, but Notation will stay constant.  Notation will be the bridge to the next technological advances (plus the fact that millions of children are taught notation all across the world, it's a universal language and a hugely, big(ly) market to tap!)

So now it's happening,  AI is here.   Programing AI voices without notation is possible, but way easier to do with notation.  Light years quicker.  Good luck to those who don't use it.  AI or notation.

The thing is you don't have to be able to "read" music per se.  You can create in Piano Roll View and input lyrics in Staff View.  Then off to AI.

That is all

11 hours ago, treesha said:

I enjoyed your work, to me it seems great and I have no idea how you used AI to do what you did! I think the notation looks good on the bottom, I don,t read music but just as an artistic feature to me it looks good moving along. The song itself is very good.

Thanks treesha!

So the short story for how I use AI to create vocals... I use a program called Synthesizer V, I purchased that and 3 different voices that where programed to work in it.  Synth V works much like a DAW and similar to Cakewalk's Piano Roll View.  You export your vocal as a .wav file and import it into Cake.  After that it's no different than any vocal track you or I might have recorded (except it's clean of noises and in-tune!  :) ). 

The long story...Synthesizer V is a great program, but composing in it can be painful.  You draw your notes/melody in Piano Roll View then type in lyrics. Which is all fine and good until you start tweaking and experimenting.  Then you have to wait for new audio every stinking time to be generated and becomes time consuming.  The easiest, best way is use a notation program to compose, export a midi file,  import that into Synth V.  Then 80%  of your work is done and you need to adjust pronunciations etc.    It's kinda funny 'cause I speak with a Chicago accent and try to get the singer to say the words the way I hear them.  They seem to have more of a British accent so like the word "Dance" sounds very prim and proper.  I have to spell that word "Daaance" to get my Chicago-ism.   Even if you don't read music, you should be able to create your melody in Cake's Piano Roll View, then look at it in Staff View and input your Lyrics.

Here is where the rub comes.  Cakewalk will export lyrics with midi, but the words don't line up  correctly all the time. So I end up exporting a XLM file out of Cake and into Sibelius (a notation program and the midi/lyrics work well).  I tweak a little more, just things that I know will work better in Synth V.  Then export midi out and into Synth V.

If you are going to do multiple tracks, say with background vocals, I would highly recommend that you use a notation app to start the process.   

I have around 50-100 songs I wrote (using the basis of underscores I composed for TV Docs) that I did almost 30 years ago.  I always used words to help create my melodies, would write the lyrics in my down time  and  thought they might be useful to have in a Library someday.   I never completed production of these songs because getting a Pro singer to do them was too $$$ and too involved...and I was not skilled enough as a mixer. I had my daughter sing a lot of scratch tracks when she was a teen and the ones I did produce where a disaster.  

But now things have changed!  I've learned how to open up Counsel View of CbB!  And I now have an arsenal of AI singers to throw at projects... And I can use AI images to create videos that compensate for my lack of editing skills.

The video is ruff at this point.  I will replace all images with 4K versions.  My computer gets bogged down trying to edit hi res images.

**for some reason it appears the only way to watch this is to click on the  "Watch On YouTube"  button on the bottom.

Let me know what you think.  Should I keep the notation score on the bottom?

47 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

Back then, software did exist for transferring files over parallel ports via FTP. I remember using it, but that's all. Given that you can still find Pong and Pac Man online, there's a chance some antique software enthusiasts have preserved it. Of course, that assumes you have a computer with a parallel port on it. 

Cool that you still have your old modules. I have none of mine. Fortunately I used descriptive track names, else I'd have had a hard time of it.

Yep, that might be the way.    I believe the midi box connected thru a parallel port (which was really for connecting to a printer).  I believe I might have a parallel card laying around that was used in another computer carnation and I can put into my current computer.

Dang it Jim, I'm a musician not a computer guy.  (Star Trek reference for those of you who are not 100 years old)

On 6/18/2023 at 10:09 AM, bitflipper said:

I found a floppy from around 1988 that contained projects from Cakewalk 1.0. Loaded right up into the current version of   Sonar.

OMG What a great idea!  I have a laptop from 1992 that I can fire up.  And a case of disks with all my old projects.  If I can find away to transfer files off that laptop.  I do not have an old, external hard drive (just the drive in the laptop) ... and thumb drives, internet connections did not exist.    

I still have all the old midi sound modules that all work except the Casio FZ1 that I used mostly for piano samples.

A project for a rainy day.

So hey,  It appears Sonar is connected to Discord.  Which is connected to AI thingys like Midjourney.  So is this a possible thing.  Sonar will be connected with some AI features.  I'm already using AI Voices in another program and it's really cool.

Am I reading too much into this?

6 hours ago, Bapu said:

So it would appear I'm the new Nostradamus. 

Can be found here: https://www.cakewalk.com/

I would say you are the "old" Nostradamus....Just sayin', We're all kinda old here.

Finally, something to go on...

So I'm interested!  Let's see where this goes. Worst case scenario is I use CbB to compose the rest of my life and other DAWs to finalize projects.  Best case is I move into Sonar exclusively and conquer the world of music once again.

--I'm game!

Ahhh, after reading the article it bodes well for me.  It appears they hope to expand more into educational areas.  That helps me on multiple fronts as I have been composing for schools lately.   And hopefully they would have to look at notation (which would help me creating music for films etc and my academic projects.) 

So far looks like a win-win for me.  (if they just stay out of that subscription thingy).  I'm excited.  I just wish they'd get to it and keep me (us) from guessing.

I feel like something really big is in the works.

I don't mind paying for updates, but I can't do the subscription thing.  For one thing,  I get involved in projects that can last 6 months or longer and I'm not using  certain software for one reason or another.  I might be using notation software for an extended period of time,  so I'd be paying money for software I'm not using.   Or I'm not using notation for a long time.  That is why I dumped Sibelius.   I use a very old version when I need it and Dorico for the rest.  

I also have clients that come back for tweaks on projects after long periods of time (a documentary gets updated, a industrial video changes a word or two) .  Cakewalk has been great for that...everything, every update has had no issues going back (can't say that about ProTools).

I also worry about subscription software shutting down on me for some reason.  And then I'm stuck with loads of files and work that I can't access anymore. 

On 5/21/2023 at 1:17 PM, bitflipper said:

...that was so good they made me question why I even bother trying.

But it's too late for me to take up a different avocation, so this morning I'm trying to come to grips with my own inadequacies, to remind myself it's important to do what you love - even if you suck at it.

 

+1

3 hours ago, Tezza said:

Amazing, I can see a use for this straight away when I want to test out vocals and I'm too lazy to sing it myself or there is noise everywhere so I can't mic.

+1

Yes, I'm a terrible singer, so ...yeah.  The best thing is checking out vocal arrangements.

15 hours ago, Bapu said:

It's a tool and it may become an even better tool in the future.

One day I might ask AI to make me a MIDI piano track in the paying style of Elton John if he were plating in a speed punk metal band at 172 bpm. Won't that be fun?

 

You can already do that, I've been doing it for years with Band In A Box.  An Example... I wrote a song for my Dad 25 years ago.  I had Band in a Box create a track with Errol Garner (my dad's favorite pianist).  I added a rock beat to it, and had my kid sing it.  Now I can do that,  only have an AI vocalist and I don't have to bother my kid.

Nothing is changing except things are easier. (I do miss bothering/torturing my kids).