Amberwolf Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 (edited) Gareki (rubble, debris, remains) https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki 01-10-25: 010625 000001 200034j -- some rearrangements, chord changes, many timing edits, many clip/note edits, added intro. This one uses the Z3TA2+ synth for the bassline, Rapture for the CS80 synthhighs, driven by MIDI I either drew or played in. A lot of audio bits using Functionloops vocals, BlackOctopus' Funky Indian Rhythms and Ghosthack's Shymer for most of the percussion bits (though there's a lot of snipping and shifting of the pieces down to individual hits). Still work in progress, lots of stuff to add for accents, transitions, contrast, etc. Edit 1-10-25 Added artwork I have tried with both the music and the "cover art" to make something to convey the sadness, the disheartening dismay, of seeing your home destroyed, the things you live(d) with treated like junk and garbage. It's a feeling I know very very well, from the housefire a little over a decade ago. I am still figuring that out (how to express it), so this is the beginning of that. I am hoping that those that listen will tell me if it induced any emotion, and if so, what. If it isn't doing what I wanted it to, I can work on it more to try to fix that. On the artwork I tried to use the google imagefx thing to create this, but it just didn't listen to me. I ended up having to composite multiple things from that and elsewhere, using the ancient PaintShopPro6, to get something resembling what I want. It's still not quite there, either, but it's close enough for now. Hopefully it also helps convey the emotional side of what Gareki can mean to someone. I chose the "pup" for it's resemblance to Hachi, whose loss in the fire hit me worse than any of the others. The wolf I chose for it's pose; there were others with face-on facial expressions that said it better but they did not have the dejected body language I was after; this was the closest I could come. Edited January 13 by Amberwolf 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 01-09-25: 010625 000001 200030i -- assorted edits https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 (edited) 01-10-25: 010625 000001 200034j -- assorted edits https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki Edited January 10 by Amberwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 010625 000001 300038m - assorted edits, added elven phrase " This garden you created, this forest you gave life to, is, and always will , be my home." https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki Previous version without spoken phrase here https://www.soundclick.com/amberwolf/?more=14920982 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesha Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 which version should I listen to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 (edited) The latest version is all that's actually on the Bandcamp link. I left the pre-spoken-word version up on the soundclick link but it's now missing many edits so go for the link in this post for all those (it's much better): 01-11-25: 010625 000001 300045p -- converted bass arp to midi notes and edited them to fit the rest of the song parts, modulated delay on bass to cut out unncessary repeats. Added pitch bends and modulation to CS80 lead to better match vocals. Many small timing and volume edits. EDIT: Ok, that's wierd, didn't listen to it till I posted it, but the pitch bends are broken on the rapture CS80 and it leaves the note bent down and then the next bend bends it further. Working on that. So the version up there now is kinda broken. https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki I have tried with both the music and the "cover art" to make something to convey the sadness, the disheartening dismay, of seeing your home destroyed, the things you live(d) with treated like junk and garbage. It's a feeling I know very very well, from the housefire a little over a decade ago. I am still figuring that out (how to express it), so this is the beginning of that. I am hoping that those that listen will tell me if it induced any emotion, and if so, what. If it isn't doing what I wanted it to, I can work on it more to try to fix that. On the artwork I tried to use the google imagefx thing to create this, but it just didn't listen to me. I ended up having to composite multiple things from that and elsewhere, using the ancient PaintShopPro6, to get something resembling what I want. It's still not quite there, either, but it's close enough for now. Hopefully it also helps convey the emotional side of what Gareki can mean to someone. I chose the "pup" for it's resemblance to Hachi, whose loss in the fire hit me worse than any of the others. The wolf I chose for it's pose; there were others with face-on facial expressions that said it better but they did not have the dejected body language I was after; this was the closest I could come. Previous edit notes I seem to have missed posting here include: 010625 000001 300038m - assorted edits, added elven phrase " This garden you created, this forest you gave life to, is, and always will, be my home." It was the closest thing I could find in what i had to some of what I wanted to say. I have enough words in the assorted phrases in there that I could say more if I knew what all of the individual words actually mean, and the grammar to be used with them. (if I find time I suppose I could research that, as I'm sure it's documented out there somewhere, assumign these phrases follow those rules--presumably it's from Tolkien's Elven, but I don't know, the Shymer documentation doesn't say). Edited January 12 by Amberwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 Ok, that's wierd, didn't listen to it till I posted it, but the pitch bends are broken on the rapture CS80 and it leaves the note bent down and then the next bend bends it further. Working on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 This is a real problem I have NEVER seen before. If I freeze the Rapture MIDI/Synth track, with realtime or fast bounce, it screws up the pitch of notes following a bend by rebending them further as if it were adding up all the bends along the way in some wierd way. Same happens if I export audio. If I bounce them to a new track, realtime or fast, they're missing a bunch of notes, *and* none of the automation (bend or mod wheel) is rendered. But if I just play it back, everything is perfectly fine. WTF? I guess I'll have to use a virtual cable and send the synth output to the input of another track and record it realtime.... Be back in a few minutes to let y'all know if that worked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 Took a few tries, but it finally worked, to record the bend-fail tracks via VB's virtual audio cable. Because WDM/KS just won't play without cyclic pops (less frequent the larger the buffers are, but even at max they're still several times a second), I had to use WASAPI, which for some reason doesn't work with my Avid Fastrack Pro USB (WDM/KS and ASIO do, normally I use ASIO, but the VB cable isn't available with ASIO). So I can't hear the output while it's playing / recording, and have to switch back from WASAPI to ASIO to hear what's happening in the recording, listening to the whole thing, then back to WASAPI to retry various things to fix glitches, then back, and forth, having to "argue" with the audio reassignment dialogs that come up multiple times during each switchover to leave all the routings alone. So now I've exported the whole thing and reuploaded it as 01-11-25: 010625 000001 300045p https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki (and I made sure it worked first, this time :lol: ) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesha Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I enjoyed your work, sounds like you had some challenges! I like the mix of influences and the vibe. As for feelings you are interested in knowing about, I think the song expresses Grief. Passion. Sadness. Mystery. I saw on your bandcamp it says you are in Phoenix, did you lose everything in a AZ wildfire or a non-wildfire blaze? I’m outside Prescott and several years back I was mandatory evacuated from a close wildfire and on the run like they are doing in LA now. Fortunately, no homes were destroyed but it was traumatic in its own way to be threatened with total loss. Of course I made a song and art about it ha. Im sorry for what you experienced and enjoyed the art and music you made to process your feelings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 (edited) 2 hours ago, treesha said: I enjoyed your work, sounds like you had some challenges! I like the mix of influences and the vibe. As for feelings you are interested in knowing about, I think the song expresses Grief. Passion. Sadness. Mystery. Good; at least I got some of it across. I'm still trying to figure out how to express some stuff in it; I have ideas but as usual keep dozing off trying them out (and sometimes remember what I was doing when I wake up, sometimes not till much later). Any technical feedback about it? (sound, mix, timing, whatever) If I know about problems I can try to fix them, and I always learn something in the process. 2 hours ago, treesha said: I saw on your bandcamp it says you are in Phoenix, did you lose everything in a AZ wildfire or a non-wildfire blaze? No, mine was apparently a "spontaneous combustion" of "asbestos mastic" that they used in the 50s to glue linoleum tiles down; apparently after a long enough time chemical stuff happens with that that can start a fire. The city fire inspector said it has happened to multiple houses built the way this one was. This thread over on Endless Sphere is my "blog" about the event and subsequent things over the years: https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/threads/end-of-the-world-beginning-of-a-new-one-the-life-of-amberwolf.49550/#p1684189 The worst part was not the loss of the stuff itself, but the loss of all four dogs and my "safe place" to retreat from the world (I'm autistic and don't deal with stress (or a lot of other things) very well, so I have to have somewhere to "hide" when I can't handle it (nearly every day i reach that point sometime. Dogs are often like me, so I get along with them better than people (we understand each other), so having them around helps****). Then going thru the "gareki" left after the fire to find things that could be saved, the slow rebuild of the house over a year by the landlord while looters stole things I'd managed to save out of the high-fenced yard and sheds, moving back in and sorting thru all that to move it back inside, etc. The feeling of how everyone else regarded what was left after the fire as trash, where to me they were still memories and part of my life...that's what "gareki" means to me. 2 hours ago, treesha said: I’m outside Prescott and several years back I was mandatory evacuated from a close wildfire and on the run like they are doing in LA now. Fortunately, no homes were destroyed but it was traumatic in its own way to be threatened with total loss. Of course I made a song and art about it ha. Im sorry for what you experienced and enjoyed the art and music you made to process your feelings. I remember a fire that killed some firefighters near Yarnell, was it that one? (another musician friend lived near there at the time and was threatened by it). **** Since eventually I won't be able to have a real dog, for whatever reason (age, invalidity, space, budget, whatever) I've been working for decades on a project to design and build a robotic "emotional support wolf" (you would never guess but wolves are what I really am interested in, but they are wild and not pets (had a wolfdog once; they're not dogs either), so I am building what I would have if it weren't unfair to the animal in question). It'll be open source so anyone can build themselves one, or modify the design to build a different kind of animal; whatever it is that makes them feel safe. https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/threads/robotics-project-snuggles-the-wolf.122280/ Edited January 12 by Amberwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted January 13 Author Share Posted January 13 (edited) Another update, 01-12-25: 010625 000001 300064s Fixed some wierd stuff that happened to several percussion sections' fades (somehow they got "faded in" as clip fades with the end of the fade several clip lengths *past the end of the clip*. I've seen this now and then over the years and I still have no idea what action I have done that causes this; it should be impossible. Many small timing and volume edits to percussion, bass, etc., to tighten up sections. Replaced a bunch of percussion right after and within the first break to change the impact of the section. https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki and another 01-12-25: 010625 000001 300072v - more timing edits, cleared out a bunch of bass arp notes to make room for things to breathe. Edited January 13 by Amberwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
equality Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I listened to the last version posted down the thread. Interesting and enjoyable soundscape and very cinematic to me. Could easily fit a SciFi movie with a spaceship discovering a new world and civilasation flying low over the ground :-). Nice harmonies with a world music feel. A lot going on and good craftmanship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjornpdx Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 The vocal libraries work very well in your productions. Do you need to do some pitch correction on them to fit the key? I like the steady percussion beat in the background which is subtle enough to not be so noticeable but gives it a lot of tension. -Bjorn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted Wednesday at 01:42 AM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 01:42 AM 10 hours ago, equality said: I listened to the last version posted down the thread. Interesting and enjoyable soundscape and very cinematic to me. Could easily fit a SciFi movie with a spaceship discovering a new world and civilasation flying low over the ground :-). Nice harmonies with a world music feel. A lot going on and good craftmanship. Thanks! I usually consider my stuff "#motion picture scenes" (a hashtag I put on them sometimes); it's not really music you might just listen to for the sake of doing so, but it would often fit as background to something else. But sometimes I'm successful and manage to evoke a vision or a feeling with one, now and then. Some of them I have an intent, or an idea, behind them (like this one), most of them I'm just feeling my way around the sounds and letting it take me along for the ride while I grab the edges and fold them and trim them.... I only have maybe a couple dozen hours of editing into this one so far; I haven't even broken 100 versions saved yet. Usually takes at least that many to get close to where I want to go. Some songs I get stuck, usualy on a technical issue, sometimes a musical muse one, and don't get it really "finished" (I put them up anyway, so that the few that want to listen can). This one still has some ohter pieces to add; I have to find the right strings sound (or make it) to blend and contrast (in different places) with the vocals. Something else also has to be added, but I dont know what it is yet--my brain is still working on that, and hasn't told me about it yet. 4 hours ago, bjornpdx said: The vocal libraries work very well in your productions. I've been trying for years to find good ways to get voices in there, especially for performances like these, but even if I could sing (can't carry a tune in a locked steel box), I have the completely wrong kind of voice--I want to sound like what you hear in this one and the other recent ones, but it's not possible. You can hear my actual voice (with lots of technical work on the clips after recording them) in these two and a few other worse ones https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/back-to-the-world https://www.soundclick.com/amberwolf/?more=13530596 So having found these really cheap libraries I can snip up and use (or in the case of Less Like A Whisper, use several entire phrases, started out just as a toy to play wiht the sounds I'd gotten, but turned into a song. ) 4 hours ago, bjornpdx said: Do you need to do some pitch correction on them to fit the key? Some of them I pitch correct***, some are already in the key, and sometimes I build that bit of the song around whatever they are because I like the way they sound as-is. I also tend to trim off just the bits I need for that section, or evne just that note, snipping a phrase apart and sometimes reassembling it differently than it was recorded. And I often stretch or scrunch clips timewise to fit the rest of whats' going on. Some of that is done to a whole clip, and some of it I'll split it after some part of the phrase and then stretch the rest out to make it to a beat or some other sound that's going on, so it doens't mess up the timing of the whole phrase. ***some of the pitch correction is done to the whole clip, and some of it is done to just a syllable or section. I almost always just use the built in clip function for that. So I'll either enable loop or fit to tempo modes (the only way you can enable pitch changes in the clip dialog), then pitch it up or down as needed. Almost always that is only needed in whole notes, but sometimes I'll use a few cents here and there to detune for multiple voices together, or to correct a mistuning, or just for effect. There's a guitar "dive" in this song https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/when-the-dark-closed-in-and-night-eclipsed-day where I couldn't play the actual guitar the right way to do it, so I just sliced up the sustained note I *could* play into a bunch of small segments and pitched each one down a semi. You don't hear the slices because I did that to the clean guitar tone that I actually recorded, before it goes into the effects chain. It's harder to do that to something "clean" and have it come out natural, but it works pretty well for distortion guitars and synths. 4 hours ago, bjornpdx said: I like the steady percussion beat in the background which is subtle enough to not be so noticeable but gives it a lot of tension. Is it steady? I'll have to go back thru to see why...I actually tried to break it in at least a few places, both with the percussion and the bassline, so that it doesn't just plod on, even without tempo changes (whcih are a PITA in my ancient sonar; the tempo view in it could stand a lot of improvement, but that's probably been done in the intervening years). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted Thursday at 07:22 AM Author Share Posted Thursday at 07:22 AM 01-16-25: 010625 000001 300082x - https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki Fixed more of the percussion between the intro and the break-in. Added strings accents to bassline and counterpoint to short synth "solo" break near the end, using SI Strings Detache. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted Friday at 06:18 AM Author Share Posted Friday at 06:18 AM 01-17-25: 010625 000001 300090z - Sculpted percussive transitions, cleared certain percussions to make room for things to breathe. https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/gareki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now