Something in progress

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:33 pm

I've been enjoying having my old synth connected to garageband - midi is A Good Thing

naphazoline · Post by **naphazoline** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 3:14 pm

cool man.

i like it.
what gear do you use for recording ( if you don't mind me asking )
ie: interface, software, etc...

DarcyPerry · Post by **DarcyPerry** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:55 pm

70's vibe and a cool groove. Lovin' your work Grandmaster Tsuken.

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 5:32 pm

cheers

Apple iBook running GarageBand; guitars DI'd with a Griffin iMic; Korg Poly-800 keyboard with a midi-usb interface I grabbed off eBay. That's about it really.

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:08 am

I think it's finished. Ok there aren't many distinct themes, and the underlying basis is the same chords/vamp throughout, but I think it kind of works in its own special way

Whenever I tried to add a new section it just didn't sound right.

Edit: dammit dammit sonofabitch. I accidentally deleted the main keyboard part, and had to re-record it. I've just realised that when I did, I inadvertently changed the little blipopy bit that precedes the main theme, so now I'll have to redo it again. Bugger

dylan · Post by **dylan** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:46 am

i did not know that you could program synth sounds!

great sounding squelchy and buzzy tones.

complaint wise:) , the amount of swing varies from strict on the drums to none on some of the rythm parts? - i think that if you slightly lowered the amount the drums are swinging, the feel might cohese a bit more?

and such a left turn style wise too - i assumed it was going to be funky guitar with widdly lead... duh

wicked:)

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:17 pm

Thanks man

You're absolutely right about the swing. Initially I was trying to play the guitars swung, but it didn't sound right; it worked better with them totally straight. I do like the tension between straight and somewhat swung, but as you note: it is pretty stark here. Garageband doesn't let me quantise "a little bit" though, so I'm kind of stuck with either my sloppy keyboard playing, or totally swung.

(I suppose I could practise...

)

I thought it was going to be that too, initially. It just kind of went a different way.

To be honest, a lot of the synth stuff - and from that the style of the piece - came from me just noodling around waiting for my cue - and then thinking "that was kind of cool; glad it was recording"

Post by Bg » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:02 pm

Very cool, nice sounds but the timing does appear a bit off, due to the 'swing' issue I guess, it gets a bit disconcerting - great apart from that!

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:09 am

dylan wrote:i did not know that you could program synth sounds!

great sounding squelchy and buzzy tones.

bluesgeek wrote:Very cool, nice sounds

I feel kind of dirty ... they're standard Garageband patches

Anyway, I redid the blippy bit I messed up when I re-recorded it after accidentally deleting it.

Also now with the drums, what you hear is 100% my bodgy keyboard playing - no quantising at all. Better? Worse? (Cymbals mixed too loud?)

dylan · Post by **dylan** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 10:22 pm

finally got round to listening tsuken...

for un quantised drums played on the keyboard its very tight, and the amount of swing seems more natural, but i still think the drums need "percentage swing" quantising. this is where everything is strictly quantised, but instead of two adjacent 8th notes each getting 50% of the beat (no swing) or the first one getting 66% and the second one 33% (strict swing), the percentage that the first note gets is somewhere between 50 and 66 %

im currently trying to copy lee scratch perrys production styles, and im putting a hiat track quantised to 58% swing against a non swung bassline. sounds wicked:)

but it sounds like some of the drum patterns are loops? - all this quantising is of course only relevant to individual midi notes - then again i know nothing about loops so maby you can now:)

hope things are going well in OZ

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:25 am

Yah - I get exactly what you mean. Garageband unfortunately only lets me quantise to 8ths, 16th, 32nd, and in the version I have now, 64ths. I think I can make it do triplets now too. No percentage quantising uinfortunately. I suppose I could go through bit by bit and adjust individual notes till they're where I want them O_O I've done it for other tracks - just not quite so involved.

No loops in there either. I'm using as few as possible lately. - which really means I do as much of it my hand as I can be bothered to

dylan · Post by **dylan** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 7:52 am

yes the method of selecting all offbeat 8th notes and squidging them a bit to the right makes beautiful natural swing.

but its a huge hassle to program.

does garageband accept midi plugins? - im sure there would be a 3rd party product that does proper quantising.

sorry about being condescending on the swing explanation - i spose youve known that stuff for decades now:)

Tsuken · Post by **Tsuken** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:16 am

I will check on the midi plugins. It does vst and audio unit and some others, so we'll see. Also, I'll soon be getting a new iMac, with the brand new version of Garageband, so we'll see what that might have added (aside from the gh3yness of "Magic Garageband"

)

I thought your explanation was helpful, not condescending, mate

I haven't been aware of that sort of exactness to swing and quantising, so that was really good - cheers. If I adjust notes in 64ths, I could - if my maths is correct - get 56.25% of the beat, so I think I'll try that

The next option would be to adjust in 32nds, which would give me 62.5%