Music, Art, Ideas, Me » Music

Productive weekend

Evan Kepner — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:39:27 +0000

Apparently I’ve had a lot of ideas in my head that I didn’t know about. I churned out two clips this weekend and have discovered a lot of new cool stuff in Ableton. I’m a total convert to instrument racks now that I understand how to use them more effectively. This clip is using some string loop samples with my own instrumentation and drums on top of it. This strikes me as something that needs lyrics over it, but that is way out of my realm.

Echoes

Evan Kepner — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:54:39 +0000

I just put this together in a single sitting, it’s really different from a lot of my other work but I like it. I was using my bass to record the different lines and then an array of audio effects to produce the results.

The Madness!

Evan Kepner — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 01:56:10 +0000

Just warning you now, this clip has parts that will put you on edge. I was experimenting with different rhythmic ideas – this starts out with drums in 3/4 cycling 3 bar phrases and a melody in 6/8. Later things transition to 4/4 using 5 bar phrases but the 3/4 drums are maintained for different sections. There are multiple 2/4 phrases that are put in over the 3/4 drums but under the 5 bar 4/4 parts – the overall effect is really interesting. The mallets build up in complexity and dissonance (hence “The Madness”) until the break point and things come back down.

This clip definitely pushed my PC to it’s hardware limits, nothing the speakers and audio card couldn’t handle but the CPU really fell apart when I was editing with playback at the same time. Guess it’s time to add more power Enjoy the madness!

String Tension

Evan Kepner — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:26:38 +0000

This turned out to be more of a jam-sessions with loops, but I like it All of the sequences are original, I programmed the different instruments with a MIDI keyboard and then straightened out the timing with the mouse where necessary. The jam-session aspect to me is that there’s no real definition in the song, I activated and deactivated clips as I felt like it so the song goes on for a bit, but I think it could be fitting in a chase scene in a movie – it does a good job of developing tension (in my opinion, Abby apparently pictures “bees dancing” and doesn’t feel any suspense – oh well). My classical music training definitely came out in this piece, the sequencing is straight out of ideas I remember from performing Mozart’s “Requiem” though only loosely in spirit, nothing is transcribed and it certainly doesn’t resemble “Requiem” in any way.

The image is a shot of some of the fast string sequencing I put together.

Calm Clip

Evan Kepner — Tue, 31 May 2011 02:10:35 +0000

I was winding down and came up with this short clip – it’s very simple instrumentation but it creates a calm effect (at least for me). I think this came to mind because Abby and I were listening to Martina Topley-Bird over dinner and I was in a trip-hop mood (listen to “sandpaper kisses” if you get the chance).

Do the Robot!

Evan Kepner — Mon, 30 May 2011 19:00:29 +0000

I spent the morning messing around with more clip ideas – all I need is a small army of choreographed robots and I think this song would be complete. This started off with me messing around with the drums and then just evolved from there, again there was no real planning, just clicking on sample-sounds and running with my keyboard. I’m getting more comfortable with how Ableton uses clips in the session view, I’m barely scratching the surface for what the program can do but even just stumbling through the interface is valuable. There are a few resources at my disposal for learning more about the program, so I may start making more purposeful music in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy!

Here is my clip layout for this piece:

Building a Song – Part 3

Evan Kepner — Sat, 28 May 2011 19:03:10 +0000

The saga continues! This was my first debut of edits using the new BX5a’s and it’s a good thing too – I had to adjust the levels for the different MIDI sequences to keep it clean and I never would have heard it without the BX5a’s. I like the way the song is evolving, and this is truly organic. I have no plan for this thing, I just sit down and go to work with whatever comes to mind. Overall I like the direction though, especially with the up tempo drum/bass combo.

Mars Attacks!

Evan Kepner — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:58:29 +0000

The latest from my mad music scientist lab – it sounds like a funky twilight zone soundtrack but I may use it in something

The thing I like about this track is that it uses a lot of weird chromatic sounds and some far spanned instrument combos. It makes me think of something that would have been on Claypool’s “Whales and Woe” album with the instrument selection. I’ve been trying to work more and more on these clips in hopes that eventually I’ll be able to pull something together – trying to really use the “quality from quantity” idea and really treating these as practice in the digital music realm (where I’m a total n00b).

Next step is to pick up some serious studio monitors for my home system, there’s too much lag running the audio card through the motherboard speakers, I’ve been doing it as a temporary measure because I didn’t want sounds this high pumping through my amplifiers. Hoping to resolve this over the weekend!

Building a Song – Part 2

Evan Kepner — Wed, 25 May 2011 02:03:05 +0000

I’ve been messing around with my little sound idea some more, here are the latest changes! No cowbell yet, but I’ve brought in a bass as well as a shaker and cleaned up the arpeggios a bit. I think it is starting to sound like a video game soundtrack.

Building a song

Evan Kepner — Mon, 23 May 2011 23:49:49 +0000

So I’m working on a building a song, and I have no concept of what it’s going to be. Right now I’m just putting up the pieces as I go, and I’ll see what people suggest along with what I think of. Here’s the first clip!

This is a basic drum beat with alternating Cmaj7 and C-7 arpeggiated chords