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May 2006 Archives

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May 29, 2006 - Cool Blast and Drama

Three new pieces today, and a new section (again).

Cool Blast was put together as a "sound-alike" for a piece from Lemon Jelly. It isn't really a sound-alike, it is more a similar feel at the same tempo. It was commissioned by artofvision.tk - and is set to accompany a British Sign Language fingerspelling video. In any event - I listened to the "source" piece once and took just 3 notes: Jazzy / Dancy / 124 BPM.
When listening to mine and the original side by side - mine is somehow both smoother and more harsh. I may have missed the point.

I had to open a new section for just plain drama. Lots and lots of people use my music for their movies, and I'm writing a lot of cues to specific pieces which I've not been posting. Previously - I've only posted pieces that hang together in and of themselves.
I would not listen to the "drama" things on their own. They weren't written for that.

Comment or email me if you think more of these would be useful. I have a backlog of these I could prep for the site if there is interest. I've got fight sequences, mood pieces, crecendos... uhhh... lots.

May 24, 2006 - That doesn't sound like me...

You know how it is when you record yourself talking, and then play it back - and it no longer sounds like you. Everyone else thinks it sounds like you. But not you...
Well, I was doing some voice recording today, and it sounded like me. B'Wha? Oh! I have new studio monitors! I can't believe it makes that much difference. But it does. That whole garbage I've been told about your head resonating. Wrong!

I'm guessing it has to do with one being so familiar with ones own voice that you can immediately pick out that it sounds 'off' if it isn't reproduced exactly. Get yourself a passable mic and some good speakers, and you can finally hear that you do indeed sound like you think you sound when you talk.

Amazing!

May 12, 2006 - Goth and Goth

New pieces today include (and are limited to):

For those who follow this site - the "Atmospheric" page is new.

Project Of The Day!

Score for a Gothic, yet Modern drama. You ever hear of Goth music? If so - you were one up on me. I gave it a shot anyway... having no clue what it was supposed to sound like. It is like saying "I'm going to do an impressionistic painting" without haveing the slightest clue what that means.

When I think Gothic, I think Baroque. But after the last fuge I did... I won't be toughing that for a while, so I had a little "song" that worked well on harpsichord, and decided to build off of that. For the modern parts, I blended a semi-techno, solid bass, and hard guitar. The result is unlike anything I've ever heard... probably with good reason.

Anarchist, anachronism... "Anachronist"

----

Then I actually heard the drama for which the piece was meant. It was as though I had brought a duck to a dental convention. It didn't work, it didn't fit, it wasn't even remotely applicable. What they wanted was dark atmoshperic.... a far cry from modern-baroque fusion.
So I went to work on that - which by the way is a LOT easier.

----

Technical note:

I'm back to mp3 encoding (320kbps). Can one hear the difference between that and full on lossless? Yes. But it is close. Really REALLY close. So close that you have to strain to tell the difference. And unlike the 256kbsp encoding I've done previously - the difference doesn't get in the way of the feel at all. I'm now encoding things on a case-by-case basis... if the mp3 really doesn't sound right - I'll go lossless.

These pieces have my Quality Seal of Approval.

May 10, 2006 - 23:20, IMDB

23:20 is now done and available online! I didn't do all the score, but I did do some custom scoring for one of the scenes, and a lot of my music was used for other scenes... but not the opening sequence.

I got myself on IMDB for a film called "Run" from Matt Zien. The film has screened at a few festivals, and got listed at IMDB. Sounds like it is going well!

Congrats, guys! Things are looking good!

May 07, 2006 - An Open Apology

To all the people who listened to my music over the last few months and years... I'm sorry everyone. I'm really very very very sorry. You see - I just had no idea.

Today I bought some studio monitors, and I listened to my music. And it isn't pretty. Oh, the mixes are fine - the problem lies in how I distribute them. I used to think (WAY back in the day) 128 kbps mp3 was fine. It was what all the cool kids were using. I eventually upped my recordings to 160, then 192 and 256. I switched to 256 AAC encoding a few months ago beliving it was "indistinguishable" from the raw form.

Holy cow was I wrong.

While listening to some of my pieces now, I occationally say "What the heck happened to the high end in this piece??". Without fail - I'm listening to a compressed version that was destined for the web site.
Oh - the high end is still there... it is just... bad?

In any event - I'm going to have to change my format again. Possibly to 48kHz Apple Lossless (inside mp4). It is noticably better then CD quallity. Well - you can notice it if you have good speakers.

Please note! This is NOT audiophile mumbo jumbo. I have had the equivalent of a religious experience.

There's no need to a double-blind... you can hear the difference three rooms away.

---

Well, I bought a pair of Mackie HR824s. This was not my first monitor purchase, though. Yesterday I got some KRK V6's. They sounded great in the store. I brought them home - and fired up the tone generator. There were gaping holes the frequency response. Not knowing if it was my ears, or my room, or the speakers, I put together a test disc to bring to the store.

It wasn't me - it wasn't my room. It was the speakers. "Why", I wondered "do they not publish a frequency response curve in the manual?" A-ha. "Because it would look like a vomit-inducing roller-coaster." that's why.
There were a lot of WORDS in the KRK manual. They spoke of how a good studio monitor doesn't mean "flat response", but also includes things like "smoothness across octaves".

Gobbledy gobbledy mumbo jumbo. Terms like "articulation" and "sound quickness" do indeed mean nothing.
Don't believe me - do it for yourself - it isn't difficult.

I put the same rolling sine through the Mackie HR824s - and it was as though the clouds parted and God had shown down upon the scene.

Music is an emotional and intangible thing. SOUND, however, obeys the laws of physics.

May 05, 2006 - The Falcon Banner

Four pieces of new orchestral music are on the update today. I'm pretty proud of them. This isn't stuff I normally do.

  • Transition One
  • Transition Two
  • Weight of Responsibility
  • Reflecting on Ideals

There were all written for an audio drama called The Falcon Banner (Episode 2).

This single episode has 14 cues slated for it - but the majority are too specific to be released for general use (and a few use a theme that I don't own) so I'm only going to post four of them on my site.

These are the notes I got for the cues from the show's director... followed by my notes.

Transition One: Relaxed, sleep, then waking up in the morning
Since this is an audio drama - meant to be listened to in stereo exactly, I used the L-R field literally.
Also, the pitches are used literally to reinforce the effect. High flutes come in at left, join more gounding winds, and settle near the middle... where they mix with strings that take off to the right along with a glass harmonica to bring a slight feeling of alertness. probably too much thought for an 18 second long bit of music. :-)

Transition Two Relaxing, bright, and the sense of time passing a bit.
Time passing! Right. That would be the piano / clock. Er... the piano used as a pendulum clock. Clarinet adds the bright, relaxing, and human elements. Simple, simple, simple! The best kind of music.

Weight of Responsibility: This is meant to be calm, noble, warm and kind. I really don't know how else to describe this
Despite the complexity of this piece - there isn't much to be said about it. Once you pick your melody line - everything else writes iteself. The only major problem with this specific recording is that the tempo is highly variable - and that is a pain. A real big pain. It isn't so bad if you do that with legato strings where the exact start point of the note is obscured - but with brass... you can tell exactly where each note starts. Playing in 8 identically timed parts with no metronome... well it is tough.

Reflecting on Ideals: Soft contemplative for most of this...
Ahhh... this is the one where I have one poor oboe playing forte so (s)he can cut through the 24 low strings playing opposite. I chose the oboe because it has a distinctive sound that CAN cut through all of those strings. For example - if you're listening to a full orchestra playing - you may not be able to tell if a clarinet is playing, but you can almost always tell if an oboe is playing... even though the clarinet is louder. I don't know what it is - there is just something about the timbre of the oboe that your brain can pick out a kilometer off.
Anyway...
This piece happens where the captain of the ship in the story starts thinking about how things in the world were... things that he never experienced. Then he reads a first person account of those times... so the "theme" that he imagines is realized in full when the first person account hits. The "old times" soar even higher as he reads. Eventually the book closes and he's back to the present.


I tend to think about this kind of thing a lot. I expect it will be lost to almost everyone... except those who are "film score fanatics".


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