End of the Year Wrap Up

This has been quite the year. I feel that I have really grown since the beginning of this year and the monsters that were my Ok Go and White Knuckles remix. I really brought myself back to easier styles of music and worked myself up from there. I took a look back at some of more successful projects from last year and used the good elements from those in my newer pieces. This year I also entered the realm of evolving drum loops and the mixer. The main inspiration for a lot of my music this year was Daft Punk. I always wanted to try to match their style but I couldn't quite figure out how they did it. In the process of making my third Poizone project, I discovered that Daft Punk occasionally uses the plug in Gross Beat, which soon became my secret weapon. In my final project I really tried to combine everything that I have learned this far. Noise Envelopes, Filters, Automation Clips, Frequency Modulation, etc. But my music will not end here. Over the summer I will be checking out indaba music and definitely want to participate in one remix project or another. Next year I will take a look at the music tech blog and possibly do some of the assignments. This year was only the beginning.

Poizone 4: Modal Chords Complete!

Here is the completed version of my Modal Chords progression. Gross beat, and Maximus were used on my main melodies, a Bass Booster was used on my inverted melody, and a Fruity Phaser was used on both the chords and drums. I compressed the drums specifically using a fruity limiter and then compressed the whole piece with another fruity limiter. Initially, I wanted the chords to be quiter than the melody. However, once in the mixer, I began to change their volumes and soon discovered that the peice in its entirety actually sounded better with the melody being a little softer than the chords. Enjoy!

Poizone 4 Sample

This is a sample of my work in progress, Poizone 4: Modal Chords. I have decided that I will not be using pitcher in this project and save it for the next project. Saving pitcher for the next project will enable me to throw the focus of this piece onto modal chords, instead of spreading the focus across modal chords and pitcher. I start off this piece with a noise envelope and jump right into my chords and bass line. The bass line hangs out around Bb but is complex enough to become the focus of the song later on. The bassline continues to evolve and change throughout the song and eventually, an inverted bass line kicks in later in the song, in in a different octave and using a modified version of the bass synth. Gross beat is used to remix the third progression of the bassline. I am still working on an ending to the song, and it will probably involve a little gross beat in one way or another. I hope to have the song completed by next week. Enjoy!

Poizone 4: Modal Chords (Possibly a visit from Pitcher?)

I have begun work on the 4th Poizone project, involving modal chords. As of right now I have two synths. One, a bassline with a longer attack and a rougher, louder lead synth. I am using the dorian (Bb) modal chord progression with the bassline playing two different major triads, and the lead playing a descending melody that mainly hangs around Bb. I am still expanding on this project and am currently searching for more ideas. Pitcher may be used in this project if I can find a good vocal track. All the same, I hope to get a sample out sometime next week.

Poizone 3: Finished!

After making a slightly more complex drum loop (because 4 consistent kicks does get boring after awhile), compressing the drum loop, and compressing the entire piece itself it's finished. As mentioned before, gross beat was used in this project with three different variations on my melody (using variation patterns 3, 4, and 11). Four or five automation clips were used throughout the piece, namely on the 'cycle' synth, the kicks, and the 2nd bass line. The LFO was used on all of my synths and is clearly noticeable on my 'cycle' synth. It is hard to hear on the other synths due to the Gross beat and only slight changes in the lfo modulation. My main inspiration for this peice was Daft Punk's Derezzed. Somewhere along the way, gross beat was added into their song and was used multiple times throughout. Whether or not they use FL studio entirely is unclear. Nevertheless, Enjoy!

Poizone 3: Nearly Finished

This project is rapidly nearing its final verison. I've extended the ending greatly with a new bassline. Towards the end of the song, I cut the two basslines down (each with progressing parts) and alternated them with eachother. This almost switches the focus of the song off of my melody accompanied with gross beat to the alternating bassline, which I find to be a cool affect. There are still some balancing issues, and I still want to throw in some effects to my peice, but as always enjoy!

EDIT: For some reason the sound cuts out at around 39 Seconds before my second bass synth kicks in. Not sure of why but this will be fixed in the final version.

Poizone 3: Sample

After a week and a half of working my project has certainly grown. I have changed around the C to Bb bass line so that the LFO A and B Oscillators with alternate giving it a subtle wobble effect. My melodic riff is still the same. However, (correcting what I wrote in my last post) it is actually a C to D# to F back to D# to G melody. I have left the intro "motorcycle" rift the same but have added a volume automation clip. With it, I have made the motorcycle synth sound as if it is driving by you and driving away (crescendo and decrescendo). I still hope to expand on this peice after the final crescendo and am still experimenting with what to do next. Suggestions are always welcome and as always, enjoy!