Project 9 - Pitcher (Sweet Pea)

For this project, we explored pitcher and the fun of auto-tune. Mr. Rabuse made me the backing track out of boredom at some random recreational activity but it was fantastic. At first I sang over the piece and could barely hear the auto-tune affect and then I realized that I should probably not sing on pitch so I went back and sang the song awfully and voila! it works and I sounded like T-Pain. I stuck with an E major scale to autotune to.

Project 8 - Dubstep

This was a very challenging project for me. The intro however, came out pretty easily. I started with an arpeggiated sound in Poizone and then used a frequency filter to create a long, sweeping effect. The then introduced a sound from Sawer as the scene his a little more heavier. I build this up which leads tot he drop where I took the Sawer sound and drop the pitch into the floor using an automation clip. Now the main theme of the song comes in which a sub bass, wobble bass, and half time drums. The wobble bass was thickened up with a filter and fed some character via overdrive. It was then linked to my controller which I used to record the automation of the wobble. The higher register part was created using  another Poizone sound and was run through Gross Beat. This is where it got hard for me. I had to try and match up certain gross beat activity with the video. Part of the trouble was figuring out what gross beat actually does because the entire character of the setting can drastically change with slight modification. I was eventually able to make a laser beam sound, a laser gun sound, and the fall of the AT-AT Walker. For explosions I used a setting in Sytrus called reactor which I modified a slight bit, based on what was exploding (Ground compared to Walker). All in all, I am pretty satisfied with what I was able to accomplish.

Project 7 - Sine Wave and Saw Wave in Sytrus

For this project, I delved into Sytrus and started making a saw wave based sound which you hear at the beginning and is the main theme for the loop. I also used a panning effect utilizing the keyboard mapping in filter one so the lower notes are in the left ear and the higher notes are in the right ear which some notes are centered. I preferred a short attack on the this synth because the sweeping in didn't make the statement I was looking for. After the song rolls along for a little while, I introduce the sound I made in Sytrus with a sine wave. This uses a slight attack sweep along with a pitch sweep to add that cool effect. The contrast between the rough saw wave and the smooth sine wave offers a nice variation which is why I chose to layer them rather than feature them in separate parts.

 

Project 6 - ASDR

For this project I started by making a sound in Poizone which I utilized an automation clip on the attack to kind of "fade in" the sound. What I was really doing was decreasing the time it takes for the sound to reach its peak so eventually the sound it more poppy than it is sweepy. The sound I made captures a rather playful atmosphere and at the end of that line I use an automation clip to increase the sustain and decay of the synth which adds more body behind it and allows it to ring out. I then use this same sound to completely change the feel, partly due to gross beat which causes a pitch drop at the end of the little phrase. The drums come in and make the piece much more of a dance groove as the bass and my other synth comes in.I keep the same playful synth in the mix to keep a connection between the two parts. For the end I use more gross beat and mess around with the pitch as the last note plunges and then blasts out of the song.

Project 5 - PoiZone

For this project I had to make my own sound in Poizone. I started with a rather clean, warm, and rounded sound in my head and finally achieved this. I then played with some delay and found a nice balance in the panning which added a cool effect. The bass really comes in and grounds the synth to keep everything balanced. I then go into the main section and I wanted it to sound big and dreamy. With some more tweaks in another poizone track, I was able to achieve this sound as well. I will admit, I had trouble coming up with a good drum beat that really captured the essence. I worked at this for a while and finally got what I was looking for. I felt that the "crash" cymbal sounded nice in context and added to the size of sound. For the end I wanted to go back to the intro because it serves as a good rest area, or cool down.

Project 4 - Mixer, Filters, and XY Controller

In order to create this dark, eerie tune I started with drums and drenched them in a wide, bodied reverb which adds the darker overtone. I made the beat really simple so the sounds didn't run together since the echo drags on longer. I then recorded a clean guitar and added a chorus effect which again added to the eeriness by making it more "wet". The bridge is where I switched over to a synth and utilized the filter with an XY controller on the high pass and low pass controls . The Pitch Modulation is very rapid so it makes the synth sound like its underwater, gasping for air. As it swims up a clean guitar pans around it surrounding the poor little synth. As it finally reaches the surface of the water, the regular chorus guitar comes back in and I play a simple little solo (I use the "Hardcore" plugin in the mixer to create the distortion) that will eventually get faded out using an automation clip on the master.

Project 3 - Automation Clips

When I first started this track, I wanted to utilize the automation clip to build into the song. I did this not by volume, but by a frequency filter on the Harmless plug-in. I started so that the higher frequencies were no present and slowly swept them in by adding more highs to the synth which also caused a volume boost. One the intro was at it pinnacle, I added the drums and bass to ground the song and allow the rest of the piece to unfold. The background "rhythm" synth also uses automation clips to fade in but also on the cutoff frequency to add a cool sweeping effect and make it more interesting. The lead synth on top is just to add some flavor and melody to the piece. The bridge changes feel for a little while with more of a staggering feel which is greatly aided by my bass pattern that I wrote out. For the end, I drop the bass and and rhythem and fade out the lead synth and the drums using an automation clip of the master volume.