"Whisper That You Love Me"
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NystagmusE
"Whisper That You Love Me"
404 - [sorry the tune(s) you are looking for are no longer available from this address]
I don't know too much about Electronica musics, bro, but to my ears you always get a good clean sound with the stuff -- and often manage to inject much better rhythmic sense and melody to the thing than other offerings I've heard. The backbeat. If I can't feel the two and the fo', I'm not likely to enjoy it much, knowmean?
Seems a lot of the Electronica crowd don't pay too much attention to the details when they work up a sequence, maybe I haven't heard enough of it, dunno.
But yours is always what we used to call, "radio-ready" man.
That's a compliment.
--Mac
Seems a lot of the Electronica crowd don't pay too much attention to the details when they work up a sequence, maybe I haven't heard enough of it, dunno.
But yours is always what we used to call, "radio-ready" man.
That's a compliment.
--Mac
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NystagmusE
Hey, thanks very much Mac; you're too kind. 
Thanks much for the encouragement.
There is electronic music with dynamics, melody, harmony (and rhythm) and good sound quality out there, it's just not always as well known.
This internet radio station sometimes plays stuff that's like that: http://oemradio.org
That's where I heard my favorite electronic music group, Shulman.
Shulman just came out with a new album, but their previous album
Random Thoughts, I think was better. If I could compose and mix
like this, I'd be living large....
here's some brief samples of Shulman that I found on the net:
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CShulman ... Selves.mp3
(inner selves; from an older album)
http://www.nativestaterecords.com/NSCD0 ... les/11.mp3
(midnight bloom by shulman and bluetech)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CShulman%20-%20OMG.mp3
(OMG)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CSub6%20 ... remix).mp3
(Ra He Ya; remix by Shulman)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5COmar%20 ... remix).mp3
(Ya Bouy; remix by Shulman)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CShulman ... 20Dive.mp3
(I dive)
http://www.aleph-zero.info/media/AlephZ ... 4Flyer.htm
(from the new album)
The Shulman website:
http://www.shulman.info/EROTBH.htm
http://www.shulman.info/ISOAMM.htm
http://www.shulman.info/RT.htm
Most of Shulman's songs are about 8-10 minutes long, and are constantly evolving. There's one song I really like called Inner Selves with an intro that is about 3 and 1/2 minutes long!
Anyways, I'm nowhere near as good as those guys. But hopefully one day my own style will be something different and acceptable.
Thanks much for the encouragement. There is electronic music with dynamics, melody, harmony (and rhythm) and good sound quality out there, it's just not always as well known.
This internet radio station sometimes plays stuff that's like that: http://oemradio.org
That's where I heard my favorite electronic music group, Shulman.
Shulman just came out with a new album, but their previous album
Random Thoughts, I think was better. If I could compose and mix
like this, I'd be living large....
here's some brief samples of Shulman that I found on the net:
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CShulman ... Selves.mp3
(inner selves; from an older album)
http://www.nativestaterecords.com/NSCD0 ... les/11.mp3
(midnight bloom by shulman and bluetech)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CShulman%20-%20OMG.mp3
(OMG)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CSub6%20 ... remix).mp3
(Ra He Ya; remix by Shulman)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5COmar%20 ... remix).mp3
(Ya Bouy; remix by Shulman)
http://www.shulman.info/audio%5CShulman ... 20Dive.mp3
(I dive)
http://www.aleph-zero.info/media/AlephZ ... 4Flyer.htm
(from the new album)
The Shulman website:
http://www.shulman.info/EROTBH.htm
http://www.shulman.info/ISOAMM.htm
http://www.shulman.info/RT.htm
Most of Shulman's songs are about 8-10 minutes long, and are constantly evolving. There's one song I really like called Inner Selves with an intro that is about 3 and 1/2 minutes long!
Anyways, I'm nowhere near as good as those guys. But hopefully one day my own style will be something different and acceptable.
Thanks for the pointers to them.
As I sit here listening to them, I can tell you that if you study music, music theory and the scales and harmony, you can get to where these guys are and further.
My ears tell me that. They can play other musics besides this stuff.
Some of their stuff is reminiscent of the place where Miles Davis was heading towards the end of his life. That's not shabby company -- and it isn't as easy to do as it sounds. One or more of these cats knows and has played other forms of music, likely classical and bebop from the sound of what I'm hearing here.
Study some Bach, Well Tempered Klavier, then some Handel, then bypass everything for a few hundred years, get the blues and then move to some Charlie Parker. Then forget it all and play.
BTW -- in that third offering, they start off quoting a Bird lick...
It is so out of context from where Bird played it that only a real Bird aficionado would know that. They may have gotten it from Coltrane, who got it from Bird.
That last one, "from the new album" -- they unabashedly quote the theme from the movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". 9,3,8,1, 5 or by the notes in the key they used, G,A,F,F(down 1), C. It is the main theme of the whole piece. Maybe they should have credited John Williams on that one, although doubtful he'd sue or anything. (grin)
Musicians must understand that we all must stand on the shoulders of those who stood before us if we are to really create anything at all.
We have to know what has been discovered before we can honestly make discoveries that thrill anyone other than ourselves.
And we must be humble about it.
"You don't know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything." --Branford Marsalis
--Mac
As I sit here listening to them, I can tell you that if you study music, music theory and the scales and harmony, you can get to where these guys are and further.
My ears tell me that. They can play other musics besides this stuff.
Some of their stuff is reminiscent of the place where Miles Davis was heading towards the end of his life. That's not shabby company -- and it isn't as easy to do as it sounds. One or more of these cats knows and has played other forms of music, likely classical and bebop from the sound of what I'm hearing here.
Study some Bach, Well Tempered Klavier, then some Handel, then bypass everything for a few hundred years, get the blues and then move to some Charlie Parker. Then forget it all and play.
BTW -- in that third offering, they start off quoting a Bird lick...
It is so out of context from where Bird played it that only a real Bird aficionado would know that. They may have gotten it from Coltrane, who got it from Bird.
That last one, "from the new album" -- they unabashedly quote the theme from the movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". 9,3,8,1, 5 or by the notes in the key they used, G,A,F,F(down 1), C. It is the main theme of the whole piece. Maybe they should have credited John Williams on that one, although doubtful he'd sue or anything. (grin)
Musicians must understand that we all must stand on the shoulders of those who stood before us if we are to really create anything at all.
We have to know what has been discovered before we can honestly make discoveries that thrill anyone other than ourselves.
And we must be humble about it.
"You don't know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything." --Branford Marsalis
--Mac
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NystagmusE
Thanks for the info, Mac.
That's funny about the Bird thing.
That's cool that you recognized it.
I did recognize the Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind riff.
That's one of my favorite movies. I have mixed feelings
about them using that motif.
I think you're right that some of the guys can probably play other styles of
music; some of the time signatures of songs are really awkward
and it reminds me of Greek bazuki music.
Studying musical styles is something that I need to do more of. I used to
do it a little bit, but the last few years I've been out of it. I study different genres of electronic music, but I need to study more of other music in general.
Thanks for listening to the clips.
That's funny about the Bird thing.
That's cool that you recognized it.
I did recognize the Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind riff.
That's one of my favorite movies. I have mixed feelings
about them using that motif.
I think you're right that some of the guys can probably play other styles of
music; some of the time signatures of songs are really awkward
and it reminds me of Greek bazuki music.
Studying musical styles is something that I need to do more of. I used to
do it a little bit, but the last few years I've been out of it. I study different genres of electronic music, but I need to study more of other music in general.
Thanks for listening to the clips.
"Transcribe, Transcribe, Transcribe," my brother.
Back in the day, we used to call it, "Puttin' the needle back."
And all that was meant by that was that we would sit there with our instrument and keep putting the needle back on one part of a song we liked and desired to play until we could play that part.
There is no need to be able to read or write music on the staff in order to transcribe, although it helps with the short term memory thing, speeding up the process considerably, because if you can jot it down or put it on staff with the computer, then learning to play it is a matter of reading it over while playing the reps. Also can make analysation of melody over chord changes much more rapid. But many great players and compositionists have been nonreaders, Bix Biederbecke, Eroll Garner, etc. etc.
Find any tune that you really love and would really love to be able to play and start spending about twenty minutes a day on that. This starts slow and gets faster every time you do it until one day you will be away from your instrument and hear a song and pretty much will be able to scope it out from start to finish without the instrument in front of you. Key signature does not matter.
Just listening to lots of music doesn't do this for you. Learning to play the music you listen to is what does it. Lifetime process, too, those of us who do this wouldn't have it any other way, it is a way of life and not a chore.
Besides that, if you do the 20 minutes a day for a few months only, next time you are out somewhere and get to play with others you will likely chop their heads right off!
"Excuse me, sir, do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?"
"Like yeah, man, you gotta practice!"
--Mac
Back in the day, we used to call it, "Puttin' the needle back."
And all that was meant by that was that we would sit there with our instrument and keep putting the needle back on one part of a song we liked and desired to play until we could play that part.
There is no need to be able to read or write music on the staff in order to transcribe, although it helps with the short term memory thing, speeding up the process considerably, because if you can jot it down or put it on staff with the computer, then learning to play it is a matter of reading it over while playing the reps. Also can make analysation of melody over chord changes much more rapid. But many great players and compositionists have been nonreaders, Bix Biederbecke, Eroll Garner, etc. etc.
Find any tune that you really love and would really love to be able to play and start spending about twenty minutes a day on that. This starts slow and gets faster every time you do it until one day you will be away from your instrument and hear a song and pretty much will be able to scope it out from start to finish without the instrument in front of you. Key signature does not matter.
Just listening to lots of music doesn't do this for you. Learning to play the music you listen to is what does it. Lifetime process, too, those of us who do this wouldn't have it any other way, it is a way of life and not a chore.
Besides that, if you do the 20 minutes a day for a few months only, next time you are out somewhere and get to play with others you will likely chop their heads right off!
"Excuse me, sir, do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?"
"Like yeah, man, you gotta practice!"
--Mac
Also study and know the framework of every song or piece.
Count the bars, know that this particular one has maybe 8 bars of A followed by another 8 bars of the A followed by 8 bars of B section and then finally, 8 bars of A and then just repeats. The old 32bar AABA composition.
Or it might be AAA, or AABACA or something, or it could be the "one long song" style known as the durchkomponiert, but whatever the underlying structure, KNOW it for any piece.
This is something that we all should do until it becomes rote.
And when constructing a new composition, these are things we should adhere to a good 99% of the time. I know, because I spent far too much time thinking that I could break those rules, or didn't really have to know 'em in order to make stuff work. Man was I barking up the wrong tree on that one.
If you have the framework, the structure, the basic arrangement, in your head before you lay down track one, the whole thing will simply come together -- and when others hear it the thing will make instant musical sense to them. Which is the goal, really.
Knowing your arrangement like that before tracking also generates far fewer needs for the punchin, the edit, the retrack -- and it all just sounds smoother to begin with.
Of course, after the bed tracks are laid down, you can then play with the creative juices sometimes, adding a track at the spur of the moment idea and they will usually fit very easily because that foundational structure has already set up a sturdy framework for such brush strokes.
If you don't know the AABA etc. song structures, google, last time I looked at the wickepedia entries on the subject, they were basically correct still. But don't trust wickepedia a final source of info, for anybody can edit the thing and unfortunately, many do.
It is readily apparent that those guys whose songs you posted know the song structure frameworks. That makes what they do so much easier to accomplish.
And there really are only a handful of basic song structures, all the rest are just slight modifications of the handful or mix and match type of things
It was a big "Ah-HAH!" for me when I finally understood that music is not an infinite situation at all. Very finite as to what we can do in many ways, actually. I learned that in order to be the rebel I thought I was, I had to conform first. That thing where you have to know the rules in order to confidently be able to break 'em...
--Mac
Count the bars, know that this particular one has maybe 8 bars of A followed by another 8 bars of the A followed by 8 bars of B section and then finally, 8 bars of A and then just repeats. The old 32bar AABA composition.
Or it might be AAA, or AABACA or something, or it could be the "one long song" style known as the durchkomponiert, but whatever the underlying structure, KNOW it for any piece.
This is something that we all should do until it becomes rote.
And when constructing a new composition, these are things we should adhere to a good 99% of the time. I know, because I spent far too much time thinking that I could break those rules, or didn't really have to know 'em in order to make stuff work. Man was I barking up the wrong tree on that one.
If you have the framework, the structure, the basic arrangement, in your head before you lay down track one, the whole thing will simply come together -- and when others hear it the thing will make instant musical sense to them. Which is the goal, really.
Knowing your arrangement like that before tracking also generates far fewer needs for the punchin, the edit, the retrack -- and it all just sounds smoother to begin with.
Of course, after the bed tracks are laid down, you can then play with the creative juices sometimes, adding a track at the spur of the moment idea and they will usually fit very easily because that foundational structure has already set up a sturdy framework for such brush strokes.
If you don't know the AABA etc. song structures, google, last time I looked at the wickepedia entries on the subject, they were basically correct still. But don't trust wickepedia a final source of info, for anybody can edit the thing and unfortunately, many do.
It is readily apparent that those guys whose songs you posted know the song structure frameworks. That makes what they do so much easier to accomplish.
And there really are only a handful of basic song structures, all the rest are just slight modifications of the handful or mix and match type of things
It was a big "Ah-HAH!" for me when I finally understood that music is not an infinite situation at all. Very finite as to what we can do in many ways, actually. I learned that in order to be the rebel I thought I was, I had to conform first. That thing where you have to know the rules in order to confidently be able to break 'em...
--Mac
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NystagmusE
Thanks much for the insight and tips, Mac.
That's a lot to think about, but I will.
I think you've got a lot of valid points.
One thing is for sure... it's easier to compose and record when there is a game plan already in mind. I experienced this when I went back and redid a few of my old songs. Since I knew in my mind exactly how the songs went, (re)creating them was easy and adding new changes was fun rather than difficult. I had that experience with my song "Lotus". The original version was lost a long time ago, but I remembered the main idea of it.
Right now the thing that slows me down the most is having troubles quantizing the music that I play in, since my soundcard adds a bit of delay and I'm also not so accurate anyways. I actually used to be more on beat, but I guess my skills got worse since I didn't keep practicing over the years.
I guess I gotta jump back into it all while I still can.
You know, I was taught music notation but I've actually forgotten how to read it with any kind of basic fluency!
That's a lot to think about, but I will.
I think you've got a lot of valid points.
One thing is for sure... it's easier to compose and record when there is a game plan already in mind. I experienced this when I went back and redid a few of my old songs. Since I knew in my mind exactly how the songs went, (re)creating them was easy and adding new changes was fun rather than difficult. I had that experience with my song "Lotus". The original version was lost a long time ago, but I remembered the main idea of it.
Right now the thing that slows me down the most is having troubles quantizing the music that I play in, since my soundcard adds a bit of delay and I'm also not so accurate anyways. I actually used to be more on beat, but I guess my skills got worse since I didn't keep practicing over the years.
I guess I gotta jump back into it all while I still can.
You know, I was taught music notation but I've actually forgotten how to read it with any kind of basic fluency!
What soundcard?
You should be able to get down to below the magic 20mS latency level with any of 'em nowadays.
If your soundcard doesn't have ASIO drivers but can run the Windoze WDM drivers, then by all means, dowload the free ASIO4ALL and install it, that can bring the latency way down.
BUT -- some softsynths, like the microsoft software synthesizer simply cannot be played in realtime because they take at least a quarter of a second, often more, for the CPU to generate the sound. Not a kill IMO because those softsynths aren't very musical sounding anyway, just a GM bank for the average computer user so they won't complain that their computer wouldn't play a midi file when they come across one, like embedded in a webpage.
DXi and VSTi software synths plus ASIO work very fine here in realtime, I can turn it down as low as 2mS latency, but when the project gets larger with more tracks there can be audio dropouts, so I keep it at 7mS and have no troubles.
--Mac
You should be able to get down to below the magic 20mS latency level with any of 'em nowadays.
If your soundcard doesn't have ASIO drivers but can run the Windoze WDM drivers, then by all means, dowload the free ASIO4ALL and install it, that can bring the latency way down.
BUT -- some softsynths, like the microsoft software synthesizer simply cannot be played in realtime because they take at least a quarter of a second, often more, for the CPU to generate the sound. Not a kill IMO because those softsynths aren't very musical sounding anyway, just a GM bank for the average computer user so they won't complain that their computer wouldn't play a midi file when they come across one, like embedded in a webpage.
DXi and VSTi software synths plus ASIO work very fine here in realtime, I can turn it down as low as 2mS latency, but when the project gets larger with more tracks there can be audio dropouts, so I keep it at 7mS and have no troubles.
--Mac
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NystagmusE
2 mS is impressive. I have an ASIO card/drivers but I sometimes get glitches when multitracking if I use anything lower than about 40ms. They don't happen often, but it's annoying to have them since they can't be easily edited out and I sometimes don't notice them at first.
I did recently adjust the soundcard back down to about 20 mS just so I could record MIDI with more accuracy, and I think it did help. But now I have to worry about the multitracking unless I switch it back.
I think if I had a faster computer maybe it would be easier. My CPU is 750 MHz.
It's too bad that I can't use one setting for MIDI and a different setting for audio--at the same time. Then things would be ok, if that's even possible.
I did try ASIO4all once, but it told me that I needed a WDM driver for it to work with.
Oh well, I'm glad to be able to do any multitrack mixing at all really.
I did recently adjust the soundcard back down to about 20 mS just so I could record MIDI with more accuracy, and I think it did help. But now I have to worry about the multitracking unless I switch it back.
I think if I had a faster computer maybe it would be easier. My CPU is 750 MHz.
It's too bad that I can't use one setting for MIDI and a different setting for audio--at the same time. Then things would be ok, if that's even possible.
I did try ASIO4all once, but it told me that I needed a WDM driver for it to work with.
Oh well, I'm glad to be able to do any multitrack mixing at all really.
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NystagmusE
Wow, that's amazing Mac. By the way, what is APS-on-Live?
My OS is Windows 98 SE also. My soundcard is an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 with up to date drivers (from the website).
I've done a few registry tweaks to my system to hopefully make it faster. But maybe they have the opposite effect for soundcards. For example, I set it up to give more priority to foreground programs; however, I've heard some people say that giving priority to background programs is better for soundcard drivers.
I was working on some songs today, and I did get glitches again, but they only happened during playback and not recording, thank goodness. So I raised the soundcard buffer up a notch and they went away, but now I'm back to more MIDI lag.
My OS is Windows 98 SE also. My soundcard is an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 with up to date drivers (from the website).
I've done a few registry tweaks to my system to hopefully make it faster. But maybe they have the opposite effect for soundcards. For example, I set it up to give more priority to foreground programs; however, I've heard some people say that giving priority to background programs is better for soundcard drivers.
I was working on some songs today, and I did get glitches again, but they only happened during playback and not recording, thank goodness. So I raised the soundcard buffer up a notch and they went away, but now I'm back to more MIDI lag.
* There IS a microsoft patch available to install WDM drivers on Win98SE!
Won't work on straight 98, just SE.
Been a long time since I found it and will have to dig into the microsoft website for you if you can't google search it up. Trust only the microsoft site for this if they still support it and not a mirror if you can help it.
*Upgrade your DirectX to the latest possible for the OS. This is important. If the OS will take DX 9c, then do it. Sometimes easiest to just upgrade the Windows Media Player, which automatically upgrades DirectX at the same time in the background.
*To find out what version of DX you have and also to test all DirectX functions there is a built in Diagnostic Software in Windoze, just go to Start->Run and type in "Dxdiag.exe" without the quotes and hit Enter. The window will tell you the full DX info and don't ignore the buttons to start testing everything, see if all reports okay, including graphics stuff.
*Latest drivers for the soundcard, gotten from the soundcard mfr's website and not a mirror site or the like, are a must. Download and install if yours doesn't match the leatest version offered.
*Check your IRQ table for soundcard sharing with other devices. With 98 it is easy to manually assign a separate IRQ or move other devices away from the soundcard. IRQ 10 is a wonderful place for soundcard in 98SE BTW.
*With 98, it is more important to DEFRAG hard drives more often. Just do it. Even if Windoze reports that you don't have to do it. Fragmented drive can cause all sorts of interruptions, problems, etc.
*With 98 it is a bit more important to use a second fast hard drive for your audio streaming rather than just one C drive for OS, Apps and the Audio Stream Temp as your recording host sends to C Temp by default. You can change that to the first logical partition in the second hard drive for much more reliable throughput and speed.
*Make sure to use DMA capable hard drives and make sure that DMA is invoked on them in the Device Manager. If not, then CPU cycles are used up to do disk chores, speed suffers, dropouts occur.
*To a certain extent, mobo chipset can be very important in W98-era mobos. Knowing what chipset you have is therefore part of the dance.
"APS-on-Live" was the first offering from the original team that now does the KX drivers for Creative cards. Much better for home recordists, they found that the software for the original EMU APS studio could be made to function on the much less expensive Creative Live cards. Not only better stuff for music makers but it actually upped the audio specs for those cards in certain ways, just from changing software drivers. Kinda neat at the time.
--Mac
Won't work on straight 98, just SE.
Been a long time since I found it and will have to dig into the microsoft website for you if you can't google search it up. Trust only the microsoft site for this if they still support it and not a mirror if you can help it.
*Upgrade your DirectX to the latest possible for the OS. This is important. If the OS will take DX 9c, then do it. Sometimes easiest to just upgrade the Windows Media Player, which automatically upgrades DirectX at the same time in the background.
*To find out what version of DX you have and also to test all DirectX functions there is a built in Diagnostic Software in Windoze, just go to Start->Run and type in "Dxdiag.exe" without the quotes and hit Enter. The window will tell you the full DX info and don't ignore the buttons to start testing everything, see if all reports okay, including graphics stuff.
*Latest drivers for the soundcard, gotten from the soundcard mfr's website and not a mirror site or the like, are a must. Download and install if yours doesn't match the leatest version offered.
*Check your IRQ table for soundcard sharing with other devices. With 98 it is easy to manually assign a separate IRQ or move other devices away from the soundcard. IRQ 10 is a wonderful place for soundcard in 98SE BTW.
*With 98, it is more important to DEFRAG hard drives more often. Just do it. Even if Windoze reports that you don't have to do it. Fragmented drive can cause all sorts of interruptions, problems, etc.
*With 98 it is a bit more important to use a second fast hard drive for your audio streaming rather than just one C drive for OS, Apps and the Audio Stream Temp as your recording host sends to C Temp by default. You can change that to the first logical partition in the second hard drive for much more reliable throughput and speed.
*Make sure to use DMA capable hard drives and make sure that DMA is invoked on them in the Device Manager. If not, then CPU cycles are used up to do disk chores, speed suffers, dropouts occur.
*To a certain extent, mobo chipset can be very important in W98-era mobos. Knowing what chipset you have is therefore part of the dance.
"APS-on-Live" was the first offering from the original team that now does the KX drivers for Creative cards. Much better for home recordists, they found that the software for the original EMU APS studio could be made to function on the much less expensive Creative Live cards. Not only better stuff for music makers but it actually upped the audio specs for those cards in certain ways, just from changing software drivers. Kinda neat at the time.
--Mac
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NystagmusE
Cool Mac, Thanks for the tips. I will see what I can do.
It turns out that I DID get recording glitches. I even got recording/playback glitches after raising the buffer to medium and large sizes. So it's possibly something like defragging or whatever, like you said. I'm thinking it might be CPU related too, because I had a CPU hogging plugin in there.
Thanks for explaining that stuff.
It turns out that I DID get recording glitches. I even got recording/playback glitches after raising the buffer to medium and large sizes. So it's possibly something like defragging or whatever, like you said. I'm thinking it might be CPU related too, because I had a CPU hogging plugin in there.
Thanks for explaining that stuff.