3 Part Inventions | Minor No. 2

2nd invention in minor! Definitely a big step forward.

3 Part Inventions | Minor No. 1

Eeee just started on inventions in minor, spent loads of time smoothing out the lines and checking, hope it goes well :)

3 Part Inventions | Major No. 5

The motif sounds very familiar, I hope I'm not ripping someone's melody off. But in any case, there's zero chance we're writing the rest of the invention the same way :D

Invention Major No. 4

  Pretty pleased with how this piece turned out, and decided to just run the finale midi output through Logic.

3 Part Inventions | Major No. 4

3 Part Inventions | Major No. 3

Got rid of as many unwanted 6/4 chords as possible; made the playing range actually playable on the piano with only two hands. Woo!

Star of the County Down | Tin Whistle

I found this lovely tune that seems to be very well played on the tin whistle, this is my arrangement.

3 Part Inventions | Major No. 2

Went a bit long on this piece, so I stopped just after the 3rd page :-/ Because it was so long, I used some double counterpoint so I won't have to write all those lines. Lazy eh?

Best Service.de

Had chocolate included in my order :D Thanks so much :D

3 Part Inventions | Major

3 part invention, in major. Whew.

Ode to a whistle

Whew, this piece (my homework from last week) took awhile to sequence and mix due to my schedule at work heating up. Only managed to do bits and pieces over the week and finally got a big chunk of evening free today so decided to finish it.

Learnts lots from this little sequencing piece, for example:

VSL Flute, Solo Violin and Solo Cello
Learnt how to use the performance intervals. Like man, they are soooo awesome. For the flute, I was beginning notes with the portato patch for a stronger attack, then switching over to the performance legato patch for smooth transitions.

On the violin and cello, I attempted to apply the same idea but it felt really static. Experimenting with using the performance portamento patch helped somewhat, but it tended to jump out at me. What I think made it work was to use the portamento patch only for note changes up to a tone in distance; it gave an improved sense of life and yet still be smooth and not too earcatching.

Kontakt
Used my Zoom H1 to record various sounds; breath noises, chair creakings and coughs.
Audacity was then used to clean up any noise (very little, the Zoom H1 is amazing!) and chop up the bits and pieces into usable .wave chunks. Thank you audacity team!
Finally, all these were brought into Kontakt and laid out. If you got a good set of headphones, you may hear these artificial artifacts.

Custom IR
I captured a custom IR for use with this piece. It's not a 4 channel impulse like what's in the vienna suite, but I made it and I like it :P

Mixing
Mixing was as usual. I had major trouble setting up my spatial acoustics. Today, I decided to check my "final mix" with my Shure SE215 IEMs (and Grado SR80s). Not expecting much, but holy dang, everything jumped out at me. Levels, spatial placement; everything was WRONG.

I then re-mixed with the Shures, and was delighted to be able to find out how much I needed to put the levels for my ER and tails so that the instruments sat in a space I wanted, and I could eq off the highs off the strings and their 'verbs waaay easier.

After the remix I felt that everything didn't sound as boomy and cluttered as before. Maybe because I pushed the two stringed instruments waaay back in the mix, but there are still there to provide a textural bed for the flute to float on.

One other thing I've noticed is that the music is originally composed on piano staves (though the melody was composed first on an irish whistle) with no thought for instrumentation. I think I would actually prefer the flute to be playing higher up in its range where it becomes more sweet, and not so warm and mid-rangey. Something to think about, since the violin and cellos are pretty close as well. On the master bus's EQ, it was all mid range frequencies, no super highs and the lows were remarkably clear.

It's time for bed, I'm so tired.

FX with convo reverbs.

Hunting for a low cost way to generate my own impulses, and found this great tutorial that not only shows a means of creating your own impulses, but also how convolution reverbs can be used for as effects. Very cool :)

Sequencing and double counterpoint

3 part counterpoint, with 12 bars in the middle demonstrating double counterpoint. Very last bar should be a G and Bb (Gm), not G and D (G5 open).

Double counterpoint exercise

16 bars of regular counterpoint, then 16 bars exploring invertible the parts are. Hmmm.....

Smaller sample producers

Found a few new (to me) smaller sample library producers today, these are

Sound Dust and AudioThing.

With SoundDust, what can I say. I had to have that piano :P Ship's piano sounds really unique.

AudioThing OTOH has some soundscapes in Temple of Mercury that I can't wait to try.

Another one from japan!
http://www.rhodes-premier.com/

Ravenspiral Informal guide to music theory.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=162135

Seems like an interesting read :)

EDIT: Another interesting link :)
http://academic.udayton.edu/tobyrush/theorypages/

Keys and Colors

Something to think about?
http://www.biteyourownelbow.com/keychar.htm

Modulating Chorales

A start on 3 part counterpoint with modulating chorales. They are actually quite fun to figure out how to keep all 3 parts following the contrapunctual rules and yet fit together. 3rd bar of each chorale starts on a new random key, and modulates to the dominant key.

Distant Shores

I was working on my new 3 part counterpoint exercises when I noticed VSL released a new instrument collection, Recorders! I've been lusting for recorders from various companies, and have managed to keep that lust controlled but not yesterday :P

One thing I didn't keep in mind when "composing" is instrument ranges. With the piano it's not an issue as it simply covers the whole spectrum. Not so with recorders, and I'd had my bass recorder play notes too low. Thankfully, it was only a few notes that had to be corrected for it.

Another thing I had at the back of my head was vibrato. I remember reading discussions when vibrato is used, or not. Given I'm not writing for period music, I just used what sounded good to me :3

Addictive Keys! OMG!

Oh, my good lord. I just read xln audio's latest newsletter and in there was.... Addictive Keys! Jeez, piano libs are all over the place! There is a free download of the instrument that's limited to 49 keys. Downloaded it and....

I daresay this is a very, very playable instrument. I'd added it to the cart and almost pushed the buy button, but stopped, slowed down and loaded up the pianoteq demo. Again (lol!).

Comparatively, I think Addictive keys sounds really, really nice, and is definitely the most playable sampled piano I've ever put my paws on. What I miss from it compared to Pianoteq is the dynamic range, I feel that I can play more intimately with Pteq or slam down the keys and get a response I'd expect. No so much with Addictive; on its own it actually feels very responsive, but when laid side by side to Pteq? Not as much as I hoped.

There is gamma control that remaps the input midi notes' velocity in Addictive Keys, but it doesn't feature the curve type control features in Pianoteq. Hope something like that will be added in future updates of Addictive keys. Gaaaah, really want it.....