AC Blog

Hi everyone,

This is my first entry on the Audiocourses blog - I’ll try to post here regularly with my thoughts on music and production as well as other things that are happening in my life which may be vaguely interesting.

I decided today to spend an hour or so creating a tune in a genre that I don’t usually work in - Drum’n'Bass. Every now and then I like to do something like this as it really freshens you up, especially if you only work in a few genres usually.

Now electronic music isn’t new to me at all - I first got into music production about 13 years ago using a Commodore Amiga 512 (later a 1200) and a copy of OctaMed. At the time I was using 8-bit mono samples and had no MIDI keyboard. everything was put together in the most unmusical way possible. OctaMed was certainly very basic in it’s user interface but somehow I created some of the most innovative music I have ever produced - at the time I didn’t even play an instrument so I was just making it up as I went along with no idea of music theory.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time trying to write songs in the style of Westbam and Slipmatt. A lot of the music of this time was what we would later call ‘jungle’ and this in term obviously had a huge influence on the later genres of ‘Breakbeat’ and ‘Drum’n'Bass’. I drifted out of the ‘jungle’ so to speak and became more interested in the slower, funkier sounds of House and the party-friendly, and now dated, rhythms of ‘Big Beat’.

In recent months I’ve felt a yearning to go back to my roots of electronic music production and so hence my decision today to have a crack at drum’n'bass. Firing up Propellerheads Reason I ramped up the tempo to 168bpm(!), at least 35bpm more than I’d use for house, and a tempo twice as fast as the last band project I worked on. I had a quick listen to some tunes from the genre, namely the fantastic Bodyrock by Shimon & Andy C (which inadvertantly started the whole ‘clownstep’ debacle on internet forums) and tunes from the likes of DJ Zinc.

Anyhow I had a great time layering bass sounds, doubling up loops with programmed drums and applying far more effects than I’d usually dream of. Although it’s not quite the standard of Pendulum, the current darlings of D’n'B, I hope to continue working on it just for practice. Have a listen to an 8-bar section here.

Right that’s enough from me, I’m going back into the jungle…

ben m

…so we have Ben taking his leave in beautiful Venice this coming week and he has promised us some delightful blogging from the picturesque city of masquerades.

The talk was one of audio blogging as well as text and images which might make for some interesting sounds, indeed the sound of Venetian life in full swing would bring a humbling warmth to the majority of us at Audiocourses.

This week’s practical stays along the same line as last week’s practical the sound effect story, only now we are creating an audio track for a video clip.

The entire concept is quite interesting and thought provoking but why is the video clip one of the most intricate things that I have come across so far? Why

The answer is that George Lucas had something to do with it. To me he is like the Bill Gates of Film.

It does not help that I am not a Star Wars fan so I literally am making stuff up as I go along, the output should be very interesting.

If there were no Foley of light savers on the net I woulda surely died.

I am petrified for this one it’s really difficult for me as this is my first attempt at doing audio for video. Maybe if it were The Matrix or something, Keanu I understand, George Lucas I don’t. I am really gona have to rely on my imagination.

Anyways all of this being said, did I mention that this weeks questions are very intricate “Perceptual Coding Systems” geez

Lol it’s gona be a very long weekend.

I need divine intervention.

Rachel