We Are The Music Makers (Musician's Thread)

[6ix]

@Lawnmower_Man

This sounds kind of like what I wanted? I was imagining a smart tool where I could highlight a region and the computer would mark up transients based on a sensitivity I set. Then I could roll them forward or backward in milliseconds as needed.

Yeah, that totally exists and though I didnt dive into the ardour manual I’d bet my roll it has a tool native to the DAW. And if it doesnt there are vst plugins that do it.

Here’s the Coxcomb Red set to the lowest, highest, and medium…est settings:

I did it manually for because there are even fewer cuts than that and once you get the hang of it the workflow is smoother.

For example, with the crossroads duel each cut was right the first time after I adjusted the grid to fit the existing tempo. Because,

@Lawnmower_Man

So you’re stretching the wave form slightly because his time isn’t perfect?

nah Vai’s a pro, hes a metronome lol, it was me who calculated the tempo roughly, where I settled on like 145 as opposed to like 144.932 etc. Basically imperceptible and just a result of already having cut the sample and placing it on the grid.

But, you can do that, stretch the samples, though sometimes this will noticeably color the audio and I only do it when I want that color for artistic effect.

The actual fat-cats-dont-want-you-to-know method is erring on the slower side where the audio is falling behind the beat, so you shift the hits forward and the clip before crashes into the next. We’re just cutting a bit of sustain from whatever is just before. Here’s the Coxcomb Red image again, laid out differently:

It’s set so when the subsequent clip starts the clip playing ends, so the green part isnt being played even though its showing on the grid (we can have them play overlapped if we wanted but that’s separate).

You’ll note that this is the same as if I cut the previous clip with no regard for artifacts at the end,

but, 1, an artifact at the end will be masked by the incoming transient and, 2, the funny thing is super audible ones are rarer than not. One realizes this if they’re working with something liike post-rock-glitch and they, say, want to cut an acoustic guitar in weird spots so it produces the percussive artifacts; one would have to actively search for them. Plugins exist that cut the audio in ‘wrong’ spots intentionally, to give you an idea.

[Lawnmower_Man]

@6ix

But, you can do that, stretch the samples, though sometimes this will noticeably color the audio and I only do it when I want that color for artistic effect.

Delayed follow-up question to this: is there an argument to track at higher sampling rates if I think some stretching might be required? What should I be using?

[6ix]

Oh good question because I know what you’re thinking but no, the stretching algorithms don’t downsample (unless purposefully) and usually oversample, so all the and all the nyquist shit is preserved.

I get the impression that people out there confuse pitch shifting with pitch scaling and piitch-preserved time stretching, though I don’t blame them because i’ve heard them all used interchangeably. Like, you slow down the audio in order to lower the pitch and the “time” is definitely “stretched” in a plain english description, or the inverse where the “time” is “stretched” purposefully without regard for the pitch change, but neither are what “time stretching” refers to.

Basically, time stretching is kinda like granular synthesis. No sound “quality” is lost and there aren’t any actual “artifacts” being produced; it sounds weird and unnatural because that’s precisely what it is, lol. Although, it’s not readily noticeable unless the stretch is extreme.

Like ok, here’s a k-s loop, normal, slowed down like record player x2, and time stretched x2; the stretching algorithm fills in the gaps:

P.S… as far as sample rate goes though, you can use higher, 88.2 or 196 or a zillion because why not, hard drives are huge and computers are powerful now.

[6ix]

Doubling the length though is extreme; if we strretch it even more and use an algorithm to preserve tonal quality that isnt actually there because it’s, uh, drums and you get cool shit like this:

[6ix]

i mean fuck

@6ix

I get the impression that people out there confuse pitch shifting with pitch scaling and piitch-preserved time stretching,

how are the top hits people not knowing anything about anything

[RiskyFlush]

MSPaint Night (and other Arts & Crafts) Signup

The hope for this thread is that we will have enough people interested for someone different to lead a new OP month to month or week to week. During each period, the OP will walk any participants through learning a new/fun skill or activity. This can be silly or fun or gasp useful. Like if you’re excellent at coding and can teach participants a few basics through some simple exercises or videos, then at the end of the week they’ve got a little code they wrote to remember what fun they had. Ma…

Would love to have a musician or two.

[Lawnmower_Man]

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

[Lawnmower_Man]

I’ve been trying to do a little bit each day since I am way out of the loop (!) on modern DAWs. Not sure I am sold (!) on Ardour because I don’t find the MIDI implementation to be all that useful for composing–probably because I don’t understand it.

I have a track fully composed in my head, but it’s been a struggle to get it into MIDI format. Some of it is already recorded and scored. For the scoring, I found it’s much easier for me to just enter the notes and durations in a guitar tablature program since that’s my native instrument. The only problem is that this particular piece of software blows at all other facets of GUI and MIDI implementation. So then I downloaded about a half dozen packages for scoring and am still working through them to see if there’s a silver bullet in here.

[prana]

I’m not sure MIDI is necessary unless you want to play your music through MIDI capable synths later? I don’t know anything about Ardour. Seems like you just want to change guitar tab to a music score?

[prana]

I had to analyze stuff for Theory classes in college and have been thinking about doing a review of all of that this winter. I still have my books, notes, and all handouts. I know who I’m asking for help when I need it. I want to be able to compose better.

ETA: I got good grades analyzing pieces. Chords, structures, etc. On paper I understand it. As a drummer though having not played any melodic instruments extensively, my ear is horrible. My ear training teacher likely let me pass because he knew I was a drummer and tried hard in my classes. Singing scales in front of the class was one of the hardest things I did in college. I hate public speaking so singing scales was a bitch. Didn’t help that I got high before classes and then was nervous as fuck lol. It’s something I’ve been putting off for awhile.

[Lawnmower_Man]

@prana

I’m not sure MIDI is necessary unless you want to play your music through MIDI capable synths later?

Yeah I want that ability. Also, I’m playing some stuff in with a MIDI keyboard, but not all of it because I’m not Art Tatum. Also, some of it doesn’t really translate too well from keys. Don’t I wan’t to have the MIDI everywhere I can get it for free though?

@prana

I don’t know anything about Ardour. Seems like you just want to change guitar tab to a music score?

I think it is pretty standard “draw in the notes” on the horizontal grid with piano roll. Feels like it would take hours to do something I can enter in a few minutes in a tab program. The problem is I need a 14-string “guitar” that covers 8 octaves to get piano range and for some reason I can only have 7 strings.

[Rivaldo]

@Lawnmower_Man

I can only have 7 strings.

Sergey Golovin - SeaDevil

[smrk4]

Have you looked at Musescore (3)?

[prana]

What smrk4 said looks possible but also Sibelius or Finale?

[Lawnmower_Man]

Yes I have it installed but didn’t get deep into it yet. I’ll have to look at the documentation.

[prana]

I think if any of those will work you will be able to export it to a score or MIDI file if you want. Seems like it’s cutting out the middle man (MIDI) and you can enter as your preferred method.

[prana]

In b4 6ix lays out a straight up tutorial for it all with examples.

[Rivaldo]

KISS - Rock Bottom - KISS ALIVE 1975

[smrk4]

masterpieces obv

[prana]

Electronic music. Most of my melodies are based on modulated voltage controlled oscillators. So, a wave of some form modulated by some random source and sent through a quantizer for a certain key and sent through various effects. Then, find something catchy out of that and build on it.

My understanding of harmony and leading, dominant, resolving tones and modulations to different keys and shit like that is under a fog of bong resin and malted hops and I never really used it drumming other than recognizing chord changes. We used to get a chord in Theory worksheets and have to follow certain rules to finish the measure and it was more math or logic than ear training then for me because it was on paper.

My ear training teacher used to make us analyze songs by ear and he’d pick obscure Beatles songs with weird jazz chords and shit and I looked them up on google or whatever existed in 2002 and either I was way off and he laughed or I was better than the guitar players by cheating that he laughed. That’s what I think happened anyway. I passed the class.