23 in '13 Song #2" Only An Idea

Song #2: Only An Idea

Forging ahead from Song One last time, I decided that another "limitation" project would be good. For some reason, the part of my brain that does songwriting things hasn't quite clicked back on yet, so finding song structures has been a little challenging. I've found that limiting myself to a certain toolset can help focus my creative process, so I went with it again this time. So, I decided that I would compose the entire song using my new Roland XV-5080. (I actually came into possession of this magic box last spring...thanks, Gene! Then life happened, and I had no energy for learning new gear. Yeah, yeah, there I go, ragging on last year again. Demons, out!)

Anyway, anyone with a passing knowledge of this wonderful instrument should already be saying, "composing a song using that one synth is not a limitation". This is true: the sound options with just the built-in patches is huge, nevermind the tweaking possibilities. For me, it was more an exercise in getting used to outboard MIDI equipment, and how it integrates into my workflow. Things learned: there are two MIDI-in jacks on the back because the MIDI spec only allows for 16 voices per channel, and the XV-5080 has 32 voices. Configuring the XV and Logic to address all 32 voices took me a night of poking at buttons. It says something about modern musicmaking that sometimes, a night's good accomplishment can be technical, as well as musical.

Which leads me to song #2. The feel of it developed out of a patch that I stumbled across while playing with the XV sound editor, a very CS-80 sort of patch. The composition very quickly became a game of how much I could layer as the song went on. It didn't end up getting that silly; I only ended up with 17 tracks of external MIDI, and two tracks of vocals.

A few notes about the vocals. For whatever reason, as I was composing the music, I heard the vocal style I wanted...but damned if I knew what I wanted the song to say. I wrote the lyrics for sound as much as words. I ended up with nature and music imagery, which I think fits the swirling stuff going on pretty well.

The background vocals was another experiment: it was my first time recording using a Digitech Vocalist for "automatic harmony". The cool thing about this piece of kit is that the chord changes on it can be triggered via MIDI, rather than having to poke at it manually...so I got it programmed (via its own track in Logic) and then was able to retreat into the closet for recording. It went OK, but I think I could tweak its settings a bit more to work with my voice...nevermind that I just wasn't in good voice tonight. (Getting my MIDI network fully operational was my other learning experience this week...what a tangled web we weave when first we network our MIDI!)

Overall, I'm pleased with how this song turned out. I gotta say, I'm a little surprised that I've written two electronic pieces so far, as it's not a genre I've ever worked in much. Such is the fun of a songwriting project...you never know exactly what's going to pop out from week to week, but you just go with it.

I wonder what Sir Mix-A-Lot thinks of all this...

When a story like the Coulton/Glee fiasco hits, I can't be content to just listen to one, then the other. Nope, time time to fire up Logic and poke around in some waveforms.

I had thought to use Coulton's karaoke track for Baby Got back, inverse the phase, and mix it back against the Glee version. However, there were a few problems with that CSI-worthy goal:

1) I was limited to MP3 files. The compression makes waveform subtraction nigh-impossible.
2) The Glee version was sonically different, if not musically.
3) I didn't have anyone around to say "enhance".

I tried to get my older daughter to do #3, and she wasn't interested. Anyway, not one to give up easily, I decided the next best thing is to do a hard left/right pan of the tracks for comparison. The songs are "sonically" different, so getting a sample-accurate lineup wasn't going to happen. I tried to choose some landmarks, and then used my ears to see how things sounded. I used a touch of EQ on the Coulton track to make them sound a bit more similar. After all, it's the similarity in instrumentation we're interested in, not the mastering.

So, without further ado:

Both vocal version (Glee: L, Coulton:R)
Baby Got Back - Both Vocals


And, since most of my interest is in the similarity of the composition, here's a version with the Glee version on the left, and the karaoke version of Coulton's version on the right:
Baby Got Back - Glee Vocal vs Instrumental

First off, I think it's interesting to note the differences between the tracks. It sounds like the Glee version has quite a bit of scooped EQ applied to it, probably in an effort to minimize the banjo. Between the EQ and the compression, a direct waveform comparison was doomed to failure (nevermind the MP3 compression)...but it was after that point that the similarities became apparent.

1) The melody is the same.
2) The vocal embellishments are almost identical.
3) The rhythm track is identical (there isn't a drum beat out of sync, and the bass sounds like it's panned center).
4) Over the 3+ minute duration of the track, there is zero tempo drift: the beats stay synced up the whole time.
5) While the banjo and...mandolin?...are minimized on the Glee track, they are still apparent and identical to the karaoke track.

I wasn't able to hear the "quack", but others have said that it's in there. And then there's the presence of the whole "Johnny C" line which was unique to Colton's version, which also shows up in the Glee version (and really, I think you can stop listing after that point...but anyway.)

</Time to settle back into my opulent, non-existent law library, and pontificate about ramifications of law with the backing of my non-existant law degree>

Colton's version, although a cover, is protected by copyright, and he also went through proper channels to get the compulsory license required for a cover version. What's more, really the only thing that is identical to the version being covered is the lyrics. The instrumentation and feel are all Coulton's...and considering the original is rap, the melody is his as well. So really, it wouldn't matter if Fox got permission from Mix-A-Lot, as they would have needed permission from Coulton for his arrangement of the song.

In the end, I get the feeling that someone knew that Coulton released his music under a Creative Commons license...and completely misunderstood what that means.

I'm not exactly sure how this is going to resolve (as it's not positive that the song will even air, but it appears to be legitimate), but the next week is going to be very interesting.

23 in '13 Song #1: Logic-al

Song #1: Logic-al



The last time I did a multi-week song project, I seemed to be all about putting rules on myself: no covers, no working on old pieces, one song per week, and more. This time around, I'm going to be a lot looser, and just go with it, so long as I make sure to end up with 23 songs at the end. Three songs in a week? Sure! Only one song in a month? Maybe. No stress, and no restrictions, except ones I put on myself to spark creativity.

Which is where this first song comes in. Users of Logic Pro are probably familiar with the "sampler" templates you can choose when creating a new project. It's always struck me that the sampler of instruments is rather...eclectic. Piano, e-piano, jazz organ, electric bass...drum kit...string ensemble...analog lead synth...African drum set...three rave-ish synths, analog synth bass, two 909-ish drum kits. Sort of like beatniks meet b-boys, or something. Anyway, it struck me that it would be an amusing exercise to try and make something using every instrument in that template, and nothing else.

I started out on the first night just making a groove. Things held together and didn't sound too obnoxious, so the next night was chopping up the various loops I had made, and turning it into a bit more of a song...something with a bit more varied structure. I considered briefly adding vocals, but I decided to stay with the Logic Template Only theme (thus the title), and I ended up being pretty pleased with the analog synth melody I improvised.

Overall, I'd say mission successful. I allowed myself to tweak the EQ of each channel in order to make things mix together, but other than that, this is the stock template. Didn't even end up adding a mastering plugin.

I figure that after having been so long since I've done proper songwriting (have I mentioned that last year really bit for creativity? I did? Well, I'm saying it again.), I'll ease into it. I'm looking forward to writing lyrics again.

The "23 in '13" Challenge

Ah, writing lulls. We all get them, and sometimes, it takes a hammer to break through them. A structured, regularly scheduled hammer. What am I talking about? I stumbled across the "23 in '13" Challenge on the Sci-Fi Songs blog, and it struck a big fat 9th chord with me (that's the Mother of All Funk Chords, in case you're wondering). My production of new pieces was way down in the past year, and i was manly working on previously written pieces. There were circumstances in 2012 that led to that, but still...it sort of sucked.

The 23 in '13 made me think back to a few years ago, when I was doing a project I called "Songs from the Dumpster". Simply said, I was writing one song or piece a week and posting it (the Blog is dead, but the songs are still up). It did amazing things for my creativity and output, and I wrote some songs that I still like to this day (and some of those songs are ones that I spent part of last year fixing up and making better). Yeah, some of them are rough. Way rough. But they were DONE, and that did wonders.

Some people need a schedule to get things done. I'll admit to being one of those people. A set "done time" date forces a song to be completed, no matter what, and removes the "death by revision" process. There's a quote about songs...that they're not finished, they're abandoned. It can be hard to get past the "oh, just one more thing" feeling...and in the process, never actually do anything.

Which brings me to the 23 in '13 challenge. It's a schedule to complete 23 new pieces (one every two weeks) in 2012. Two weeks is a decent amount of time...it allows for some wiggle room, but keeps the creative gears working. It's also not as tight of a schedule as one a week. That project got a bit harried for me...and there were a few Saturdays where I was muttering to myself all day, because I was stuck for lyrics.

So, I'm a little late (ack! already one track behind!), but I'm up for the "23 in 13 challenge. Are you?

Old MacDonald had a DAW

...EIE-IO!

*cough*

OK, now that I have that out of my system, I'll tell you a bit about my first impressions of the Akai EIE audio interface. This is the basic model, not the Pro (and as such, is limited to recording at 44.1. For the demos and scratch tracks I record, this is not heartbreaking). It's a 4-in, 4-out interface, phantom power, VU meters, MIDI in and out, 4 audio inserts (for external effects units), and a built-in 3 port USB hub. Usual street price seems to be around $200, but I found it on sale at Guitar Center for $145. It's a well-spec'ed interface at this price point, so it seemed to be worth taking the jump. One impatient week later, it arrived on my doorstep.

On getting it out of the box, all I can say is that it's dressed to impress. The EIE has all metal construction, in a pleasing color scheme. And what can I say, I'm a sucker for VU meters. Also, it's heavy....you'll have to work a bit to yank it off the desk with a guitar cord, and rubber feet underneath give it some grip on your desk. The knobs are positive feeling, and the switches are pure retro (going along with the overall look). I'll admit it: I'm a designer, and the overall look (and cheesy joke in the name) is what got me to look at this interface in the first place. It looks great, like a piece of vintage equipment crossed with a science experiment...

There's a bit of negative to go along with the overall design. While the silver text on red background looks nice in good lighting, it's nigh-impossible to read in dim lighting. This will become less of a problem as I learn the controls, but it makes for a lot of squinting in low light conditions initially. The EIE Pro is black text on silver, which seems to imply that legible low-light text is a professional feature.

Setup was a straightforward affair. It's class-compliant in OSX, so no drivers ware needed (or even provided, although it comes with a disc with Cubase LE and ASIO drivers for Windows). The VU meters are lit with LEDs with a pleasing bright light (and flash red when clipping). It immediately showed up in Audio MIDi setup, so I set up the cabling to go from the EIE to my Roland XV-5080. Plugged in audio cables and did a test, and we're in business. OK, time to get the XV patch editor talking to the new interface...

...and thus began a period of about 40 minutes of serious hair-pulling. For some reason, the XV editor wasn't showing the ports of the EIE in the MIDI setup dialog. Many, many tests, retests, adding and removing of hardware later, and the answer was found: the EIE doesn't have a name for its MIDI ports...it's blank (and doesn't seem to have a way to name them). The XV editor was showing blank lines in my port choice list. Those weren't spaces, those were the ports from the EIE.

Once I selected those blank spaces, I was able to synchronize, and was off to the races.

The controls take a little getting used to. The master level control on the front only controls outputs 1 and 2 (3 and 4 are always at full volume). Not a problem once you get past cabling, though. What can be a bit confusing is the monitor knob. Turn it full counterclockwise, and it's a zero-latency monitor of the inout to the interface. Full clockwise, and it's sound coming from the computer. This will take some playing with, as it's possible to make certain tracks disappear from the mix, only to notice the knob is wrong (external MIDI tracks took a bit of figuring out). Keeping the monitor knob at 12 o'clock seems to be the best method, for now.

I loaded up an old project to try out sound quality. Previously, I had been using a 512 sample buffer with built-in sound, and was able to reduce that to 256 with no clicks and pops (2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, a little long in the tooth.) A faster system should have no problem with lower latencies.

Beyond that, though, it's gone as well as I've hoped. The inputs have plenty of gain, sound decent, and have smooth action on the knobs. I'd like it if the combi-jacks were a little more solid feeling on plugging in a 1/4" plug, but that's subjective. 

Time to dig in and find out what this box can really do!