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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


kinda meh on renoise atm. it's great if you're going in with an exact plan for a very loop-based or pattern-based track centered around chopping samples (i.e. jungle or breakbeat), to be sure. but it's really not designed for anything exploratory or for more complex stuff with a bigger focus on verticality, longer phrases, and more formal structure.

people like to say that you can make any genre of music in any daw, and they're right - but not all daws are designed for every genre of music. so some are more efficient than others in certain cases.

this is all to say that i think my music so far has been too heavily limited by renoise's design paradigms and i might try out some other daw like ableton or cubase idk.

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Silver Alicorn
Mar 30, 2008

𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪 𝓲𝓼 𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮
I use OpenMPT op

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


trackers are great yeah they're just not a great fit for what i want to make right now, which involves some harmonic and melodic fuckery over time and not a lot of sample chopping and processing

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


like you can make music in loving vcv rack too but i wouldnt use vcv rack to make like the malaguena or 12-bar blues or something

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


maybe im just using renoise wrong? i feel like the tracker part of it could be really, really powerful for coming up with interesting melodic ideas, most likely in conjunction with the phrase editor and defining phrases of different size ratios and playing them against each other.

i swear there's something there i just can't figure it out yet

Jonny 290
May 5, 2005



[ASK] me about OS/2 Warp
check out some of the demo tracks and look how they're programmed. they mess with the ticks per beat and tempo so one pattern might be a simple 4 bar drum loop that goes for a bit, then it shifts into a pattern that goes suuuuuper slow and is like a minute long

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



i got a license for analog lab v for free and been exploring tons of presets that are all rather inspiring. i really like the ones that are bells, mallets or gongs

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Jonny 290 posted:

check out some of the demo tracks and look how they're programmed. they mess with the ticks per beat and tempo so one pattern might be a simple 4 bar drum loop that goes for a bit, then it shifts into a pattern that goes suuuuuper slow and is like a minute long

the demo songs are....frankly quite overwhelming lmao. anything i make does not even slightly look like that, and despite the time ive spent with renoise i find them difficult to understand. sure, i get that they're basically a bunch of midi notes playing samples at specific times with a bunch of velocity, panning, and fx automation, but i take one look at these goddamn spreadsheets and my brain just shuts off. i also really don't like the idea of just drowning the poo poo out of everything with command after command after command, it's just tedious and annoying to me.

doesn't help that aside from Soon Soon, none of them are really the kind of music i want to make right now. and even Soon Soon isn't very close

maybe part of my problem is that i've been listening to some music that i straight up am not good enough to either learn from or emulate yet :sweatdrop: like i've been binging the la mulana soundtracks recently and i can tell that poo poo is quite far from anything i can do right now. i hardly understand why it does what it does. would be nice to have the VSTs/samples/packs/etc it uses tho they seem very fun

Jonny 290
May 5, 2005



[ASK] me about OS/2 Warp
That's totally understandable, and i think renoise is probably a bad tool for what you want to do. the spreadsheets are the whole reason one would want to use it

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


im fine with spreadsheets, i just easily get overwhelmed by dense information

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


i also can't comprehend doing that in my own music production when i barely know what notes should come after another

NonzeroCircle
Apr 12, 2010

El Camino
I've just this minute bought Redux, the "vst" version of Renoise because I'm on an IDM kick and since Rewire got killed so did my Renoise>Cubase workflow for making irritating bug beats

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



also been learning this berry harris dimished chords system and it basically gives me validation on using notes outside the standard major scale. i kept self discovering them but had no idea how they related to the scale i started from.

its nice to have other notes to choose from

im_sorry
Jan 15, 2006

(9999)
Ultra Carp
I spent the last couple hours programming a bunch of sequences using a scale called Pelog. I know nothing about this scale, but I found it in "The Keyboard Grimoire" and it sounds cool. I had to stop when Lola the cat decided she didn't want me to do that anymore and parked herself right on the SQ-64.

They're all in A and E so I can more easily play along with a guitar or bass. That way, when I don't know what to do next, I can whack an open string until I get a better idea.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


genres I like and want to try and learn to make similar music to: soundtrack, metal, industrial, synthpop, whatever heilung is, maybe even prog and general rock i spose

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


genres I don’t even slightly understand: ^^^^^^^^^^^^

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



im_sorry posted:

I spent the last couple hours programming a bunch of sequences using a scale called Pelog. I know nothing about this scale, but I found it in "The Keyboard Grimoire" and it sounds cool. I had to stop when Lola the cat decided she didn't want me to do that anymore and parked herself right on the SQ-64.

They're all in A and E so I can more easily play along with a guitar or bass. That way, when I don't know what to do next, I can whack an open string until I get a better idea.

stupid question but why A?

im_sorry
Jan 15, 2006

(9999)
Ultra Carp

KoRMaK posted:

stupid question but why A?

The second open string on a guitar tuned to standard tuning is A. I have another guitar/bass pair tuned to C#, and I programmed a bunch of patterns into my Volcas so I can play along with them, too.

I'll sometimes jam around on one of these setups for an hour or so. One of these days, I hope to livestream it, but I'm not good enough - or brave enough - yet.

im_sorry fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Aug 4, 2023

4lokos basilisk
Jul 17, 2008


Pollyanna posted:

maybe im just using renoise wrong? i feel like the tracker part of it could be really, really powerful for coming up with interesting melodic ideas, most likely in conjunction with the phrase editor and defining phrases of different size ratios and playing them against each other.

i swear there's something there i just can't figure it out yet

dont know what system you are on, but i piped renoise midi to ableton live at some point so that i could do the creative sequencing part in renoise and then finish the track in ableton where the piano rolls and other things made more sense to me

e: like all the cool ideas i have, i did it exactly once and it did not remain a staple of my workflow. there is an excuse i made and that was: i wanted to sync live to something else and on macos it was a pain to set up iac midi driver routings (none of these are real solid excuses)

4lokos basilisk fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Aug 5, 2023

Jonny 290
May 5, 2005



[ASK] me about OS/2 Warp
When i am doing "live music" stuff i'm using ableton with a shitload of foot-controlled loopers, and i tried really hard to work Renoise as a pattern sequencer in, but there's some hinks about the midi sync and pattern switching that I did not care for. It's strictly an offline tool for me

4lokos basilisk
Jul 17, 2008


i have heard it said so much that renoise and trackers in general are one of the fastest ways to sequence stuff live, and this appeals to me a lot since hey my computer already has a physical keyboard and if it can be a hardware interface for a powerful midi sequencer then that’s one less piece of gear

now the hardest part after integration with live is just to practice damnit

Kernel Sanders
Sep 15, 2020

4lokos basilisk posted:

i have heard it said so much that renoise and trackers in general are one of the fastest ways to sequence stuff live

this is technically true, in the same sense “VIM is generally one of the fastest ways to edit text”. it certainly can be but there’s a learning curve and you’d better be ready to commit a lot of stuff to muscle memory

Silver Alicorn
Mar 30, 2008

𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪 𝓲𝓼 𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JgZnv-V87c

I finished it

Ruffian Price
Sep 17, 2016

Kernel Sanders posted:

this is technically true, in the same sense “VIM is generally one of the fastest ways to edit text”. it certainly can be but there’s a learning curve and you’d better be ready to commit a lot of stuff to muscle memory

the Sibelius numpad workflow is the vim of sequencing

InternetOfTwinks
Apr 2, 2011

Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just bad

Kernel Sanders posted:

this is technically true, in the same sense “VIM is generally one of the fastest ways to edit text”. it certainly can be but there’s a learning curve and you’d better be ready to commit a lot of stuff to muscle memory

Okay so I should mess around with trackers then

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.



i like the sounds and timbres, but for some reason the progression doesn’t grab me. i think that’s because i find it hard to identify a core musical idea in the composition. i wouldn’t really know what to hum if you asked me “how this song go?”, even after listening to it a few times.

like for example: the first four(?) bars or so, with just the drums and the bass. each bar is a distinct phrase, so no specific form really gets repeated (and therefore reinforced) in that span of time. and even if we take the whole four bars or so as a unit, they’re only played and focused on once before the synth pad and ep come in and introduce new musical ideas. we don’t really get a chance to get used to it. a similar things happens when the sine lead first comes in around 0:45 - those few bars feel more like ABCD than ABAC, or even ABA’B’.

the musical building blocks are pretty good, just that the way they’re put together doesn’t feel very satisfying. humans like finding patterns in things, and an appealing structure can make a big difference.

unfortunately i don’t have any constructive advice on the matter because i myself completely suck at this :v:

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


InternetOfTwinks posted:

Okay so I should mess around with trackers then

ye

Silver Alicorn
Mar 30, 2008

𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪 𝓲𝓼 𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮

Pollyanna posted:

humans like finding patterns in things, and an appealing structure can make a big difference.

you're absolutely right, I have a tendency to introduce variation in each phrase to sort of show off? I've noticed professional music is more restrained

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


https://youtu.be/9pjGWaX8cpI

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


this guy is cool and has a lot of insight about it from the perspective of a classical composer with a music degree n poo poo

Silver Alicorn
Mar 30, 2008

𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪 𝓲𝓼 𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮
👀 much to think about

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



Silver Alicorn posted:

you're absolutely right, I have a tendency to introduce variation in each phrase to sort of show off? I've noticed professional music is more restrained
yea we all do it. if you look at the works of alot of pop song writers you may notice the simplicity is key. it reminds me alot of a programming lesson i learned: you ain't gonna need it, so don't add it.

i never really cared for the Beatles, but the recentish get back docu was really revealing in how their catchyness was keeping it simple, but layered

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


for an excellent example of keeping it simple and real, go listen to the la mulana 1 and 2 soundtracks

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL68C99805ED58C684

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ_Vw7ACol3CN58_osDkbeKa14Hk-N-TZ

akadajet
Sep 14, 2003


nice! what are these visualizations made with?

also are you working on a video jame to go with the music?

Silver Alicorn
Mar 30, 2008

𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪 𝓲𝓼 𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮

akadajet posted:

nice! what are these visualizations made with?

also are you working on a video jame to go with the music?

I found a neat little visualization program called astrofox. It only works on one track at a time, so I split the project by instrument and then edited them into one video. a little work but it's worth it imo

I wish I was good enough at coding to make a jame

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



oh neat, that's how all those YouTube channels do it

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



oh interesting it looks like fl studio has a similar thing built in leveraging some open source visualizer

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-learning/fl-studio-online-manual/html/plugins/ZGameEditor%20Visualizer.htm

Silver Alicorn
Mar 30, 2008

𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪 𝓲𝓼 𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮
https://cohost.org/silveralicorn/post/2392953-take-two

I gave it a 2nd pass and tried to make it more coherent...

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


^^^ when i get some time i’ll have a listen!

made some hosed up medieval/dramatic sounding poo poo with some fm patches and a random electric organ vst

https://on.soundcloud.com/2ccMt

got sick of not making music so i just sorta let a random-rear end sketch happen, this isn't even actually a track it's just some ideas thrown together. but i like some things it does so i might as well show that i haven't been COMPLETELY lazy :v:

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Aug 7, 2023

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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


note how i did not take a single bit of my own advice when i made the above and it’s a total mishmash. do as i say not as i do :shepface:

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