audiot

Image via Wikipedia

once again i found a great discussion over at music think tank right here. especially the comments are very cool. the discussion started with the question if great songs ever go unheard and after reading through it all, my sick mind kind of turned this question around…

so here’s what i wrote about it. i didn’t think this through, just wrote away and in the end wondered where i ended up :-)

“Without these utilities we would drown in an ocean of songs.”
…but we do, Bruce – we do. and i think that’s exactly the point here. first of all, how can we talk about great songs if ‘great’, even ‘truly great’ means something different for everyone? we’d have to differentiate between a variety of ‘greats’. if great means popular (imo it doesn’t), then the answer to the original question is ‘no’ – that’s a no-brainer. but if great means a true work of art in terms of composing, performing, producing etc. then i guess the answer would be ‘yes’, because works of art are not good as background noise. but that’s what music often – maybe mostly – is. these days, who buys himself a record (in whatever form), sits on the couch and really listens? really concentrates on the experience? who does that anymore? who has the time and the calmness? and as a side note: we lower the quality to make the songs smaller. we wouldn’t do that if it was for the experience and there were times when this was the other way round. we do that for quantity – i’ll get to that in a moment…
people are preoccupied with all sorts of things, so they need some ‘easy listening’ they can do on a bus, maybe during work, while doing the dishes or while dancing in some club. but those are not works of art, those are fast-food. and that’s exactly why those songs are popular or even big hits. they have no rough edges or anything one could think about. they’re flat, that’s why they work. a hamburger is no culinary masterpiece – that’s why it’s such a success. the only thing you need to concentrate on while eating it, is to not drop half of it. it doesn’t distract you, but that’s the core idea of a great meal. two different worlds or two oppositional meanings to fulfill.
that would lead to the question: is it even possible for a great song to be heard? we could argue about what ‘being heard’ is. how many people are needed to turn a tune into a heard one? if it’s a huge crowd, then it’s only possible for songs tailored for a huge crowd to be heard and that almost automatically leads to a not-very-artful-song because it has to please the masses and therefore has to be kind of slick, without edges, one-size-fits-all. there might be exceptions of course but the more people it pleases, the less great it is.
when we talk about songs that are decades old but still known, heard and loved by people – we usually talk about songs people connect to certain experiences of their lives. but decades ago, it was a lot easier for a song to get there because people bonded more with a song than they do today. why’s that? time’s weren’t that fast. a song like, ida know, ‘life is life’ (or is it ‘live’?) or ‘the final countdown’ or whatever was played for months at every single event back then, so lots of people had a chance to connect. not that these would be great songs in any way except being as one-size-fits-all as it gets. today a song lasts how long? a week? and of course the people themselves have changed but getting into that would lead too far beyond the scope of this place… and let’s not forget, today quantity is worth more than ever before. how many songs fit on an ipod? i piled up about 800 cds before i had my first real computer and i knew every one of them. that’s not even a third of what you can pack on a classic ipod. and i’m a musician, someone for whom listening is part of the job aka a full time activity. when the internet opened the possibility of sharing songs illegally, it was about songs. later it was about whole albums and now? it’s about discographies. tomorrow it’s what? whole genres? we do drown in songs. people hear more songs today than ever before but as a result they care less about every single one. maybe today listeners connect more to a band than to a song?
today we need tools that search and pick songs that we might like for us, because we drown in songs. productive? hell, yeah – but since when is productivity even ballpark with greatness?
and who could even think about a single waterdrop while swimming in the ocean? i have no idea where i’m going with this, for i already got ideas that could keep me writing for ages. sorry if this is of no help for your research, i just wanted to add a short (!) note to your ‘drowning in an ocean of songs’-picture and that’s where it went.
truly great thread here. i do think though, you might be going at your research the wrong way or with the wrong goal. and as soon as i hit the ‘create post’ button, you might want to reconsider about the follow up note below the title of your post :-)

Image by taivasalla via Flickr

alright, i managed to create an account on one more site: soundcloud. i already love this page because it’s ridiculously easy to use and offers nice advantages. in a nutshell, it lets you up- and download, distribute and share audiofiles without sizelimit. and it’s free, well, with some limitation to how many songs can be uploaded per month – there’s pro accounts as well….the usual. but that won’t be a problem at the moment. setting up and understanding how to use an account there took about 5 minutes, way to go. i’m gonna use this account to work on my collaboration projects and furthermore to distribute and share any other stuff that i come up with.

and there’s one more cool feature. it’s called a dropbox and maybe you’ve already seen it. it’s the widget-kind-of-thingy below the feed-subscription-button in my sidebar and – now the cool part – you can send me songs, pieces, loops – actually any audiofiles, by simply clicking on it – wow!

so here’s the link to my page over there – it’s almost empty….yet, but the material will come.

go soundcloud !!

Image by patrice || via Flickr

hehehe, we did our first….ahum….tune.

it was just a test but turned out quite funny, so i’m not ashamed to put it up here and let you mock me as much as you please.

we started with a short drumpiece, recorded and sent to me by my collaboration mate – let’s call him J. i did a little cut and paste, turned it into a loop, threw some tape-distortion and compression on it. then i recorded a bassline with some kind of house-organ-sound and a three-note arpeggio with a banjo (no kidding) to provide some far away background. then to mess it all up completely i added plumbers (horn section) – plenty of them, trumpets, trombones, french horns – you name it. some reverb, some standard mastering and there it was, sounding like some Starsky&Hutch-running-down-some-alleyway-tune, only 49 seconds long but kicking. the whole thing was done in no time – creating the loop was the hardest… but i couldn’t go on because i was laughing too hard, so i sent it back to J and he provided the Starsky&Hutch analogy. we left it as it was and decided to do some more. this time i’ll come up with something he’ll have to work with, muwahahaha.

so here’s to some hurting stomachs….stomaches?…..stomuchos?………..bellies:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

well, maybe you already know about them or you think something like ‘please, no more links – i’m drowning in them…’ but hopefully those will help you a little. i’m always looking for things that make it easier and faster to get something done online (like all of us i guess, duh), because there’s just so many sites you need to be on. i’m trying to do one at a time but that seems like not really efficient because for each site i do, five new ones are coming up – sheesh…

so here are a few that can make life easier. i’m not writing too much about them, they all have a tour or some video that explains it much better than i could:

atomkeep: this one lets you put up your profile (wow, now that’s something new…) and syncs it with lots and lots of other sites. so no more logging into myspace, flickr and whatever else – just go to atomkeep and do it from there, pretty cool.

reverbnation: there you can (what? put up a profile?) upload your music, organize your fans, stay in touch with them and (new feature) distribute/sell your music for a low fee – membership is free of course.

soundcloud: this is a nice way of up- and downloading, sending and receiving music. i’m gonna use this for the collaboration thingy i’ve been babbling about in some recent entries. you set up a free account (there’s pro accounts as well…), upload your stuff and decide who’s able to download it. so we will send our files back and forth while we’re working on them and, as soon as they’re finished, make them available to the public. no size-limits or filetype-requirements – as long as it’s audio: fine.

oh, and did i mention audiot somewhere? this guy knows how to blog, wow! 6.000 readers per month can’t be that wrong, now could they? ;-) :-) :-) :-)

ha! i just found a cd i bought after seeing pulp fiction for the first time. if memory serves correctly it’s what Butch listens to in the car before hitting Marcellus. i borrowed the soundtrack from a friend to find out about bandnames and tracktitles and there they were: the Statler Brothers. the album is a best of, called “flowers on the wall – the essential Statler Brothers” and i love it. i have no idea why but i just love it.

sorry, i just had to get this off my chest :-)

Image by Kuzeytac via Flickr

woohoo, there’s a lot going on right now. while i’m still busy with the little garden – still working on the reamping-thing – i spent some time creating something for my first collaboration-project, well it’s not really a project yet – more like putting out feelers to see if we can come up with something at all. and while i was at it, i got the message from another member at mixmatchmusic, if i’d be interested in some collaboration between her, me and one other guy – how cool is that? it seems this collaboration-thing is really about to happen, yay!

something completely different: i’m gonna move to another town very soon, so i’m in the market for parquet flooring, plaster, ceilings and all that construction-stuff. this takes a lot of time but soon i’ll have more room and my own studio right inside my apartment, i’m pretty excited! and of course, no studio without gear :-) so i’ll present myself with some cool new toys. i’ll have to part with two guitars though :-( i love all of them but i just have too many, so two will have to go to ebay-land. don’t panic, it will be announced here – so you’ll get the chance of owning a guitar with my own sweat on it. now you’re excited as well, right? i thought you might, hehehe.

and finally, today i came up with a vocal part for one of the garden songs – step by step, the puzzle gets put together. i wonder why i’m most creative while driving a car, that’s where i get most of my ideas….funny…..

anyway, i’m already a bit late for an appointment, so i gotta go – but the excitement stays, yay!

take care y’all

i’m up to 14 now :-) the new ones sound a bit more real with kind of a garage feel – seems to be hip at the moment…

anyway, check them out here, you need to click on ‘music’ (below the picture) and then on ‘audiot’s uploads’. i’m afraid there is no direct link….

have fun

a while back i wrote something about imitating your favourite artists to gain insight and learn from them. one thing i should add is that you should never be afraid of ‘losing yourself’. you will always sound like you, so it’s just cool to figure others out, add them to your toolbox and therefore create an own style out of all sorts of mixtures between the tools you already have.

i’ll give you an example. Tuck Andress (one half of Tuck & Patti), an amazing guitarplayer with a completely unique style and sound developed this very style by trying to imitate whole band arrangements on his guitar – not with freaky sound effects but just his way of playing.

enjoy and become motivated :-)

…and check out his/their other stuff as well. it’s really worth it…

…or maybe more, who knows. remember my i-dare-you-post about collaborating? well, the first step was made. some emails were written and now this will happen. we will work together, first on some let’s-just-check-it-out-if-and-how-this-works-at-all-piece-of-music and if we don’t fail ridiculously, there’ll be more real stuff. i haven’t asked yet, but if my partner in crime has no problems with it, i’ll lay it all out in front of you – just for your amusement. oh, you’re welcome…what can i say…..that’s how i am :-)

i’m thrilled about it already, this will be so much fun, yay!

stay tuned…

Image via Wikipedia

so here’s some (not really) news from the garden: i tracked five guitar takes so far, clean through a d.i. box and am trying to do some reamping now. it seems to me the sheer unlimited possibilities are the no.1 problem there. when i bought my first real guitar amp, i had two sounds: the normal crunch and the overdrive crunch :-) and no matter what i did, knobturningwise, it sounded great. with software this is different, because now there’s a downside: you have to know what you’re doing or it will sound like crap. and although i did a lot of research recently, know about proper gain-staging, about a decent signal-chain, about how distortion really works and other effects as well for that matter, it’s still more trial and error than it should be. anyway, those little troubles are exactly the reason why i’m doing this the way i do. it’s simply the best way to learn something. but somehow the feeling remains, when i’m done with this soundshaping-mess and am happy with what i created – i just might hit delete, take my amp and a mic and do it the ‘real’ way…..for the heck of it :-)