From 59db17d1b8c489679cbaabd5c1380362ae3535ef Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Lukasz Skotarek Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:02:34 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] music stuff --- _notes/Spectral Forge.md | 42 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ _notes/Stellar Chant.md | 51 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ _notes/categories.md | 1 + _notes/music.md | 11 +++++++++ 4 files changed, 105 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _notes/Spectral Forge.md create mode 100644 _notes/Stellar Chant.md create mode 100644 _notes/music.md diff --git a/_notes/Spectral Forge.md b/_notes/Spectral Forge.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aabba25 --- /dev/null +++ b/_notes/Spectral Forge.md @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +--- +title: Spectral Forge +tags: music +--- + +_postmortem_ + +Second solo ambient live I ever did. +May 2023 at https://festiwalswiatla.hs3.pl/ + +I took some lessons from [[Stellar Chant]] and had some more time. Biggest change was that I decided to make my own visuals (and it kinda worked, more on that later). + +This time I went with 4 tracks and setup with PC (mainly due to visuals). I still had one point of failure, but had everything backed to iCloud/Dropbox so I could recover if I had at least some time. + +Setup for this year: +1. Laptop with Ableton Live 11 Suite. I had samples and instruments there. I `bounced` (aka "make this an audio") almost everything I decided not to play and had MIDI clips just in case if anything goes wrong with MIDI keyboard +2. Arturia Keystep connected to laptop and Ableton to control MIDI. First concept was to change MIDI tracks for different instruments, but was scrapped. +3. SOMA Lyra-8 connected to Ableton with huge convolution reverb for basically whole 2nd track. I did a photo of Lyra setup so I could replicate it if any knob would be changed. +4. Focusright Scarlett Solo as an audio interface and output. +5. MIDI over (50m 🤯) ethernet cable to send MIDI data to change visuals. + +### What went right +- I managed to learn Blender enough to do 1/4 of the visuals and they were cool +- My friend helped me with amazing AI-gen visuals for the rest of the show +- Everything worked perfectly, including MIDI over ethernet +- I had killer outfit to "transform" into MonoChromancer. This seems silly, but helped me a lot to "play character". +- Had a proper soundcheck +- Have better photo/video than last year +- Actually released Spectral Forge as debut album! (even if it's not mixed as well as I would like, it's still a huge lock out of my head) + - https://monochromancer.bandcamp.com/album/spectral-forge + - https://album.link/s/2YVFDSW2w99MUYaijNaytQ +- A lot of my stickers found new home +- Discovered I can manipulate volume "kinda as an extra instrument" - small changes in volume for some parts really did enhance the show + +### What went wrong +- Still, even with soundcheck with folks I was too quiet. Not as bad as last time, but turns out that a lot of people do dampen the sound a lot. +- I tried rehearsing playing on Arturia before show and it turns out that by far my best take was at home composing. So I decided to ditch whole live playing for 3 tracks out of 4 - so for most part I stayed there trying to look like I'm doing something +- Out of stress I did turn wrong know on Lyra for a while and had to recover quickly during stress. It made the track bit worse + +Lastly, I think I focused too much on "let's make something that will be playable live" and lost track somewhere along the lines. I kinda got lost in a quest to "make live for a festival" that I made a bit compromised version of music. At least it was eye-opening afterwards to change direction and go back to the "proper path" (aka path that actually is fun for me). + +Overall a huge net positive, especially with release out and a "wake-up call". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_notes/Stellar Chant.md b/_notes/Stellar Chant.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0372982 --- /dev/null +++ b/_notes/Stellar Chant.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +title: Stellar Chant +tags: music +--- + +_postmortem_ + +This was my first ever solo live and first ever ambient live. +May 2022 at https://festiwalswiatla.hs3.pl/ + +### How I prepared +- I talked a lot with folks and gathered informations and inspirations +- I was thinking about using Number Stations sample and got nice SkyKing recording link from my friend - decided to go with it, as it was great even without processing +- Decided to go PC-less, so I took Deluge, Korg NTS-1, looper, singing bowl and drums +- I decided to split whole thing into 3 parts: + - first, most `dark ambient` like with the sample + - second, more energy focused, with live drums + - third, more `casual generative ambient` to calm down and finish off +- I still prepared a lot of sounds in my DAW and exported WAV files to Deluge, where I would set them up in a song +- I got idea for underlying beat for part 2 from listening to clipping. +- I bounced demos with friends to get early feedback +- Got in touch with friend to create visuals and control lights +- Got in touch with other friends to do a fireshow during the second part +- Printed (in multiple copies) a "cheat sheet" to know when and what to do + +### The setup +Deluge was the main "brain" of the operation. It had the whole song arranged, so I had to do there is to press play. I had one track with noisy synth to play at the end of part 2. It was connected directly to the mixer. +I had a contact mic on snare drum, that I played using brushes. This mic went to a looper (so I could do other things) that went into Korg NTS-1. Korg NTS-1 had `ensemble` effect on (to make mono signal stereo again) and heavy reverb with riser delay. I played with delay time and amount to create texture. It went to mixer as well. +I had a single mic for singing bowl, went straight into the mixer. +Lastly, there was a floor tom with cymbals (and mic to gather the sound) to play during the second part. + +### What went right +- I survived +- Visuals and fireshow added a lot to the live perfomance +- I did learn a lot during all this time (more on that later) +- I managed to do it all in under a month +- I created a set that I actually really liked +- PC-less setup was actually working great. Deluge may be a small cheat thou, as it's basically a hardware DAW + +### What went wrong +- I was too quiet. Definitely don't soundcheck without external help. +- I didn't test how singing bowl sounds on larger scale. Hitting it was really meh and I was to stressed to do proper sound in any other way. Quickly ditched it +- I heard myself not good enough - to the point where I lost programmed beat and was playing unevenly on drums to it. +- Fireshow was great, but when it ended and quiet, simple music slowly started to appear, many people thought it was already over. +- Visuals were on a laptop that died day before the show, so I had quickly made up ones. Lesson - always back up those. And have them with you, so you don't have to rely on external folks +- I let the momentum go away and didn't finish up live version to release as studio album. And, at this point, I will probably never will - unless I revisit it + + +That's it as my memory is bit fuzzy. + +It was great experience, great first barrier broken and I've learned a lot to make [[Spectral Forge]] better. diff --git a/_notes/categories.md b/_notes/categories.md index c64e886..fc4968d 100644 --- a/_notes/categories.md +++ b/_notes/categories.md @@ -7,4 +7,5 @@ title: Categories This is a starting point of a `graph`, I list all categories I write about here - [[software engineering]] +- [[music]] - [[random]] diff --git a/_notes/music.md b/_notes/music.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4003631 --- /dev/null +++ b/_notes/music.md @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +--- +title: Music +--- + +Status: 🌱 + +While there may be some things I will have to share about music making, this category starts as a "journaling" of my music making I may add some more stuff in the future. + +- [[Stellar Chant]] +- [[Spectral Forge]] +- [[Hidden Mineral World]] \ No newline at end of file