Discuss Notion Music Composition Software here.
3 posts
Page 1 of 1
I made some possible progress on getting my MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid working . . . :)

THOUGHTS

The MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid external digital audio and MIDI interface here in the sound isolation studio stopped working a few years ago, and at the time MOTU wanted me to do experiments, except that it wouldn't boot; so I stopped attempting to play real guitar for recording, although there was the option to play real guitar through a Marshall half-stack and put an USB microphone on it (B.L.U.E. Snowball USB microphone) . . .

Rollback the clock perhaps a decade, and MOTU would replace a non-working unit with a refurbished unit for $100 with free shipping once you sent them the broken unit; but they don't do that anymore . . .

I called MOTU Technical Support a few days ago, and the support specialist told me it probably was the power supply and that I could get a new power supply for $30 plus shipping, which is what I did . . .

FedEx shipping was $15, and it should arrive sometime next week or thereabout . . .

It might be the cause of the problem, in which case the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid external digital audio and MIDI interface will start working, and I can use it to start doing real rhythm guitar again . . .

Why is this important?

I want to add Rammstein-style rhythm guitar to my new songs and chapters of my science fiction radio plays; and the rhythm patterns are so syncopated that there is no way to do it with music notation and a VSTI virtual instrument preset . . .

Yet, it's easy to play the rhythm patterns on a real electric guitar . . .

[CAUTION: The opening "banner" is very loud, but the actual song is within bounds; so lower the volume and then increase the volume level after the annoying opening "banner" . . . ]

phpBB [video]


I studied German for two years in college about 45 years ago, but I don't remember much of it . . .

After seeing the English translation of the lyrics, I think the theme of the song is international radio being the only way to get information during the time when the USSR had total control of East Germany, which makes this a brilliant song about the power of radio . . .

In addition to being mesmerized by the rhythm guitar patterns, I am obsessed by the rapid-note synthesizer phrase and am listening to it over-and-over with the goal being to decipher it without needing to do the "note-by-note" matching thing . . .

It's a simple, tight phrase (10 or so notes); but it's chromatic, not diatonic; and it's "tight" in the sense of the notes being within a small range, perhaps just a handful of half-steps in what at present is an unknown mode or scale . . .

The synthesizer also plays counterpoint; but the counterpoint is easy to decipher--perhaps because it's slower . . .

With the rhythm guitar patterns, it's me to listen to it for 30 seconds and get it; but the synthesizer phrase at the start of the song is not so easy for me to discern, hence the puzzle aspect and wanting to do it without the "slow it and identify one note at a time" thing, which would take perhaps 15 minutes and would be a lot easier, except that simply listening until it becomes clear maps to developing increased skill in discerning stuff, which historically is similar to the rhythm guitar chords for Beatles songs making no intuitive sense at the time but after a lot of listening eventually made sense a few years later and then became intuitive . . .

[NOTE: Most "popular" songs in the early-1960s had slower chord patterns like "Louie Louie" (The Kingsmen) and "Sleepwalk" (Santo & Johnny). Elvis Presley songs had more elaborate rhythm guitar chords, but so what. Garage bands at the time were not doing a lot of Elvis Presley songs, mostly because nobody could sing like Elvis . . . ]

[NOTE: The pattern is {1-4-5} in simplified Nashville Notation . . .]

phpBB [video]


[NOTE: The primary pattern is {1-6-4-5} in simplified Nashville Notation or {C, Am, F, G} . . .]

phpBB [video]


Add the chord patterns for "Heat Wave" (Martha & The Vandellas) and ""Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)" (T-Bone Walker) and it's pretty much every "popular" song over the past century . . .

[NOTE: In the chord diagrams, the numbers refer to frets on the guitar fingerboard . . . ]

Image

[NOTE: The verse pattern is {4-5-1} in simplified Nashville Notation and is what I call a "Reverse Louie Louie". The walk-up is a "Reverse Walk Don't Run" {4-5-6-7}; and the tag is a "Rocking Back-and-Forth" {1-4}, where the chord numbers are relative. The "1" depends on the relative perspective in an effort to keep it simple. The "1" in the verse pattern actually is "6" when the song is in E♭, which is "1". It's a bit confusing, so I treat each section separately and use numbers which make sense and are easy to remember, even though none of it is in the same overall perspective. When one of the goals is to be able to play 40 songs from memory when you are in a musical group performing in a nightclub, mnemonics become very important, even when from a different perspective they don't make so much obvious sense. This is easier to understand when it's viewed from the perspective of electric bass where the numbers map to individual electric bass notes rather than chords . . .]

phpBB [video]


phpBB [video]


[NOTE: The simple pattern is {1-4-5}, but it's actually more complex, where for example "4" is a ninth Jazz-style chord and there are intermediate slides and walk-ups. It was recorded and released in 1947 . . . ]

phpBB [video]


It's starting to make sense . . .

Lots of FUN! :)

P. S. I added some Rammstein-inspired rhythm guitars in "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley" in the latter section when the focus shifts to romantic flying saucers . . . :P

It's "ballpark", but it's not the same as playing it on a real electric guitar . . .

The same thing happens with drums, and while doing syncopated rhythm patterns with music notation makes a bit of sense, it is not the same as actually playing it on real instruments . . .

FACT: Music notation is not designed to do elaborate syncopation, which is one of the reasons orchestras have conductors and music notation allows written instructions regarding syncopation. Tuplets combined with rapid echoes is the best one can do in music notation and producing to emulate elaborate syncopation . . .

[NOTE: This is mixed for studio-quality headphones and Apple AirPod listening. The Rammstein-inspired rhythm guitar starts appearing at 10:42. This is done entirely within Studio One Professional 6 with music notation and VSTI virtual instruments, except my voice-overs. I use Realivox Blue (RealiTone) for the VSTi virtual female soprano singing, which runs in Kontakt (Native Instruments) under control of phonetic scripts . . . ]

Image

[NOTE: This is the song I composed and produced to make sense of Realivox Blue, which took about three months. It's about a future where cyborgs taste like AXE® "Anarchy" antiperspirant, deodorant, and bodywash and is a musical pun on the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--another song inspired by teenage personal hygiene products . . . ]

phpBB [video]


Project: Realivox Blue ~ PreSonus NOTION Forum

phpBB [video]


Fabulous! :reading:

P. P. S. As I usually do lately, I was watching some videos by "David Bennett Piano" on YouTube and discovered his video about the chord patterns Taylor Swift uses . . .

The background on this, as noted previously, is that bass was my first instrument; so I focus on single notes rather than chords and, consequently, just need to determine the bass note. Once I have the bass note, determining the chord is a matter of listening and deciding which flavor of the chord is the best fit . . .

This usually is selecting a flavor from the set {major, minor, seventh, minor seventh, ninth} and a few others but not so many, although over the past year or two I am in the mind to prefer designing chords that I think sound "good" but don't actually know their names . . .

The bass player perspective is that the chord flavor primarily determines which intermediate or "in-between" bass notes sound best . . .

It's enlightening to observe that several of Taylor Swift's favorite chord patterns are what in mathematics are called "permutations" rather than "combinations", where for example {4-1-5-6} is a permutation of {1-6-4-5}, as are quite a few of the other chord patterns she prefers, hence one might suggest she writes the same song over-and-over, which works for me . . .

The "permutations rather than combinations" aspect is the result of using the bass player's perspective; and naturally, I think it makes everything simpler; and in this sense, it's like the way I define everything as being 12 notes played in 10 octaves, two of which most humans cannot hear . . .

Here in the sound isolation studio there are not 88 or more notes . . .

There are 12 notes and 10 octaves, which I suppose makes it 120 notes; and it's the reason I do nearly everything on soprano treble clefs, since it's the only one I can sight-sing . . .

The only exceptions are VSTi virtual instruments like Relivox Blue--my favorite virtual female soprano--that are controlled via keyswitches, in which case I use grand staves . . .

You might wonder, "You play bass but cannot sight-read bass clef music notation?"; and while this might be confusing, it's my reality . . .

Put the notes on a soprano treble staff, and I can sight-read them . . .

NOTION and Studio One Professional make this possible by providing specified but otherwise automagical Transcription where you can configure a staff to play "Middle C" one or two octaves lower or higher than notated, which for bass is two octaves lower but for guitar is one octave lower than notated . . .

[NOTE: In simple Nashville notation, the Beatles liked to use the {1-2-4-5} or {C-Dm-F-G} variation of the classic "Sleepwalk" chord pattern {1-6-4-5} or {C-Am-F-G)--except the Beatles tended to prefer key signatures "G", "A", "C", and "D" in different modes . . .]

phpBB [video]


Regarding chords I like but cannot name, consider this chord:

Image

It's {E4, A4, D♭5, E5, A5, B5} in Scientific Pitch Notation, but without doing a bit of work how am I supposed to know what it's called?

Scientific Pitch Notation ~ Wikipedia

Using a "chord finder" app on the web, it says the chord is "C#m7#5/E", but (a) this tells me nothing useful in a practical way, (b) it's not something I would guess, and (c) it's not a chord I know on electric guitar . . .

It's a chord from the start of the story in "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley" (see above at 0:54 or thereabout), and the electric bass is playing an "A2" in Scientific Pitch Notation . . .

I like the way it sounds, which is the "by ear" strategy I use to make composing and playing decisions . . .

You can get lost in all that stuff and spend more time trying to make sense of it than composing and performing music . . .

Explained another way, it's the dark side of music theory compounded by vastly complex rules designed and intended to discourage people from composing and performing music . . .

One of the most important things I like about NOTION and Studio One Professional is the practical solutions they provide--specifically (a) by using Transposition you only need to know 12 notes and that they can be lower or higher (10 octaves) and (b) you can compose chords "by ear" by stacking notes, listening to them played together, and then making adjustments until it sounds "good" or however you want it to sound, all of which is much easier than any other way, which is amazing . . .

Amazing! :+1
Last edited by Surf.Whammy on Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
by michaelmyers1 on Tue Jan 31, 2023 7:54 pm
Sounds to me like the synth at the opening is being played through a delay. I think it's a few simple notes being multiplied by delay to sound much more complex.

iMac (Retina 5K 27", 2019) 3.6 ghz I9 8-core 64 gb RAM Fusion Drive
with small AOC monitor for additional display
macOS Ventura 13.4
2 - 500 gb + 2 - 1 tb external SSD for sample libraries
M Audio AirHub audio interface
Nektar Panorama P1 control surface
Nektar Impact 49-key MIDI keyboard
Focal CMS40 near-field monitors
JBL LSR310S subwoofer
Notion 6 + Studio One 5 Pro

http://www.tensivity.com
User avatar
by Surf.Whammy on Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:12 am
michaelmyers1 wroteSounds to me like the synth at the opening is being played through a delay. I think it's a few simple notes being multiplied by delay to sound much more complex.

I love cascading echoes, but when necessary I can tune them out and simply ignore them . . . :)

THOUGHTS

It's a series of rapid, single notes; and as an learning exercise, I am trying to avoid doing the "identify one-note at a time, play the song at half-speed or slower" thing, which is the strategy I used when I was teaching myself how to play lead guitar . . .

Prior to that, when I was teaching myself how to play bass, I did the opposite, which was to play songs at double speed to make the bass sound like soprano treble staff notes, since from being in a liturgical boys choir I learned how to identify and sight-sing soprano treble staff notes . . .

By the time I focused on learning how to play lead guitar, I already knew how to play bass and to identify bass notes "by ear", hence playing songs at half-speed or slower made the lead guitar sound like slowly played bass notes . . .

For example, it took me abut three months to identify the notes for the lead guitar solos on "Come On (Let The Good Times Roll" (Jimi Hendrix) . . .

I developed a note card system for transcribing notes--a decade or so before I knew about guitar tabs and there were personal computers--and this is one of the note cards from the latter part of the first lead guitar solo, which starts around 1:15, although at present I'm not certain which set notes is maps:

Image

phpBB [video]


The key bit of information is that probably as the consequence of having entirely too much confidence and self-esteem, I decided there was not so much "special" about famous lead guitar players other than their abilities to practice playing the same small series of notes over-and-over until they could do it rapidly with "muscle memory" . . .

Curiously, I realized sometime later that part of the "over-and-over" aspect was necessary to develop neural pathways and finger dexterity both for the left hand (fingerboard) and right hand (picking) . . .

More recently, I did some research on the various sections of the brain and discovered the Auditory Cortex (Brodmann Areas 41 and 42) has an audio identification time for textures of around 60 milliseconds; but the truly rapid audio identification occurs in the Frontal Eye Fields (Brodmann Area 8) where audio identification times are as low as 24 milliseconds . . .

Consider the lead guitar in my musical tribute to former-First Lady Laura Bush, which for those folks not so familiar with Rhythm & Blues slang is a song about--how shall we say--"spanking the monkey" or in Rhythm & Blues slang "knocking on wood" . . . :P

[NOTE: There is more than one definition for "knock on wood", where the not so naughty one is a gesture to get good luck. Yet, there is a "naughty language" used in songs--perhaps unconsciously--and while it might be something that only makes sense to me, it's there . . . ]

phpBB [video]


[NOTE: This was recorded over a decade ago when I was doing everything with real instruments in the sound isolation studio, which for reference is smaller than a walk-in closet. It might appear that playing the same three notes over-and-over rapidly would easy, but it's not--especially in a 4/4 song, because three notes is odd, not even. It's similar to playing in 5/4 time--also not so easy to do . . . ]

phpBB [video]


I tend to avoid sharing too much about the lyrics of famous songs; but some songs are downright creepy like this Beatles song about angst and stalking which, once you realize it, is totally creepy by 21st century standards:

phpBB [video]


Things generally were different in the mid-1960s--1964 to be precise--and this was a natural theme for a song--nothing creepy about it . . .

According to John Lennon, "No Reply" was inspired by the 1956 hit song "Silhouettes" (The Rays) . . .

phpBB [video]


If it does nothing else, this verifies the validity of my rule to avoid doing anything truly original . . .

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!

3 posts
Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests