Blog

My Project 1

Hey Everyone,

This is what I did for my project 1, looking forward to listening to whoever also posts there’s. If anyone has any comments/questions about my project, feel free to reach out to me. Always happy to chat with others and bounce ideas off each other.Beware of Dog.wav

P.S. As with most people’s tracks, mine sounds way better over headphones/earbuds rather than the regular cpu’s speakers, so keep that in mind.

Free Ableton Live Lite

Hi all,

It looks like Ableton Live Lite is free if you make a (free) account on Splice.

https://splice.com/daws/38929163-live-10-lite-vst-by-ableton

 

Assignment 3: Melissa Gao

I listened to and analyzed one of my favorite songs, Paris in the Rain. It’s about the euphoric feelings of being young, in love and spontaneous in a foreign city. It’s a chill, vibey pop song off Lauv’s debut album, which is about the progression of someone falling into, being in and falling out of a relationship. The song is the epitome of his slower, stripped-down, electro-pop style. Lauv is an up-and-coming indie artist and songwriter who you might recognize as the guy who sang “I Like Me Better”. I like his music because it’s somehow relaxed, hype and emotional at the same time. I would recommend his collab with blackbear, “if i were u”, “Make It Right” with BTS, and “Feelings” for further listening.

Lauv also released a short video explaining how he made Paris in the Rain. I think it’s interesting to hear an artist talk about their creative process and how the song came together.

lgw33 assignment 3

I figured I’d share my assignment 3 since I wanted to finish it early and I really like this song. The album is about the frontman’s past problems with addiction and subsequent disillusionment with drug use. This song, Partners in Crime, is about the emptiness of relationships that stem primarily from a common interest in drugs.

Assignment 3

 

 

Project recorded in lecture

Several of you have asked about having access to the recording made in lecture in order to play around with the results yourself, exploring basic panning and mixing.

Click here to download the Ableton Live project.

(The raw materials are from Cindi Lauper’s True Colors.)

Note: see here for an FAQ about saving Ableton Live projects with all project audio files included.

Some links to listening from this morning’s lecture

Edgard Varere’s Poeme Electroninique … the precursor for our conversation on “What is music?”

Pierre Henry’s “Symphony for a Man Alone”

Henry:

“I believe that the [tape] recorder is currently the best instrument for the composer who really wants to create by ear for the ear.”

“It is necessary to destroy music”.

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “elektronische musik”, Studie II (1954):

Pauline Oliveros, we listened to several tracks in lecture, but I wanted you to hear music made in the underground cistern, with 60+ seconds of reverb!

Ableton Live Trial

Below is the link to download the Ableton 10 Suite trial – this will be available on your computer for 90 days, by which point you will have purchased one of the instruments for this course that is packaged with Ableton Live Lite:

https://www.ableton.com/en/trial/

Please download and install before Thursday’s lab (09/17).

Zoom audio settings

In order to get the most audio capability out of Zoom, there are a few things to check:

  1. Make sure you are running the Zoom desktop client (not the web client). This means that when you start a Zoom meeting, a standalone application should open (not just a browser window). If you don’t have it, the latest download is available here. For more on the differences between the web desktop client, read here. When you sign in on the Zoom desktop client, select “Sign in with SSO” and follow the instructions for signing in with your Cornell account.
  2. Update your client settings through Cornell’s Zoom portal. Click on ‘login‘, then select ‘settings‘ in the menu bar. Click on ‘In Meeting (Advanced)‘ and scroll down until you see ‘Allow users to select stereo audio in their client settings‘ and ‘Allow users to select original sound in their client settings‘. Make sure both of these are enabled by checking the button on the right and, if not, clicking on it. You will need to restart Zoom for these settings to update.
  3. Inside the Zoom desktop client, open ‘Preferences’ (from the Zoom dropdown menu, or “⌘,” on a Mac) and click on ‘Audio’. There’s a lot you can do here and, depending on which version of Zoom you are on (5.2.3 is the most recent as of this posting), these options will look a little different and may be laid out differently (go to the Zoom dropdown menu and select “check for updates” if you want to make sure you’re running the most recent version). The desired settings might vary based on what you are trying to do, but two settings should be enabled for most applications (these may be under ‘Advanced’, depending on your Zoom version): ‘Show in-meeting option to “Enable Original Sound” from microphone‘ (disabling Zoom’s automatic noise filtering) and ‘Use stereo audio‘ (otherwise any audio you share will automatically be mono, regardless of the source). If you have a higher speed, stable internet connection, enable ‘High fidelity music mode‘ as well. If you get into doing more advanced audio sharing through Zoom, you may end up changing your mic input to a virtual bus (like Blackhole, Soundflower, or Voicemeeter), in which case you’ll probably want to disable ‘Automatically adjust microphone volume‘, and maybe adjust the ‘Suppress background noise‘ setting. In your meeting, if you’re using your mic for music you’ll need to click on ‘Turn on original sound‘ in the upper left corner (which will read the opposite—’Turn off original sound’ when it’s enabled).
  4. In a meeting, if you want to share your computer sound, click on ‘Share screen‘ and then you can either share a screen (make sure ‘Share computer sound‘ is selected) or click on ‘Advanced’ and select ‘Music or Computer Sound Only‘). If you are sharing sound from Ableton Live or some other program, you need to have the Zoom Audio Device selected as the output (Under ‘Preferences’, ‘Audio’) for this to work.

 

Zoom 5.2.3 audio settings (click on ‘Advanced’ for second window):

 

 

Zoom 5.0.2 audio settings:

 

George Floyd was a musician

George Floyd’s death has been invoked, with good reason, by many movements including this letter signed by at least 500 staff, grad students, and faculty this week at Cornell.

But his music isn’t mentioned much; while media have mentioned his most recent work as a truck driver and security guard, in the early 2000’s he was known as Big Floyd, a member of a group in Houston led by an artist named DJ Screw.  This group, the Screwed Up Click, is widely cited for a technique called “chopped and screwed,” where original samples are slowed down for a hypnotic effect – a musical effect which has seen a resurgence in the last few years.

Floyd’s own work is here.

For those of you in Intro to Computer Music, I’m sharing this recording of George “Big” Floyd to offer perspective on both variety of technique and expression accessed by the human voice; and to suggest that the semantic of recording is horrifyingly poetic, considering that Floyd’s voice was again captured by a microphone in the last minutes of his life and shared with the world. So it’s good to be aware of his real voice, with artistic agency (and artistic license – be aware of some profanity and graphic subjects).

Unofficial lyrics to this album can be seen on Genius.com by searching for “Sittin On Top Of The World Freestyle,” by DJ Screw.

And here is a news report on Floyd’s connection to the Screwed Up Click of Houston’s Third Ward.

Assignment 0: Jayansh Bhartiya

Hello everyone,

I am Jay. I am an economics and computer science major. While you might think I spend my day reading about the economy or coding, I do also love to play the disc jockey. In the past, I have DJ’d at many events in Ithaca, and have also tried to produce electronic music using FL studio. While my knowhow to produce music died out at a very early stage, my curiosity to delve into the subject grew even more — which is what brings me to this course. I do love to mash up songs and recreate beats and would be more than excited to collaborate with others.

Looking forward to an amazing semester of getting to know you all and working with you.

Cheers,

Jay

Skip to toolbar