Creation & Studio

Via Alexandra Smith on Facebook

Working on restoring a Moog from 1972, such an honor

I love these tropical fish :)

I'm looking for another fun noise machine and I don't want to spend too much on it. I would like to get something under $100 and I'm curious what the best bang for my buck would be. I'd honestly be down for anything, from a multifx pedal to a cheap drum machine, or even a mixer for feedback loops.

I've been nose down on this project for a few months now and just moved into testing with a crew of professional artists and hobbyists. It's a sampler with built-in voice control and tiny generative audio models that create and glitch new sounds in real time.

I finally had a chance recently to step away from coding and soldering to make a few jams with it. If the project seems cool to you, I've got an old-school email list going where I'm going to post updates: https://engram.audio

Happy to geek out or answer questions.

ETA: I've also started an Instagram if you want to follow along with development: https://www.instagram.com/thoughtful.audio/

ETA2: I appreciate the level-headed constructive criticism that some have given. Some are misinterpreting the amount of "AI" that went into the arrangements in these clips because I have maybe unwisely edited them down for punchiness. Each of those brief loops took me 30 minutes to an hour of normal sampling workflow to create. No different than loading some weird shit you found onto an MPC and seeing what you can do with it. The examples build on generated samples that are around 4 seconds long. Here is an example of an unedited sample that I used in a longer video. The samples that Engram generates do not hold on their own as actual music.

Some have also leveled very harsh and unwarranted personal criticism toward me for creating this project. You don't have to like what I'm doing, but I ask you to chill out and remember you're talking to a human being. I'm closer to you as a person than I am to the forces in the world that are pissing you off.

Hi everyone! As the title suggests, I'm a composer, and in regards to production and audio engineering - I know only the basics. I use FL Studio. I'm currently working on an indie game which aims for *some* commercial success. What I mean by this - I'm not someone merely looking to experiment with free, but limited libraries like LABS or BBC Discover. I want to make something which sounds relatively professional and modern, using mostly orchestral/acoustic instruments, with some electronic elements.

Here are some refs of how I would like my songs to sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYIJF1nbgTk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ssoHoyppDo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXEjU3Orkvg

A couple more refs, leaning a bit more into the electronic side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q2cYGrbXOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHvRifRS9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmc4PI7Jfho (except the synths wouldn't be so 8-bit)

I've heard composers like to use a single instrument library, that way they can make their songs sound very good without getting stuck in the paralysis of choosing between tens of plugins for each instrument. On the other hand, I would still like to have some options, as no plugin is universal. My question is, would Kontakt 8, for example, strike this balance? Is it realistic to expect I can make an entire soundtrack only with Kontakt 8? I read there's a wide variety of instruments included when you buy it.

I know I also need mixing and mastering plug-ins, such as reverb, compression, etc. But afaik, I don't need paid versions of these, and free versions such as Kilohearts Essentials or even just the stock FL plugins would be enough. Am I on the right track with this thinking?

(I hope these don't violate rule 9 of the sub... but I can't find a weekly gear thread, so I have nowhere else to ask this)

One last thing. Any tutorial I can find on YouTube regarding orchestral music is about composition, which is something I'm already good at. The rare videos concerning the production cover only the basics, which I already know. What even is the direction I should take to start? Are there any good resources you would recommend?

Let me know if I should provide more info! I realize this post is a bit all over the place lol, I feel directionless and so any help is greatly appreciated :))

This is my second jam attempt.

Just gone one for my birthday and wanted personal opinions!

It’s one those days today - the weather oracles all predict a foot of snow, everybody in town has their stuff ready to go for things to be shut down all day, people are looking out their windows waiting for the storm to come… and halfway through the day, nothing has happened and no storm materialized yet. No shade to the meteorologists out there; my track record for predicting the future isn’t great either, but there’s always a feeling out there on days like this. Somewhere between the nerves of the gruff voice in our heads that knows *storm’s out there somewhere still could be a-comin* and the disappointed little kid that wants the fury of Mother Nature immediately dumped at our doorstep, everyone feels a little of this same thing. I tried channeling some of that feeling into a lil melody on the Juno.

Juno 106 with PWM and triangle waves, chorus 2 per youzh, and some space echo.

Hi everyone! As the title suggests, I'm a composer, and in regards to production and audio engineering - I know only the basics. I use FL Studio. I'm currently working on an indie game which aims for *some* commercial success. What I mean by this - I'm not someone merely looking to experiment with free, but limited libraries like LABS or BBC Discover. I want to make something which sounds relatively professional and modern, using mostly orchestral/acoustic instruments, with some electronic elements.

Here are some refs of how I would like my songs to sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYIJF1nbgTk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ssoHoyppDo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXEjU3Orkvg

A couple more refs, leaning a bit more into the electronic side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q2cYGrbXOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHvRifRS9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmc4PI7Jfho (except the synths wouldn't be so 8-bit)

I've heard composers like to use a single instrument library, that way they can make their songs sound very good without getting stuck in the paralysis of choosing between tens of plugins for each instrument. On the other hand, I would still like to have some options, as no plugin is universal. My question is, would Kontakt 8, for example, strike this balance? Is it realistic to expect I can make an entire soundtrack only with Kontakt 8? I read there's a wide variety of instruments included when you buy it.

I know I also need mixing and mastering plug-ins, such as reverb, compression, etc. But afaik, I don't need paid versions of these, and free versions such as Kilohearts Essentials or even just the stock FL plugins would be enough. Am I on the right track with this thinking?

One last thing. Any tutorial I can find on YouTube regarding orchestral music is about composition, which is something I'm already good at. The rare videos concerning the production cover only the basics, which I already know. What even is the direction I should take to start? Are there any good resources you would recommend?

I hope this post doesn't violate the rules. I think it's too specific and intertwined of a situation for me to put in any of the weekly threads. And let me know if I should provide more info! I feel directionless and so any help is greatly appreciated :))

Which one must go?

I am really struggling to identify the chord progression from a piece.

First: Yes, I can read sheet music. Yes, I know my chords, honestly quite well. If you ask me to name the notes of any major or minor triad, any major/minor/dominant 7th, and in any inversion, I can do it easily/play them easily on the piano AND the guitar pretty much instantly. I also know about other chords like diminished, augmented, sus, add, 9, 11, 13. Now I'm not going to say I can instantly recall these but I can easily derive them.

Despite this, if you hand me a piece and ask me to tell you the chord progression from the sheet music, I never can do it. It seems like absolutely no song, no matter how basic, uses chord progressions with "obvious" chords. It seems like there is always some omissions, always some strange tone added, etc.

My process for attempting it is this:

1. Identify key of song to help determine context (I use the key signature and then play a bit of it to see if it resolves to the major or minor of that key signature)

2. For each measure, identify all the notes being played (and I do this across both the bass and treble clef)

3. see if the notes played belong to any of the diatonic chords. If not, consider the chords within the parallel or relative minor. if not, consider things like secondary dominants.

4. So often it seems like the chords played omit certain tones, and so I consider if perhaps the chord is omitting the 5th say in a 7th chord, etc.

I literally get nowhere with this method. I am clearly doing something wrong. I also don't know when a tone should be considered a "non-chord" tone and thus ignored from this "analysis".

Let me do an example from a pretty basic piece, which to me seems to be in G major:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4liWweR89uo

The first four measures are playing CFG and CDF. The key is G major, and since these are natural, I would think maybe these chords come from G minor. In G minor, C F, G is what I would call Csus4. Also in G minor, we have C D F which would seems to remind me of a Dminor7 with the fifth omitted. SO would I be write to say this piece, which is in G major, begins in G minor with a Csus4 leading to a Dmin7 (omit 5)?

Continuing on to measure 5, we have C and E in the treble and C, G, A in the bass. In the context of G major, especially with the ii7 being A minor, I can't imagine this being anything else besides Am7, which from my knowledge consists of A, C, E, G.

IN measure 6, B, A, G in the bass, D in the treble. To me, G, B, D, is obviously a G major chord which is diatonic, but what the heck is that A doing in there? How would I interpret that. My best guess here is that this is a Gadd9.

I mean we can continue here, but I want to know the following:

1. Did I do this right?

2. Is my method a good one?

3. How do you know when to ignore a tone as a non-chord tone and thus omit from this analysis? If a tone is intentionally selected by the composer to not be a chord tone, then this would lead me to a faulty conclusion about the progression.

4. Is it possible for there to be multiple "answers" where two people derive the chord progression, are effectively saying the same thing but doing it differently?

PS: I have a teacher, she just wants to focus on learning piano technique/mechanics for now AND studying theory independently, and she says we will apply it to songs starting in 6 or so months... but I'm an engineer by trade so not understanding this stuff drives me crazy because i always need to know what i'm doing/playing.