Caltrops - No Stairway to Heaven - Re: Calling it "crap" doesn't make us feel more charitable.

Forum Overview :: No Stairway to Heaven

by Entropy Stew 06/24/2003, 5:13pm PDT

Fullofkittens wrote:

Entropy Stew wrote:

Fussbett wrote:

FoK wrote:

Also, the "no sample is greater than 10 seconds" rule... what now? I guess I don't understand the reasoning behind that rule. We're supposed to make this from Reason's internal sounds, right?

My reasoning is that in a one-minute song, a 45 second sample of an awesome bassline and drumbeat taken from another source would be defeating the purpose. So yeah, Reason's internal sounds, but I'm into throwing in samples. Or should there be a no sample rule? But then are there also no drum sound substitutions? Because they're samples too, really. See, it gets sticky. So I chose "short samples only" as a rule. IT'S ALL NEGOTIABLE!!!

So here's some crap I threw together yesterday using FL Studios and Absynth that generally fits your rules (it's 1:18 - fuck you, I'm not changing it now).

-/ES/-

It's funny, because this sounds exactly like the kind of stuff that you hear coming from NYU's computer music department.

That a compliment or an insult?

They use MAX and all these obtuse methods and calculations to create sounds using random number generators and photocells and all that shit, and when they're done ballet dancing they end up with what you've got here.

Just tell them to echo the fuck out of everything and mash buttons. At the height of the fist swell I had 90+ layers of clickpopping polyphony.

It also has a familial resemblance to Concret PH by Xenakis, which is the first thing I thought when I heard it, though his piece doesn't have the Godzilla stomping.

Damn, now I feel all pretentious.

Anyways, I like it.

Thanks. I actually quite liked it myself when I took into account that I have no musical backround whatsoever, I only vaguely know how to work the software, and that it was only the second song I'd ever made. Then Amon Tobin's "Mission" started playing in winamp and I was all "damn my stuff is crap".

To be maddeningly vague, I'm digging the differences between sections.

I think I know what you mean. I'm huge into GYBE because I like music that evolves, ebbs, flows. I like how they start with minimal sound then build it up to a roaring creshendo, strip it back down to nothing, then build it up again, and finally let it fade away. The contrasting quiet meandering parts make the loud diven parts better etc. I tried to do some of that with the song. Then, of couse, there's also the sound differences.

-/ES/-

Oh, I named it "Pupa", by the way, because I thought it sounded sort of insectoid

BONUS FUN FACT: Pupa has subliminal messages telling you to kill! Not kidding. I was using the voice synth "instrument" to try to produce a beath exhaling sort of sound, and "kill" was the closest that came to what I wanted