h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Yelbakk. How's your PC doin'?

Still fancy a chat about music?

Oh, don't get me started on the PC update... It's not working, and that's about all I can say. I can't make my backups because the DVD burner is, in fact, a DVD non-burner. So until I find a way of saving some 20 GB of data that does not feature burning DVDs, I am stuck.

Oh well, but at least O&O's free defrag software got the hard drive cleaned up in ways that I thought improbable, and that helped some

On to the brighter and better things... music.

I actually only use free- or shareware to pretty good effect. Mostly I start by composing away using Willow Software's Anvil Studio. It is basically a programme that creates MIDI files. There is a piano keyboard on the screen that you can click the keys of and -voila!- they appear in a trebble/bass staff.

Sometimes I write entire songs that way, using different tracks, sometimes I only write a few bars of melody or chord patterns.

Then I use iTunes to transform those MIDI files into WAV files, which is a pretty cool feature of iTunes. Of course, this way I am sort of limited in the way the songs sound. MIDI only has 127 (I think) different sounds, and iTunes can therefore only do so much. If I had or knew how to use different software, I am sure I could associate the MIDI channels with different sounds. Maybe I could even manipulate sounds to create my own sound profile, as it were. But as it is, I am limited to those sounds that iTunes can create, which is not bad, actually.

Then comes the fun part. Using a free version of the MAGIX Music Maker that I once got with a CD in a computer magazine, I put together the various WAV files I have created. If I have written an entire song on Anvil Studio, then I usually save the various tracks as single WAV files. This way I can arrange those WAV files in Music Maker in different channels and can edit the sound and stereo settings for those channels. When all sounds the way I feel satisfied with, I a) save the whole Music Maker project, b) export the whole thing as a single WAV file and optionally c) transform that WAV file into an MP3 (using again iTunes) to send it to everyone in my email list.

Oh... sometimes I add drums that I created using Hammerhead Rhythm Station. Those are saved as WAV files and added to the Music Maker project.

Ah, the fun of it

Hope I have not bored you too much. How do *you* go about making music?

Y.

Well, I haven't used hammerhead since... sheesh it must be nearly ten years.

Yep, Midi has 127 channels for sending information, doesn't have to be note values, it can be synth or effect parameters or tempo or all kinds of stuff. I've got two joysticks midi'd up to do all kinds of weird and wonderful things with four parameters. I think you've got quite an archaic system going on there. That's how it seems to me I bet my way seems weird to you.

First I make my "drum" sounds using a combination of my drum machines and drums sampled from records etc. I usually make a long recording of me messing about then chop all the good individual hits out.

Then I load them up into a step sequencer and start writing the musical bit using hard and soft synths, some sampled instruments and applying effects. Once I've got something good going I export the bits, some as wav files and some as midi, and load them into cubase where I start working out the overall composition and chopping it up and resequencing it while applying effects here and there. The I export the parts, some long wavs and some shorter loops, into ableton where I play in extra music, tweaks, general showing off type bits and bobs and work out how it's going to work live.

Then I record a few versions of the track with the live twiddles in and load them up into cubase where I chop all the best bits out and stich it into some kind of semblance of a piece of music.

Then I do a final master. Phew.


Except I never finish the things...
You can hear some here

http://www.myspace.com/threesevendee

Is it only twenty gig you've got to back up in total? Because if it is a little amount like that then you can just use another hard drive. I can't imagine they'd cost much at that volume, pennies really. You could have a formated one off me if you like, I've got billions and they're just gathering dust. Just install it as a slave drive, copy the entire contents of your original drive onto it, proceed with the format, re-install second drive as slave again and copy every thing back over (or just what you need for the purpose of a clean up) then take the second drive back out again and bury it in your back yard or do whetever else you feel will keep it safe All backed up. I do this with 200 gig drives fairly regularly, does take ages at that size though.

The way I am broke right now makes me cringe at the very *thought* of buying anything. Yeah, I guess external hard drives are not expensive, but when you are in a situation where paying the rent does become an issue on a regular basis, you just don't want to think about that kind of stuff.

I could not yet listen to your myspace link, but will do so as soon as possible. The way you go about recording your songs sounds very performance oriented. You actually *play* and *record* your bits and pieces. I think I would enjoy doing that, as well, but again, I lack the hardware, and probably the skills, too, never really having learned to play an instrument. I did teach myself to play (and sing to) the guitar, but recording an accoustic guitar to the computer using a microphone... *shudders*

Well, one day when I am all rich and stuff I will buy hard- and software that I can actually *do* stuff with, but for now, unfortunately, my priorities lie somewhere else.

Y.

Well, as I said you can have one off me for free if you're in the uk. Not an external one, just a normal one, you'd have to fit it but it's really not hard at all. Maybe you can just fix the DVD burner?

I know what you mean about priorities lying elsewhere. I think mine's probably not quite lying yet probably doing yoga.