Hey hey,
Visiting Cloud-Cuckoo-Land:
https://youtu.be/UOBQH3ZpCIE
This piece is influenced by an atmospheric game soundtrack, with beautiful, quiet sound design. The game is called Stray and the piece is "Ant Village":
https://youtu.be/n-TFhq9dGhc
(Theme starts at 3:12)
Technical notes: this piece was entirely recorded and mixed in Csound, only the final "mastering" was done in Nama/Ecasound. Thanks to the ArchLinux maintainers of the Ecasound package for updating the software!
All melodic sounds were specially created for this project. The strings and "mandolins" using Karplus-Strong synthesis using Csound wguide1 opcode. The drums were ready-made User Defined Opcodes with the idea of "drum machines" as can be found in some of the flexible digital and analogue hardware, for example the Elektron, new Roland MC-* or Korg Drumlogue. The melody, bass and rhythm instruments use classic virtual analogue synthesis, while the marimba/bell sound is based on Csound's marimba model with the addition of resonant filters (phaser2).
Composition/writing: the melodicy lines and the drums were recorded in MIDI and then, using a Python script, transformed into a format ready to read in Csound. I implemented a simple sequencer in Csound, reading its data from f-tables. This gives the basis for another family of UDOs making it easier to use that kind of looping sequencer. It allows to handled MIDI notes, velocity and a degree of randomness/humanisation.
The melodic lione was played polyphonically and then split into four monophonic voices. The voice-lines were alternated by the Python script, so that the melody switches, not by note, from the first voice to the second. The same happens with the third and fourth voice. That way, the lead lines suggest two - or three - motives, only coming together as the intended melody, when al four voices play at the same volume. -- Again, this Python code gives rise to a more organised and feature rich tool.
When all is said and done, I just hope you enjoy it.
Best wishes,
Jeanette
--
* Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
* Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
* Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
* GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c
Don't worry, you're gonna be alright,
But Cinderella's got to go <3
(Britney Spears)
Hey hey,
I just heard that Ecasound, as robsut as its code is, is slowly moving out,
requiring more and more patches. So I should really look for a new solution.
Why CLI? I had a GUI running on my system, with JACK, and found that Orca was
very sluggish, not condusive to fast efficient work. Besides, there are quite
a few LV2 plugins which are built on JUCE and JUCE Uis are not accessible on
Linux. Last thing I heard, they added accessibility but only to mac and
windows.
So back to the commandline. LV2 plugins can be controlled there, mod-host a
case in point. Though, admittedly, I found quite a few plugins with quite
meaningless parameter ranges. Still, they can be used.
Does anyone have any ideas? Perhaps something that is in its early stages or a
UI that was created for testing or automation and might offer more beyond that
purpose? -- Any suggestions or hints are welcome. For the time being, Ecasound
will run, but its life-cycle looks definitely finite in the foreseeable
future.
Best wishes,
Jeanette
--
* Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
* Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
* Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
* GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c
Open my eyes,
I look deep inside,
I run away... <3
(Britney Spears)
Hey hey,
here's a new song called Friends:
https://youtu.be/kO-fozsPB_A
It moves between progressive rock and power ballad, I suppose. Thematically, it's perhaps even closer to my heart, lovely modulations aside. :) And no, I never had a friend called Matilda or someone like her. I'm very glad about that. You'll find the lyrics at the end.
First, here are the instruments I used: a lot of Yoshimi for the bell-like sound, the pad, the choir and the soft chord instrument heard in the beginning. LinuxSampler for the Rhodes, acoustic piano, strings and acoustic guitar, as little as there is of it, and of course the Carillon. Drumgizmo for the drums. Fluidsynth for the bass and Csound for the electric guitar. The lead sounds are analogue hardware, the Behringer Neutron and Arturia Minibrute 2S respectively.
It was again recorded with Midish and Nama. Processing courtesy of - in no particular order - Caps, Invada, zita-reverb, Calf, SWH, CMT, g2verb, TAP plugins and 4-band parametric EQ. Ah, and I shouldn't forget AutoTalent. What can I say? I'm very glad it exists and with even more tweaking it would have been less obvious.
And here are the lyrics, hope you enjoy it:
Today, I met Matilda again.
She stated: you're no more a friend of mine.
When I asked the reason why,
She mutely turned her back.
Today, I lost my oldest friend
And I don't even understand.
So mad, so sad I can't believe it.
Bereft, I stare into space, while I'm grievin'.
As I seek the reason why,
I'm swallowed by the void.
Today, I lost my oldest friend
And I can't understand.
Today, per chance, I got the story.
Her political creed made it mandatory
To look askance at my way of life.
Why is it us or it's them?
Either for or against?
Do you know?
Today, we lost a thousand friends,
Does any one know where it eends?
Matilda, it's time that we come to our senses.
We have done it before, let's be mending fences.
We never were in full accord,
There is no need to be...
Let's break the circle of defiance and fear!
This farce, it ends right here.
Today, I met Matilda again.
We argued and laughed all through the night.
We din't part till the morning light,
Two sides of a coin in accord.
Today, we stood as closest friends.
'Cause now, we understand.
Best wishes,
Jeanette
--
* Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
* Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
* Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
* GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c
E-mail my heart and say our love will never die... <3
(Britney Spears)
(Revised and resent because the original message to LAU was rejected.)
Dynamic Range Destroyer (DRD.lv2 or simply DRD) is an audio compressor plugin
that aims to remove changes in volume from an audio stream. This effect is
also called auto volume levelling, volume normalization, or "stable volume."
It supports mono, stereo, 6-channel, and 8-channel streams, and it preserves
the balance among channels.
DRD is not a peak limiter, and it does not drop the volume to avoid or
prevent clipping. Its behavior is intentionally similar to that of the
compand filter of FFmpeg.
https://github.com/DaveFlater/DRD
To install as a global system audio filter for Linux with PipeWire, see
https://flaterco.com/kb/audio/pipewire/volume.html
This month's theme is "angry music" and the time limit is 4 minutes.
My entry is a cover... of Ride Of The Valkyries (and you don't get much angrier
than those!) I started with a couple of free on-line MIDI files, but wasn't
happy with either of them, so took the best one, then modified it with bits of
the other one, along with comparative listening to actual recordings (no two of
these were even mostly similar), finally getting creative with my own ideas.
It's all Yoshimi... instrument patches in no particular order:
Synth Strings * 2
Full Strings
Wet Brass
Wet Brass2
Prophesy
Post Horn
Clarinet
Yet Another Flute
{percussion}
Crash Full 2
Hugh's Kit
Slow Cymbal (created just for this)
Ride Crash
Soft Kick
You can find it here (it won't stay there much after this month)
http://www.musically.me.uk/Misc/2507_folderol_Ride_Of_The_Valkyries.mp3
--
Will J Godfrey {apparently now an 'elderly'}
https://willgodfrey.bandcamp.com/http://yoshimi.github.io
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.
Hi LAU and LAD,
It seems that (FLOSS) audio editors (not DAWs) are all either
dead/obsolate (mhwaveditor, rezound), in strange development states
(Audacity, Tenacity).
Tenacity, the most promising (albeit with its audacity-inherited
idiosyncrasies) has a really annoying bug [1] which makes it take ages
to load [1] - IMHO a no go for an audio editor IMHO (plus its
multi-track-ness like Audacity makes it overload for a few use cases).
The only more-or-less usable one at the moment is ocenaudio which is not
free software (and also has some UI quirks, but that's maybe personal).
I've been a fan of mhWaveEdit for its mix of simplicity and
configurability, but as an abandoned GTK2 application it shows its problems.
Is this kind of software not interesting any more? Are people using DAWs
for everything?
Are people even using, or interested / committed in using Linux Audio
any more?
As LAC approaches (unfortunately I won't be able to attend, even though
it's in Europe), why not try to spark some debate :-P
Lorenzo
[1] https://codeberg.org/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/549
