musique synthetique blog

rolling in the crazy

keith leslie — 2012-02-13T20:00:10-05:00

I didn’t watch the Grammy’s last night, but I did wake up to the unavoidable coverage of the winners and losers all over the various news websites that get my days started.

Being somewhat immune to the bulk of any current popular music (I try very hard), I will admit to having seen the name Adele, but managed until today to have never heard any of her music. Considering her overwhelming victory at the Grammy’s, it seemed remotely warranted to give her at least a chance, right?

It didn’t take much time to realize that her song “rolling in the deep” had remarkable similarities to Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, a song that no matter how hard one tried, was audibly inescapable a few years ago; and honestly, it had its charm.

I was excited by my discovery, and started planning a mash-up of the two songs, only to discover that I was beaten to the punch by only 12 months or so.

I’m sure the similarities are purely coincidental.

nicely done.

stock footage at Beachfront B-Roll (for free) [UPDATED]

keith leslie — 2012-02-07T08:16:46-05:00

I was very happy to have stumbled on the free stock film footage at Beachfront B-roll. I can’t recall exactly how I found this site, but like I said, I’m happy that I did. The video that is currently on this site’s homepage is made entirely from Beachfront’s videos.

From what I could tell, there are at least 60 videos for download, probably more, and available “for any production purpose”. They range from :30 to 2:00 in length, and all very high quality; time-lapse, nature, technology, loops, abstract, etc...

I did run into a little bit of trouble.

The videos are not available for download directly from the site, but through re-directs to archive.org or to Uploadstation.com. This caused quite a bit of problems for me because iMovie would not import the only downloadable format that these movies are available from these site, as mp4. Because of the quality of the videos, I was determined to make it work, despite too many hours of reading through forums and message boards and not finding any workable solution.

Fortunately, all the videos are also online at the beachfrontprod youtube channel. The Easy YouTube Video Downloader add-on for Firefox allowed for download in .m4v format; problem solved.

Please check out their site.

[UPDATED 2/12/12]

I heard from the good folks at Beachfront B-Roll regarding the trouble I was having with downloading/importing video from their site.

MPEG Streamclip is a free software that converts any and all video formats to any and all video formats.

And courtesy of Beachfront, here are a few links explaining how to convert video for compatibility with iMovie/Final Cut using Streamclip:
http://chrisfenwick.squarespace.com/converting-5d-movies/
http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2009/11/02/converting-that-h264-footage/

Also, Beachfront is uploading all their videos to archive.org, making access much easier.

beat mapping

keith leslie — 2012-01-15T19:37:59-05:00

We’ve uploaded a new video on the subject of beat mapping, which also uses the same piece of music from the previous screen cast. Improvements in the audio and video quality are better, however, the mouse is now no where to be seen; will hopefully get this worked out for the next.

I’ve been working in Logic for the past year or so, and in Digital Performer for years prior to that. Trying to argue the merits of one over the other is not something I have any interest in doing here, though I will say they

For the past year or so, I’ve been using Logic Pro, and prior to that Digital Performer. I think they both have there strengths, and I can think of several functions that I used frequently used in DP that I wish were available in Logic. Most DAW’s seem to function in the same way, but then there are the little details that start to make arguments for which one is better or worse.

One such instance that I’ve had to adjust to is the process of beat mapping. Logic hides these commands by default, so you have to did in and do a little searching. DP performer has great method for creating tempo maps, or beat mapping, that involves listening to playback and tapping the space bar to match the tempo. It innevitably required making edits after the fact, but it was a relatively slick process.

Logic has a different method for this, one where you have to drag “beat” markers to match MIDI data or transients from audio files. While I found this to be a confusing process when I first began using it, it’s certainly grown on me.

welcome to the musique synthetique blog

keith leslie — 2012-01-12T20:52:57-05:00

musique synthetique now has a youtube channel.

Youtube as been a great resource over the years thanks to the great how-to videos that so many people have posted/

The first video posted details one of the ways in which I work in Logic.

I can’t really make any promises as to how frequently I’ll be able to post to this blog, but there are plans to use this venue to discuss variety of topics. The most obvious thing to do is to continue with the screen casts, which will hopefully serve some viewers as tutorials on various techniques I use while working in Logic, but hopefully to also detail the creative process of composing and not just focusing on the technical aspects the software. I’ve spent a great deal of time watching videos that people have posted to youtube and have found them incredibly helpful when finding myself stuck trying to figure something out. If anyone has any suggestions for any future screen casts, please feel free to contact us and share your ideas.

This first video shows one of the processes I use for starting a piece of music, which often begins by playing ideas into a track and then taking that information and “exploding” it out into whatever instruments seem most appropriate. For various reasons, I work mostly with software synths and samplers, and while there is the guilt of not using real instruments or musicians, but it gives the flexibility to really have the most editing ability imaginable.