Thursday 20 December 2012

Sheet Music - Colorblind by Counting Crows

Although it would appear that my covers project is stalling, I have in fact been busy learning the piano with a view to playing some of the MIDI parts live as opposed to step sequencing them in the QY70. One such song I have been working on is Colorblind by the Counting Crows.

I scoured the internet for the sheet music and after finding that there were no official music books I stumbled upon a few online versions, none of which sounded that great. I then turned to YouTube and found a few good tutorials but one in particular was succinct, but more importantly accurate:



Having learnt the part and recording it into the QY70, and always keen to take on a new project, I decided to see if I could generate the sheet music for this one myself. I have Logic Pro on my laptop which has score editing facilities so having imported the quantised MIDI part onto my computer I started to draft a score for this great song.

The first obstacle I came to is the fact that the score editor in Logic Pro is actually pretty basic, so pretty soon I abandoned that for MuseScore, an open source score editor for Mac, PC and Linux users. After inputting the MIDI it was not long before I had completed the sheet music (complete with lyrics and melody), and I am making this available on here for anyone who is interested:

Colorblind Sheet Music.pdf

Note that dynamics and tempo variations are not included on this version of my sheet music. I may add this at some stage in the future once I get more proficient with the software!

Finally, just a small note on copyright:

All music is owned by the respective owners. These sheets are merely a product of my own interpretation of the song. In downloading the sheet music you are agreeing that they will be used only for personal, educational, and NON-commercial purposes.

Thursday 22 November 2012

"Built in" speaker for the QY70?

I know that built in speakers are not usually the domain of pro audio gear but I do wish that my equipment had them so I could just pick up my QY70 or microKORG and start making music straight away. I guess in my own particular situation (i.e. no fixed studio space) this wish is more relevant than for a lot of other people.

Anyway, I was keen to sort out a workaround in a similar vein to my frontlight solution I posted about earlier. So armed with two coin sized pieces of velcro and a recently purchased ipod speaker (£10 from Asda) I devised my own crude "built in" speaker arrangement:





And although it does wobble a bit, it isn't going anywhere and works great! The sound quality isn't too shoddy either, good enough for sequencing purposes anyway.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

"3" Track 05 - Truman Sleeps

As well as trying to learn how to use the QY70 properly I am also trying to learn the piano and have been scouring the internet for sheet music to piano pieces I like. This particular piece is by Philip Glass which I believe was commissioned specifically for use in The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey. Fantastic tune, fantastic film.

This was done completely using the step entry method of recording, something which I have found unwieldy but I think that was mainly because I didn't really understand note / rest lengths from music notation. On that basis it is stretching it a bit to call this a cover, more a demonstration of how a sequence generated from the page can sound. The original has a nice rhythm to it which I didn't replicate on the QY70, I may play about with the Play Effects feature at a later stage but I am happy with how this sounds for now.

Here is the original from the movie soundtrack The Truman Show:



And my QY70 version:

Thursday 1 November 2012

"3" Track 04 - Opening Night

Another great track from my Uni days, I just loved the quirkiness of dEUS. Not my favourite dEUS track (Fell Off the Floor, Man gets that honour), but one of the easiest to reproduce on the QY70!

Here is the original from the album In a Bar, Under the Sea:



And my QY70 version:

Thursday 25 October 2012

"3" Track 03 - Losing My Hair

Like Grandaddy, the lo-fi exploits of Stephen Jones in the 1990s, released under the Baby Bird moniker, are almost perfectly suited to the QY70 although it is quite hard to get the QY70 to sound quite so warmly distorted. This is my favourite Baby Bird track, discovered on an NME cover tape in 1996, happy days!

Here is the original from the album Dying Happy:



And my QY70 version:

Monday 22 October 2012

"3" Track 02 - Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)

I absolutely adore Grandaddy. Their album The Sophtware Slump defined an era for me, a classic album and this is a beautiful track, an ode penned by Jed, a tragic forgotten robot (great video too):



And my QY70 version:

Friday 19 October 2012

"3" Track 01 - Your Young Voice

As promised, here is the first song created under the banner of my "3" project, a collection of covers created predominantly on the QY70 - Your Young Voice, originally by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins from their Diamond Mine album.

Here is the original in all its glory:



And my QY70 version:

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Covers Project - "3" - Introduction

I have made several aborted attempts in the past of producing a covers collection, usually as a means to kick start my creativity in some way. I have decided to have another stab at this project using predominantly my QY70 overdubbing vocals on my Roland BR600 digital 8 track. I have laid down some self imposed rules which I will no doubt break at some stage over the next few weeks for the project, codenamed "3" (don't ask!):

  1. Instrumentation to be sequenced on the QY70 before adding vocals.
  2. Sounds to come from the QY70 or microKORG sequenced by the QY70
  3. Automation on levels and effects on vocals can be achieved using the BR600 but for instrumentation this has to be achieved using MIDI on the QY70 .
  4. 12 cover songs to be completed by Christmas 2012.
  5. Each artist to be represented only once.
  6. Faithful or more original cover versions both acceptable but I think I will concentrate more on the former.

I will be posting the first track over the next day or so, a relatively faithful cover of the beautiful closing track on the marvellous Diamond Mine album by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Your Young Voice.

I hope many of you will follow my progress and perhaps some of you can even share your own cover versions created on the QY70.

Thursday 4 October 2012

Let there be light

I don't want to have to sit under a light when composing so one of the first things I did when I got my QY70 was try and work out how to use it in dark conditions. I had investigated adding a backlight but not being confident in electronics I soon dismissed that idea, wouldn't want to ruin my baby!

The only other practical option I could think of and could realistically get to work was to add a front light so I ordered a book light on ebay for £1.79:



I had planned on sticking something permanently to the QY70 to attach the light to but the spring on the clip was too weak so in the end I just stuck the light on directly with duck tape. Not the most permanent of solutions but it is easy enough to re-attach again if I should ever need to remove it.

Here are some photos:






Tuesday 2 October 2012

ghostly's home studio, a selected history

I have owned a QY70 (twice) and a QY10. Why? Read on...

My "home studio" is a bit of a misnomer as apart from a short spell in a cupboard at the top of the stairs and an even shorter period of time in a cupboard in the bedroom, I tend to have had more of a "mobile studio" set-up. Having said that even the term "studio" seems to be exaggerating what is essentially a means to produce music for fun.

Following is a brief summary of how my "studio" has developed over the years since I first started recording demos in 2005 / 2006. If you're interested to hear my music then check out my tunes on www.alonetone.com/ghostly.

V1 - "Starting out"
Digital audio recorder (very lo-fi live demos)
Guitar

I had been playing guitar on and off since the early nineties, never progressing beyond recreating basic Beatles / nineties indie riffs. One night, a couple of mates and I had a bit of a drunken jam in my lounge which was recorded for posterity on my audio recorder (me on guitar, all of us on vocal harmony duties). I had enjoyed that night so much that for a few weeks thereafter I had written a few songs and started to record them and post the lo-fi results online. I was hooked!

V2 - "First Digital Audio Workstation"
Boss BR600 digital multitracker
Guitar
+Korg microKORG
+Yamaha QY70
+Waldorf micro-Q (sold microKORG)

I knew I wanted to overdub vocal harmonies and basic guitar parts and with only a very basic knowledge of multitrack recorders I visited my local music shop (Sound Control in Dundee, Scotland). I was faced with two options, one was a mains only 16 track recorder (from memory) with a number of inputs and features such as MIDI input (not that I knew what half that stuff meant) or a slim, battery operated unit with built in condenser mics and I made my decision and became the proud owner of a Boss BR600 (great device if you're interested!).

Inspired by bands that blended guitars and synths such as Grandaddy I was keen to expand on my guitar only sound and invested in a microKORG. My sound design knowledge was also limited and therefore I tended to surf the presets and although there is a wealthy of cheesy patches the microKORG also comes loaded with quite a few useable synth strings and pads. By this time I was reading up on how MIDI worked and wanted to try some orchestral and piano arrangements and started looking for a sound module whilst using the microKORG as a controller keyboard (although I soon upgraded to a 49 key full size controller keyboard). Considering my need for a mobile solution I plumped for the QY70.

Once I had the controller keyboard and now I had a full time "studio" space (cupboard at the top of the stairs wayhay!) I found myself using the mini-keys less and less and soon found the microKORG wanting, especially in terms of it's mono-timbrality and low polyphony. After doing a bit of research I bought a Waldorf micro-Q and started dreaming up Brian Eno style ambient soundscapes which I would sequence on the QY70.

V3 - "Sampler rig" (sold BR600)
Akai MPC500
Guitar
QY70
micro-Q

Because the BR600 didn't have a MIDI input I had difficulty synching my audio tracks with my sequenced tracks on my QY70. Although I knew that audio samples were not quite the same as audio tracks, I decided to move over to using a sampler / sequencer and I bought the battery powered AKAI MPC500 (also inspired by the knowledge that one of my favourite albums, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing was produced on an MPC). I kept the QY70 on as a sound module but used the MPC for sequencing and triggering samples.

V4 - "Hardware sequencing" (sold MPC)
QY70
Guitar
Waldorf micro-Q
Yamaha A4000
+Bhajis Loops on Palm PDA
+Nanoloop on Gameboy
+LSDj on Gameboy
+Tascam Portastudio (tape 4 track) (then sold)

Although I had a lot of fun with the MPC I found the display on the MPC500 to be very limiting and after spotting a rack mounted YAMAHA A4000 sampler on ebay for next to nothing I decided to go back to using the QY70 as my main sequencer, driving the A400, the micro-Q and the QY70 itself. The A4000 was a fantastic sampler and as an added bonus came with a number of sample CDs including a multisampled piano which sounded terrific.  Unfortunately however the pots were a bit suspect (a common problem on the Yamaha samplers it turned out) and I didn't get on with it as well as I should have. 

Around this time I had also tried adding guitar parts over my sequenced tracks on an old tape 4 track tape machine but soon found this very tiresome after using a digital multitracker so soon sold it on.

Meanwhile I was now commuting to work and was looking out for a portable music making machine. The QY70 fitted the bill but as it was also the backbone of my home studio by this time I didn't want to keep on plugging and unplugging the device and after reading an interesting article in Computer Music magazine decided to give Bhajis Loops a try on a PDA. What a fantastic little application which was a small but perfectly formed sampler / sequencer! Very soon I found myself using this more and more to the point that I was hardly using my home studio set-up at all. Spurred on by my experiences of Bhajis Loops I turned to other portable music applications such as Nanoloop and Little Sound DJ (LSDj), both on the Nintendo Gameboy.

V5 - "Software studio" (sold QY70, micro-Q, A4000, Nanoloop, LSDj)
Apple Powerbook, audio / MIDI interface
Apple Logic Pro 8
Propellerhead Reason
Guitar
+Renoise
+Alesis Micron (then sold)
+Novation A Station (then sold)
+Nanoloop (on Android smartphone)
+microKORG
+Zoom Sampletrakk
+Tascam Pocketstudio 5
+Zoom H2 digital recorder
+Yamaha QY10 (then sold)
+Suzuki Omnichord

Although I had resisted the temptation for a number of years, after my unanimously positive experience of building tracks almost visually with Bhajis Loops I was finally tempted by moving into the realm of DAW software. Another reason was that my studio space had to make way for a little baby! As I didn't have a powerful enough computer I decided to start from scratch and invested in a Mac laptop running Logic Pro and Propellerhead Software's Reason (and also later a demo version of Renoise, an old skool tracker). I ran my guitar and mic through an audio interface which also had a MIDI input for my controller keyboard. To fund this I had to sell all the hardware I had accumulated up to this point including my QY70.

This set-up proved to be my most productive since V2 and the samples and synths included in both Logic Pro and Reason added a polish to my tracks that nothing up to that point had managed to achieve. This wasn't to say that everything about working with software was positive however. Firstly, I missed the immediacy of turning on a hardware synth or my QY70 and laying ideas down straight away. Call it laziness (or having a young family!) but I also struggled to motivate myself into setting up my laptop / audio interface / controller keyboard / microphone anytime I wanted to work on my music unless I had a particular deadline to achieve. I therefore scoured the internet for music making challenges such as RPM to almost force me into making music! And finally, there is just too many distractions on the computer!

I therefore started adding back hardware into my set-up, first a couple of hardware synths (the Alesis Micron and Novation A Station, both great units) and then a hardware sampler again (the Zoom Sampletrakk, a fantastically underrated piece of kit, if only it could sequence other devices through MIDI it would be a classic). For a number of reasons I finally settled on a return to the microKORG, selling both the Micron and the A Station. I bought a QY10 (for cheap on ebay) to run sequences on my microKORG and as a source of piano sounds. Unfortunately I soon found out that it does neither job particularly well and was soon sold on. Finally I got myself a Suzuki Omnichord which I don't think I will ever sell!

I now produced tracks in three ways:

- completely in software, mixing audio and midi tracks in Logic Pro / Reason
- building up an instrumental track in the Sampletrakk and then laying down a vocal in a single take recording the mix directly into the Zoom H2, a digital recorder I had picked up. I also picked up a Tascam Pocketstudio 5 for the sole purpose of adding effects to my guitar & voice as it was sampled into the Sampletrakk
- minimalistic sequencing using Nanoloop on my Android smartphone

It was clear which of these three processes I found to be the least enjoyable / practical and I therefore made the decision to go back to basics...

V6 - "Back to Basics"
BR600 digital multitracker
Propellerhead Reason
Nanoloop (on Android smartphone)
microKORG
Zoom Sampletrakk
Zoom H2
Guitar
+Yamaha QY70
(Apple Waveburner for mastering)

This is where I am now, with my BR600, supplemented by the QY70, microKORG and the Sampletrakk replacing Logic Pro as my audio workstation / sequencer / synth / sampler. Although I had previously sold the BR600 primarily because of its lack of synching capabilities (as well as the limited effects) as I still don't have a permanent studio space I have given up on the idea of running multiple devices at once. So now my options are as follows:

1. Run everything into the Sampletrakk, bounce instrumental track to the BR600 and lay down vocals at the end
2. Record live instrumentation into the BR600 a track at a time
3. Sequence instrumentation in the QY70 and bounce the instrumental track to the BR600 and lay down vocals at the end
4. Same as 3 but at some stage in the process bounce down sequenced microKORG synth tracks one at a time into the BR600 prior to laying down vocals
5. Create track wholly in Nanoloop (or bounce to BR600 for overdubbing)

And I could go on and on! I still have my laptop and therefore can still use Reason somewhere in the chain and still use Apple's Waveburner software to sequence and do some basic mastering of my tracks.

So there we have it, a brief history of ghostly's home studios. The QY70, together with the BR600, is at the heart of this set-up and I have therefore decided to dedicate this blog to this fantastic little box of tricks. I plan on using this blog to share music created on the QY70, links, videos and much much more so watch this space!