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What creative projects have you been working on?
This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.
Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.
If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.
I've reached a point now where I just try to make music to "stay in it." it's something I like doing but is rather unproductive.
I had the idea to start writing music using a GM soundfont, and happen to have the tools to convert them to SFZ format (AWave Studio, possibly the best $80 I've spent on software), then load into Renoise as instruments. This is the first of hopefully many tracks I do like this. It's not good, but the goal is just to not be bad, really. I'm not good at writing music anyway, but this is an attempt to try to focus more on composition than sound.
I really ought to switch to something to Musescore and just use it for composition, since that's ultimately what this exercise is about, but I always find music notation software to be less efficient, and incredibly more difficult, than Renoise.
It's nothing crazy, but I've also been using trackers as long as I've been making music (OpenMPT, Buzz, Renoise). Aside from that, I sort of just start on whatever makes sense, drums this time, some sort of lead next time, and design the rest around what fits in.
I actually have a Polyend Tracker and an OP-1, which I'd intended to use together, but they don't play well together. I should use them more.
It's nice. Slicing is a breeze, the granular sampler is straightfoward, and everything else works as well as any tracker I've used before.
Nice! I like this. I've actually been doing some composing recently, too. I've mainly been playing around with short little 8-bar vignettes rather than making whole songs, but I have some things I want to develop. It's cool to see others doing this, too. My problem is that my keyboard is a full 88-key keyboard and it's currently on the opposite side of the room from my computer. So I'm using GarageBand on my iPhone to do my recording. It's... constrained. I mean it's really powerful for what it is, but the UI is so obtuse because it doesn't have menus or labels. Anyway, I hope to have something to put up in the near future, too!
My daughters have been working on a cover duet of "A Beautiful Noise" by Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile. I've been playing some guitar and backing them up. I think we're going to actually record it, so that's been fun.
I bought a new recording interface on New Years Day (a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20) that allows me to record multi-tracked drums with the entire kit close mic'd. If I get a few slow hours at work, I set it up next to the drums in our music studio and record tracks for songs that friends have sent me. We have a good kit and a great selection of mics at work so I'm getting pretty good sounds even though this kind of recording is not my area of expertise. And since our facility is only open to essential personnel, I don't have to waste any time rearranging the drums and mic stands after somebody else uses them. The studio is pretty much all mine for another few months.
I should have been doing this months ago, but I was so slammed with work (between the pandemic, the BLM protests and the election), I didn't have any bandwidth left to think about music. I had mostly stopped playing altogether for a few months. It's nice to feel like a musician again.
Also, one of my bands released an album last week. It was recorded shortly before the first coronavirus wave took hold in NYC. I present the soul jazz and instrumental rhythm & blues stylings of Touque! (pronounced "Tewk")
Oh man, I hear that! Glad you got back into it. I just checked out a few tracks and it sounds really good!
Thanks for taking the time to listen! I'm also glad to be getting back into it. Self-recording is not nearly as fun as playing with friends in a dark bar for a bunch of weirdos, but it's nice to feel like I'm helping to create something.
I'm working on an embroidery piece, a bluebell wood for my mum. It's my first one like it, and I'm enjoying the process of coming up with a design and figuring out how to execute it, such as what stitches and colors to use.
I've stalled a little bit though. I've started on the bluebells in the foreground, using French knots, but I'm not sure if the colors I'm using (one stand each of purple, light purple, and light blue) stand out enough against the grass. Perhaps a brighter blue?