D74g0n's Archive

10.13.2013

D74g0ns on Twitter Project Diary


   Oh man, I have so much to say.  I think I just flooded twitter with too much blabbin so I am moving over here.  Well today I finally finished my "d74g0n's on twitter" song that I started about a week ago (in concept anyways) when baconftw tweeted that I should advertise my twitter or something because I was complaining about having few followers.  Perhaps I am lonely and sick of Facebook I dunno.  I don't even rock a mobile phone.  I hate phones.

   So I am going to describe the whole process that I underwent over the past week kinda like a journal for myself, for 'Future d74g0n' unless I die soon, then for my kids n crap.

   Ok so the only program I actually used to make the music was Reason by Propellerhead.  I got a Midi keyboard I jammed out the bass line out on.  I actually planned on using more bass patterns, like making an actual progression and such but while working through the song I looped the one bassline for working on other parts of the song, and it kinda just stuck that way.

   So this song is basically the second one where I used Reasons: Dr.Octo Loop thingy and automated its sequences.  Basically its the first week I've been adding extra Dr.Octo's in songs for those drum fills.  I always felt my more recent electronically generated songs have lacked soul in the drums.  Well I've finally figured out the automation part of Reason, thank drum filly goodness.  Also stumbled upon a series of Tom loops that sound like Surf music or Swing drums but that is another story.

   Ok so back to "Dragon on Twitter" personally on my harddrive the song is actually called "DonT" as in D on T, dragon on twitter ofc.  So it started with the baseline, then I added a drum simply as a metronome.  When it came to trying to come up with some lyrics, a vocal line, I simply added a lead instrument and jammed on keyboard over the baseline for a while.  It totally had some 70's sound to it, I think I posted it... Lemme check and see if I can embed this crap...


  So that song embed above (until I delete it from soundcloud ha!) actually has an extra lead on top of the vocal lead.  I just was goofin off vintage retro and never thought I was going to share it.  I got lots of compliments on the beginning but usually they were "I liked the beginning" the people said "goes all Mario" whatever that means.  So the next morning I rolled out of bed on my day off work 7am because Josie was going to work and woke me up.  I decided to stay up instead of sleeping until noon and I recorded the lyrics, which I also made up on the spot as I recorded.

   I used the "vocal lead" I recorded to syllable-ically write the words, using the notes as my timing guide.  In hindsight I wish I didn't record it that morning.  Because I can hear in the song, the... loss of quality basically.  Although I don't actually cringe while listening to it, the whole premise of a song being about twitter kinda makes me sick ethically lol.  So I recorded about 5 layers of singing for each line and mixed up the pan so one dude is in one ear and such, then posted what I had there on soundcloud:


   Many times I am really lazy on these quick projects like "I am a Miner" where I don't even use my good mic.  Well for DonT I actually set up that MXL USB.006 condenser Mic.  Not that I feel I tweaked the setting to my liking.  Another 'con' to recording first thing in the morning when I roll out of bed.

   So yeah, you can hear from embedded song probably what I mean by: "almost cringe worthy" ha!  Atleast this project is done.  Oh wait no it isn't, I still need to make a video on YouTube so I can get some subscribers to come over and follow me on twitter!  

About the video

  So I had this idea to combine Camera Mod in Minecraft with Adobe After FX so make a interesting video that is somewhat like a timelapse that is controlled by audio.  Where buildings can grow and shrink to be like the lights on a stereos equalizer, the graphical level monitor thingy.  So the gist of this video is, I shoot walking down a path many times over, the exact same walk, so I can crossfade to any of the takes seamlessly.  With the scenery changing in all of the takes it would look like the trees are growing and shrinking to the beat along with other things.   This project with the Audio controlled Camera Mod walking layers had nothing to do with the twitter song.  Infact this Music-ma-jig Effect I was working on was already shot before I conceived of the twitter song.  Only it was about half the length and a little rough.  When I originally abandoned the project it was because the formulas I had written for the Opacity levels was not functioning properly.  Something about the math formula just needed some tweaking.  So now faced with a Task list of projects I started that I should finish and Twitter song video being on there with Music Video-ma-jig I thought I'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone. The video took me forever to get together and I struggled to find the d74g0n head parts I know as "The Ancient Head" I originally made for the how the universe was formed water mod glitch video way back.  At any rate I did find it, also it's eye's backwards.  My right eye is supposed to be Red, looks like the songs profile pics are wrong to I better fix that.  Hermes says, that the Red eye is right.  Well check out the video, Since the music-ma-jig wasn't long enough, I threw is some old d74g0n desktops in there for me to head.  Levi's Baphomet inspired perhaps.  Which is also the inspiration for d74g0ns skin.  Well check out the video:

   
  So yeah it turned out alright I suppose.  This wasn't a project that I think could possibly blow up globally like Gangnam style, so how much time could I really justify for tweaking?  So perhaps you could do me a solid and tweet me sometime that you read all this crap to let me know someone is interested in things like reading and d74g0n. xD  This is mostly for me and perhaps my kids, so no hard feelings if it's not your style. Party on! Peace.

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