I was just listening to the Magnetic Fields’ album Distortion, and it reminded me of the greatest musical experience I’ve ever encountered in a computer game – the ‘Still Alive‘ song from Valve’s Portal. This prompted me to investigate whether the Magnetic Fields had written the Portal song, but the identity of the actual songwriter was actually quite a pleasant surprise…
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Music Technology Posts from February, 2008
Portal Song Shows The Way For Video Games
Friday, February 29th, 2008Windows Vista For Music Production
Thursday, February 28th, 2008It’s been well over a year now since the official launch of Microsoft Windows Vista, and it’s fair to say that the OS had a few teething problems, particularly in the area of music production. I’ve held off on making the switch until now, but as my computer was in need of an upgrade, and almost all new PCs come bundled with Vista, it’s time to investigate whether the latest Windows has finally become a reliable pro audio platform…
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A Useful Music Forum List
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008It’s fairly common for music producers to encounter technical difficulties; it’s particularly frustrating when the task you’re trying to complete is really basic, and probably has a very obvious solution that you just can’t seem to figure out. However, help is at hand – there are a wide range of forums (sic) full of active members who once had the exact same problem you may be grappling with right now…
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Five Ways That Music Fools Your Brain
Friday, February 22nd, 2008Everybody is familiar with optical illusions, as we encounter them regularly in advertising, movies and student-flat Escher prints, but the area of auditory illusion is much less familiar territory. However, our ears are also susceptible to manipulative trickery…
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Counting The Cost Of Cher’s Autotunes
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008Getting a good vocal track is possibly one of the most difficult parts of creating a record; in most cases, the finished vocal will be composited from the best bits of several different takes. However, there is one vocal treatment device that has risen to prominence over the last few years – the autotuner. The original idea of autotune was to correct bad notes in a vocal performance, but pushing the unit to extremes leads to what has become known as the ‘Cher effect’…
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Is A Texas Instruments FireWire Controller Vital For Your Audio PC?
Monday, February 18th, 2008Every couple of years or so it becomes necessary for the computer musician to consider upgrading the hardware at the heart of their Digital Audio Workstation. For me, this involves spending quite a while researching the best machines and components available, making a decision and then losing touch with the hardware scene completely until upgrade time comes around again. Well, that time has come around again and I see that the ‘you must have a Texas Instruments Firewire controller for audio production’ argument is still alive and well…
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The Benefit of Creative Deadlines
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008This is the month of the RPM Challenge, and I have once again decided to embrace the gauntlet, if not quite ready to smell the glove. The challenge is to write and record an entire album in the 29 days of February – if nothing else, you should have an album at the end of it. Even if it’s not particularly polished, you will have learned at least a little, and probably a lot…(as was the case with my album from last year, which you can download for free here). Here are a few observations that may be of benefit to musicians participating in this year’s event…
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Focus On Music – More Mashup Fun
Monday, February 11th, 2008Unusual orchestras seem to be the current craze in mainstream TV advertising; Sony’s ‘human sequencer orchestra’ gained quite a bit of coverage when it was released, and now Ford are getting in on the act with an orchestra playing instruments made from Ford Focus components…
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Will Hit Prediction Software Make It Harder For Creativity To Be Heard?
Friday, February 8th, 2008In recent years, a lot of research and development has been applied to the idea that hit songs can be scientifically identified before they become popular. Given the fact that every musician on the planet can now record and distribute their songs worldwide from the comfort of their own bedroom, the sheer volume of music being produced does need a proportionately more advanced filtering system than was necessary even ten years ago. But can a machine really do it for us?
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