Musical Composition
For this assignment we were tasked with creating a musical composition from a series of real world sounds that we recorded ourselves. We had to manipulate these sounds using a series of techniques we learned inside Ableton.
I knew I would've liked to create a dystopian style composition inspired by many dystopian movies such as Blade Runner and other sci-fi type movies. It's a style a quite like and wanted to see if I could create something to fit the genre.
Process
Version 1
I first wanted to lay out my composition inside Ableton first without applying any editing. Above is this track I have mentioned and you can hear all the individual tracks I have recorded. I now wanted to attempt to convert specific sounds to sound like instruments such as drums or to sound like a synth of some kind.
Version 2
To create this version I edited each sound individually to fit the genre I wanted. After doing so I adjusted some to further suit the composition. I used a range of techniques such as the audio effects (or multiple at once) and midi keyboard inside of Ableton. I tweaked with the automation on tracks at specific points and it came together to sound like this.
I received positive feedback on this version even with Caro describing it as a "musical by machines" which I loved. The main piece of feedback I got was that I could attempt to make the composition sound more melodic which I saw as a little challenging but I wanted to try.
Final Version
To try add more melody I had to adjust some tracks, in terms of pitch, length etc, remove others I now felt didn't work and try new effects. I also felt some sounds were too loud and dominated the track a little too much so I wanted to try make it an even playing field where every track has their moment to shine. The 'Musical by machines' idea really stuck with me so I wanted to bring it to life even further.
Synopsis
Dystopian futures was generally the overarching theme behind this composition. I wanted to create a track that would be fitting in a futuristic industrial dystopia setting or movie. It a genre I have a personal liking too. It's something that makes the listener feel small almost in the scale of an ant versus a human. That kind of future is something that could one day become a reality if humanity were to become advanced enough. We see it everyday with buildings for example become more brutalism based which is a feature of this type of dystopia. We are constantly inventing new technology/machines which instinctively us as humans have a natural fear towards. Due to their power we feel as though we're futile in comparison. Just like an ant feels towards a human.
I wanted to create an abstract piece of music that could immerse a listener in this kind of reality. But they can almost feel part of the machine that is the world in this dystopia.
What I Learned
Throughout this project I learned a lot of different ways to manipulate sounds inside of Ableton. Ableton is a large software with more capabilities for me to still discover but I learned so much in terms of sound design creating this composition.
I learned how to take real life sounds and convert them to different forms of music because as we know everything in life is music in its own form. I was able to create synth like sounds or make an object sound like a heavy drum kick or a bass. Ableton's sampler is exceptional and I know still that I can learn much more with it.
Audio effects were something I learned about during this project. Of course I was able to use reverb, echo and distortion to manipulate sounds but I often used these on top of other audio effects to really amplify them. The glitch effect was one I really enjoyed using due to the bases of my project but also due to its ablity to work completely different depending on the same you begin with. There is such a range of ways to manipulate samples whether it be for musical purposes or for creating an interesting sound effect.
