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| 'Sayings' Gone Wrong | 1 month ago |
| It's the same as it ever once. (And if it is, why not?) | |
| How much time does it take you to create a song? | 2 months ago |
| Depends on the song for me. Usually a melody and more often than not some semblance of lyrics will come to me during particularly tedious activity at work, and by the time I get home I'll have worked out a verse/chorus or verse/refrain structure and can figure out the chords. From there, much like Ian said, the song develops as quickly as the arrangement in my head allows. Since I do primarily pastiche, I've usually figured out what group/song-or-songs I want the arrangement to suggest, but just as often it's an overall feel I shoot for (within the pastiche structure). From there I usually work out the arrangement in MIDI format so I can hear how I want the final track to sound, recording guide vocals after all the "instruments" are done. Often I do a rough mix a this time to throw onto my iPod so I can "teach" myself the song for the vocal re-recordings -- this often takes at least a week or so. Lately since I've been trying to use as little MIDI in the final recordings that I can, I've been taking time to learn the guitar parts I've created in MIDI on real guitars -- a process that's slowed my output down considerably since I'm really pretty bad at anything but chording. ("He's strictly rhythm, he doesn't want to make it cry or sing...") Once I get everything laid down, I'll go through several mixes, listening to as many formats -- particularly in the car -- as I can. The process can take as little as a couple of days with strictly MIDI instruments or as long as a couple of years. I have a couple of songs that are just melody lines and some lyric snippets that have been gathering hard drive dust for close to three years, and I have songs fully formed in my head that are bursting to get recorded. It just depends. |
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| Have you heard ... so and so? | 3 months ago |
| My buddy Pete, a wonderful keyboard and sax player (primarily -- he plays other instruments as well) has finally signed up here after years of my urging (Pete plays sax on my track "My Baby Baby" and the next Jewels track). His first submission is a fun jazz number, "Step Five": http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=188807 |
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| Raise The iCompositions Flag | 3 months ago |
| "I agree, except I don't." LOL | |
| Newby Advice | 4 months ago |
| No, line-in is your microphone jack. If it's USB that would be an option in the drop-down list. | |
| Newby Advice | 4 months ago |
| Did the interface come with any drivers? Or can you dowoad the latest drivers from online somewhere? Can you see the interface as an option in System Preferences > Sound? | |
| Singers for Rally Round The Flag Song | 4 months ago |
| I'd be more than happy to help. | |
| Patti Page | 4 months ago |
| Very sad. May she rest in peace. | |
| Cover Cadavre 4? | 4 months ago |
| I have a song ready for this now if people are interested. | |
| The Chain Collab 2 | 4 months ago |
Count me in.  |
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| Lyricist seeking collaboration! | 4 months ago |
| http://www.icompositions.com/music/search.php?q=needs%20vocals http://www.icompositions.com/music/search.php?q=needs%20lyrics I would really like to hear someone tackle lyrics to Gweaterman's song "Mountain" -- http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=181021 It's a great track that could really use a good set of lyrics. |
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| Artist Spotlight gone dark?! | 4 months ago |
| Awesome, 'possum! | |
| Artist Spotlight gone dark?! | 4 months ago |
| Appears to be messed up again. | |
| Are there any sitar players on iComp? | 5 months ago |
If so, I have some work for you.  Please PM me. |
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| R.I.P. Ravi Shankar | 5 months ago |
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psUS20Zy91o |
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| HELLO?!?!?!?! | 5 months ago |
| Looks like you stopped coming 'round a few months after I started posting. Welcome back all the same. | |
| Spurious return post. | 5 months ago |
| Excellent. Eight Legged Groove Machine is one of my desert island albums. | |
| Spurious return post. | 5 months ago |
| Wow. I thought they'd broken up back in the '90s -- had no idea they'd reformed. | |
| Rhythm Guitar - what is it? | 5 months ago |
| Paul McCartney was, arguably, the best guitar player among The Beatles, and he was the bass player. I think the idea of "the best guitarist is the lead guitarist" high/medium/low skill thing is pure nonsense. | |
| Share your strange and weird tracks! | 6 months ago |
| Sounds like a normal acoustic number until the second verse: http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=166282 |
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| Oxymoron: the game | 7 months ago |
| Military intelligence. | |
| Brutal Entertainment Blog | 8 months ago |
mfwmiles wrote: Isn’t everyone a Beatles fan? When I think about the people I want to collaborate with Beatle is always right at the top. The problem was, how do you write a Beatles song for the sixth Beatle and make it worthy of his talents!!!??? I would just like to point out that I'm the 128th Beatle. The sixth Beatle would be either Pete Best, Brian Epstein or Neil Aspinall, depending on how you count them. |
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| MSI: Music Scene Investigation | 8 months ago |
| Awesome. I'll have to check it out. | |
| MSI: Music Scene Investigation | 8 months ago |
| Is this still going on? | |
| Rhythm Guitar - what is it? | 8 months ago |
Xolv wrote: Lead (or solo-) guitar is what is played by guys with big egos. So then rhythm guitar players has less ego 22-year-old John Lennon and 20-year-old George Harrison say you're wrong.  |
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| The creative muse | 9 months ago |
| Wow. I don't think I could disagree more, even if you wrapped that sentiment in hate crimes and bigotry. Music and art's true practicality is all about enriching, enhancing and sharing in the human experience. |
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| The creative muse | 9 months ago |
| Broads are one of your muses, too, Vicki? |
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| Logic Pro 9: Crossfading Question | 9 months ago |
| I believe it doesn't work with MIDI tracks unless you "raster" the MIDI instrument into a real track. | |
| The creative muse | 9 months ago |
ihussain wrote: thank you all for your great contributions. I did respond to the early ones on my blog entry, but I just wanted to say again how astonished I am that John (@soulima) notates directly using a program, rather than playing the notes via a keyboard. I do that as well, and with the guitar chords I then go in and hand-arpeggiate the notes to simulate up and down strumming. |
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| The creative muse | 9 months ago |
| Most of my stuff comes out of a melody that pops in my head, occasionally with a snatch of lyric or two, maybe some rhyming couplet or a turn of phrase that fits the tune perfectly, but usually it's the melody first. Okay, sometimes I hear the full harmonies with the melody. Once I work out a tune in my head (and often if I can get to Garageband or have my iPhone handy so that I can sing the tune and therefore not lose it -- so many songs lost... oh so many...) I usually grab my acoustic guitar and work out the chords based on the harmonies I can hear with the melody. Usually by this point I've decided, "Hey, this song sounds like [whatever]", either a specific song or a genre or album, which then suggests an arrangement. I will then grab that song, or a bunch of songs from that genre or era or album or whatever and listen to them a metric f*ckton to get an understanding of how they they sounded, how they were put together, how they were produced. In other words, I give myself a crash course in the particular genre I want to emulate. "But John," you ask, "why don't you just arrange it however it sounds good to you? Why do you always do pastiches of other songs or genres?" Why, that's simple! Because when I do, they sound like that stuff anyway! So why not stand on the shoulders of those who came before and learn from them? So once I know the sound I want to emulate, I set about by emulating that sound. While that sounds deceptively simple, it's not -- a lot of research goes into each and every track I do, and not just from a "they used this so I'll do that, too" standpoint. It's more of a "Brian Wilson used a theramin a bunch and it would be perfect for this track at this point... since I don't have one, how can I simulate that sound in Logic? Time to hit Youtube and Google" standpoint. But the key -- always the key -- is the melody comes first, and often hand in hand with the vocal harmonies. I then try to match the lyrics with the music and try to make them... well, "worthy", I guess is the right word. The songs where I'm utterly dissatisfied with the lyrics are the ones I never post on iComp. (Okay, I hold some others in reserve "for a rainy day" as well, but for the most part, you guys don't get to hear what I consider crap output from me.) |
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| GarageBand vs Logic Pro | 10 months ago |
| I'll second what Kenneth has said -- those Mac Pro Video tutorials are excellent and well worth the price. I also use Garageband to start a recording (usually the MIDI and vocal tracks), and then finish up in Logic (and now that I have an electric guitar, that's where I record my guitar parts... with my sub-adequate guitar playing, Logic's varispeed and quick swipe comping make me almost adequate!) for many of the same reasons people before me have stated. | |
| Brutal Entertainment Blog | 10 months ago |
| I can't wait to hear these. | |
| What Are You Listening To The Present Day? | 10 months ago |
| New Shonen Knife tune! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADo6wawOUFo | |
| Dead Chat | 10 months ago |
randolf wrote: It is happening again... the good news is, the gum you like is back in style now. :p Where we're from the birds sing a pretty song and there's always music in the air. |
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| Songs keep cutting out | 11 months ago |
| Dill is wonderful. I use it in most dishes I cook. | |
| need voices for mild comedy skit | 11 months ago |
| I have something of a theatrical background and have quite a bit of comedy voice work under my belt. I'd be quite happy to contribute. | |
| Genre's | 1 year ago |
| Power Pop & Psychedelic spring to mind immediately for me. | |
| Panning Problem | 1 year ago |
| I just checked -- you use Garageband, right? There's a plug-in that simulates the artificial double tracking effect that the Abbey Road engineers created to allow John Lennon to simulate double tracking without recording his voice twice that would serve your purposes perfectly. You can get it here: http://www.vacuumsound.de/plugins.html Apply the plug to a mono channel and it splits the signal and applies enough "tape warp and flutter" to do the rest. Just set the panning value at 100 or 0 to have the sounds split the signal so that the dry recording is all the way to the left (or right) and the "double-tracked" version is all the way to the right (or left). As you bring the panning value to 50 the split signals gradually converge to the center. It's especially cool if you have a vocal track that you want to double track but don't want to have to re-record (which is why Lennon wanted such an effect). You'll need to play with the settings a bit and adjust your EQ somewhat to get a natural sound (something I'm still working on myself), but it will do exactly what you want. |
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| Official Song Plugging thread | 1 year ago |
| I've posted a new song with The Jewels. http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=178372 |
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| Transferring a track to another project | 1 year ago |
| You can indeed copy and paste it into another project. Just make sure the channel you create to paste it into is the same instrument (whether software or real, and the same settings). Saving as an AIFF or WAV file is certainly another option. | |
| Do you record parts while playing the track? | 1 year ago |
jojoma wrote: yea, i pretty much knew i have to update my machine. just wanted to make sure this is not an issue in later updates of GB and macs. i would hate to buy the new mac, Logic, other software and still have latency issues. that's my greatest fear. I'm using both Logic Studio and Garageband on a 4-year-old iMac with RAM maxed out (at 8 GB) and I occasionally get latency issues recording using Logic (but not Garageband) -- but that's generally when I have a stupid amount of MIDI instrument channels with a lot of processor-intensive effects going on, which wouldn't be as much of an issue if I locked the channels prior to recording, so that's primarily my own bad habits there. In your case, until you upgrade systems, if it's an option then upgrading RAM might solve some of the problem, and locking the channels you already have will help regardless. Good luck! |
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| Do you record parts while playing the track? | 1 year ago |
| My guess is that it's the RAM that's causing the problem, jojoma. 1GB running Garageband -- particularly if you've got a lot of software instruments and plugins -- isn't very much. | |
| Do you record parts while playing the track? | 1 year ago |
| Garageband -- which jojoma is using, per the original post -- does support VST plugins, but that's not germane to the question. It's a Garageband-specific question, and since you admitted you don't use Garageband, perhaps sitting this one out would be in order. Meanwhile, jojoma, RetroTrend and Ian's advice are sound. The latency issues you're experiencing during playback are indeed likely caused by your older machine -- processor speed and RAM available usually being the culprits. I usually do exactly what RetroTrend said when I have similar issues. |
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| restriction of daily uploads? | 1 year ago |
Orpheus wrote: Ha ha, I just counted my songs and did a calculation: when I'm going to upload one song a week, it will take me more than four and a half year to finish uploading....... loooooool And meanwhile some new should be born. I also don't share every single thing I do. |
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| restriction of daily uploads? | 1 year ago |
Orpheus wrote: When I listen to music of others, I listen to more than one song of an artist, when I like his/her music..... and if I don't have the time, I can put him onto my favorite list for later review. You're one of the few, in my experience. I've noticed people generally tend to check out whatever song is listed as your newest number -- the one posted at the bottom of your latest post/comment/whatever. To this end, I've taken to only posting one song in a single week -- original tunes on Mondays, covers on Tuesdays so they reset on the same day. I get more listens to single tunes in a week than I do if I post multiple tunes in that same timeframe. |
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| RIP Earl | 1 year ago |
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| An Artists Best Age For Creativity? | 1 year ago |
| Meh. If people are going to deliberately ignore the point I'm making, I'm out. The most creative period for pop music was 1955-1982. Since then people are just playing musical Mad-Libs. Laters. | |
| An Artists Best Age For Creativity? | 1 year ago |
| Again, I'm not saying you can't be creative at older ages -- obviously someone who starts composing songs for piano at 80 is going to be at their most "creative" when they're first learning to compose. I'm simply stating that the optimal time for a human being to be creative is when your brain is going through that particular developmental stage. Simple biology, folks. | |
| An Artists Best Age For Creativity? | 1 year ago |
| Oh, and one more thing -- Luna, I'm not saying life experience has no bearing on how you express yourself creatively, I'm just saying you are most creative when you're in your teens and twenties. I guarantee that if you or I had started making music during that period in our lives, it would've been much more creative that what we're producing now. Would it have been as technically proficient? Probably not. But more creative? Absolutely. | |
| An Artists Best Age For Creativity? | 1 year ago |
| Retro, if you re-read what I said, that's exactly what I said -- with age comes sophistication, skill and maturity. That allows for a more technically proficient output but does that necessarily make that person more creative -- just better at doing what he already did. And I'd hardly equate scientific epiphany with creative artistic expression. Mungo gets what I'm saying. |
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| Icompers living in the south or southwest US... | 1 year ago |
| Good luck! I hear good things. Never been, personally. Talk to (our mutual friend) Sean. He went to school there. | |
| An Artists Best Age For Creativity? | 1 year ago |
| And understand that I'm not attacking anyone here -- the question is not "When are you most productive" or "When are you at your peak proficiency". Ideally you're always striving to better yourself throughout your life. But in regards to creativity, it's directly related to brain development and body chemistry. It's simple human biology. | |
| An Artists Best Age For Creativity? | 1 year ago |
MH2010 wrote: Regardless their age, all artists reach their musical peak on the day that they die. Tony2008 wrote: Lol I love that!... Pithy and amusing but utter crap. TomDevine wrote: FrozenEntropy wrote: 18 -30 for the innovative, eye-opening, jaw-dropping stuff. After that, artists don't necessarily become less creative, just a bit more subtle. +1 FrozenEntropy has it right. though I'd add in the teen years since your brain's development is starting to make new connections and you're starting to become aware of experiences on your own rather than being spoon-fed them from adult sources. Remember when you were in high school and new thoughts seemed to hit you every single day and you couldn't wait to tell your friends who were all doing the exact same thing? And then you get to college and it's like the floodgates are released? And then by the time you start approaching middle age, your brain's no longer producing and processing dopamine like it used to, so you don't get that same electric thrill as you once did by new experiences -- oh, you still get pleasure from them, naturally, unless your body just doesn't produce any endorphins whatsoever, but you don't get that kick, that charge, that spark, like you used to. You can't -- your body's just not programmed for it anymore. So the sad irony of life for artists and creative types is that while you get technically more proficient with age, the stuff you create when you're younger is going to be filled with much more energy and have more appeal to those who are younger -- and why fans usually say, "Oh, so-and-so's great, but his best stuff was when he was younger." In Luna's example, for instance -- is there any argument here that, while Sir Paul was extremely successful throughout his career, the stuff that sold the most and is generally considered the best is the stuff he did with the band he was in when he was in his 20s? |
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| Icompers living in the south or southwest US... | 1 year ago |
| Santa Fe. | |
| Icompers living in the south or southwest US... | 1 year ago |
BigJimSlade wrote: Sounds like you need a place like A-tex. Big yet little, musical and nerdy, forgiving and beautiful, bohemian und trendy, fit and friendly...howdy. Still enough room for all who need to be able to do whatever they want to without any hassles whatsoever. My brother moved to Austin twenty years ago because of that and he and his wife are now trying to get out because it no longer feels like that for them. |
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| Earworm - whats in yer ead? | 1 year ago |
| Whatever song I'm working on at the time. | |
| Moogfest—Mavericks Of Sound Design Panel. | 1 year ago |
| Neat! Thanks for the link! | |
| Your Music | 1 year ago |
| All the time, all the time, and all the time. I realize that kind of makes me an egomaniac, but in truth what I do is make iTunes playlists of music that inspires me or is of the same genre that I'm making, and then insert my favorite tunes of my own. For instance, I made a huge playlist of girl group songs to listen to over and over again in order to be informed by the style and production techniques, and then later added "(I Can't Stay) Away From You" in the list to see how well it fit. It fits well. |
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| EastWest QLP In To GarageBand ??? | 1 year ago |
| When you install EastWest software, it asks if you want to install it for Garageband or Logic or whatever DAW that it's compatible with, in addition to its own stand-alone program. Then when you open up GarageBand you access their PLAY interface to load their instruments by selecting an instrument, editing the instrument itself, and switching it out from one of Apple's MIDI instruments for the PLAY interface which will appear in the drop-down menu. | |
| EastWest QLP In To GarageBand ??? | 1 year ago |
| Their system requirements say yes: http://www.soundsonline.com/Pianos It uses the PLAY interface, which I use for the Fab Four Virtual Instrument pack. There is a hardware dongle that needs to be plugged into one of your USB ports in order to run it. |
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| Single Message to Multiple People? | 1 year ago |
| No problem -- that's what cut-and-paste is all about, Charlie Brown. |
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| Single Message to Multiple People? | 1 year ago |
| Yeah, like I said -- I wasn't trying to spam, I was just wanting to let three collaborators know I had a link available for the song they all did vocals for and didn't want to have to type three different messages. Que sera sera, eh? | |
| Single Message to Multiple People? | 1 year ago |
| Huh. All I wanted to do was let three people who worked on a collaboration with me know that a rough mix was available for them. Cut-and-paste it is! Thanks, MH! | |
| Single Message to Multiple People? | 1 year ago |
| Is it possible to send a single Message to multiple people, by separating their names with a comma or something of that sort? | |
| Ruby Tuesday Presents: | 1 year ago |
| Gallons. | |
| Ruby Tuesday Presents: | 1 year ago |
| Awesome. It will make you laugh. I'll send it tonight when I get home. | |
| Ruby Tuesday Presents: | 1 year ago |
| I have a song that's 23 seconds. Would that work? | |
| Sopa and Pipa | 1 year ago |
Argales wrote: Well at least you'll be the older generation Funny thing is, the '80s are more "my" era than the '60s! |
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| Sopa and Pipa | 1 year ago |
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| Sopa and Pipa | 1 year ago |
jl wrote: . lol @Beatle128 just your name is a law suite Good point! Based on the stuff I've been working on lately, I've been thinking of changing it to that60sboy. |
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| Sopa and Pipa | 1 year ago |
Dadio wrote: Now let's go extreme... You post an ORIGINAL song on iComp. Some record company, artist - or even another iComp member - decides that sound "just like" one of their own songs. iComp is notified. The song may have no resemblance to any other, but it doesn't matter. iComp has to remove it or risk being labeled a pirate site. I'm screwed! |
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| Virtual Band needing members | 1 year ago |
| You've got me to do vocals if you want me. | |
| Virtual Instruments | 1 year ago |
ihussain wrote: @Xolv - i notice you suggest moving to Logic. I have Logic (but haven't really used much yet), but I've not noticed that its instruments are that different from Garageband's? For instance, I couldn't find many strings? Do you have Logic Pro, which comes with all of Apple's Jam Packs? |
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| What's your Blues name ? | 1 year ago |
| Boney Gumbo Lee. | |
| At Last: "Dirty Loops" worth listening to! | 1 year ago |
| I prefer my teeny-bopper bubblegum pop untainted by jazz fusion. |
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| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
| Ooooh, yes! I'll have a slice, too, please! | |
| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
Vixen wrote: Heh, OB you are a baker of words, and every one a piping hot croissant!! I'm getting hungry. Anyone else hungry? |
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| iCompositions iPhone App v2.0 | 1 year ago |
8MonthMalfunction wrote: So when we gonna see an iPad version?? Seconded. |
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| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
Beatle128 wrote: Don't you just hate pants? |
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| If I were to cover one song it would be...... | 1 year ago |
| The theme to "Nanny and the Professor". | |
| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
Dadio wrote: Beatle128 wrote: Exactly. I always appreciate constructive criticism, but don't have the musical or technical education to necessarily critique others' works, so I try to express how a piece makes me feel and hope that the artist gets something from that kind of feedback. Isn't that feedback just as valid and helpful as technical feedback? Yes. Yes, it is. zallaz wrote: Pants? You mean trousers right? No. No, I do not. |
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| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
| Don't you just hate pants? | |
| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
| It's nice to be nice. | |
| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
| Jeez, Alan, why do you hate everyone so much? |
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| Everyone is too nice | 1 year ago |
| Exactly. I always appreciate constructive criticism, but don't have the musical or technical education to necessarily critique others' works, so I try to express how a piece makes me feel and hope that the artist gets something from that kind of feedback. Otherwise, it's all cool -- I like when people give me suggestions on how to improve a mix, and I like the ego strokes of folks telling me I did a good job. |
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| TOO SLOW | 1 year ago |
| You can speed up the tempo in Audacity. | |
| Uploading an updated .mp3 how? | 1 year ago |
| Cut-and-paste is good for that. |
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| Just a poll | 1 year ago |
| I would never ask for money in such a circumstance, but if they insisted on paying me I would take the money after protest. | |
| RIP Steve Jobs | 1 year ago |
| Thank you, Steve Jobs. Thank you for all you did. Without you, I would not be who and where I am, doing what I'm doing, working where I do, playing as I do, living as I do. Your vision changed the world and I will miss that vision. May you rest in peace. | |
| Anatomy of a Cover Song – | 1 year ago |
| Great site -- lots of informative stuff there. | |
| If I were to cover one song it would be...... | 1 year ago |
| The Beatles' "Because". Oh, wait... |
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| How many genres do you listen to typically in one day? | 1 year ago |
| I just put iTunes on shuffle and listen to whatever comes up. So it's not so much a routine as just a "everything I have will get played eventually." | |
| iComper's Covering iComper's Thread | 1 year ago |
| Forgot about this thread. Back in December I covered "Man of Means" by mfwmiles: http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=154321 |
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| Good lyricist needed | 1 year ago |
| Check out LunaBleu -- she blogs poems here with the hopeful intent to have someone turn them into songs. | |
| Best Frontman of all time? | 1 year ago |
GaryLester wrote: ClayPotts +1 |
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| Choosing your favourite songs | 1 year ago |
| ♫ And they called it puppy lo-o-o-ove... Just because we're on our knees... ♪ | |
| Why do people hate moderators? | 2 years ago |
| Everything is fine in moderation. | |
| Garageband on iPad 2 | 2 years ago |
| Aha -- if I'd actually read Rich's link first, I'd have seen that there will be at least some kind of desktop Garageband support. Cool! | |
| Garageband on iPad 2 | 2 years ago |
| Will the files be able to be opened and edited with the desktop version of Garageband, though? That's what I'm interested in... the idea of being able to play around and sketch out a tune on the iPad and then finish it up on my desktop later. | |
| Garageband on iPad 2 | 2 years ago |
| Okay, now I want an iPad. | |
