Garageband Remix

As the title suggests, this post is where I download an EDM song, which is Levels by Avicii, and change it up so that it becomes MEDM, or My Electronic Dance Music. I begin by opening  up an unaltered midi file in Garageband:

Before starting the editing process, I listen to the track several times, also listening to each track individually. I immediately delete tracks that I think are undesirable. I begin this process with 17 tracks, and I finish with 15. I am going for a classic rock band sound, so I change the main piano-oriented progression to a clean electric guitar, the main melodic line from a dreamy ambient tone to a brash, high-ended electric buzz.

As I continue to monkey around with the tracks, they all progressively become more traditionally sounding. All the electronic sounds become clean guitars, organs. my favorite sound here for the main melody is the Wurlitzer.The only sound to remain the same is the Boutique 808 GB. At first listen, it is almost so non-present that it could be deleted, but when I hear it, I realize that it adds in a very small way that helps make the song.

My next step in making this song more old-school is taking away the loop quarter note bass beat and adding in a real drum sound. For this I go for the "So Cal" drummer, and give him and exceptional high rate of snare hits, as well as a swing feel, similar to old jazz standards. My next step will be to loop this drum track through the whole song.

I continue to add some different instruments. Since I am interested in Avicii's syle, whose tendency is to use very unelectronic sounds, such as brass intruments to create EDM (as in Hey Brother, I do the same. The lower melody is played by a trumpet and the upper melody is played by a string orchestra.

The upper melody, played by the electric, has notes in it that are very dissonant when played with the major rhythmic chords, so I change the opening not by a half step. Dissonance solved. On a side note turning the electronic solos into clean guitar solos is the best move I've made yet. When it "duels"with the soft square lead there is a fusion of old and new sound that is very excellent-sounding. Its fade-out to allow the next mid-section, which I made electronic, flows very well.

The old guitar and the new soft square lead solo together:

 To wrap up the song, I add a fade out feature that leaves the drummer alone playing, ending the song the way it began; with a simple swing jazz drummer, telling us to remember the old days of music. I am very pleased with my work here:

This song went from sounding almost exactly how it sound on the to sounding as if The Rolling Stones and Steve Aoki were sharing a stage. In my ears, it brings together two worlds, and I feel I have done this well. The final picture is a checklist of all the various actions that I have taken in this project.

Mars and Venus

These days, there are two main types of recording music: analog and digital. Analog predates digital recording, and yes, I know that analog is old school, difficult, obsolete and maybe even low in quality, whereas digital recording is easy, always improving and is available to pretty much anyone in a first world country. However, I have to wince when I hear someone say that one is better than the other.

Permit me just one analogy: analog and digital recording are like two uninhabited planets, because they are very different from each other, have their various characteristics, and are equally habitable provided you have the right equipment.  They are different from each other, not one an evolved form of the other.

For the sake of my argument, I’ll use a song that was recorded with both methods. The song is Physical (You Are), first by Adam and the Ants, using the analog method, and later by the Nine Inch Nails, using the digital method.

The first thing one might notice is the overall “vibe” from the songs. Adam gives us a very brash, rockin’ song that gives me the inclination to go ride my skateboard in the middle of the highway and really just be a punk. All the instruments are very distorted, and even the vocals are not mixed. It’s the kind of song that gives you a copy of what it would sound like live. Nine Inch Nails on the other hand gives us a more refined, clean sounding version, with much more attention to musical aspects. It is not difficult to set guitars and bass track tracks apart.

This is the benefit of digital recording. You can take a horrible, or even good recording and turn it into gold on the computer. However, as a musical purist, I am highly critical of music that is good because of a computer and not the musician.

Instrumentation is also dramatically different. There are probably two guitars at the most, drums bass and vocals for Adam. This is interesting, because analog makes these instruments sound very large and fat. Another benefit of digital is that you can have 20 or 30 different instruments, ad mix them well so they aren’t muddy. If you were to record Adam digitally, it would sound very empty I think. Nine Inch Nails I guarantee probably has over ten tracks. Let’s go reverse for a second; if you recorded nine inch nails using analog, it would not even be recognizable.

As I said, they both have their benefits. They also carry different eras with them. In other words, they are both associated with a certain culture, similar to how Avicii is attached to the age of digital music, and Chuck Berry symbolizes the old way. So the next time you listen to some analog stuff, just imagine how this sounded to people thirty, even twenty years. It was rad man, in the same way that ravers would be if they showed up in old Mayberry.