Looking Back...

Well, the first semester of music technology is over.  Lucky for me though, I am signed up to take the class again next semester also.  Anyways, I will use this time now to look back at the semester, critique my work from the semester, discuss what I liked about what I've done, discuss what I want to change, and discuss what I want to do next semester.

So, this semester I decided to work with Logic Pro X to create digital music using the library of software instruments and the tools provided by logic.  Here are the two songs which I created:

Overall I wasn't particularly pleased with either of my works.  I found that I didn't really like using the software instruments on Logic Pro X because they didn't really fit the style of music which I wanted to create and because nearly all of them sounded artificial and a tad too high pitched and squeaky.  They seemed to lack the natural roundness and wholesomeness which real instruments or even better quality software instruments may have.  Not to mention they aren't fitting of the rock-ish, alternative-ish, indie-ish music which I am interested in creating.  I had a horrible time creating drum beats fitting of a rock song (or any song for that matter) because the only way to use the drum kits was with the piano keyboard layout where each key was assigned a different drum.  I had a lot more luck creating more intricate beats with the program FL Studios (shown in image below) which I downloaded on my home computer. Sadly though, because I only have a demo of FL studios, I am not able to save my work.  Overall Logic just didn't have the sounds or the tools I was looking for so next semester I will attempt to do something different.

FL Studio Drum Layout

(http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/How-To-Make-A-House-Beat-In-FL-Studio.png)

Looking back on the first song I created (Where I Begin), I am not disappointed even though I do not actually like the song that much.  The only thing which I am disappointed about is not quitting earlier.  The first song took me a long, long time to finish and even though it never came out very good, I did learn a lot about my style as well as well as Logic.  As I explained above, I found that I didn't not particularly enjoy using Logic.  However, with the time I spent on it, I did learn a lot about it.  The thing I liked the most about it was messing with the ES2 interface where you can customize the sound of the software instruments.  This helped me regain a little bit of the sound which I wanted to create.  Working with Logic every day really got me thinking about the type of music I wanted to create.  Furthermore, trying to use Logic to create that sound got me thinking about what really defines the sound I want to create.  I realized after a long time trying to create this song that it wasn't really my style and that is why I was having trouble progressing into and adding to the song.  So eventually I just found a good place to end it and I tried again with a different song.

ES2 interface used for changing the sound of many software instruments in Logic.

(http://cdn.tutsplus.com/audio/uploads/legacy/239_hoovers/02.jpg)

As for the 2nd song (Again, Again), I like it better than Where I Begin.  I feel that although this song doesn't really reflect what I want my music to reflect, it is a good representation of what I learned to do using Logic.  It was put together in under 2 weeks and is several seconds longer than the first song which took me all but the last two weeks of the semester.  Overall I think that it sounds much better than the first song because, from the start, I knew how to use Logic.  When I started with the first song, I had no idea how to use Logic but when working with the second song I was had a much clearer idea of what I was doing and what I wanted to do with the song.

Although this semester had very few physical results, I hope next semester I have more to show for may work.  I know that next semester I will shy away from creating music with Logic and hopefully try recording music and maybe even work with a few of my classmates to help create a song or two.  I don't think using software instruments or creating electronic/digital music is what I want to do anymore and while it was fun and interesting to try, I feel it ultimately proved as a failure.  I can't wait to try something new next semester.