Singles
Drop Out, Tune In
It was intended to continue the idea of music cooperation
with artists and non artists
by composing around contributions of recorded spoken words
and to create a sequel to "Voices of Love".
But this year was somehow bound to fail,
mostly because participants couldn`t record close enough to the deadline of contribution.
After some consideration on how to maintain the idea of composing in conjunction with spoken words
and on how to compensate missing natural speakers, I experimented with several recording options
and finally settled with two basic production ideas.
The first was to use my own voice and to use it for harmonical startup.
When recorded, the voice was mangeled through several instances in the studio
until it became synthesized into a pad and a harmonic phrase.
You can hear both at the beginning and throughout the entire song.
The second production idea was of experimenting with voice synthesis.
Being total unexperienced on this topic, I had to do a research on the internet.
Going through several interesting homepages with speech demos, my provider of choice was Neospeech.
It could be a form of music art to work with robotic voices or similar desired electronic expressions,
but in my case I wanted to have natural sounding voices, at least as close as possible.
I also wanted to have a little language variation at some passages of the song
and Amrit Kaur Khalsa kindly translated the lyrics into Spanish,
which is "spoken" by voice synthesis as well.
Although the song is free to download and I do not make a penny with it,
I want to avoid potential legal issues,
so I give credit and copyright to Neospeech for the usage of voice synthesis.
The copyright for the usage of voice synthesis is under the terms of Creative Commons
which includes prohibition of commercial usage or any modification of the song material.
Speaking of the lyrics:
I have to smile a bit when calling it "lyrics",
but it is a song and a song has ... well ... lyrics, if any.
The source of the lyrics is Osho,
all I did was to re-arrange his words and adding a few
in order to have a better workflow according to the song structure.
Because of the idea of having spoken words on this song,
obviously something has to be spoken
and I found his words to be the most appropriate.
Voices of Love
The song is the result of a request for voice contributions, published here.
The song release is distributed at various MP3 portals
like soundclick (USA), mp3.de (Germany) or mp3.com.au (Australia)
in order to offer best download speed close to listeners continent.
It is published at besonic, last.fm and others as well.
This work was a real challenge, since there was no musical concept or composition,
just the idea of publishing a free song with voices expressing love.
So I asked around for voice contributions at various social networks and on this site.
By and by replies came in and the first one was Massimo from Italy:
Massimo, band Music is Love, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
followed by Henrik from Danmark:
Henrik Hytteballe, band Haiku, contact
It was a nice startup and I liked the recordings.
At some point I thought, well, where are the females ?
And as if i have done a prayer, Britta from Belgium joined:
Britta Hoeyberghs, solo artist, contact
and Jessica from USA followed:
Jessica Waters, solo artist, contact
A well blanced contribution of voices so far, but there was more to come.
Susmita from Bangladesh came across the path:
Susmita Biswas Sathi, poet and lyricist, contact
And at the point where I wanted to start the project, Ariel from Australia came into play:
Ariel Kalma, solo artist,
While at work, I received more and more cooperation requests
and I will go for a sequel in 2010.
If you feel attracted to join, contact me via the contact form.
I would like to say a big thank you to all submittans !
To me, this is the magic of music:
creativity, togetherness, cooperation, merging, combining, sharing.
In short ... love.
With this project I wanted to see if it`s doable,
having nothing at the beginning and a synergy of love, creativity, togetherness at the end.
And I wanted to see if a message can be understood by the heart,
although the spoken words are not my mothertongue and cannot be grabbed by the intellect.
Do you have a microphone ?
All involved parties declare this work to be published under the terms of creative commons.
Delivered Free
Song: Delivered Free
The title is released under the terms of Creative Commons
and can be downloaded at various MP3 portals.
This project was very interesting, since I came to the question
what will happen if I perform and produce with the strict option
to only use freeware and free material available on the internet.
(Ready made loops of any instrument excluded).
At what quality music can be composed and performed
with freeware, companies and private persons developed
and generously posted on the internet for free use.
So the song title "Delivered Free"
refers to the fact of having worked with freeware only.
The Options:
- The project reflects a working session on a pc,
so I cannot say anything about mac conditions.
- The host, which is the software for composing and editing must be free,
the instruments, virtual instruments (vsti) in this case, must be free,
all plugins for the production (vst plugins here) must be free
and any additional material like vocals must be freely available.
- Host specific tools for soundshaping are not allowed,
plugins are allowed any host (able to load vst and vsti) can load,
so the work is valid and comprehensible for all free hosts.
- The basic option is freeware, not demo-,share-,trial-ware.
- The project must be free of any predefined genre or style,
so the workflow and genre follows the inspiration of the freeware in use.
A list of used freeware to be found at the bottom.
My first choice of the host was my registered copy of Samplitude 9 SE,
a free giveaway of a German magazine and Magix.
Hosts are a matter of personal taste
and what works for me must not work for others.
I like to mention one more host, called REAPER by Cockos Inc.
REAPER requires no dongle, has no copy protection,
and can be evaluated with full functionality.
After the decision to use it,
a non-commercial license currently is at 50.00 USD.
It does not match my option of freeware in total,
but can be evaluated freely and without a time nag.
What it makes so unique is the selling concept and support.
Cockos comes with the concept to trust people evaluating their program,
are going to pay for the copy when it comes to the decision of continuous use.
What a turnaround in the music business!
A software company do trust musicians and works hand in hand with them !
I hope some companies, developing music software,
start to realize people become easily customers
by trusting and supporting them ...
The Workflow:
First I had to look around on search engines whats there on the net
and downloaded virtual instruments (vsti) of my interest.
After install and playing around with the instruments
I had the feeling to go along with some lazy, downtempo, pop-rock song
and created the composition and arrangement.
Then I came to the conclusion some vocals would feed and complete the song.
So I had a look on the net again if there are some vocals provided for free.
My first choice was a female opera voice, singing a phrase of Cleopatra,
but somehow some complementary phrases where mising, so I dropped it.
With the help of search engines I came across ccmixter.org
and a female blank voice, stored for free use in MP3 format.
After cutting the file in some pieces,
to be able to set them on different positions in the song,
the true magic happened. This was so spooky ...
The vocals matched 100 percent without the need of any correction
of pitch or tempo, either of instruments or voice.
This was a magic moment and a lucky event.
Later, a few marginal things had to be done, but not much.
At a certain vocal passage is an unwanted tonal microphone feedback,
but I was not able to find an appropriate freeware to correct this,
so I left it as is.
The female vocalist is Kristin Hersh and the blank downloadable vocals
are ripped of her song "Around Dusk".
Playing around with the freeware for sound shaping, dynamics etc.,
I came to an unexpected issue.
It was the fact, some instances are pretty outdated
and although at a good quality level, they consume much power,
so I was not able to use everything I wanted to have for the project
and I was forced to implement just the basic needs for a mix.
At the point of looking for freeware plugins for emulating
warmth, sub basses and adding mods like chorus,flanger etc.,
I had to stop because of cpu overload.
To give the freeware mix some sort of pop-rock muscles,
I pushed hard the dynamics of the sum.
But this is just my interpretation of a pop production
and must not be a common practice.
The last step to make the track available on the net
was to use a free MP3 converter and my choice was Germanix Transcoder.
The program can be installed in German or English
and is linked and listed down below.
Please note,
1. it was not on my mind to create a competition
on the used freeware, so the question was not "whats the best for ...".
2. the project does not belong to any mix competition
3. the project does not represent my genre, it represents the project itself.
I hope you enjoy the song and feel inspired to pay freeware more attention.
A donation here and there to some developers would also be not a bad idea.
List of used software available on the net:
(Where I downloaded from, must not be identical with the homepage of the author)
Virtual Instruments (VSTi):
Asynth (Synth), Jazz Baby (Piano), Crystal (Synth), Oatmeal (Synth),
Dr. Fushion 2 (Drums), Tapeworm (Strings)
Studio Plugins (VST):
Free bundle from Voxengo , free bundle from Cockos , free bundle from Kjaerhus ,
free bundle from Digitalfishphones , Electri-Q (posihfopit)
Vocals
and copyright holder of "Around Dusk" Kristin Hersh
MP3 Converter
Sahra
Song: Caffeine for Sarah`s Strokes
This title is released under the terms of Creative Commons
and can be downloaded at various MP3 portals.
While working on next upcoming commercial album
I enjoy working on free music releases
whenever I have time for it.
Sometimes the free music comes in cooperation with other musicians,
sometimes it relates to something appealing my attention.
So with painter and myspace friend Sarah Giannobile.
Sarah is an abstract painter
and a friend on my personal myspace site.
At myspace she is presenting her art work
and I felt immediately attracted to her tremendous creativity.
She attached a pair of her paintings on her comments
which can be done at myspace sites
and one day I had the spontaneous feeling
I`d like to write a song on it.
I am not very much an adept of paintings at all
so I wrote the song as I was able to recognize the paintings.
Please visit her
and see for yourself what she can give to you
and if you are at myspace,
write her some nice lines, she deserves it.
Divine Painting
Song: Divine Painting
This work is released under the terms of Creative Commons
and can be downloaded at various MP3 portals.
Did you know ?
In ancient times lived Japanese monks, painting with their hairs.
Why with the hairs ?
It was not some sort of avant-garde
like it might be used nowadays
to make the painter more interesting,
more special,
to profile the ego.
It was quite the opposite ...
While meditating day in day out
they became so deeply touched by
everything surrounding them,
they did not accept to have a brush
between their body and the canvas
when expressing art.
They became so full, so overwhelmed by the divine,
so ecstatic by vicinity and the immanent deity,
something nonrecurring was needed to express it.
When not accepting a brush,
they could have done it with the hands right ?
They could,
but this was not appropiate to express
what needs to be expressed.
When painting with hands
an intention is involved to give the picture a form.
Even painting abstract is a form,
a non-form by will power.
When painting with hairs you cannot control the outcome,
you don`t know what will be on the canvas as a result.
Every throw of colours with hairs is unique
and cannot be repeated in the same way.
It cannot be corrected.
They have been known as divine artists,
divine painters, mad and ecstatic.
The structure of the song reminded me
to this story
and so I decided to consign a musical memorandum
of this ancient remarkable painters.
`Divine Painting` is dedicated to those monks.
I know it`s a bit late to support them
with headbanging passages in the music ...
aren`t there any divine painters out there ?
Joomla
Song: Joomla!
This song I wrote for the Joomla! community.
The name Joomla is a phonetic spelling for the Swahili word "Jumla",
which means "all together" or "as a whole".
Joomla! is a free open source content mangement system (CMS).
I use it for my homepage and I love it.
Around Joomla! is a huge worldwide community
with support, discussions, addons, modules and components.
Again, it`s free, you will find more under www.joomla.org
The song is licensced under the terms of `creative commons`
Creative commons allows private users to download and use material freely
and also contains the right to play it for free on radio shows
as long as the show don`t make money with it.
Commercial use will be charged and song modification is not allowed.
Here`s official promo text:
Joomla! song released,titled Joomla!
A song written for the Joomla! community
has been published and is ready to be downloaded for free for private use.
Omkar, the composer of the song and a user of the CMS Joomla!
provides song preview and appropriate infos on his homepage
www.omkarmusik.info (now omkarmusic.com)
The Joomla! song is released under the terms of creative commons
and is available on various MP3 portals.
You can either check your favorite portal if it`s there
or visit Omkar`s site to be forwarded.
Creative commons allows private users to download and use material freely
and also contains the right to play it for free on radio shows
as long as the show don`t make money with it.
Commercial use will be charged and song modification is not allowed.
Donations are welcomed
and can be done directly via paypal
on the site where the song description is.
Omkar:
"The idea behind to have the song on mp3 portals is simple:
the more previews, downloads, votes,
the higher the song goes up the ladder of the hitlist.
The higher the song goes up, the more people will listen
and the more popular the term joomla! will become.
I have added informations about joomla! on song description.
You can download and vote 100 times a day and not only once, remember...".
