MW – I Get Back Up

Time to get this blog-party started again. I’m going to try and do as much music as I can at all times. Sometimes it will be a whack rap(?) about Avatar. Other times it might be a whack rap about something else. Maybe there won’t always be whack rapping. Hopefully someday there will be dope rapping. Maybe even dope rapping about the latest IMAX 3D blockbusters.

Level 1 – Miami

I wanted to post this joke while it was still topical.

I created this acapella following this tutorial: http://www.halo3forum.com/music/164655-how-create-cpu-acapellas-full-tutorial.html

I decided to follow the original song closely, because it is just easier that way.  I should probably make the kicks more prominent, and add some more interesting drum patterns with open hi-hat, but seeing as how it is already two days late I’ll take it for what it is. I’ll probably use the acapella for a mashup if I get around to it. Enjoy!

I was having trouble thinking of something to do. My other music projects were coming along slowly. I felt like playing guitar, so I decided it would be a good challenge to make something using only guitar and effects. I use a bunch of different delays. The ocean sound is a grain delay and I just rubbed the muted strings. The pops are plucking a muted string fairly hard. I time warped some stuff in weird ways, and reversed a solo that I played.

It ends abruptly because I didn’t feel like thinking of an ending, and I felt that posting the whole 4:00 was a little too much for this kind of thing. It was a fun experiment. I think I will challenge myself to little games like this more often.

What I will add to this song:
1. Sicker drums
2. Vocals
3. More parts
4. Sweet transitions

Other projects that are in the queue in no particular order:
1. Rick Ross – Hustlin’ Remix
2. Battlestar Galactica rap beat
3. Cursive mashup
4. Rap verse for F-ing Danger Super Side Show

This is the theme from the closing credits of the nonexistent underground 80s horror film titled Fucking Danger. It would have been the story of how an innocent college freshman, Denise, finds out about her sexual addiction to adrenaline. Denise falls in with a group of motorcycle daredevils and gets caught in a web of suspense and lust. Banned in 1987 in the U.S. for its brutal, and exceedingly bloody climax, Fucking Danger would have been considered tame by today’s horror movie standards. With a DVD release in 2009, it would enjoy a small surge in popularity as part of B-movie boxed sets.

This is just a quick sketch that I did over a couple of days. I was experimenting with the slice to MIDI function of Ableton 8. It takes a selection of audio, cuts it up based on some parameters you select, and then puts those slices into a MIDI instrument of your choosing. You can use a slice size that is based on the time signature of the piece, for example every quarter note. Or you can choose to slice at the transients that Live automatically finds for you. This is a super useful feature for me, since I used to spend a lot of time slicing samples up by hand.

I had a lot of fun making this song, and I didn’t focus too much on forcing it in a particular direction. I tried to have as much fun during the creation as possible, and let it be what it would be.  I created the instrumental, then I decided to put an acapella track to it, so I sifted through my library until I found something suitable. It’s usually easier to fit a remixed beat to an acapella, so I got pretty lucky this time.

I decided to call this song Da Mystery Of Cheeseboxin’ because I’ve been watching a lot of The Wire. Method Man plays a character named Cheese. The funny thing is Method Man only appears in the chorus of the original song.

From johntaylorgatto.com

The Factory

This is my first completed rap song. It’s about the negative feelings I have towards mandatory schooling. I’m pleased with how it turned out.

The beat has a slightly different structure from Part 1. The rap vocals are three layers each panned differently and pitch-bent to make my voice sound cooler. The master track has some reverb and a saturator acting as a limiter. Live 7 doesn’t have a straight up limiter, so that is why I used a saturator instead.

Lyrics:

SUNG CHORUS:
Oh
those children they must conform
we’ll protect them from all the storms
you’ll know it was good for them
once they’re working in the factory

VERSE 1:
At ten years old I took a test
to prove I was gifted
not one of the rest
I used hands to count, but I wasn’t dumb
I failed by one point, for using fingers thumbs

I couldn’t quickly multiply
so I was quickly classified
a person with a lesser mind
was not allowed to spend the time

with my best friend in school
in the gifted class
I was just a fool
who had trouble memorizing math

we had separate lunches
we had separate times
that we could go outside
we had separate lives

My mom tried to plead with them
was one point that much
you fail one test, and forever you’re stuck?
but in a system based on rules, the rules cannot bend
when rules are the king, they must break you instead

if you run a factory, you’re gonna need the labor
so start training the children you’re doing them a favor

CHORUS

VERSE 2:
For eleven more years
I coasted through the system
did the minimum, sat in class and listened
I did all the homework, I followed the path
the funny thing is, it turned out I was good at math

I thought college was where I could find out
what mold my brain conformed to
what I was all about
what external label, to myself I could apply
and maybe on the way
there’d be other things to try

instead I was met
with bureaucratic limits
unable to play art
for not meeting prerequisites

so I realized
school could never show me
what was in my soul
it could not control me

Shedding the skin
of society’s goals
I now chart a path
into a future of gold

to take what was mine
from the start
before the machine tried to break my heart

CHORUS