So it's been a while.

I don't want to jinx it, but at least I'm back doing something in Garageband again. I've also thought about getting some music-related hardware in the form of a workstation synth, something I've wanted for a long time now...

Also, Zun rocks. That is all.

While finishing "Slipping Away" off, I felt myself really hitting the limits of my system, both hardware- and software-wise. As I came up to around 30 software instruments in Garageband, it started complaining that the limit was reached. I could easily fix this by chnaging the upper limit to 64, but when it came to applying EQ to each track to better mix them together, it just wouldn't accept it, giving the old message that there are too many tracks or effects. (And that was with each track "clean", no reverb or anything except for the EQ.)

Now, I could have bounced each track to audio and imported those back to GB, but there is another limit: disk space. 40 tracks, a 3-minute song, assuming each is mono would be something like 40 x 15 MB, around 600 MB. Well, not that bad, but without any method to streamline it, it would be a big hassle.

I tried recording my own singing today, but I pretty quickly I came to the conclusion that my voice just isn't up to it. The plan was to put it through a vocoder, but the results were horrible: you could hear pretty much nothing of the voice and the lyrics were completely incomprehensible.

What does this mean? Well, first of all, I'll probably need to find someone who can sort of sing. I'll put up a rough, instrumental mix later for everyone to hear, and if you're then interested in trying singing it, contact us.

I'm sure none of you are wondering why there hasn't been anything put up here so far. There is a very simple reason for that, which is that making music is one of the most pain-staking and complex activities you can do.

In any case, for me, the process usually starts with a melody, probably something I've thought up in the shower, which I then record into Garageband using a cheap M-Audio MIDI-controller along with some chords I think fit. After that comes the incredibly long process of arranging it...

Arranging a song is, to be blunt, painful. What instruments? How many tracks? Does the synth bass sound better in the song than the slapped electric? How long should it be? How can I make sure it stays dynamic throughout? Et cetera.

Something else I've noticed is that as I've progressed, making a song has started taking longer and longer, no doubt because of my increasing self-criticism. You can listen to some of the earlier stuff I made at Ourmedia. Most of the earliest stuff sounds incredibly boring now, more than a year later. But that was also one of the more fun aspects of learning for myself: it felt like every new chord progression I discovered was a major breakthrough!

Anyway, there should be something soon enough.

-Jacke