9weeks

Since we’ve already decided on an 80s style sound for this project, it’s only fitting that it comes with authentic synthetic flavor. Much as I would love to throw away thousands of dollars on eBay for vintage synthesizers, my budget only allows for the next best thing: virtual synths. Let’s start with the basics:

Muon Tau: a simple 303-style tone generator, complete with knobs. The original 303 was intended as a bassline generator, and I find that with the cutoff all the way down, this emulator can really add some oomph to a bassline from another synth. It’s also handy for those authentic acid lines, and the “glide” makes for some super-sweet portamentos!

Cheeze Machine, from Big Tick Audio. Possibly the best free VST instrument I’ve ever found, this thing can be tweaked for everything from pads to bells to basslines, and those “ensemble” knobs create some massive stereo depth.

EP Station, also from Big Tick. Good for all sorts of electric pianos, from the organic Rhodes style to the more digital DX7. Lots of settings to tweak, albeit a little harder as most of them are not knobs, but lines of text. Still, a very versitile and authentic-sounding vsynth.

PlastiCZ! from reFX. This is one of my favorite synths. Based on the old Casio CZ series, with a load more options and on-board effects of its own, this virtual synth is quite the everyman. On top of that, it’s also unbelievably resource friendly; even on my measly 1.2 GHz Athlon, I can run ten of these at once!

Slayer, another reFX plugin. This one now comes with Fruityloops, but in the old days it was a standalone instrument. I kept the old version around because I rather like being able to port it around more easily. Anyway, when you need grungey faux-guitar, Slayer sounds damn near like the real thing with the right settings.

Now we’re getting into the meaty synths: this is impOSCar by GMedia. Just lookit all those knobs! This is one seriously complex device by anyone’s standards. Good for wide pads, complex arpeggios and thick basslines, there’s not much this synth can’t do.

And now for the grandaddy of all synths: the Arturia MiniMoog V. This vsynth is a real hog; not only does it take up most of your screen, but it uses an absurd amount of processor power! It’s worth it, though, because you won’t find a warmer virtual synth on the market. Chock full of presets for just about anything that ails you, with onboard effects and all the knobs you’d expect on a real Moog, this synth is an important addition to any retro array.

Next week: drum patterns!

I started this audio path with the 80s in mind, and also important milestones that came after the 80s. This project, to me, is about searching for a way to combine the aesthetics of two musical paradigms. If 80s music was future music, this music is their future’s future.

I made sure to use synthesis forms that were pioneered in the this time period, such as FM. I also used samples from drum kits of that era.

I chose 118 bpm as well, because it is an awesome tempo, nuff said.

The melody and progression is a tad cheeky. I don’t know how I feel about this. The sappy but super-catchy melodies of that time period weren’t always the best trait of the time.

After a lot of talk in the comments of the previous post, I decided to finally get started. Hopefully others will take a cue and follow the same timetable.

To recap: in this iteration of the 9weeks project, I hope to create a song which is stylistically similar to the other songs that will be contributed, and expect the same of those songs by concurrent mechanism. Additionally, in keeping with the theme of “image to sound” I will examine the various ways that visual and psychovisual cues affect our interpretations of music.

In the comments I talked a lot about how music in the 1980s had a very specific range of tempos and was therefore audibly similar even when the styles of that music were radically different. I think this is why we can group such disparate artists as A Flock Of Seagulls, The Time and Eddie Money under the umbrella term of “80s”, although having a time period for these artists certainly provides an easy denomer. Even so, take some copies of “I Ran”, “777-9311″ and “Take Me Home Tonight” and see how easy it is to mix them together. You barely need to adjust the pitch!

The 80s are often seen as a benchmark era due to the fact that they represent the turning point from the industrial age to the information age. This was evoked in popular music of the time by using mechanism as a metaphor for relationships and sexuality. There are many examples: Dazz Band’s “Joystick,” Zapp and Roger’s “Computerlove,” Parliament’s Computer Games album and the song “Flashlight,” Midnight Star’s “Operator” and “Freak-A-Zoid,” and virtually everything by Kraftwerk.

In contrast, the recent retro revival in modern music today, which references that era of music, are almost completely devoid of lyrical abstraction and in fact offer unusually concrete lyrics. Gwen Stefani is a good example, as is the lesser known Chromeo.

Images are, themselves, not concrete things; you can’t drive a picture of a Ferrari or swim in a river on a map. By definition, lyrical imagery follows the same rules. Therefore I intended start out to write lyrics for this song that would evoke a metaphorical imagery similar to the songs I noted above. Following the same general rule as those bands, I picked a piece of technology from the modern age and created a story around it which can be interpreted either literally or figuratively.

Here, then, are the lyrics for my proposed 118 BPM pop song, “Laptop”:

She’s got beautiful design
Turning heads wherever she goes
But it’s much more than skin deep
She displays a bright and gorgeous glow

And right before your eyes
She can do the same things as the girls at home
A little slower for the same price
But she’s optimized for on-the-go

And when we’re movin’ together
To the rhythm of the city beat
We’re a steadfast team whose growth will never slow
‘Cause when that train hits the station
And I’m back up on my feet
I can bring her anywhere I want to go
She’s my laptop

And all my people say hey (hey) hey (hey)
Aren’t you worried that you’ll lose the girl
In the hotel rooms and cafes
See you drag her all around the world

Then you give her lots of sensitive data
‘Till there ain’t no secrets left
She could be long gone tomorrow
Then you’ll suffer from identity theft

‘Cause when she asks for the password
And I whisper to her in her ear
I know my information is secure
‘Cause she’s got secret encryption
‘Cause my info’s near and dear
And that’s how I know I’m the one for her
She’s my laptop

(On a side note, many of these lyrics were taken verbatim from adverts for the new Apple MacBook and the WikiPedia entry on laptops.)

Next week: assessing production: Virtual analog synths and classic drum machine samples!