to download pop a milli

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AT5ASKIR

Pop A Milli: Rebirth

Fight the Power.

JFine is tougher than nigerian hair.

Final Assignment: a song. not just any song, House-Hip/Trip-Hop epic remixing two pillars of 21st century culture: Lil' Wayne's 2006 Pop Bottles with Birdman and A Milli off Tha Carter 3. Basically like mixing Bach with Stravinsky.

Note: there were no samples used save the vocals and one baseline (the one that gets distorted 45 sec or so in.)

Overall Structure:
Initially, the track starts out with a house-y beat. To cite my sources Music 295 style, I used Discotech's Remix of Homecoming (see two posts ago) as inspiration. The main challenge for the first house part was getting a hip-hop sample to increase raveability. Pop Bottles runs at 100bpm, which is too slow for a 4 to the floor dance track, so I had to mess with the samples to get them to fit in at 120bpm.
Next, I wanted to work in the first full verse from A Milli. This would entail dropping the bpm down to 76 (so that it would match up with the acapella) and moving from a House to Hip Hop beat. I struggled with this transition the most: I already had a high energy level, and couldn't just shave off 50 bpm and throw away my 4 to the floor for syncopation in just one bar. So I ended up dropping out the drums for four bars, keeping one of the instruments through the transition, and adding a hint of trip hop with the echoed phrase and twinkly arpeggiator. But, ten seconds later the (sick as hell) drums drop and weezy f starts on his verse at 76 bpm.
The last transition would be moving back from hip-hop (a milli) to house (pop bottles). I gradually shifted the tempo while making a smooth transition between the lyrics of the two songs ("you can't man em then you...pour it on the models"). Midi-ing the samples proved to be absurdly difficult, because I couldn't program them in slower than the actual bpm (it would come out overlapping and awkward.)
I found a thunder roll sample to end with. I thought it fitting as it clearly reflects the impact this remix will have on 'the game.'

Issues encountered:
different BPMs. A Milli is at 76 bpm, and Pop Bottles runs at 100. Had to mix it so it didn't sound out of sync.
Lil Wayne's flow being too sick for its own good on A Milli. He weaves in and out of his beats so much that it makes it hard to construct a beat around his acapella (see 1:37 in Pop A Milli)
weak samplers. I never want to see the letters NNXT in a row again. Ended up with having to deal with 7 at one time. You had to go back into ReCycle every time...Al Gore would have been proud.
Making Bass sound legit. More difficult than you would imagine. It's mixed for speakers that can really crank bass, so the drums sound somewhat distorted on ipod headphones or weak computer speakers.
Volume control. Unruly to keep a somewhat consistent dB throughout the song. The HyperEditor was a godsend.
Having too much fun with effects. I stumbled around for an hour before I got the swirling delay-y effect when Lil Wayne first raps "a millionare, i'm a young money millionare..." a minute in.
Arpeggiators in Reason are Busted. Hurt my ears way too many times and didn't shut off when I paused the track in logic. Also I had to make different tracks for different Arpeggiator sections; I couldn't change on the fly.
Mixing lyrics together...cleverly.

25 hours for 3 minutes and six seconds of illery. Enjoy.

what the fuck.

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Zach the Klingon

http://zackypoo.tumblr.com/

Well we all knew Warp Drive was the ultimate trip...
Zach Klion, for the Trip-Hop assignment, has created a smorgisborg of soulful samples. The parameters of tone are on point, and the use of samples was adept. Zach has created a more than adequate summation of modern attitudes to carnality.

First, the tone. The majority of the sounds are muted and low on the register. The legato synth sets a mood of introspection, and the changes in note are sufficiently subtle. The bass dominates, punctuated by high-register samples. The initial 'woooh' also brings a hint of sensuality. The use of stereo also adds to the trip.

Yet the use of samples definitely adds to the piece. The female voice followed by the snappy snare is clearly a trippy suggestion of ass-slapping. The empathy is apparent in the sample 'we all go a little mad sometimes,' solidified by the closing interrogative 'haven't you?'

While this song is not without flaws (the buildup of squeaky samples feels abrupt feels abrupt and out of place, the high synth sound accompanying 'Haven't You' makes for an awkward ending) Zach has certainly secured himself in the Trip-Hop pantheon.

DiscoTech knows his stuff

I just discovered this dj/remix artist DiscoTech. I want your samples.

Remix of Kanye's Homecoming


and TI's Whatever You Like

Just because you're paranoid...

Jodie Foster terrifies me, as well as the newest jFine release.
Going in to the studio tonight, I wanted to make the Kings of Leon epic 'Knocked Up' into some nuts Jungle muzik.



Apparently, the genre invented by London dj's who wished they were born in the Bronx doesn't mesh well with former evangelicals singing about how they don't want their girlfriends to abort that shit. So, I ended up sampling the Arctic Monkey's Brianstorm, The Cold War Kids' Hang Me Up to Dry, and Wyclef singing La Bamba.



Though the doesn't sound particularly 'jungle,' I tried to make it reflect the urban paranoia from which jungle developed.

Listen to this alone. In your panic room.

Reason doesn't suck.

Maybe those Enlightenment philosophers were on to something after all.

There was a Trumbull Master's tea last week, and DJ Kno of the cunniLynguists came to talk to us about how to differentiate from hot and wack (aka the Raekwon-Soulja Boy continuum). He was asked what programs he used, and one of the first he brought up was Reason, the program used to make this track.

For this assignment, we had to make a 60 sec House, Ambient, or Techno beat. I wanted this to be able to be played at the raves, so that ruled House out, and Ambient is kinda wack (right there alongside K-Fed's PoPoZao, his 'Brazilian Ass-shaker'). So I settled on a 4 to the floor beat (somewhat altered in second half) at 137 BPM (Disco Heaven), some ridic synth sounds and effects, syncopation, and a more than ample dose of raveability.



Thanks to KR for the initial melody, AJ for telling me to add crazier drums, and really chill British guy in Electronic Music for coming up with the name-Armageddon.

This took 4.5 hours, or 4.5 minutes per second of music.
You better like it.

Clicks

In my never-ending quest for the ill beat, Electronic Music threw a curveball for this assignment. Professor Kojs compressed ABBA's dancing queen to 1/32 of a second, which sounds too much like nails on a chalkboard, and told us to make three songs out of it. My ears started to bleed after hearing that click for the past three hours. But lo and behold, thanks to the wonders of Radial (aka REdial), a program which I cursed out every twenty minutes or so, my beats are smooth like butter. Well, maybe fat-free margarine, but still...

Honestly, I don't remember how I made that ridic alien sound.

Boomp3.com

The second track I made using reverb, vocoder, and abuse of feedback.

Boomp3.com

This final track I hope to expand at some point. I took a 4/4 beat and then ran a syncopated heartbeat pattern over it. The final clickings were altered by some adroit mousework on the keyboard. I ran different settings of the chorus effect on all the channels.

Boomp3.com

Maybe next time we'll actually get to remix ABBA.

Law and Order

I didn't know if I could make it for two weeks without a rave. Frankly, I'm sick of seeing white people grind. Back in nyc, maybe we thought we were cool enough to pull it off. But here at Yale, we're not 13 year olds rebelling against our parents. We're old enough to actually have sex, so why simulate it?


Raving the fuck out, on the other hand, is a perfect fit for an Ivy League institution. We all glow academically, so why shouldn't we literally?



Anyways...Glûnder Rave Redux was scheduled to start at midnight. People were invited to come at 11:45, so the room was somewhat full by then. I decided to start off with Supermode's Tell Me Why, the House remix, mainly due to the sick vocal intro and initial buildup.

Boomp3.com

For the second song, I wanted something where the beat came in immediately. Also, I didn't want there to be too much of a disjoint in terms of genre. So decided on the club mix of Benny Benazzi's Satisfaction.

Boomp3.com

Next, I got a request from a friend who really wanted to grind with this girl. I mean, I've already articulated I'm sick of grinding I am, but he's liked her for awhile, and the beat on Clipse's Grindin' is too hot not to crank on 540 watt speakers.

Clipse feat. Pharrell

Then, just as it started to really fill up, Yale Police paid a friendly visit. Ah, the perils of the Old Campus rave scene.

Two new 'ringtones'

For the first ringtone, aptly titled "Fuck Your Mind," I went through a series of ideas. Ultimately, I landed on providing initial distortion to the phrase. Then, I recorded myself beatboxing, and sent that sample through a 10 pitch vocorder while adding reverb.

Boomp3.com

For the second ringtone, "Bells," I sat on Old Campus and recorded the bells of Harkness Tower. Through a series of effects I added a surreal feel to the bells, and then applied what can only be described as a busted 'arpeggio-ifier' to the final chord.

Boomp3.com

Note: the initial beeping in both of the ringtones is unintentional. Wave Editor is stupid.

Das Glûnder Rave

"Man, our suite parties have been way too chill. We need to do something ridiculous, make a name for our suite. I mean last year everyone on OC knew was the techno suite."
--a week later--
"A rave. We need a rave. A buun ts buun ts buun ts strobe/blacklight e-infused rave. And no 50 Cent."

Well, maybe without the e...but you get the drill.

For Bingham D12's first official (read: facebook event) party of the year, we decided to throw a rave. 500 Glow Sticks were bought. A strobe light was acquired. And for 45 minutes on Friday night, D12 (sorta kinda) brought a European club to Old Campus. My 450 Watt speakers delivered (they better have...I spent 1/5 of what I made busboying on them), and the next morning, the room wasn't as gross as I expected it to be. But we're pretty sure someone stole our tv remote...







We 'outsourced' the techno playlist to a Hong Kong native, Jin Lee, in the suite. In sucessive raves, I'll play more of a role in the music selection and reflect on how they played with the crowd. Hopefully, by the end of this course, I'll have developed the ultimate Yale rave playlist which incorporates some originals of my own.

Electronic Music

is legit.