Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 13: Tibetan Tombs

Also inspired by Tomb Raider. I'm pretty proud of this one.

Full Set (and Revisions) on SoundCloud!
Facebook.

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- East West Samples
- Stylus RMX Percussion / Atmosphere

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 12! Overcome Your Fears.

Here's what I came up with for Week 12. Heavily inspired by the radio tower climbing scene in Tomb Raider.

Full Set (and Revisions) on SoundCloud!
Facebook.

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- East West Samples
- Stylus RMX Percussion / Atmosphere
- Pretty much no mastering or EQing, sorry

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 11! Unexpected Fight for your LIFE!

Here's week 11. It's an unfinished track from the days when I was super in to the old (read: best) Final Fantasy games.

 This track was pretty much done years ago, but I never "released" it. Sorry, but I need a pass this week. I went away for the weekend, and didn't have the time I usually have to work on my track for this week. So this is my submission. I've actually been working on it on-and-off for a while, and didn't do much except for some fancy channel switching and MIDI arranging to make it "done" for the week. I WILL be back next week with something NEW. NOT a re-hash of old idea. Something FRESH, and from THIS decade.

Full Set (and Revisions) on SoundCloud!
Facebook!

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- East West Samples
- Stylus RMX Percussion (maybe)
- College post-teen emotional duress (the best kind of inspiration-juice)
- FF Pro-Q

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 10! Block Diagram...

Sorry! Forgot to update all the social media stuff again. Here's week 10. 11, 12, 13, and 14 are coming soon. Promise.

Just an old idea I never finished. Literally about 7 years old, I think.

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- Alchemy Synths
- Stylus RMX Percussion
- FF Pro-Q

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 09! Soaring Across The Plains~~

Fun fact: this track was rejected! From the same browser-based RPG as last week. They didn't want this track for their "JRPG highland field theme" because it was too complex. So I like 7/8, f*** me, right?
Full sets on SoundCloud!
Facebook!
Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- East West instrument samples (Goliath, EWQL Orchestra Gold)
- Stylus RMX Percussion
- FF Pro-Q for the EQ stuff (very little, EW samples are so nicely balanced with each other)

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 08! Amidst the Andalusian Highlands

The first section of this was actually intended for an online browser-based RPG I was commissioned on 2 years ago. They didn't like this track for the "fields" theme, but I did, so I took it and finished it. It's meant to loop, as you'll surely notice.

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- East West instrument samples (Goliath, EWQL Orchestra Gold)
- Stylus RMX Percussion
- FF Pro-Q for the EQ stuff (very little, EW samples are so nicely balanced with each other)

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 07! Industry.

Whoops! Forgot to upload the last, like, 4 Weekly Beats tracks to SoundCloud. But here's a good chance to see what days get the most traffic. Here's week 07!

I love my one word titles, don't I? Anyway, I decided to take part in the whole musique concrète, sound-as-music theme this week.

Fun fact: I had to do a musique concrète assignment about 7 years ago, when I was a freshman in music school. I absolutely hated it. Totally phoned it in and didn't put any effort in to it. Today, I'm strangely open to it...

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- Mostly Logic Pro sound samples, maybe some stuff from freesound.org
- Space Designer (reverb effects)
- FF Pro-Q for the EQ stuff
- Automation

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 06! Wasted...

Trying a new submission schedule. Nobody listens to music on a Monday.

Didn't wait until today to start, but it took me until today to get the idea to add spoken word to this track, and it turned in to something pretty okay, but the production suffered a bit.
Thanks to: Colin Mutchler for his spoken word/poem "Drugs of Choice."
Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- Alchemy synths, Stylus RMX drum samples, East West ethnic instruments and atmospheric noise
- Colin Mutchler's spoken word, from the website above.
- MOUNTAIN DEW BAJA BLAST followed by total sugar crash.

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 05! Boats!

Once again, I waited until 2:00 pm to get started, which only gave me 5 hours (in my time zone) to finish, and since I really didn't have any new ideas this week I decided to take an old track and complete it. This is from probably around 2007, and only the first 30 seconds or so was really there. It was originally for a video game ... that only really existed in my head. But yeah, this would have been, like, a seaside town, near the boats. Which is why I called it boats. But now it's more of a "piece" than a looping VGM background track. Also, the recorded parts are a little sloppy, sorry.

But I seriously have to stop this last-minute bullshit. One of these weeks it's not gonna pan out for me. :\

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- A bunch of East West sounds (strings, guitars)
- Some Logic Pro sounds, shockingly enough (the percussion)
- Some guitar recording, some MIDI recording, mostly sequencing using the piano roll or TabIt (lol)
- A big ass sub from Quiznos

Thanks for listening!

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 04! Minimalism!

So this week I did minimalism. Not because I particularly love minimalism (some of it's great, a lot of it is just okay) but because I didn't spend any time on writing music this week, and only had about 2 hours to get something done quickly. So here it is! Next week I'm going to do something more fun.

Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- 6 tracks, all piano, all from an East West sound library.
- Me and my Axiom 61 MIDI keyboard.
- Quite a bit of editing, to fix my timing and velocity mistakes.
- No beer OR caffeine!

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 03! I Recorded Something!

Okay, so I have barely any actual recording experience, and I just got my first two mics (SM57/58) like a week ago (should have bought a pair YEARS ago, not sure why I waited so long), so trying to record something for weekly beats was a terrible idea, and waiting until 4 hours before the deadline to even START was even more of a terrible idea. And my 1 bedroom apartment isn't the most ideal place for recording, what with ambient noise and all (central heating, computer fans, fiancé cooking dinner in the kitchen). That being said, I'm not entirely disappointed with how it turned out. Gotta get experience somehow, right? And I made it! With 8 minutes to spare! *phew*

[url=https://soundcloud.com/ryanleber/sets/weekly-beats-2014]Full Set (and Revisions) on SoundCloud![/url]
Made with/on/by/through:
- Logic Pro
- My new microphones! (Actually, just the SM57)
- Scarlett 2i2 (my USB audio interface)
- Some beer, towards the end. (It gets a bit sloppier ... can you tell?)
- My Taylor acoustic guitar, and me playing it.

Weekly Beats 2014 - Week 02! 8-Bit!

Still in it! Week 02's track is up! And it's goofy as all hell. For about half of it. Then it gets serious. And then goofy again. Check it out, and tell your friends!

Weekly Beats 2014!

So I've decided to participate in Weekly Beats 2014! It's a musical challenge, daring composers/musicians to create and release a new track every week for an entire year. How strenuous! Anyway, I managed to get past the first week (with only one hour to spare), and here it is:

You can listen to it directly here through soundcloud:


But you can also check out my Weekly Beats 2014 page here: http://weeklybeats.com/#/ryan+leber

Share, like, comment, and so forth! And stay tuned every week for a new track!

Technically, I Have Been Busy

I know, it's been too long. I have been busy. Maybe not in the ways I expected, or even the ways I wanted, but I have. I've started working on something rather ambitious; a video game. Of course it's a musical game, where as you progress through a level, layers of music accumulate and even the actions and choices you make can have an effect on the overall soundtrack. Essentially, if all goes well, each level will be like creating your own piece of music, while still enjoying some (admittedly) basic gameplay ideas.

I'm doing this alone, and I going to immediately say that I am no artist. I can usually manipulate graphics to suit my needs, and I'm even pretty good at finding free-to-use material, but when it comes to actually creating something visual from scratch I'm absolute rubbish.  So bear with me as I go in to detail with some screenshots, some of which I made in Photoshop just for this little presentation.

So here's a screenshot, and just about everything visual is tentative, so cut me some slack:

Yes, those spike balls are from Super Mario World. It's temporary. Anyway, the game plays like a shooter (Ikaruga, Gradius, etc but sideways and not as insane). You're controlling that little spark thing (it's a tentative sprite, but it DOES animate, and it even moves really smoothly up and down the screen, so ... so far so good?) You move it up and down as things fly at you from right to left. That circle thing? It's a gate. Aim for it. Those other things? Don't hit those. The gates show up at timed intervals, and the obstacles at random ones, so avoid the obstacles and aim for the gates. As you successfully go through gates, you make progress towards the next level (but don't worry if you miss a few). 

Here's where we talk music, so listen to this as we go:

At the beginning, there's only 1 layer of music playing (like, maybe just a single guitar). As you make it to the next level, a new layer of music fades in (maybe some bass), and the number of enemies flying at you increases. Each level adds news layers to the music.

Here's the first twist, though: There's actually a grid overlaid on the screen (that I made visible in the next screenshot). The grid divides the screen in to regions, and depending on what region you're in when you enter a gate, a note will sound. High up = higher note, lower = lower note. Of course, the notes are in key with the background music. So as you play the game, you end up making your own melody, and if I'm smart enough I may be able to get the game to remember it and play it back to you every now and then.

If you get near an enemy, a dissonant "WOAH LOOK OUT" layer fades in, quickly, and quickly back out. Think of the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, when you get near a baddie. If you get hit, that sucks. If you get hit enough, you drop down a level.

So here's the second twist: powerups. I mean, it's a shooter, why wouldn't there be powerups? You'll use them by pointing and clicking (or tapping, if I find some crazy way to put this on phones), and the powerups will be musical as well! A laser powerup could sound like fluttering strings and flutes. A bomb powerup could be some crazy dubstep drop. All triggered at a relevant note, depending on the background music and what region you aim the attack in, and all executed when you need relief from the droves of enemies flying at you, or if you just feel like contributing to the background music. 

Sorry, definitely got lazy on that last screenshot.

So yeah, that's what I've been working on lately. I've no idea if I can actually pull this off, but I'm going to try. Maybe some of my game design buddies would be willing to help me?

At any rate, thanks as always for reading, and feel free to leave comments or share or what have you. Until next time. 

Hey, an update!

Remember that thing I posted last week? I updated it! It's ... evolved a bit. But I kind of like the direction it took.


What do YOU think?

Also, hey, you should like my facebook page if you haven't already. I'm trying to keep track of this whole social media thing, and getting everyone in at least one place would be great.

Something Unfinished

I used to share my unfinished music all the time when I was writing in high school, and early in college. I haven't done that lately at all, but I think I'm going to start it up again. Who knows, maybe some of you listeners will give me some great ideas and help me finish some of these tracks.


Yeah, it's another Assassin's Creed track. I actually started this one BEFORE the other one I finished months ago. I'm not really sure why; I came back to it a few days ago and was like "damn, this is hot. Why did I stop working on it?"

Please leave feedback. You know, if you want. It would be pretty awesome of you.

A Quick Tune

Just a little something I wrote a while ago but never released. Not sure why I came back to it all of a sudden, but it is what it is: a first step to get back in to writing more regularly.

It's been too long...

Sorry there hasn't been many updates, lately. Moving to a new state is rough, and at the moment I'm focusing more on getting some steady income than writing.

Also, my laptop had a catastrophic failure recently, and I lost a decent amount of work I was doing on more music/game demos in Stencyl.

But fear not! More blog posts and music will be coming soon enough. So stay tuned!

Playable Music Demo!

Alright, friends, I've got something new and exciting for you! I made a "game" in Stencyl to demonstrate how some of my adaptive music tracks work, allowing you to control it, rather than just showing you a video.

There's two flavors: One is a playable platforming game. Time your jumps well, and stomp on the little dude at the end. The other is a very simple demonstration, with some text to explain what's happening, just in case the platforming stuff is a little too intense for you.

I suppose I should put up a disclaimer, huh? My only contribution to this demo is the music, programming, and level design. All artwork, including actors and tilesets, were pre-loaded in Stencyl, and are therefore not my original work. But this is about as non-profit as it gets, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?



Enjoy!

Assassin's Creed: Revelations - Chase Music Analysis

I decided my next task in gaining a better understanding of the Assassin's Creed: Revelations soundtrack was to take a very in-depth look at some of the chase music. It's not terribly complicated, but I didn't let that stop me from doing something a little excessive; I mapped out an entire track in Excel. Insane? Probably.

Here's the track I used (which is fantastic):

And here's my map, so you can follow along:

Here's why I did this: Chase music is all about texture. At some point, it's dense (there's a lot going on), and suddenly it's all open (very few instruments playing). It never does the same thing for too long, even though there are some elements that are almost always present, and carry on throughout the near entirety of the track. So this Excel sheet maps out what instruments are playing, and when, so you can see how it works.

But it also illustrates the four major components of AC:R's chase music.
1. Percussion
Obviously, there's a lot of it, and it's varied in order to maintain interest. It's a mix of taiko/Godzilla drums, ethnic instruments, and electronic drum sounds. Look how much of it there is! But notice that only a small portion of it is playing for very long, besides the hi-hat and pulse elements (they're special). Sometimes the percussion is used melodically, but only in very limited ranges (like halfsteps). This track doesn't do this, but others do, and it's pretty cool.
2. Melodic Elements
These are actually very sparse. Any melodies are very slow, and very subtle. These are usually strings, maybe horns or ethnic instruments, and occasionally gregorian vocals (because, you know, Templars). You know what's nice about this map I made? You can actually see the counterpoint in the melody elements. Look how they trade off throughout the first half of the track!
3. Chordal Elements
I'm talking about the low strings, rhythmic strings, harps, guitars, and instruments that suggest chords. These are usually synched up with the percussion, and are pulsating/rhythmic rather than held out. But notice that there really isn't much of a chord progression, here. It's very static. That's important.
4. Weird Stuff
Nonsense singing, shouts, atmospheric effects, strange metal noises and whatnot. It adds a "what the hell was that?" factor. It's a hook to catch your interest and keep you in to the track, and add individuality.

So it's all laid out for you up above, but here's a few other things to take note of:

• These texture changes, where instruments drop out and new ones come in, they aren't gradual. They're very sudden, very punctuated. 
• To me, the most interesting part of this track is at 1:41. The composer's really trying to throw you off your timing, which is a really neat thing to do considering what the track is being used for. Go ahead, try to keep your timing through that part. It's actually pretty tough, but it keeps you interested, right?
• Also look at how measures are grouped. 3 measures, then 4, then 2, then 8, then 12.75, then 12 (4 + 8 or 8 +4?), then 8 (and the melody suggests subdivisions of 3 + 2 + 3 ). Basically, it's not 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 the whole time, like nearly all songs on the radio are.
• Did you notice the even larger groups? It seems like there's 4. Segment 1 (up to 1:00) is melodic, and building. Segment 2 (up to 2:16) is nearly all percussion. Segment 3 (up to 2:44) is more chordal. Segment 4 (to the end) is all weird junk. Hey, doesn't that sound familiar? Oh yeah, it's the same 4 components I outlined above! Neat how they each seem to get their own little segment in the track, huh?

I have one other little tip, but I'm not going to share it just yet. Mainly because I have to see if it actually works or not, so when you see some more Assassin's Creed style chase music from me, I'll let you know.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the read, and maybe even learned something. Stay tuned for some more new music this Friday from the Sagramore OST!