Falling of a Friend

1-VolumeEnvelopes

For this assignment, I wanted to make it seem like Hilary Clinton was speaking some of her thoughts out loud by accident. To emulate this, I selected clips that somehow worked as standalone phrases. However, these clips do not make complete sense at the same time in the way it was strung together. Donald Trump, for once, is not interrupting at all until the very end. 

I chose to string the clips together in this sense because it was similar to having a train of thought. A train of thought can make sense, but other times, it can make no sense at all. I thought it would be interesting to have clips that made somewhat sense by itself, but are chopped off in parts to take information away from the listener. This way, the listener is deprived of some information and will have to connect the dots or essentially assume what Hilary Clinton is talking about. 

The original clip consisted of Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump mainly debating on topics, but also interrupt each other at the same time. This was interesting to piece together, as there were not a lot of words available that did not consist of Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, and sometimes Holt, not interrupting each other. 

TRANSCRIPT:
I know you live in your own reality, but... It was a very hurtful one…. This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs… He has a… Long… Record of engaging in racist behavior… Well… Maybe he isn’t as rich as he says he is… Maybe he’s not as… Charitable as he claims to be. But, that is not the very hurtful one. It really doesn’t work, it really doesn’t.

It Really Doesn't Work

The space I chose to recreate for the third file was the hall I played in back in 2013. It was a small concert hall, perhaps even a lecture hall, and it was reverberant enough for it to be classified as a not so great venue for assessing concert bands for a music festival. I recall the band teacher telling us to whisper because the judges would be able to hear us if we talked at the normal volume. I remember this place well, as it was where I had a solo part in a piece we were playing for the music festival.

Reverb & Marshall

Frequencies and Resonance

For this assignment, I chose to do the headphone design because I wanted to explore the limits of what headphones can offer, as I do not use headphones or earbuds anymore and only use my computer speakers. The headphones I used to create this piece is a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M40X. 

Sifting through the samples available on Ableton Live 9, I found two beats that I really liked. It was a nice bonus that both beats clicked together nicely and added a new layer to each other. As the beats were house beats, this caused the piece to sound like a form of house or trap music. I played around with the volume of both tracks, allowing both tracks to shine and be heard easier during certain parts of the song. I purposefully made it so that you start with hearing one of the beats, and end with hearing the other beat.

I also wanted to learn to make and use midi audio, and it seemed reasonable to learn it for this assignment. As a result, I made the melody or tunes that can be heard after the 30 second mark. I took advantage of the midi effects available on Ableton, and chose an effect that allowed the notes to sound very bright and happy, and it also added a slight reverb effect. 

Panning music from one ear to another is an advantage that headphones have over speakers, and I also took advantage of this feat. Throughout the song, the clapping and melodic notes can be heard in either the left or right channel, sometimes both. I purposefully added faint snapping throughout the song to add a bit more dimension to the piece. I wanted to make it sound as though people around the listener are clapping and snapping in beat with the house music.
	
After listening to this song on headphones, earbuds, and through my Macbook speakers, it seems that only the headphones, and possibly the earbuds, can do the song justice. Playing the song through the speakers does not allow the song’s panning shine. My earbuds are broken, and can be only heard through the left channel. However, this means that listeners can choose to hear only the left channel, right channel, or both channels. Headphones do not allow the listener to choose which channel to listen to, but it is best listening to both channels at the same time.

Trapping Brightness

Compressions

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In part of this study of Shoji Meguro collaboration, the game series I chose to emulate, or remix, were Trauma Center: Under the Knife, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Trauma Team, and Catherine. I chose to lift melodies and rhythms from each soundtrack, and also included some original elements to help blend the song. 

In my research, I noticed that tracks by Shoji Meguro typically have the same instruments taking over the melody: piano and violin. I also noticed that there are various string instruments, as well as timpani, that are used to create a fuller sound, as well as occasional use of electric guitar, horns, brass instruments, and bells. 


TECHNICAL ASPECTS
This 3 minute 36 second track was created using Ableton Live Suite, and is ideally suited for the speakers in the audio lab at University of Waterloo Stratford Campus and the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro. I highly do not recommend listening to this track through laptop speakers or earbuds, as it will sound extremely distorted and many elements will be missing.

I wanted to challenge myself for this, so I made this song out of MIDI tracks, all individually created by ear. The only non-MIDI, self-created sound is the clock ticking at 2 minute mark of track.


THE TRACK - AN IN-DEPTH BREAKDOWN
The first 2 minutes of the song is dedicated to the Trauma Center and Trauma Team series, with a build-up to and ending with Catherine. I wanted the track to start off sounding relatively happy and calm with the piano and violin taking on the melody while having a full sound, hence why I added some electronic elements at the beginning, inspired by Trauma Center: Under the Knife. As the song progresses, the tone is changed to sound dark and foreboding, as if like it carried a weight of importance and a sense of emergency. I was very inspired by the foreboding tension in each game soundtrack and I worked hard to recreate the same tension in my track. 

I made use of string instruments (cello, electric bass, and double bass) to create a full sound and bells to create a sound similar to that of Trauma Center: Second Opinion and Trauma Center. Melodies and rhythms lifted and recreated are primarily from Trauma Center: Under the Knife and Trauma Center: Second Opinion.

To connect Catherine to the track as seamless as I could, I added a clock ticking, which is the loading sound from the game. The Catherine soundtrack was a blend of allure and elegance with dark and dangerous edge of malice. Because of this, I wanted to increase the foreboding nature even more and focused primarily on the string instruments. I added brass in this section of the track, as I needed to create an even fuller sound with more haunting features. The violin takes the melody in all of Catherine, while the piano sets the overall tone and mood of the section. The track ends with a massive build-up consisting of timpani drums, violins, and brass to evoke the emotion of anticipation and fear. Melodies and rhythms lifted and recreated are primarily from the core Catherine songs.


MELODIES & RHYTHMS USED
Trauma Center: Under the Knife – Gangliated Utrophin Immuno Latency Toxin (G.U.I.L.T.)
Trauma Center: Under the Knife – Patient Profile
Trauma Center: Second Opinion – Savato
Trauma Center: Second Opinion – Emergency
Trauma Team – Lost Rosaila
Catherine – Judgment Day
Catherine – Pandemonium 
Catherine – Roux
Catherine – Fear

hizanozuka