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Seminar: How to make good music (Revision 2012)

May 4th, 2012
by jco.
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An entertaining seminar I held at the demoscene party Revision 2012.

Synopsis:
What makes a good song? I will try to answer this ultimate question once and for all.
This presentation is about the effects of music and how to achieve them. From a pragmatic standpoint I talk about how to use knowledge of audience expectations, clichés and stereotypes to achieve certain predictable effects. The presentation again features hand-drawn slides and live demonstrations. This seminar is for everybody interested in music and creativity in general, many of the presented concepts can be applied to other forms of art just as well.

Here are the slides for further enjoyment:
Revision 2012 seminar slides

This is the unedited recording from Revision 2012. The original file is available at scene.org. Thanks to the Revision 2012 seminar team!

Revision website: http://revision-party.net

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Song: Change has come

Apr 15th, 2012
by jco.
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Here’s a new orchestral piece, first presented at Revision 2012 in the streamed music competition. Enjoy!

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Download “Change has come” (mp3)

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Revision 2012 Jingles

Apr 9th, 2012
by jco.
3 comments

I made the party jingles for Revision 2012 (a demoparty).
Here they are, for your enjoyment and reliving the moment :)

Revision 2012 Jingle (zip, all 9 variants, mp3, ~11MB)

Listen to the extended version:

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Song: The Towers of Atlantis

Dec 28th, 2011
by jco.
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Here’s a new orchestral piece, first presented at The Ultimate Meeting 2011 in the streamed music competition. Enjoy!

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Download “The Towers of Atlantis” (mp3)

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Game: Earworm

Aug 14th, 2011
by jco.
5 comments
earworm_43

Earworm is an innovative game for Windows. You make the soundtrack: All music is arranged in realtime based on your game-actions.

Download “Earworm” (zip, ca. 18MB)

Can you find the supersecret Keycombo for starting the game in the supersecret HappyHardcore-Mode?

To run the game in fullscreen-mode, set “fullscreen = 1″ in earworm ini. Resolution and quality settings are there too. THE GAME IS OPTIMIZED FOR 16:9 ASPECT RATIOS AND HD RESOLUTIONS! But 16:10 will most likely also work.

The game features a realtime sample-playing and sequencer-engine which recombinates samples and loops based on musical criteria, completely controlled by the game.
It even features dynamic processing and turntable-like control of playback speed. The idea was to write a game music synthesizer with a simple API like

  • play a song
  • change to another part of that song at the earliest possible opportunity
  • react appropriately to fuzzy dramaturgic measurements like “amount of danger”
  • smoothly change tempo
  • play stuff in parallel

Of course, the result has to

  • always sound good, “musical” and “fitting”
  • stay always in sync with the game
  • never stop

So I hacked a lot of assumptions about the structure of music into the controller engine, and came up with a manageable system of describing “songs”. The possibilities and permutations are without limit, I will most likely further explore the area of realtime interactive music and visualisation systems.

Enjoy :)


Earworm Screenshots

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Song: Joy has found me (feat. Mel Summer)

Aug 13th, 2011
by jco.
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Here’s a trance thingy I made with a friend for Evoke 2011:

Download “jco feat Mel Summer – Joy has found me”

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Seminar: It’s all about the sound (Revision 2011)

May 13th, 2011
by jco.
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An entertaining beginners seminar I held at the demoscene party Revision 2011.

There are some obvious mistakes in there (yeah, talking English confuses me!). Consider it your task to find them ;)

Synopsis:
The process of mixing aims at putting audio tracks together in a way that sounds pleasing to the listeners ear, at the same time bringing out the best of the music. While it has become easy to put some music together with an average netbook, getting the mix right not only requires the right tools, but also some knowledge about how to use them: clicking through presets doesn’t help here. This seminar will be about acoustics and perception, audio gear, the typical tools required for mixing and recommendations on how to use them. So, if you make music yourself and have none or little experience with EQs, dynamic processors, stereo imaging, routing and so on, this is for you. If you are involved with coding games or other applications incorporating audio, you might learn something too.

Here are the sine-wave-examples:

some-sines

sine-up-down

This is the unedited recording from Revision 2011. The original file is available at scene.org. Thanks to the Revision 2011 seminar team!

Revision website: http://revision-party.net

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Single: Wir machen Sex und keine Popmusik

Apr 27th, 2011
by jco.
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Cover Art - Click for large version!

This hot electrohouse single will make your summer more enjoyable. We just released it at Revision 2011. Vocals and lyrics by Indian Love, music by me and mastering by Jörg Menningmann. Download the whole thing (.zip, ~30MB)

 

#01 Indian Love – Wir machen Sex und keine Popmusik PARTY

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#02 Indian Love – Wir machen Sex und keine Popmusik TRAEUM WEITER

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#03 Indian Love – Wir machen Sex und keine Popmusik EXTENDED

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Cover Art - Click for large version!

 

 

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Album: Cell Necrosis – Abbyss Beyond Oblivion

Apr 21st, 2011
by jco.
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Abbyss Beyond Oblivion Album Cover by Cell Necrosis

I just got permission by the band to present this awesome album:

Cell Necrosis – Abbyss Beyond Oblivion PROMO

Now free for download (320kbps mp3)


Cell Necrosis – 01 – Beyond the Grave

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Cell Necrosis – 02 – The Dead come wanking

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Cell Necrosis – 03 – Tribal Death

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Cell Necrosis – 04 – Angels never lived

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Cell Necrosis – 05 – Bonecrust

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Cell Necrosis – 06 – Angerblast

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Cell Necrosis – 07 – Chainsaw Fisting

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Cell Necrosis – 08 – The Tale of Sorrow (Part II)

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Here are the release notes (sry, German):

Cell Necrosis
conjures
Abbyss Beyond Oblivion PROMO

Gesang …. Lanzelot
Gitarre … Thannatos the Torturer
Drums ….. Beholder of the Blade the Third

Die Künstler über das Album:

“Wir hängen die Messlatte nicht einfach höher – wir hängen die Messlate _woanders_ hin.”
- Beholder of the Blade the Third
“Wir waren schon am Start, da hat deine Oma noch Black Sabbath gehört”
- Lanzelot
“Seit ich Gitarre spielen kann, bin ich Fünf”
- Thannatos the Torturer

Bandbiographie:

Lanze, Thanno und Rudolf kennen sich bereits seit ihrer Kindheit. Psychologen interpretieren ihr seitdemiges Hingezogensein zum Destruktiv-Finsteren und Abysmal-scheusslichen als Ausdruck einer neuen Generation. Sie geben als Cell Necrosis ihrer Jüngerschaft bedingungslose Härte und das Gefühl, mit ihrer Individualität nicht allein zu sein. Erste Gigs spielte die Truppe in einem Kindergarten. Thanno zerlegte die Ukulele, während Lanze schrie und Rudolf schätzungsweise 10 Inventarstücke der Einrichtung perkussiv zweckentfremdete.
Der einzigartige Sound der Band prägte sich in den späteren 1980er Jahren. Schon vor dem ersten Auftritt kam es zu internen Streitigkeiten, Rudolf verließ die Band und wurde erst 5 Jahre später durch Beholder of the Blade the Third ersetzt.
Seitdem knüppelt die Band nicht nur im Studio sondern heizt ihren Fans auch auf der Bühne mächtig ein. Jetzt melden sie sich nach einer kreativen Pause mit ihrem neuen Album “Abbyss beyond Oblivion” zurück.

Über das Album:

Der einzigartige Stil erweist sich als eine Mischung aus Steelcore, Electronic Filth und Einflüssen von Eisregen, Sepultura, und vielen anderen, geht aber zwei Schritte weiter. Cell Necrosis bringen in dem Album ihre Abbyss-Trilogie zu einer würdigen Klimax. Hier gibt es nicht nur auf die Ohren, vielmehr treibt die Musik einen stählernen Meissel in die Hypophyse. Immer treiben die mal verstörenden, dann wieder erweckenden Melodien auf einem Nagelbrett aus wuchtigen Drums und fauchenden Vocals.

Eisregen war gestern …

Abbyss Beyond Oblivion Album Cover by Cell Necrosis

The cover - a true piece of true art

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Song: Anyway

Mar 21st, 2011
by jco.
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anycover

Here’s a little something I made a few months ago. As a combination of several different genres and influences, it fits best in the “film music” category.

Download “jco – anyway”

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