The fat of this Blog has been rather savagely trimmed. No longer will you see entries here that serve as a sort of journal of what I’ve been playing lately. Not unless it’s a game that I think deserves special attention, in which case it gets a single entry under the “Gaming Gems” label. My Blog is down to about 1/5th of the original posts now but, from this point onward, there should be more lasting posts now that I’ve found a better focus.

I’m aware of the irony of creating a post like this because it’s specifically the kind of post I don’t want to make. However, this post is pulling double duty, as I’m using it to introduce another piece of original music I sequenced.

Music: “GraphicJam”

When I’m composing music in Ableton Live, what I’ll usually do is browse the sample library until I find a good base in which I’d like to build a song about. In this case, it was the chimes you can hear throughout the piece. This was a relatively difficult choice because those chimes are very overt and consequently would not mesh with much. However, after I found a couple compatible bass sources and that rather wicked riff (at first rather jarring I’m sure) that starts up at the 25 second point, I found such a nice sound that it brought tears to the eyes. There was one sample I used that cut off prematurely, it’s relatively well masked but it made ending the song awkwardly abrupt.

I’ve mostly been trying to figure out if there exists a character in which I can enjoy Neverwinter Nights 2 with lately. You won’t see many entries on that because I saved them off-Blog as drafts — it’s mostly me using my Blog as a scratch pad. However, that’s behind us now – today is Creative Content Friday!

Creative Content Fridays are something I have not observed as often as I’d have liked. The goal isn’t neccessarily to create something create so much as to give myself practice in doing so.

This week, I’ve a musical clip I put together in Ableton Live. It seems if I ever got around to writing computer games, I’ve the musical scores covered.

Music: “Razzorburn”

Like it or hate it, I still think buying a copy of Ableton LE 6.0.10 was the best $200 I ever spent. Maybe next semester I’ll see about shelling out for a copy of Adobe Flash.

Another little thing I threw together using Ableton Live and some sample loops.

Music: “Cosmiquik”

I decided to start a new segment of my Blog I call “hack music”. I have purchased a copy of Ableton Live LE because it makes music creation easy enough that even a relative hack like me can put together some pieces I’m overly proud of. Besides, they’re probably more entertaining for others than most of the stuff on this page.

Music: “Along Comes Life”

The plan is to throw in a clip with future Blog entries. It’s good incentive for others to read my silly thoughts, and it’s good incentive for me to practice using Ableton Live. Perhaps one day I can graduate from “Hack” to “Rank Novice,” and then I’ll be ready for a major recording contract.

Busy times at school. (Granted, I’ve spent way too much time in City of Heroes lately leveling up a Robotics/Traps Mastermind.) Lately, I got to play with Ableton Live and put together a little clip for my project. This is entirely sequencing existing samples.

Bear in mind it gets kinda overwhelming deliberately because the theme is information overload. I since discovered it’s a bit too long (there’s a 3 minute limit) so I probably won’t be using this.

Music: “Overload”