Sequencing a pop song

Unit 49 brief 2 sequencing a pop song.
Rather Be

I used a mac with osX version 10.7.5. A DAW

How to set up a new project in Cubase

This is the cubase symbol

To first set it up you need to open it so you need to find the Cubase symbol and double click it.                                                                                               

 

This is what will show when you click the cubase symbol and then to start creating your music you click the create button. 

Then you are shown by this and then you will start creating tracks.

How to create tracks

To add a track go to project at the top and then add track and the go to the Instrument. 

This is what you will see when you click on add instrument track.

How to assign synths to track (Hal Lion SE& Sylenth)

A synthesiser is a an electronic musical instrument which is typically operated by a keyboard. The synthesiser produces a wide variety of sounds by generating and combing signals of different frequencies.
A software synthesiser which is different to a synthesiser as a software synthesiser is a computer program, or plug in that generates digital audio.

This is the track you will need have two of them. So once this one is added you need to add another.

  This track will be used later on as it will be need to edit a sound to make it work with the track.

This is what it should look like after adding adding the two HaLions tracks and the one Sylenth. On the left hand side of the blank track this will appear on the left.

How to input midi data (notes) 

The song Rather be by Clean bandit is a song that will have a tempo of 115 however you will need to edit this your self as it will be 120 automatically. So at the bottom bar find this and double click it and edit it to 115.

To actually add a sound to your HALion tracks then you need to find this box on the track and click it.

Which will bring you to this and as the first track we want a string sound so on the search bar you need to type in string and it will give you a list of string sounds, then you choose which you think sounds like the original. 

How to input midi data

What is midi?

Midi is not music and it doesn't contain any sound and it is a digital music file format. But what it is a set of instructions for a electronic device to generate a certain sound. 

Midi File

Midi files are stored as .mid files and not as a mp3 or wav file. Midi files are stored as .mid as they are small but a mp3 or wav file is big. As it is so small they are able to be opened, edited and played back by most media players. As midi was created in 1982 they only had a 8 byte system so the notes are very basic so midi files were used for karaoke industry, old video games and old phones.

Midi Specifications

Midi specification is the message that is sent to the computer to make the noise that you want. As it's on a computer the midi is in binary. Midi is in bytes which is 8 bits, The main bytes that are in the midi is status, data 1 and data 2. The status is the beginning where 3 bytes are used to denote the type of message, and 4 bits to denote the channel number which the message apply's . 

Midi Connections

The midi connection is a system where by you have a midi keyboard or something with midi ports to connect to a computer and the midi in is the pressing the keys and the midi out is the computer generagting the sound.

Midi thru is another connection but this connection is more difficult as this connection as this connection can be used to link devices. So the midi thru is like a LAN network as if you ave a bunch of keyboards in one room you want a midi thru so if you want you can listen to just one rather than all. 

Midi Manager

How to use Groove agent & Media bay to create the drum track (samples)

Like before you need to go to add a track and then Instrument to get to this however this time you pick the Drum- Groove agent. 

To access the actual drum you need to click the button which looks like a square spilt into three.

Once you have clicked that button this will appear and as you can see there is a bar at the top which is all different tracks so each one has a 4x4 grid with all different notes assigned to each one. With each note you can assign a sound clip to or a sample.

To get a list of all the of the samples you use media bay to get a list so you go to the top and click media and open the media bay.

This is media bay and media bay is a massive sound file as it ha many many samples in it that you can search for. Once you have picked the sound you want you drag it on to the groove agent and then that get assigned to a note which can be played and we make the sound you have set it to. 

A sampler is a sound which is similar to a synthesiser but instead of generating new sounds it's used to store sounds of real instruments. A software sampler is a piece which allows a computer to emulate the functionally of a sampler. 

Software Synthesis

With the Sylenth track you added earlier you need access it so you click the keyboard to access the Sylenth. 

This is the Sylenth, the sylenth has some many different parts to it but the mains ones are the envelope, the oscillators, the filer and the low frequency oscillators.