Turn Up, Tune In, Chill Out - & listen to the funky bass!
Shall I reveal the secret? Musicians never reveal their secrets. Let's just say the drum beat is a not-so-distant relative of the bass line.
The funky HalionONE bassline was composed from 4 notes. The lead synth was composed from Cubase's Step Input feature - It still surprises me that it sounds ok. After a little guidance on the structure of a dance tune from a fellow student in the know - I was ready to go.
As most of my music is instrumental, I thought: sod it! - Let's add a vocal part. This came in the form of a spoken voice Leitmotif from Neil Innes (former APB keyboardist).
I later discovered the title is a play on Timothy Leary's “Turn on, tune in, drop out” - having been either unaware, or subconsciously/subliminally aware of that at the time.

El mo's Intermission:
NOW REMASTERED!
As soon as I heard Elmo's Song “If I Fall”, I wanted to sample the bass line.
It features calming sea wave noise (generated with Audacity).

Stevie C's E Street Garage Band:
Our multimedia lecturer, Kevin Murray (who happens to be one of the best guitar players - I'll come to that in a minute), gave us one hour to get to grips with Apple's Garageband - and show off our creations at the end of the class.
So, I set to work exploring the software: dragging clips into the mixer, applying extreme panning & gating, reverbs etc - and produced a tune that started as techno/dance, progressed through ambient and ended up as blues rock/motown.
Our project also had to include an audio recording - which is where Kev's guitarism came into play.

Stevie C's Slow Rock Choon:
My first ever “tune” in Cubase 4! Kudos to Mike Brown (my DAW lecturer at the time) for showing me the ways and wonders of Cubase.
The tune has had a bit of a clean-up as there was far too much hi-hats & crash cymbals, maybe I could have trimmed it down a bit.
Ignore this, have a listen - & let the music speak for itself.

Europa Jungle Mix:
While my tune for NQ semester 1 (T.U.T.I.C.O.) wasn't going very well, I decided to take a break for one class.
I set up a new project, found the most spaced-out synth (now was it HalionONE, Prologue or Spector? hmmm...), enabled quantize, hit record & proceeded to play random chords into the Mac via the MIDI keyboard.
I then tidied the structure up, added a bass track from the root note of each chord (minus 1 octave of course) - and then added in a HalionONE drum kit - all within an hour.
The rest is history.

From 1 Note To 1 Song:
This all started after experimenting with a Cubase SX3 synth (Embracer), which, for some bizarre reason doesn't work with Cubase 4 on PC or Intel Mac (yet it works with PC/G-Series Cubase SX3 or G-Series C4)... Anyhoo, I digress...
The simple Stevie C Formula^TM for mediocre music served me well - as it always does when the inspiration is low...
Start with a note or chord (in this case the note A)... Add a lead synth & drum beat... Chop those up... Quantize it... Play with parameters... Chip away at it... Work at it... Refine... Repeat...

Garageband:
As the title states, the song was composed from Apple Garageband loops - one drum loop after another on one track, one piano loop after another on another track... et cetera. As I needed a minimum number of tracks, I chucked in a guitar solo, extra drum hits, shakers, a lovely pair of maracas and a rather tedious buzzy-bass line.
Enjoy.

The Sample Song:
After months of boozy nights & frustration over not being able to produce a tune for my DAW class, the much-needed inspiration finally came to me while a friend was waiting to drive me to a gig. Asking him to hang fire for 10 minutes, I loaded all the cheesy Garageband synth samples I could find into Cubase...
Something magical happened...
A tune was born.

Mr Verb:
This tune came about after programming a rather boring bass line into Cubase - to which I added something magical (ie: D-Blue Glitch). After toying with Glitch's Interface for the first time, I came up with the most unbelievable sound (this always happens the first time I try audio software). Add a drum beat and drench it in reverb (or 'verb' - hence the title) & File:export, then FTP:upload. Simple.

CHOON!:
I wish.
A 160BPM drum beat & depressing minor chords...

Backwards Tune:
Hastily composed in Garageband at 120BPM in the last week of term (and therefore the last chance to get access to a Mac). I got a basic beat laid down in about 30 seconds, then chucked in some bass, synth & some echo, reverb, flanger, compression, phaser & random MIDI for good measure. Only 1:15 in length, the sample-based concoction was ideal for chopping up, flipping, repeating & reversing in Cubase at home (due to the nature of Garageband sample-based media). Spot the part where I crassly repeat the loop.
This song will be uploaded once I get it mastered (yup, you guessed it, it's proving to be a bit of a headache.)
A low quality version is available on my Myspace.

Barrett Tune:
A tune inspired by Syd Barrett.
It's weird how often a tune is born by accident.
Now I know how people in the real world must feel.

Good At 15 Or 33:
Dare I say it, I love Garageband; but being away from college also means being away from Mr Mac.
On my travels round the globe (via ADSL Broadband of course) I stumbled upon a similar application for Windows, namely - Mixcraft.
Not as good as Garageband, but close enough for Windows.
Good at 15 or 33 is the first song I made in Mixcraft (from Garageband loops).
The 15 & 33 refers to the part where the song gets good - namely at 15 bars or 33 seconds respectively.

The 15 & 33 is NOT a reference to the ages of people who dig me - as previously thought by Jimmy Parsons of Scottsdale Arizona* & Gary Cooper of Wiltshire England* (thanks for the emails guys).


* Yeah, I just made them up.