Music

Pertaining to music that I have made.

Wireless FM Transmitter

I recently purchased a vehicle made in the early 2000s and it only has a CD player. While I love CD’s and have a collection, it is far easier and more convenient to be able to play music from my phone. In other vehicles I have had access to pair my phone to the car sound system through Bluetooth, or at least through an aux cable.

This would require replacing the car’s head unit. For the sake of simplicity, security, and affordability, I opted to give a try using a Bluetooth FM transmitter that operates out of a cigarette lighter outlet.

I found it really easy to use but sometimes, where there are more towers broadcasting, the FM transmitter can get overpowered. It has the ability to broadcast on different channels which allows for you to work around that problem. I would not recommend it for those who want really high quality, static free music, but for my needs with my cheap car speakers, it is quite handy.

Crosley Portable Record Player

I had been collecting records for my old Soundesign record player and was really enjoying the music. I recently moved however and didn’t have space for it, nor the large speakers I needed. I found this Crosley one at Goodwill for $15 and couldn’t resist. It has little built in speakers that, while they’re no subwoofer, do capture some of the bass from the records. What’s more is that it can act as a Bluetooth speaker if you want, although I don’t know why you would play music from your device when you have records. Anyways, I have definitely been enjoying the portability and ease of use with my new record player.

Navajo Flute

I recently visited southern Arizona and bought a 6 hole Navajo Flute while there.

After playing with it for a week, I decided to oil it. The pamphlet I got with it said to oil it with olive oil or woodwind oil. I poured a small amount in and spun the flute around to coat everything.It took a bit to get everything oiled, but I did notice a difference in the sound afterwards. The lows were easier to sustain and the higher notes were more clear.

I looked around for a simple scale and there were lots of different versions that didn’t contain all the notes I was expecting. Here is my revised scale for my flute.

Low Quality Sounds Good?

As audio equipment has changed over the years, so has the ability to produce higher quality sounds. When I say higher quality, I mean less background noise (white noise), or just more realistic, or normal sounding audio. I don’t know if you’ve ever used a cheap microphone, but often they tend to make your voice fuzzy, muted, and there is a lot of extra, often unwanted noise. This Lo-Fi (low fidelity or low quality audio) sound, just like with old TV shows, video games, or T-shirts has become retro. It has become a recognizable sound that is used all over in the music world, and there are whole genres built around Lo-Fi music. Another example of lower quality sounds being used is rock with it’s distorted (extreme audio clipping) guitars. Here are two ways to incorporate lower quality sounds to actually enhance a song and not detract from it if done right.

The first is, as I mentioned, distortion on a guitar. Probably everyone who listens to music has heard a distorted guitar at some point, and equates that sound as what a normal guitar sounds like not realizing it’s an audio effect. Here is a song that I made with distorted guitar in it: On the Horizon (from my Neon Mist album). One thing to keep in mind is that it is easy to over do the distortion and drown everything else out which might not always be what you’re going for.

Another low fidelity effect is a Vinyl emulator. It just adds the crackle and pop of a vinyl record as nice background sounds. A song I made with this Lo-Fi sound is: H2O (from my Chill Zone album).

Delay Changes Atmosphere?

Now I’m sure you’re probably wondering what the difference is between echo and delay, but trust me there is a difference. Echo forms a train of delayed sounds, whereas delay gives you complete control over how much delay, and unless you use different channels it will only delays once. It really gives you a more hands on control of what happens to the sound, and there are some cool things you can do with it. Here is a dry demo that I will change later to show the effects of delay.

Dry Delay Demo Track

Here is a fun little trick using delay to change the stereo feeling of a sound. I just set one channel to have slightly higher delay than the other, and came out with this closet feeling.

Muffled Delay Demo Track

The reason why it works is because in given natural environments sound bounces back from different places, some further away, causing the audio to be more delayed. This, in a way, emulates that natural effect, and it changes the atmosphere of the sound.

Here I used a different delay effect and did the same thing with different levels of delay and came out with this tin can feeling.

Tin Can Delay Demo Track

Just from messing with differing levels of delay I found it changed the feeling of the environment many different ways, which makes sense, because different rooms and landscapes have their own unique sound delays off of different objects reflecting the audio. The delay effect is certainly one of the more versatile effects when it comes to creating an environment.