New Song: KP1-1.4 TOUR de FRANCE", composed and arranged by Kevan Paul

Click to Listen:


This song is an original composition based on creating a feeling of progression and freedom at the same time. The title and content was inspired by the band Kraftwerk who created a song about the Tour de France. This song becomes a natural addition to an album about healing, as Lance Armstrong is a perfect example for the difficultly in healing and how hard work and effort can make the body and mind stronger and overcome adversity and impediments.

Note 1:
The song cataloging system that I'm using to keep track of the mix-downs that I like is the reason for the numbering in front of the song title. KP1 refers to this first recording project, the 1.4 indicates the first finished song, with the fourth mix-down as the preferred track. As time goes on, I may post all versions of the mix-down and let people vote on the one they like best.

The Analog-To-MIDI Odyssey:
There are elements in the song that come from the attempt to convert the analog signal from the violin to a MIDI file using the WidiSoft Analog-to-MIDI-AU (MAC Audio-Unit) plug-in, but I was using the demo version of the plug-in and would only get 15 seconds of data with 30 second gaps in-between. This actually turned out to be a good thing, because the default settings of the plug-in produces too many data points, whiich totally choked the GarageBand application on the MACBOOK. I tried to match the MIDI file with the time-line, and then cut-out the blank spots, then attempted to change the MIDI instrument to something with synthesizer strings to make it sound "electronic" on purpose. This was not very successful; I actually recording the first takes in August, but tabled the recording. I pulled it out again for this album project and tried to cut-out the parts of the violin jam that seemed annoying to me. I never could get a clean play-back before October 1st, because of all the extra MIDI notes that the MAC could not process fast enough, but then I finially found out that I could lock all of the tracks before play-back and this would limit the processing power needed. This saved this song from the scrap-heap.

I added the diffusion pitch-bend of the RaySpace plug-in to the primary violin track, but this seemed a little overwhelming. One of the violin-to-MIDI samples were interesting enough to convert to a Fretless Bass part, and another was converted to a synthesizer-Cello-Ensemble-with-Trills. I still thought the piece sounded too busy, until I accidently muted the primary violin track on mix-down attempt number 4 --- this yielded a version that I liked because it allowed the MIDI-modified parts to be heard, I had lowered the bass track(s) volume, and the RaySpace pitch-bend was kept on one of the tracks.

I hope to purchase and learn how to use the WIDISoft plug-in better, but the sampling I did taught me that I need a lot of time tweaking the sensitivity and polyphonic settings to get the right amount of sampled data-points. This idea of analog-to-MIDI conversion has been attempted by me before by playing through the Vocorder option on the Yamaha PSR-740; with similar mixed results (not optimal). I never recorded any of these experiments, but I am still looking for the analog-to-MIDI option. I know Barcus-Berry has an electric-violin that has a MIDI output feature, but I'm trying to find my own alternative until I can afford such an instrument.

Back to the song:
The end-result is a composition that gives me the feeling that I'm riding in the middle of the Tour de France Peloton with the whirring of the wheels, and the constant uphill climb characterized by the ascending violin parts. Overall this was a satisfying experiment in using the sound modifications to the violin track and then having fun with mixing other rhythmic elements. And I love the RaySpace reverb tool for giving the violin the natural ambience that it needs to sound like a Stradavarius in the concert-hall! You'll hear what I'm talking about later when I jam with cello tracks from Yo-Yo Ma's solo cello recordings.

I think I got the French sound right, as I just listened to a song on Pandora called Belle, by Alif Tree, from the album French Cuisine that has a similar mode, melodic line movement, etc.
http://www.pandora.com/music/album/alif+tree/french+cuisine