NEW TUTORIAL!

After a long time without posting here I thought about sharing a tutorial I made today with you. Enjoy it and have a nice 

weekend!

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/1294/semi-procedural-music-for-your-game

A Tutorial

You readers know that I create music, right? That means I also work with synths, because one of the genres I create music for is electronic. I decided to make a small tutorial about how to use a synth to play with noise and create melodic noise. Yes, melody from noise, impressive isn't it? 

This isn't general noise like you'd listen from a pneumatic drill in the streets or a big truck or a crowd, this is more like controlled noise: White noise.

Without any more anticipation, here is the tutorial for you to watch:

(Remember to set the video to Full Screen)

ENJOY AND LEARN!

Un regalo...

A GIFT FROM MY AUNT, THE PASSIONATE PIANIST

A long time ago, before I started composing more seriously, I thought it was time to upgrade my keyboard. I was big and it was small... When I was a kid it was okay, because it wasn't small for me, we were around the same size probably, but when I grew up, I thought it'd be good to have a bigger keyboard and also one that allowed me to press more than 2 notes at a time (Bigger Polyphony), yes: The CASIO I got from my beginnings allows only 2 notes to be played simultaneously at maximum.

I talked with my family, and to my surprise, one day my aunt said she had something for me: She showed me a gift wrap which was small, small enough not to be a keyboard... It was a transformer!! And then she said: It's a joke, the Keyboard it's upstairs, so she brought the keyboard and we tried it and it was awesome! Excellent sounding quality. My reaction was good, of course, it was my first big keyboard and it sounded good enough! Nothing would replace the CASIO though, I even thought on playing both like Vangelis does, well maybe he plays 3-4 at a time, that's another level... But you get the idea, right?

A LITTLE DEMONSTRATION:

I decided to record a small demonstration of, again, the famous melody from some of my first serious compositions. Please bear in mind I'm not a Professional Piano-Keyboard Player at all! So don't expect a perfect performance when you watch the video. Thank you!

With those precautions in mind, let's watch the demo:

YouTube Channel

MY PERSONAL YOUTUBE CHANNEL

I've mentioned I do many things apart from Musical Composition. Or I've done many in the past... since well, right now most of what I do is compose music and do sound design.

I have a personal YouTube Channel you can visit to check some of those other areas of interest I've developed, things I've shared with the general public for their enjoyement, and other personal stuff such as one of my pets: A monk parakeet.

I know it's not very Music/Sound related but probably you might be curious about what's behind this artist.

Here's the YouTube Channel: My Personal YouTube Channel

You might be wondering why there isn't any "Official WRENSOUND YouTube Channel". Well it's simply because music doesn't necessarily need to be displayed as videos. I mean, for the purpose of showing my music there's a SoundCloud Channel, it's right below the Blog's Banner.

Don't expect something professional from my personal channel, it's all experimentation and tests I did as I was learning. But there's a chance that you will find something nice that you'd enjoy.

Visit the Channel, take a look. If you like it why not subscribe? And let me know what you think about it on the comments below.

Regards.

Software I use

WHAT DO I USE TO COMPOSE MY MUSIC AND MAKE THE SOUND DESIGNS?

I think it's normal to wonder why, how and what is someone using to do his job. I have no problems in sharing this knowledge with you:

I use FL Studio 9 to compose my songs. FL Studio has been one of the software I've found very good-resulting for my projects, and when I was a young experimentator I discovered that this program let me do even more than what I wanted. To my surprise, my dad gave me a boxed version of FL Studio 8 with a Fruity License for my 18th birthday! How cool is that, huh?!

That's not all, I also need a software to process general sound files and to do other kind of work, that's when Audacity comes into play. It's a free software that does pretty much anything for you. Well I don't think it does the dishes, but with the results it gives you can do excellent work, sell it and buy new dishes instead!! Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit at this point. But you get the idea, right?

You can download Audacity for free from it's website: Audacity in Sourceforge

From my experience, you don't need to download cracked software to achieve your goals, I mean in the year 2007 I was 17 and I still didn't have access to FL Studio, I remember trying the demo version when I was younger but it had restrictions. So in that year I mentioned, what I did was search for a good alternative and that's when I found Psycle. Psycle is a tracker, which means you'll be composing music the retro style, but don't panic! It still offers modern capabilites such as VSTs, effects and so on. Psycle is a Modular DAW which means it's made so it's practical for you to use and you get what you need fast and in many different ways.

If you want you can give it a try! Here's the website: Psycle's Website

If you want more power you can test the trials of other software, but I'm not saying it's 100% better than what I use. It might be a little better or most likely, different. Programs such as Sibelius, Cubase, ProTools, Ableton, and more. It's more of a matter of taste than anything else.

If you have questions please, PLEASE! Leave a comment below...

Actual Project

MY RECENT PROJECT

What is my recent project? Well it's not hard to guess: A Soundtrack.

I've been composing a Medieval-Themed Soundtrack for a videogame me and some friends are currently developing, it's called Last Dream of Eternity.

It's been the first time I composed Medieval Music, so it's been quite a challenge for me. I received many compliments as I've been showing my progress to the members of the Group. I have found this experience to be very rewarding, something that didn't happen with my other music.

I composed around 12 songs, but wait! that's not all! there are still around 4 more chapters to go, so expect about 2 times or 3 times that amount of songs to be forming part of the Full Soundtrack.

It's a bit funny, because I always use the same method for composing and I always get excellent answers from the people I show this music to. Probably I'm doing the things the right way, or maybe I'm just lucky. Could it be?

One of the things I thought would be good about this soundtrack, is to use actual performers to, yes you guessed it: perform the scores. But we don't have the money! So it's a bit tough to get someone to contribute, although I've discovered that offering them to be on the credits and sharing the soundtrack with them is a good offer, and even though it's not money, it's something that is meaningful to them, and of course, to us as well!

It's been a sacrifice, a pleasure, a responsibility and an inspiration to be doing this, and believe it or not, honestly speaking, it took me about 1 hour to compose each song. Yes! 1 hour! Probably you'll be thinking I'm a machine, but no, it's true. I guess I have a pretty simple method for composing. I'm not sure how to explain it right now, maybe in the future I'll show some tips from what I've learned to show you how I compose and how you can save time composing the same way I do. But yes, let's leave it for later.

What's this game about?

This game is about a guy who founds himself inside a village which has strange happenings, somehow there are some necromancers producing these happenings occur, and it's the character's job to find out how they have been produced, where and why. The player will have to talk with different people in the village and try to see what's going on and why is he there. It's a long story, and it has many surprises. It has a deep meaning and you can go pretty far when trying to decypher the methaphors that are in the story. Probably you'll find it a very simple game at the beginning. We're having limitations right now: using GameMaker for a 3D game is quite a challenge, trying to understand shaders and advanced 3d rendering knowledge is a tough job. But our programmer is doing the best to make the game as good as possible with the tools available that we can understand. So don't expect an AAA game! This is an indie game being developed by people who have other responsibilities and whose main focus in their lives isn't exactly this game. Most of them are students.

Probably I haven't explained much about the game, so why don't take a look at the trailer? It's in Spanish though. But you can enjoy the music and the graphics anyways.

Here: The Trailer

Anything else?

Probably not much else to tell... It's been a while since we started developing this game. If I recall well we began around March or April, and it's still in it's beginnings, the DEMO is being made right now and it's on it's way to be ready in days! We have to show this game in an event taking place in Buenos Aires which is called EVA: Exposición de Videojuegos Argentina (Argentinean Videogame Expo), so if you're close to Buenos Aires and decide to go it's in INCAA's space, around the 7 and 8 of November, but you'll find our guys to be just the 7th, since they have a short budget and can't stay long in Buenos Aires. Remember, we're from Mendoza.

Who knows... maybe one day we'll release it on Steam and we'd need your vote on Greenlight. Stay tuned as we still don't imagine what can be of our game in the upcoming year. Yep there's 1 year of development ahead in the way, but I'll try to show the news here if they are relevant enough.

See you later!

Other Arts

I don't just compose Music! Did you think that was all?!

Yep, I don't just compose music. I have managed to achieve some experience in other art forms such as Painting, 3D modelling, Drawing, Vector Drawing, Photography, Building with Legos, wait a minute... building with Legos? Hmm maybe that's an old one. Yeah I always liked to play around with Legos. Let's continue: Making Videogames, Filming stuff, Acting, and maybe other ones that I don't have in mind right now but probably will stick out later.

Want some examples? All right!

Painting:

A musical keyboard... How creative!

Photography:

My cat, called Mini. Pretty isn't he?

3D Modelling:

Believe it or not, that's some sort of temple.

I'd agree it looks like a shopping mall though.

So those are some examples of other things I can do. I could post more examples but I'm running a bit late and I've posted pretty much for today.

Hope you enjoyed the material I've shared with you up to now and look forward to share more in the future.

¡Nos vemos!

Break it!

IT'S SIMPLE: BREAK IT!

I hope you people don't think I'm encouraging everyone to start breaking everything up. Oh no, not really! Actually what I mean with this expression is, instead of tearing all apart, JOIN IN yourselves into this system. Comment, like, become a follower of the blog, and so on. Have you already posted a comment? Only a friend from France up to this time has posted a comment. He was the only one to comment my blog up to this moment. What does that mean? Well, probably that the 50 people that the counter said who visited my site didn't take the time to post a comment. Is that sad? Well I leave that to you to judge.

A blog is a place in which someone flows out all of what he/she is driven by in his/her inside, and of course comments can change that too. Comments are one of the things that tend to change a topic from one thing to another. Ask trolls for instance. No, not Fantasy trolls, real trolls. The ones we see everywhere commenting things that produce a bad response, or generate global dispute. Believe it or not, those are real topic-changers. I remember someone well known that I'm not going to mention, who was offering a product that I'm not going to mention either, who said he was totally disappointed from what he achieved in the public. He even said his job was the most horrible thing in the world and would not recommend anyone else to do the same job. Imagine what that could be in someones life!!!

Break the Ice could be a better expression perhaps. But we're used to Facebook's terms such as Wall. So why not break this wall which isn't exactly a facebook one, and put some of your own stuff in here? Maybe I could pick someones topic and use it in here. What do you think?

Yes, tell me: 

What do YOU, think?

It's GLOBAL

IT'S GLOBAL

Another thing to note about WRENSOUND is that it's a service provided Globally, which means my work can be sent to China, Korea, Spain, England, USA, Russia, Africa, Antarctica, anywhere! And you can pay me through PAYPAL, which allows you to send money safely through the Internet. Yes!

There are things to note, though: Big files such as .wav ones require more space, so bear in mind that those files would take a long time to download instead of compressed formats such as .mp3 or .ogg

But yes, even taking in mind all those limitations, it's still possible to offer this service globally, nowadays internet connections are pretty fast and you can obtain files pretty quickly. I'm not saying that mine is the fastest, as this would be a lie, and while my ISP might be feeling a bit sad from what I said, it's no more than the truth. But better would be nothing, right?

I use the English language because it is the agreed one for speaking worldwide and understanding ourselves, a way of getting to know what each other is saying.

So yes, global. Yeah.

A Relic from the Past

Remember the Musical Keyboard I mentioned earlier in my first blog entry?

I decided to show it to you and play a melody of one of my songs from 2007.

This is the CASIO one I got when I was just months old!

Here's the melody!

What is...?

What is WRENSOUND?

What can it OFFER to YOU?

WRENSOUND is the name of my own business, it's Wren because Aleph Wren is my pseudonhim and Sound because it comprises the generation of Sound in different ways: Musical and Not-Musical (which would be Sound Design).

WRENSOUND offers you an excellent quality service of Musical Composition and Sound Design freelance work. I have 10 years of self-taught experience and experimentation with different tools that have provided me a wide knowledge of different things included Music and Sound Design. I've dealt with lots of Sound Programs and some DAWs. I've tried different methods of Musical Composition and since the year 2007 I've been composing quality-standard albums, be them for the pleasure of being creative or for other people. I've been working in several indie videogames and have composed many songs in these years. In soundcloud I have a total sum of 34 tracks for you to listen to. Which I think it's a pretty reasonable amount to figure out what is my musical style.

Some styles I do:

• ORCHESTRAL
• ORCHESTRONIC
• ELECTRONIC
• VIDEOGAME MUSIC
• FILM MUSIC
• JINGLES, COMMERCIALS
• KIDS' MUSIC

Hope you find my service suitable for your business or project and feel free to check my soundcloud and listen to my tracks to see if I'm right for you.

Contact me at: wren206@yahoo.com.ar

Welcome!

WELCOME TO WRENSOUND!

This site has been created with the purpose of promoting my own work and sharing it with everyone, as well as allowing anyone to contract me to compose their needed songs and sound effects or sound design.

I'm Alexander and it's a pleasure for me to be doing this for you. But bear in mind that my English is not perfect, not native. So in case you see errors, expect them to be because what I learned I learned it on School and on my own. I haven't been doing special education regarding to English apart from what was taught to me since a kid formally and what I gathered through the ages.

I want to thank my aunt, whose best known in the internet as the PassionatePianist, who has supported my love for Music Composition since it began in 2007. I have former experience in that field but more as an amateur composer who recorded keystrokes from the computer keyboard into midi notes into a program called Music Sculptor. That's right, that was the first software I came across that allowed me to flow my creativity into musical pieces.

Here's her website: http://www.passionatepianist.com/

I want to thank my family who has always been around and grew me up. They bought a small CASIO keyboard when I was just months old!!! Imagine!

More about myself: My main language is Spanish by Mother Tongue. I think I've learned English pretty well as a second language. And I know just bits of other languages: French, Italian, Serbian, Philippine, Latin... But believe me, they are just random words I know of them!! I guess they reveal part of what I've been doing in my life, visiting other countries and so on.

I've visited Hong Kong, Philippines, United States, South Africa, Chile, Brazil and more countries that I don't remember right now... But one thing is for sure: I never visited Europe, so that's a must for the future... Or probably a maybe. :)

My experience has been wide, since I've been around 12 years old I've been trying different multimedia tools: GameMaker, Video editors, Image Editors, Sound Editors, well... All kinds of editors I guess!!!

At around 13-14 I created my first videogame with a mix of own 2d graphics and template graphics, the music was all made by me though. Yes, using Music Sculptor! So you guessed it: Midi files. Not the best you would expect. But it was pretty cool for a first videogame.

All these tools I've learned, I learnt them by trial and error, self-taught. I guess it's my own way of learning new things that I enjoy.

When I was older I started trying different things as Mixcraft, I didn't learn much of it, did a couple of things with it though. They looked pretty nice but I was limited because they were riffs... unlike when I discovered Music Generator or something like that, it was a PlayStation game, YES, A GAME, that allowed you to create music and even more: 3D videoclips. Yeah, complete pack. I liked it, I created a song with it. You could even enter individual notes into synthesizers and samplers I think, which in effect it allowed you to produce pretty cool melodies. And of course it had thousands of premade riffs which you could use to create your songs in a quick 'n dirty way. Maybe even better than just "Quick n' Dirty".

As always I've been inspired by different musics and videogames, the first videogame console I ever had wasn't a Nintendo but a SEGA, so I met Sonic the Hedgehog when I was maybe 7 years old. I even remember the first ever videogame I played, it was in a videogame center in a city in my country called Mar del Plata, which is a tourist centre in Argentina, that game I don't remember it's name but it was about a helicopter in 2d that was moving in a battlefield, so you had tanks on the ground and other sorts of military units.

I didn't mention the musics yet, so here they come: They've been videogame musics, film musics and other musics from composers as Vangelis, Yanni and Enya... I remember a morning when I was about to go to school and I was having breakfast, my dad turned on the radio-cassete player and put a vangelis tape and it started playing the Pulstar song... it was MARVELOUS. I don't remember if that was my best day of school, but what can I assure you is... oh boy that was a great breakfast!!!

I think I've said pretty much about myself. So I'd like to hear more about you, dear visitors. Tell me about yourselves in the comments. Share your story.

Well, hope you enjoy the 34 songs, I think that I have in my Soundcloud? Yeah I think they are 34. Okay, enjoy them and comment, like, subscribe, send me money!!! -No, why not ask for a song instead? That way your money would be well invested on me.-

Anyway people, best regards from here, from my desk, and hope you reach your goals in regards of music and any other fields you're interested in. Feel free to send e-mails to: wren206@yahoo.com.ar

That's it! I'm out!

Alexander.