In class, we learned all about De La Soul, J Dilla, and other artists that revolutionized sampling and contributed to the popularity of the style seen today. In sampling, clips of previously made music are reused and reworked in creative, new pieces of music. Tons of songs incorporate this technique, but artists who sample often run into trouble with copyright. J Dilla's last album before he passed, "Donuts" and De La Soul's "3 Feet High and Rising" that recently filled the commonly termed "gap in music history", were great inspirations for our sampling creations. In terms of Ableton, I learned how to use the quantize button on the Push to line my recordings up with the correct beats. Also, I learned how to work with non-music tracks (the movie quotes) by cutting certain parts and adjusting the launch. Rather than having the track wait to come in at the start of the measure, it can be changed to be played instantly when triggered, which is super helpful for timing. 

To start, I gathered lots of drum tracks from Ableton's library by searching up "BPM". After that, I searched for and found some cool sound effects and added them to a new track. Then, I found movie clips from two of my favorite Pixar movies, Ratatouille and Cars, and added them to a track. Next, I used the Push notes mode to record my own baseline melodies. Also, in every single group of tracks, I added an effect such as warp, or reverb to add my own personal touch to the samples. After experimenting with various combinations of tracks and their timing, I recorded, using the Push. After recording in multiple sections, I adjusted the volume, panning and exact timing of each track manually. Sampling is all about creativity, so I had fun with using the movie quotes at unusual lengths and times to add flavor to the music. Overall, the sampling unit and song composition made me rethink the possibilities of music. Instead of getting jealous at the genius of other musical creations, we can use and rework those ideas into our own music. In the music world, sampling promotes the concept of sharing and supporting rather than competing. I ended my song by combining a quote from Cars and Ratatouille to make a statement that can be taken as lightly or deeply as one would like. "Look at those in the world"

Although we learned how to use compression and limiters which was super cool, we really didn't have much freedom to be creative, so this project was not my favorite to work on. Compression and limiters are very noticeable with headphones on but the difference in sound is likely very minimal while listening through regular speakers. I definitely prefer projects with more creative freedom and room for cool, new musical ideas. 

At the start, we were given a copy of Joey Stuckey's song, "Blind Man Driving". Joey is a blind musician who is very charasmatic and a great story teller. He came and visited our class and played the song we were mixing to us live which was really really cool. Since his song was already pretty well balanced and mixed, there wasn't much work to do. We learned how to add compression to our bass and drums to get a crisper sound and highlight the quieter sounds such as the tap of the high hat. Compression basically makes the gap between the quietest and loudest sounds, smaller, using a specific ratio of input and output sound. Compression is a valuable and necessary tool to bring tracks to their highest quality. We also learned how to use limiters, which set a certain max volume level on a track to ensure that distortion does not occur. Finally, we added some sound effects, panning and volume adjusting to balance the mix and give it some uniqueness.