WCWM - Robot ID

WCWM - Robot ID
September 21, 2006
[41 sec]


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Lyrics:

WCWM, 90.9 FM.
WCWM, 90.9 FM.

Williamsburg.
Williamsburg.

Williamsburg!
Williamsburg!
Williamsburg!
(Williamsburg!)

Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh?
Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh?
Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh?

Influences: Stephen Hawking.
Instruments: DocTalker Text-to-Speech Suite; Wine Glass Click Sample; FruityLoops: 3x Oscillator, MIDI Guitar Harmonics, Percussion Samples.

I created this, along with two other recordings, as a gift to WCWM a few months after I graduated from William and Mary. During my last year there, I ran a radio show for two hours each week. The show had a premeditated playlist, focused on running two tracks in a row by the same artist (a twin spin!) to help convince listeners that the artists were worth really getting into. My thought process had been that if I liked one song, I might go download the song — but if I liked a couple songs, I might run out and buy an album. In a two-hour show, I averaged about 16 artists, divided into two-artist sets broken up by short PSAs. In preparing my playlists, I would premix each four-song set, carefully timing the transition from one song to the next so that the rhythm wouldn't skip a beat, and I generally tried to link the two artists in a set by lining up the key of the second and third songs. So, I might be OCD (OCPD?), but I like to think that my listeners benefited from it.

The high glassy clicking throughout the track is one of many samples I recorded of bumping wine glasses together in different ways (and, amazingly, not breaking any of them). In the interest of full disclosure, I believe that this sample in particular was of two wine glasses bumping bottom-to-bottom.

The Text-to-Speech vocals were generated by a program called DocTalker, released by Willow Pond Corporation in the mid-1990's. The melodies of the vocals were created by chance, by setting up the utility to use a random intonation. I played off those melodies to create the backing music.

Instrumental: The News

The News
Mix 8
August 27, 2005
[1:16]


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Influences: Super Smash Bros. Melee, Wing Commander: Privateer, Nine Inch Nails.
Instruments: MIDI Strings, MIDI Xylophone, MIDI Tubular Bell, MeanBeat Percussion Samples, Kramer Focus 111S.

After deciding to go onto WCWM as a DJ for my senior year (2005-2006) at William and Mary, I had every intention of making bogus news reports for the beginning of every weekly show. Indeed, so inspired by my friend Andrew, I had prepared a number of full-length newspaper-style articles by plugging real news articles into MegaHAL or cutting them up physically or digitally and scrambling them. However, laziness got the best of me and I never delivered any reports on my show, but I did create this nice backing track for that very purpose.

When conceptualizing this music, I had two elements in mind: First, the newsy music, for which I had a basic model in my head, which was influenced by the menu screen music from Super Smash Bros. Melee, with the weird pitch-changing tubular bell as a small touch influenced by ambient music from Wing Commander: Privateer. Then, after some guitar-feedback build-up, there is the climax, for which I considered the drum solo in Nine Inch Nails's "The Perfect Drug" to be an influence, even though it doesn't really sound that much like it. Since I'm not really an electric guitar virtuoso by any stretch, I had to play the lead guitar more slowly, five semitones lower in pitch than the backing track, and then I pitched it up in the mix.

Below, for your enjoyment, are the aforementioned news articles (seven total).