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Welcome to the Music section of AHE. Music is my passion, to the point that I even dare to create create my own compositions using my synthesizer, an Alesis QuadraSynth with the computer. Recently I recorded some of the best songs I've made in an audio CD, and here is all the information about it. |
| Contents of this Page: |
| About the CD.
In the Beginning... |
The Images of the CD.
How to make a CD. |
|
Listen to Believe. |
| About the CD / Why this title? |
"ahe - génesis" is a music CD, created by myself. In August-September 97 I began to compose the songs that today are in the CD. It's been a lot of work, but comforting. I don't like labels, but if I had to define my music it could be called New-Age, who knows... Of course, after many years listening to music my style is influenced by what I heard, and you could say that the most influential people for me have been Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Jan Hammer, Nightnoise, Mike Oldfield, well, and so many others I don't list here because it would be excessive... But Vangelis' music has been the one I have felt more indentified with, specially his albums before "1.492".
Why GÉNESIS? This is the title of the CD, and though I know it may sound pretentious, I chose it for two very simple reasons.
First, because it is the first CD I have made, it's been a really HARD work, very tough, I have learnt a lot during the creation process, and for being the First it's called "Génesis". Let's hope it is nothing but the first of many others you can all listen to, that's my dream. And second, I am a fan of the british group GENESIS. By the way, you can visit their official website here.
Below I describe with detail the creation process of this CD, from the moment I began to create the music until the day the original CD came out hot of the CD-R writer. But for now, here you have the external image of the CD; that is, the frontpage, the rear page, and the image that is printed on the very disc, all of them also created by myself.
| The Images of the CD |
The first image of all is the image of the Frontpage of the CD. In it there is an eye where you can see the word "Ahe" reflected, which is my pseudonym. The eye for me is a very important symbol in this CD, since in a certain way it awakes the imagination of each person, and serves as a presentation for the contents of the CD. Simple but impactating. |
In this case, as you will have already noticed, it's the image that is printed on the very Compact Disc. Again you can read the name "AHE", and just below it the title of the CD, "génesis". As you can see, it keeps the same sober style in black & white as the rest of the design of the CD. |
And to finish,
the image of the Rear Page of the CD. You wil have noticed the similarity between
many aspects of this Web site and the design of the CD. In the upper right corner of the
image you can see my logo, the "ahelillo" O:-)
|
| In the Beginning... |
It's been quite a long time since I started composing the songs that are recorded today on the CD I'm telling you about. For you to understand better how this has got to happen, I'll tell you a short story of my relation with music:
When I was 6 or 7 years old, I moved to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, to live there for about a year (it's a beautiful place, btw). But I remember that, when I arrived there, my father gave me a small CASIO keyboard, a PT-10 if I'm not wrong, with keys that looked more like those on a calculator (in fact it worked as a calculator!). Maybe it was then when something woke up inside me, but it didn't become strong until...
... In the year 1.989, for my 14th birthday, my paternal grandmother gave me something I had in mind for some time: a polyphonic keyboard with normal keys. Well, she bought a Kawai MS710, with a superb 11 note poliphony (Oooh!), 49 keys (unfortunately smaller than the standard ones), synthesizer functions, and MIDI in addition. It was with this keyboard the one I self-learnt to play with. Everything I know today about playing the piano or keyboards was self-taught also helped by the 4 years of music classes at school.
So things went on like that for 6 years, when lots of things happened. As I slowly enhanced my style of playing, my good friend Steven and I got very seriously enthusiastic with music and in fact we both composed music and we even made a band, called MANHATTAN-DEALERS. *sigh* What memories... He got a Yamaha electronic flute (or wind midi controller) which came along with a sound module, and then we began to experiment with the marvellous world of MIDI. Later he bought a Roland D-10, semiprofessional synthesizer which for us (specially for me) was a wonder, and I do know he still uses it O:-) (and may he keep it up).
At last, after 5 years saving money, and with the invaluable help of my mother, I was able to buy my one and only professional synthesizer. It's an Alesis QuadraSynth, the first multitimbrical synthesizer with 64 voices of polyphony. It's a pity that for almost 2 years I wasn't able to use it thanks to my father; the fact is that I have always had to make everything by myself in the music field, because no-one of the persons who could or should help me (except my mother, of course) did it. Two years later I recovered it and at last I was able to compose seriously using the computer of my floor-mate, Antuán, to whom I am very thankful.
And since then (February 1.997) to this day, enough time has passed for me to acquire certain fluency using the synth and the musical composition programs I use, to the point that I have even recorded a CD with my own music. Who could have said 9 years ago... Well, I must say that the CD is not yet commercialy available, so, "". O:-)
| Let's get to Work |
Now I will describe the process of the creation of the CD step by step, from the idea to the moment the CD-R burner opened with the first CD made.
The first thing of all was creating the music, of course.
When I began with it I didn't have the idea of recording it to a CD in mind, that would come much
later. For this I used my synth, an Alesis QuadraSynth connected
to a PC with the sequencer program CakeWalk Pro Audio.
Once the music was created the idea of recording it to
a CD came out, mainly to preserve it with certain quality. And there was the problem, achieving a
good sound quality with domestic equipment. The only professional gear I had was the synth, the sequencing
software, and a digital sound edition program.
To record the music to WAV format in the computer so it
could be easily edited and recorded to the CD the following equipment was used:
-
- Pentium 166 computer, 32MB RAM, 2,5 + 0,8 GB HD, MaxiSound 64 sound card.
- CakeWalk Pro Audio to play MIDI on the synthesizer.
- Sound Forge for the task of digitizing the sound to the hard disk.
- Of course, the very synthesizer, the star of the group...
- "Y" audio cable, from the line out of the synth to the line in of the sound card.
Before being able to digitize the music we had to make
sure the singal level entering the sound card was not being reduced by any driver or similar
(for example, the Volume Control of windows). Once we had made hundreds of double-checks and
we got the maximum signal level, we began digitizing.
When we had finished, we had about 400 MB in sound files
that had to be processed. This was made in a Pentium 90 with 48 MB RAM, and basically consisted of
3 things. There was a strange noise filtered in the recorded signal; it was an interference coming
from the MIDI cables that happened when the song began and finished (that is, when the first note
on and the last note off messages were sent, for you Midi gurus out there). It was a digital signal,
almost imperceptible, but we had to isolate and try to eliminate it. In some cases we got it and in
others the best we could do was attenuating or masking it. Anyway, it was practically inaudible,
so it's impossible noticing it when listening to the CD recording. The rest of the work was little
more than cutting here and there, adding a "fade-out" sometimes, and normalizing the signal
to the peak level of 0 dB of noise.
Then came the last phase: setting up with the Pentium 90
what was going to be the definitive version of the CD. This was made with CD Architect, a great
plug-in for Sound Forge.
... And last, carrying the hard disk to a friend's house
to burn the first CD-R.
Finally, I created the design of the frontpage, rear page,
and CD printed image, which you can see above.
| Listen to Believe |
And here you have the final result. You can download MP3 sample files of some of the songs. For the moment all the MP3s except one (etv.mp3), compressed with CD quality, are at 22 KHz stereo, so you won't be able to appreciate all the details; soon all the MP3 files will be compressed at CD quality. To play these files you will need an MP3 player/decompressor like WinAmp.
Just saying that I'd like to know your sincere opinion about this music, what has it suggested to you, have you liked it, well, what you think about it. Thanx in advance.
| Title | Comment | Length |
| ETV | If you have already had a look at the Computer Graphics page, you will know this is the music I specifically composed for the animation I was telling you about. A very short but surprising song. | 0:11 |
| Nadir & Cénit *
(Nadir & Zenith) |
With this song I wanted to change and introduce something more moving and less relaxing for the expo; it's one of the preferred songs of the people who have listened to the CD. | 4:38 |
| Cuentos del Espacio *
(Tales of the Space) |
I composed it after finishing "Nadir & Cénit", and is one of the songs I feel more proud of. In a certain way it's like a memory of all the Science-Fiction literature I read when I was a child, so it's something special to me. | 6:53 |
| El Viajero Estelar *
(The Stellar Traveller) |
If I am right, it's the second song I composed of the ones in the CD, and the first I composed for the expo. It tells the story of a person who is visited by a being from other planet and it makes him (or her) remember that he/she once belonged to that place. Finally that person remembers everything and ends up becoming again what he/she once was and returning to the place he/she had been missing so much without knowing: space. | 5:15 |
| Kron | The first song I finished. It is a very early try to compose music with my synthesizer. When I listen to it I notice how somple it is, but the first part of it has something I love. | 3:53 |
| Fuerza - parte I
(Force/Strengh - part I) |
The song I am most proud of, technically speaking. Sometimes it's hard to believe I have been able to put all those sounds together and make something like this, and I have already been told that before several times O:-) | 2:40 |
| Fuerza - parte II
(Force/Strengh - part II) |
The two parts sound with no interruption between them. The second one develops and finishes the musical idea expressed in the prevoius one. You can download a sample of this part, and maybe I will be including a sample of the first part soon. | 3:20 |
| Estación Polaris74
(Station Polaris74) |
I cannot tell an interesting story about this songs, it's just music for the music. What I can say is that, with "Nadir & Cénit" and "Fuerza" this is one of the favourite songs of the current CD listeners. | 2:30 |
| Viento Solar *
(Solar Wind) |
Another song for the expo, and I'd say it's one of the best songs I've made. It has to well-defined parts: A strong intro but without losing the soft and insinuating character of the song, and a second part that is very suggesting and ethereal but with a strongly marked personality. | 4:10 |
* These songs were specially created for an astronomy exhibition that is supposedly going to take place in Almería in the year 1.999, pero this is not absolutely liable. As the question develops, I'll inform about it. |
| Do not hesitate to send me an e-mail... Choose:
ahe@apdo.com - My e-mail account at home. adominj@alboran.ualm.es - At the University. ahe@oocities.com - At GeoCities. |
CopyRight 1.998
Ángel Domínguez Jiménez - AHE All rights reserved. |