Tag Archives: Music

On Video Editing

November 21, 2016 Ashgar

If you missed it, an earworm was inflicted on the Aggrochat crew a little while ago and refuses to go away. The song in question is a remix of Boney M.’s Rasputin, as seen in the following video:

https://youtu.be/YgGzAKP_HuM

Beyond being super catchy, this is actually a surprising feat of video editing The original song has nothing to do with Rasputin, or Russia, or funk. Love the Way You Move is about ~136 BPM and the music video for it is 3:40 long. The remixed song is closer to 150 BPM, and is also 3:40. But the music video has a lot of parts that match the beat, so just playing one over the other wouldn’t look very good.

As a result, the final version does quite a bit of audio and video editing. The most notable part is that any beat-matched sections are sped up to match the new tempo. This includes the working with tools near the beginning and all dance sequences (including the flashing siren near the end). The tradeoff for this is that most parts that didn’t need to match the beat were slowed down. This means the introduction, most of the middle section, and Putin’s arrival. In order to make this work, a little bit of audio editing was also necessary. Love the Way You Move has a 16-bar chorus, the chorus of Rasputin is only 8 bars. In order to make the end section fit, an extra repetition was added in.

I just thought this was interesting to note.

Gaming

On Rocking Out For Real

August 29, 2015 Ashgar

Blaugust Post #27

The resurrection of Guitar Hero and Rock Band brings to mind the guitar game that came around as they were fading. Rocksmith (also on Steam) requires an actual stringed instrument and a special USB cable. The latest release is almost two years old now, but they just put it on the new consoles, so I suppose it counts as current. Unlike the others, this one is attempting to teach how to actually play guitar in the form of a game. It has an arcadey score attack mode if you miss the Guitar Hero aesthetic. It also now has several years worth of DLC.

Needing an actual guitar or bass makes the buy-in here rather high, but for people like myself who already own one, it’s an interesting experience. It has some major flaws in teaching how to actually play an instrument, but it is pretty good for learning how to play specific songs. It (on the default settings) dynamically adds more notes in as you get more familiar with a given song. Songs you’ve never played before are adjusted for what the game thinks your skill level is.

If you’ve ever thought about learning guitar, this might be a good first step. It makes “practice” entertaining, which helps a lot. You should seek out another resource if you’re serious about it, however.

Gaming

On Rocking Out

August 29, 2015 Ashgar

Blaugust Post #26

I’m quite likely to pick up Rock Band 4 whenever that comes out, the announcement that my instruments and previously purchased tracks will continue to work was somewhat influential here. Even with varying skill levels, it makes for a very fun party game. The expansion of the single player mode helps too. They’re dropping pro guitar mode, but I never used that in RB3. (According to metrics they released, I’m far from alone.)

At the same time, Guitar Hero Live is coming out this year, and I’m not sure who the target audience is. It’s guitar-only, uses a different controller than all previous games, and abandons the colorful atmosphere of previous Guitar Hero and Rock Band games in favor of showing a live audience. When you add the tracklist included with the announcement to this, I can only conclude that it’s for someone who isn’t me. (They’ve since added tracks that I’d be more interested in playing, as well as vocals. There may be hope for this one yet.)

It’s 2008 all over again, but I’m OK with this. I suspect we won’t end up with mountains of unsold guitars in stores this time.