Freesound Forums

Update - April 13 2007: Creative Commons-licensed GarageBand projects available here:
http://www.archive.org/details/SeanBoots.InnerCityBlues
See the post further down for more information.

Not that I live in an inner city, nor actually know what 'grunge' means.
But I thought it sounded cool.

Check it out here:
http://www.archive.org/details/SeanBoots.Ideas You can play them from the flash player, or
http://www.archive.org/download/SeanBoots.Ideas/InnerCityGrunge1_64kb.mp3 - First try
http://www.archive.org/download/SeanBoots.Ideas/InnerCityGrunge2_64kb.mp3 - Improved version

Update: "Goodbye Inner City" - ending music: http://www.archive.org/download/SeanBoots.Ideas/GoodbyeInnerCity.mp3

This is an intro theme for a drama production by my school. It's a play about homelessness (poverty, death, depression; basically a very happy play) and when the director asked me about intro music this sort of popped into my head. I found the free sound project by accident while I was looking for samples... Wow. You guys seriously rock. Unbelievably high-quality stuff, and open source to boot! This is the first time I've ever "made" (basically just mashed together) drama sfx without stealing sounds or downloading (depressingly low quality) demo samples from commercial sites. Thanks so much. You are pretty much the coolest (and most useful) website & community I've ever seen.

Anyway, sorry, back to the music...
It uses a lot of awesome samples:

shluppipuppie's street02 (which lined up PERFECTLY!) http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=8061
martypinso's DMP002011 RUMBCITY SIRENS http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=22601
han1's claxon http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=19026
KRAFTWERK2K1's car_horn http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=32417
tigersound's drunks fighting http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=15559
dobroide's car.horn http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=9674

The first one is my first try; a bit simpler (just uses the street02 sample). http://www.archive.org/download/SeanBoots.Ideas/InnerCityGrunge1.mp3 (Don't mind the ending; it should actually stop after about 1:30.)
The second one is an updated one; more samples (those above), arguably better saxophone improv, and with some different instruments. http://www.archive.org/download/SeanBoots.Ideas/InnerCityGrunge2.mp3

Any suggestions? That would be awesome. Which saxophone version do you think is better? (If you're curious I could upload all my other tries!) Are there any open-source collections of GarageBand projects on the web that you know of? I could send you the project file if you want. (I would be honoured, actually.)

(And if you're in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada on March 30th, check out "Blues" at the One Act Festival. Go Vanier!)

Thanks so much to everyone on freesound. You are all awesome.

Aww, yeah! That's what I'm talking about.

There's something about good Jazz that you can just feel. Is that a recording or did you manage it with the virtual instruments?

I like this a lot. I think that #1 is my favorite, but #2 might work better for the play. Seems a bit darker, though it's hard to tell.

Not aware of any GarageBand swap sites at all, actually.
I'd love to see the file- I've noodled around a bit in GarageBand but I never made anything this cool.

If you'd like you can email it to me.

I hope you plan to create a longer arrangement as well.

Man, you made my day. Thanks! That's really cool to hear. I'm glad you like it!
I know what you mean about #1 - the first ones always turn out sweet, and then the next tries never seem to *quite* get there, eh? But yeah, #2 did seem better for the play, more edgy (or something). (And, of course, I didn't really feel like adding all the extra sounds to #1 after I had added them to #2!)

The saxophone is a real instrument (recorded on my macbook's built in mic... woohoo hi-fi!), and most of the rest are virtual instruments (the bass, the organ/strings pad, the piano). Actually, our electric piano (Yamaha cvp-206 or something, a few years old) has a really nice sound, but I went with the virtual instrument because that way, I could record the piano part and *sing* the sax melody at the same time, so I would know how to do the saxophone on the next take. (And so that I did the piano timing right and didn't go overboard on piano.) Man, you should hear the version with me singing the melody. It's sweet. Not!

For drums, I recorded just a plain "jazz club" loop off my piano's "accompaniment" thing, then added the piano and sax and everything, then went back and re-recorded the drums so I could add fills and stuff at the right times. All in all, it turned out better than I thought it would!

And here's the ending:
"Goodbye Inner City", which ended off the play: http://www.archive.org/download/SeanBoots.Ideas/GoodbyeInnerCity.mp3
(Sorry about the delay; the Archive was having some login issues. But the Archive is still very very cool.)

I'll add the garageband project on the weekend... I should probably clean it up a bit first! Have fun with it, though, and feel free to change it up and mix it as you like.

The play was this evening... man... it was cool. The actors did an amazing job, as they always do. And no missed sound cues! Hooray! Thanks again to all the people on freesound, and especially to the people who made the sound effects we used. You rock, and I hope one day I can give a bit back because you guys have given so much of your time and talents to me.

Good to hear!

I'm looking forward to the upload(s).

All right... finally! Here's the GarageBand projects for "Inner City Grunge" and "Goodbye Inner City"... took long enough for 1:30 of music, eh? There are a few different versions: some marked "-all" have the complete project (all the out-takes) but not the fine-tuning of the "-final" versions, which are what I actually used for the final mixes. I hope you like them! They sure were fun to make, and it would seriously make my day if anyone found these useful. Have fun!

Sorry, PC-users... If anyone has suggestions on how to format these for any PC music app, let me know. They're all in GarageBand 3 format, inside ZIP archives.

http://www.archive.org/details/SeanBoots.InnerCityBlues

One of these days, I'll get around to making a middle section that can connect the two, and that will become the actual "Inner City Blues". But if you want to beat me to it, that would be crazy awesome! Happy mixing!

Awesome, thanks again.

Have you considered uploading some of your saxaphone work to freesound? Or any other samples, actually.