For reasons I’ll detail in a further message, I tried to simulate a music box like the one on the picture below. Here’s how I did.

Don’t misunderstand the purpose of this message, it’s as much a call for feedback as a recipe to create ‘music box’ effect. However, knowing that I have to improve the production of my music, I took this as an exercise and I am quite happy with result.

After a little search about music box and thanks to the very insightful Nolife program Oscillations, I came up with the following characteristics: - very high pitched metallic/crystal tone - limited number of voices (usually 2) - impossibility to play more than a voice at the time for each voice - each voice is doubled with a very short delay - for better effect, each voice should be played at the octave - a slightly varying tempo to represent to flaws of an old mechanism.

So, I started from the following theme [1] with a simple lead voice and a second one playing arpeggios. The rhythm is a slow 3 beat dance. The idea here was to suggest the motion of mechanical dancers following a waltz-like dance. I have no idea if this actually works but you can’t blame a man for trying. ^^

Now, let’s use a sound that not too far away from the sound of a music box. I am to re install GPO so, the best I had at hand was a celesta sound from Edirol Orchestal. I know, we are far from the marvels from EastWest but I’ll have to change computer before I can start playing with the big tools anyway.

Obviously, it’s getting better but we are still not there. Now, I’m doubling the voices at the octave and we’re much closer to our target [2].

Once here, I decided to add a few mechanical sounds to improve the overall effect and make up for my relatively cheap virtual instruments by adding some sound design elements. Browsing on freesound.org, I found the following file by Microscopia [3] that I really liked. I cut out two parts: the first corresponding to someone and the second one sounding like a little mechanical engine without the MORSE code but with a click that I’ll place on each beat of my music.

For good measure, and to improve the depth of the mix, I also add a second track with the same engine sample but with a modified pitch and I let the tempo vary a little and fade toward the end of the melody. And voila:

I know it’s really short and it calls for more… and there will be more coming in due time. Anyway, Any comment or suggestion to improve this is welcome.

On a side note, I might notice some of the pages of the website being updated these days. It’s normal and there’s more coming… for real.

[1] I am using the dewplayer. If you don’t see anything, let me know but it should work on most OS and browser (maybe you need to have flash installed though).

[2] Notice how I’m involving my readers in my quest. ^^

[3] It’s the sound of 1915 Russian Telegraph Recorder.

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