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Mortal wrote: haha, which one by timbaland? and how similar was it?

Dirt Off Your Shoulders... JayZ (with Timbo production)...

The beat was totally different, plus his track doesn't even have a bassline... but the lil synth riff was pretty damn similar. To be fair, it pretty much is just a simple riff working down from the 5th to the root, with a few embellishments, so nothing that original - and probably used by a million and two people already. In other contexts, it wouldn't be any big thing... but that track was huge (to prove how huge, I don't even listen to JayZ)... and both tracks are hiphop.

The funniest bit was that the original is in f minor, and mine was in e minor... so even that was close. That is what told me that it was a subconscious bite, all the more reason to come up with a different riff.

Plus - to everyone who says other people rip each other off (or at least sound similar) and its no big deal...


On the whole I agree... and I don't know if people would have automatically made the connection between the two tracks- but I know I would cos I did, and that was all the reason I needed to change it.

Subside wrote:

That's a very inspirational poster.

I suggest for everyone to save it to their pictures folder it helps me out quite a bit

It already exists.

http://www.midomi.com

But in all honesty, I don't know how well it works - for starters, even people with a relatively decent sense of pitch often transpose melodies (often either a 5th or 2nd interval I find.) And yeah, considering that we've got 12 notes to work with the likelihood of coming up with something that 'works' musically that hasn't been done before is probably pretty close to zero. There's freedom in that, though - who cares if it's been done before anyway?

Anyway, back to Midomi - I like fucking with applications like this and throwing in random shit just to test it. Someone needs to play the sound of a jackhammer and see how long it takes to try and suggest some trance tracks...

kejk wrote:That's a very inspirational poster.

+1, thx.

love that poster! need to get a massive copy of it

This post reminded me of this video I saw awhile back.

http://www.wimp.com/songchords/

Drop the drums out, record the melody into Shazam, see what comes back.

Back to the issue of context...

Funnily enough, I tried playing the riff again... this time, instead of using a synth, I played it on my cello and now it sounds completely different.
I think I might use my original version of the riff (but with cello) after all.


Hehe. Seriously - context is such a huge factor.

Voicing is everything. Just the attack phase of a sound can completely change the way the line works. That's why I don't get it how people can write lines, and then transfer to different instruments, or try different patches. The timing and even the very nature of a line changes with just the attack, let alone the decay, sustain and release. Just some thoughts.