A Bit of Makeup

This article is part of the Aerodynamic guide.

Daft Punk is known for its usage of samples: several tracks from the Discovery album are built from samples of disco songs from the 80s. Aerodynamic is not exempted from this rule as the funk part of the track is built from another track from the band Sister Sledge, Il macquillage lady, more precisly from this chunk:

The extract’s duration is 7.78' and contains 16 beats, so it is at 60/ (7.780 * 16) BPM, that is 123.4 BPM, this is not far from the one of Aerodynamic which is at 123 BPM. We will see how to go from this sample, to something that looks like:

We can hear some similarities, but it is rather difficult to imagine how everything is pieced together, even after several hearings.

Preparation of the extract

We’ll start by preparing and cutting Sister Sledge’s extract, then by picking chunks (samples) we are interested in so as to rebuild the funk from Daft Punk.

Once the original extract and the one from the Daft Punk downloaded, we can load them in Sonic Pi with the load_sample instruction and play them in this way:

maquillage = "~/il-macquillage-lady.wav"
load_sample maquillage
sample maquillage

Which means:

As previously seen, Aerodynamic has a tempo of 123 BPM, which is not the case of the extract of the Sister Sledge, we have to stretch it so it is exactly at 123 BPM:

use_bpm 123

maquillage = "~/il-maquillage-lady.wav"
load_sample maquillage
sample maquillage, beat_stretch: 16

The call to use_bpm is now familiar, beat_stretch is somehow magic: it stretches the sample so its duration is exactly of 16 beats at 123 BPM, exactly like Aerodynamic. Now, we can play a sample from this extract with the help of the start and finish parameters:

use_bpm 123

maquillage = "~/il-maquillage-lady.wav"
load_sample maquillage
sample maquillage, beat_stretch: 16, start: 0.0, finish: 1/16.0

start an finish are indices (their value is between 0.0 and 1.0):

As the extract’s duration is 16 beats, we are here playing the first beat by going from 0.0 to 1/16.0. Some other examples:

This way we can extract the samples used by Aerodynamic and find the corresponding ones in Il Macquillage Lady.

Let’s funk

To simplify the task, here’s a Sonic Pi function which will help us:

use_bpm 123

maquillage = "~/il-macquillage-lady-sample.wav"
load_sample maquillage

aerodynamic = "~/funk.wav"
load_sample aerodynamic

define :sample_chunk do |what, beat, dur, delay|
    beat = beat / 16.0
    dur = dur / 16.0
    sample what, beat_stretch: 16, start: beat, finish: beat + dur
	sleep delay
end

sample_chunk(maquillage, 4.0, 1.0, 0.0)

The define instruction creates a new keyword in Sonic Pi ; here we create a keyword called sample_chunk which takes the following 4 parameters:

So, if we want to play the extract from Il Macquillage Lady at beat 4 for a duration of 1 beat, we can do:

sample_chunk(maquillage, 4.0, 1.0, 0.0)

Another example, play the first semi-beat of the extract Aerodynamic and wait two beats:

sample_chunk(aerodynamic, 0.0, 0.5, 2.0)

We can now easily play any sample from both extracts! After several hours of listenings and hacking, here’s what we can obtain:

use_bpm 123

maquillage = "~/il-macquillage-lady.wav"
aerodynamic = "~/funk.wav"

load_sample maquillage
load_sample aerodynamic

define :sample_chunk do |what, beat, dur, delay|
    beat = beat / 16.0
    dur = dur / 16.0
    sample what, beat_stretch: 16, start: beat, finish: beat + dur
    sleep delay
end

define :funk do
    # sample_chunk(aerodynamic, 0.0, 4.0, 4.0)

    sample_chunk(maquillage, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 0.25)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 3.5, 0.5, 0.75)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 8.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 1.0)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 7.5, 0.5, 0.5)

    # sample_chunk(aerodynamic, 4.0, 4.0, 4.0)

    sample_chunk(maquillage, 3.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 1.0)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 7.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 8.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 1.0)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 7.5, 0.5, 0.5)

    # sample_chunk(aerodynamic, 8.0, 4.0, 4.0)

    sample_chunk(maquillage, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 0.25)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 3.5, 0.5, 0.75)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 8.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 1.0)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 7.5, 0.5, 0.5)

    # sample_chunk(aerodynamic, 12.0, 4.0, 4.0)

    sample_chunk(maquillage, 3.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 8.5, 0.25, 0.0)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 0.25)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 3.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 8.5, 0.25, 0.25)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 3.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 8.5, 0.5, 0.5)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 2.5, 1.0, 1.0)
    sample_chunk(maquillage, 7.5, 0.5, 0.5)
end

funk

Everything is in a new instruction called funk, we simply invoke it without parameters. An extra note here: if we sum the values of the delay parameter, we obtain 16 beats, which is reassuring since the original extract is 16 beats.

A bit of makeup

Something is missing when we compare this to the Daft Punk’s version, there’s a cyclic effect every 8 beats, which can be obtained via the ixi_techno effect of Sonic Pi:

live_loop :funk do
    with_fx :ixi_techno, mix: 0.1, phase: 8, cutoff_min: 90 do
        funk
    end
end

live_loop is a new keyword which wraps a block in a loop: at the end of the block, we go back at the beginning by taking into account changes inside the block. This is handy because in this way, we can live edit the content of the loop and experiment easily. Each time a modification is made inside the loop, Sonic Pi’s buffer has to be re-evaluated (by clicking on Run) to take into account changes.

For instance, we can inspect the influence of the mix parameter this way:

On the next iteration of the loop, we hear the modification. This approach is powerful as it allows to live edit a track and to make it evolves bit by bit!

Next…

This article is part of the Aerodynamic guide.