A Reflection on Soundation

Soundation: No.

Intent: I set out wanting to just compose something in a Latin style, with solos and a variety of timbres and flavors.  That did not happen.  The program very quickly kicked my intent to the curb, due to the very restrictive amount of loops.  Boo to only a handful of loops.  And then the MIDI files- awck!  I chose a MIDI file at random in the end, because none of them sounded good.  Finally, just to use another kind of sound, I added some squawking birds.  Not my original intent, not at all.  Ridiculous.  So the final project is an imposter, it exists to make me look like a fool.

Technical Issues: This program has WAAAAAAAY too many kinks and drawbacks for me to want to use it with my students, yet.  I say yet, in the hopes that the creators will eventually release a version that doesn't make me nuts.  As I stated before, the loops library is pitiful.  And what is this nonsense about the pitch or timing stretch?  Why can't it just adjust?  I tried to use loops of contrasting tempos; I tried the pitch option, the time stretch option, and just doing nothing, and it always sounded awful.  The MIDI files are BOOOO.  Cutting the loops was something I attempted with an actual interesting idea in mind, but I found the cut/edit result to be so nonsensical, I gave up.  I could not tell what chunk of the loop I was cutting out, and then once it was gone the remaining parts of the loop just automatically squished together, which was not at all what I wanted.  Grrr.  I had to save, reload, reopen several times because it just started doing things at random that I could neither understand or stop.  The whole thing just made me appreciate Garageband that much more.

Educational Implications: Soundation itself can be used in the process of teaching and learning to drive students and teachers nuts and accomplish very little.  Programs like Soundation- oh, say, Garageband- can be used to CREATE and COMPOSE.  And MOTIVATE students to engage in music class.  Any time I ever used Garageband with kids, it was always a hit.  Even with the minor technical issues, it was overall a success and the kids liked their own musical work.  But, Garageband is not in the Cloud.  Soundation is in the Cloud.  Frustrating.