Concentrics

[LLK]

Oh yeah and forgot to tell you @andrew without knowing you made the cover I just thought it was great, and seeing the process is even greater !

[loma]

Awesome art, @andrew. Consistently great sounds, @glia.

Through iteration, the project gets better and better—but I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?

[glia]

overview

trusted/axe: ableton with pitched drums and chime . ekphras loop / two layers of finger drumming > vulf compression and eq when recorded + resampled

hadassah/beleza: same formula . ableton with fx…i love the sense of confinement made possible with this combo

assam/ikeda: ableton . playing pitch and position of a vocal loop using ekphras . tribute to deantoni parks

prints/apiece: ableton . piano > ekphras trio > dirge + aaltoverb . made to sound like a paused vhs video frame

weighted/keys: op1 . collab with an offline friend who’d rather stay anonymous . he found + flipped a jazz sample then i added drums and arranged the beat > dubbed thru cassette

miko/nik: ableton . ekphras + aalto session > aaltoverb vulf and midside fx . named after miko revereza + nikita bugaev

nimble/tusk: ableton . ekphras + hand sequenced drums thru vulf

gap/twice: teletype + gieskes vuperc + ableton . short interlude thru heavy compression . dubbed from minidisc

fig/enough: ableton . all tone/melodies from a live kaivo + aaltoverb improv session . drums were hand sequenced except for the ekphras hat smear

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tart/tuba: sp404 + logic . hand seq over a loop . sp delay critical to the sound . dubbed from cassette

no/soup: sp404 + logic . sample chops over the same loop . gauzy mid-ground melody (chords?) pitched up/down by my old cassette deck . whole track dubbed back to cassette > then to daw

hundo/seen: sp404 + logic . live acoustic drums recorded to cassette . looped by sp w/ other samples . my friends bass guitar . tribute to chris hund of paxico records

hoje/ontem: sp404 + logic . heavy use of roland dsp . autowah and bitcrush are the stars for this one . dubbed from cassette

glue/fringe: mlr + sp404 + logic . all but the two kicks were flipped within mlrv [max/msp app] . this is an example of the weird glitch/ratcheting hats that i still favor while using any looper [e.g. ekphras, norns]

awe/melanin: sp404 + logic . bitcrush and autowah again . dubbed to cassette

dusted/hatchet: sp404 + logic + tapedeck . hand seq’d drums over loop collage . inspiration for trusted/axe

yo/capaz: sp404 + logic . comp and bitcrush . re-pitched + dubbed from cassette

q+a

thank you so much for all the questions and kind words
i’ll try to touch on everything mentioned so far

@xidnpnlss

…anything you can share about process? record samples through norns scripts? Are there any live (processed) instruments?

no norns on this album but very much norns inspired…i used softcut based looper ekphras extensively on the the first 8-9 tracks

hundo/seen is the only track which includes live instrumentation in a more traditional sense [playing the drums and looped part of the session later on] . but the songs are full of one-shot drums culled from my music collection, my acoustic instruments, and sample packs i like [mostly lovibe or tuamie packs]

i re-pitch them freely and often use the same 2-3 samples on tracks repeatedly at different timescales to create unique texture

for example i enjoy using toms and pitching them down to be used as resonant kicks or dropping a bell to sound like a gong

a typical beat of mine has at least two layers of drums mixed together…frequently i’ll pitch drums high, play a rhythm over melody into a resampling slot, then slow down the whole track [or vice-versa, pitch down drums, play slow, and eventually raise the global pitch/tempo]

@LLK

how you’d acheive the very noisy / lofi tones ? Is this through Prosody or is there some kind of hardware involved outside norns ?

i’ll let andrew speak for me…

@andrew

all the tools I use revolve around performing this process at multiple time scales (ms/µs = downsampling, seconds = delay/looping, days/years = sampling)

this represents coming full circle because I LOVED my sp 404 for the underrated dsp quirks and now finally feel at ease crafting similar rich textures w/o one

half the tracks are made combining Madrona reverb and delay, Goodhertz apps [compression, tilt, midside, limiter], and @andrew’s prosody suite [dirge, ekphras] within ableton

the other half rely on roland sp fx [mainly eq, autowah, bitcrush, delay] and cassette compression

the common factor is a positive mindset toward analog + digital tape experiments

setup

.

.

[loma]

Love seeing/hearing/reading of your processes. Thanks for sharing.

[LLK]

This is an AMAZING breakdown of your process. Thanks a ton for taking the time and sharing this energy with us. Forever thankful that you’re around.

[glia]

@loma @LLK

thank you too
if yall have other questions as you listen
let me know

[glia]

here’s the 1st version of “fig…”

more in the pocket when the melody inverts but the kick drum annoyed me so i remade the track

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also
in line w/ one purpose of the thread

@glia

…release [concentrics] in some form as a collection

links to the entire series so far

[xidnpnlss]

Thank you very, very much for this. A lot to parse through. Knowing the process behind the work has always for me added to the magic.

And still to this day the sp boxes can be a source of inspiration (in my case 303).

[glia]

[redacted]

sorry for the lack of updates for those following
lot’s happening behind the scenes and i’m beginning the 7th edition soon

tried making a beat last night for another project and a concentric spilled out of me

enjoy

[glia]

got some news to share
vol 6 will be out soon [on cassette!] via phinery
i’ll share more about that in a seperate thread as release nears

now that 6 has been completed and i’ve had some distance from it i began the framework for the 7th concentrics release

inspired by @abalone my plan is for this album to be built more transparently on my own apps and custom tweaks of other folks max, teletype, aleph, norns and crow scripts

i’ll try to document my progress here…for example this script made today based on one @jlmitch5 shared earlier

https://gist.github.com/zunaito/ccbd5ef89e445ba8540f675457af5308

lastly here’s an excerpt of a loose concentric cycle made w/ opz

[jlmitch5]

awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!

one note…I think you might want to combine both of these output setters into one init function. my guess is that crow expects only 1 so it will call one and skip the other. in other words:

function init()
    output[1]( loop { rtm
        , to(function() return level/a end, function() return time/b end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/c end, function() return time/a end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/b end, function() return time/c end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/a end, function() return time/b end)
    } )
end

function init()
    output[3]( loop { rtm
        , to(function() return level/a end, function() return time/b end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/c end, function() return time/c end)
    } )
end

should become

function init()
    output[1]( loop { rtm
        , to(function() return level/a end, function() return time/b end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/c end, function() return time/a end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/b end, function() return time/c end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/a end, function() return time/b end)
    } )
    output[3]( loop { rtm
        , to(function() return level/a end, function() return time/b end)
        , rtm
        , to(function() return -level/c end, function() return time/c end)
    } )
end

[glia]

thank you…i’ll try it tonight

[abalone]

fantastic

[glia]

i think now might be a good time to host a twitch event to talk more about these processes, techniques and themes linking my favorite examples

two polls for yall

• interested
• not interested

• play beats and answer chat questions
• make something new on the spot
• mixture of both
• something else (suggest below or via dm)

[glia]

hi

i’m gonna do the 1st informal session tonight @ 10:30 or 11pm EST (i live on east coast of USA)

i’ll archive it and share link here when its up
peace!

[CharlieGilb]

looking forward to it!

[glia]

Sorry having some tech issues but should hopefully be starting soon

finally live if its not too late where yall live

[Anfim]

expected ya to drop a link, where can we rewatch?

[glia]

A few disclaimers:

• I started actually working on a beat from scratch only near the end so you can scan thru the last 30mins to hear how that went
• Never tried screencasting from ableton and left a side of the app cropped…sorry
• The bulk of the time was a mixture of released and unreleased music with live q+a by those in the chat
• Vocals sound different in the recording than they did for me in realtime so it was quite difficult to adjust blind

I’ll leave it up for 72hrs for those of you who want to listen but be forewarned, it’s not perfect

However the session at the end did yield a usable gem so i’m glad i did this despite the challenges. All of this is a learning experience

[glia]

here’s what i made with the loop before falling asleep…will definitely sharpen it into a gem but it’s kinda dope already

enjoy!