Depth Year

[squim]

all the official critter ones are pretty good!
Orac of course

Other downloaded favorites:
ApolloTone-AT220
brds
Cassette 808 Polybeats
clds
Computer Rythm 78
Continental Breakfast
CoolWaveKing
EnvelopeFX
grds
Overloop and KL-Overloop Array
Koto
KS Strings
lmnts
Lo-Fi Piano
Mellowtron
NESWave
PicoStudio
PolyBeats VCS3
RE-TapeEcho
rngs
RT-Juno
Slatra
SuperSynthEngine
wrps
Xylophone

Changing all the time but these are all pretty solid. A couple on this list are a bit more of a pain to install but worth it.

[cfd90]

Here’s three more Shared System tracks

Regarding depth year… having a ton of fun exploring the Shared System still. I haven’t been, uh, perfectly following my gear goals from the beginning of the year, but happy with the music I’ve been making while exploring this system.

[squim]

I feel like I’ve been spamming this thread a bit with my ‘personal journey’ through Depth Year 2020. I’m sorry about that. July was the month where things finally broke for me. Up till now I’ve been able to keep producing and learning. So many things happened both good and bad in July that there was just no way. I started commuting back and forth between my apartment and the house of the people I’ve been staying with since March. This has been great for some solitary time but has also broken up some of my routine around creating. My job started a layoff process in the first week of the month and even though my job is probably secure because of my seniority, it has been an emotional roller coaster for me and my coworkers. I’ve been reassigned to work at an Emergency Operations Center in a department that helps distribute PPE. I start that job on Tuesday. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
So my plan to focus on the Volca FM has been on and off throughout the month. Although I did learn quite a few things about it and FM synthesis in general. After fiddling with the Volca quite a bit I’m of two minds about the thing: On the one hand it is a complex synth with a lot of versatility in the way you can sculpt sound all in a little battery operated synth I can throw in my bag. It’s very full featured and the arpegiator and sequencer are the a lot of fun. On the other hand the DX7 style of 6 operator FM synthesis can feel a little cumbersome at times (the envelopes in particular a hard for me to wrap my head around). I’ve never used a DX7 but I’ve heard that even with all the menu diving the Volca approach is a huge step up. After I found tools like Dexed and Synthmata it was much easier with direct visual cues to what was happening with the sound. I did wish that midi velocity worked with key presses instead of being a slider on the box. Then the inevitable question arises: If I need a computer to program this thing why not just use dexed?!

Anyway, here is something I made in July during World Listening Day. I recorded and re-recorded “sound on sound” with tape recorders throughout my apartment. The most prominent feature is the wind blowing through the trees from my back porch and occasionally the creaking of the screen door.

[cfd90]

Here’s some lofi / kosmische / noise / improv / trash I made this week… starting to explore the “noise” side of my “Make Noise” system for once on a few tracks

Everything was done in one take on my Shared System, and tracks 4 and 5 were recorded on a, um, a cell phone… The final track is a live improv/patching session.

[janglesoul]

September 1.
It always feels optimistic starting out fresh. I started this day with push-ups and will continue to set goals and setup a good habit tracker. So I’m making September a depth month, thinking it will be good to evaluate and re-aim as I go forward.

[varispeeder]

man, what a Depth Year. In summary (so far), at the outset I explicitly wanted to build up a tight live set of triggering loops from an Octatrack and start gigging again.

Then a few months into quar, with shows off the table indefinitely, I decided the purpose of music in my life should be to enable a healing and meditative flow state instead pursuing career-type goals.

So I got an 0-coast, but I could immediately see I was going to have to stop tiptoeing around Euro and fully dive in. I swapped my Pod for a bigger case and sold most of my other gear to make this happen. I have a couple more to get to swap for the 0-coast but the perch is working for now!

it’s almost like I’m hitting the reset on Depth?? either way I’m looking to enter Depth Year 2021 with a pretty much fixed system and explore that In Depth.

[fbusche]

My depth year has been monumentally derailed. Although I have kept up on reading and running. Besides that I took a very long break from lines. Life is just fucked up with COVID, but I guess its starting to feel more normal now. For better or worse this has dragged on so long that I don’t feel like my life is just on pause anymore, but I know that it is going to continue on this way for a while and I need to be comfortable with that.

[cfd90]

Hey all! Checking in with some more Shared System recordings from my Depth Year

This EP is a collection of five experimental-leaning pieces written to explore some module in the system, or a compositional technique. Following my usual technique, everything was recorded live in a single take with minimal, if any, post-processing.

Download codes:

• eew4-g9a2
• 87hq-39uc
• 2lc7-czmx
• dpjx-wg9p
• ukfd-hhbd

[squim]

This recording is the result of dipping my leg in to Tidal Cycles and learning quite a lot during the most cursed month I can remember living through. It’s Improvisation sessions stitched together.

My friend Britta who is recovering from a car accident did the artwork and named the album.

[Zeke_B]

Thanks for this thread and all the updates everyone. Before today, I was not familiar with the concept of a Depth Year and it is precisely the exercise I have been searching for. I am going to pursue this myself after spending this year amassing a studio (pedal collection, guitars, bass, amps) I’ve always wanted and haven’t been able to afford. Ended up finally jumping into modular at the beginning of September, and now accept that I cannot afford to build a studio every year.

Quarantine was the motivator for finally working on practicing guitar technique and writing which brought me back to wanting a better approach to synthesis than buying several large synthesizers and Eurorack has been more than I ever hoped it could be.

Goals for my depth year are three-fold:

1. Stop buying new gear (or at least take a long break) so I can replenish my savings.
2. Explore more deeply and develop a competency with the gear I have (pedals, modules, plugins).
3. Devote more time to play (in the true sense—fun exploration) and writing/recording.

Reading through your approaches has been great and I really like the idea of a monthly focus and intend to try this out in my own depth year as a starting point/guide.

I’ll figure out when I’m going to start and share my own specific guidelines with y’all then. I will say that there are planned exceptions to GAS and those are all driven by a lack of availability atm (Mannequins modules, ER-301, and Grid).

Again, thank you all for the inspiration. This was a great read on a Sunday.

[Ted]

Somehow not seeing this until after many of you are well into your depth year. Great idea for 2021.

Still time to spend a bunch of money before January!

[Jay]

I’m going to be with you on depth year 2021

[swannodette]

Depth year is progressing. Guitar is going slowly - I’m doing a considerable amount of review and its clear I’ve made strides in the past year - something is starting to click with my picking technique (I’m loving the Wegen Lefty Twin pick). Piano is going slowly, but again reviewing material is revealing how much progress I’ve made. Remainder of 2020 is going to be learning as many easy pieces from the Notebook for AMB as I can, Mikrokosmos will probably still work its way in - but the Notebook is just pure joy.

I’m more or less done with Eurorack modules unless it’s logic or sequencing related, probably for good. I don’t regret investing in a 7U case and some small satellites, I was able to understand over a couple years what I was looking for in a modular system at a reasonable pace. In the end, I realized I wanted a proper instrument not a personal collection of modules. So now I’m focusing more and more on the Korg 2600FS and the Hordijk System. It’s clear there’s enough between these two to keep me busy for a few years if not decades. While I still find myself eyeing Buchla and Serge 4U, diving into the 2600 & Hordijk have more or less tempered any serious interest in other modular systems.

Unsurprisingly this all means my attention has turned away from instrument acquisition and towards things to improve the music making process - replacing a broken audio interface, upgrading the monitors, etc.

[snkhydrox]

Anybody here for 2022? Maybe we can create another thread

[Martebar]

I’m in! I’ll just have filled up my newly received case and a Depth Year will exactly be what I need!

[bookmil]

I am down, have been building out my rules for the past few days now.

[Voltmeister]

I am in. 20 characters

[squim]

okay - sign me up. Not sure what my parameters will be yet but I’ll be thinking about it.

[crunchydrums]

I will add to the pile of responses here and join in! Feeling like I have a good idea where my stasis of things-quantity is ending up.

[renegog]

2021 was a half-assed failure of a depth year for me. We’ll call it a warm-up and do it forreal 2022