Held Allein
Acoustic guitar, sampled and looped. Done in Renoise, exploiting the glide FX (to allow for endless looping even when repeating a song) and the maYbe FX, to randomly select among some samples.
The Renoise song can be played on repeat, with subtle variations on each pass.
Among my initial goals: Should sound pretty good when played over my phone speaker, and allow for repetition.
When I started I was sort of aiming for something something quasi-ambient but not sleep-inducing. I played around some with various loops of different duration but it all kept sounding too aleatoric, like a bad lounge band covering Music for Airports.
The final piece does use loops of varying lengths, but they serve largely as a back-drop for some changing looping riffs.
Renoise allows for various ways to introduce some controlled randomness. A few key motifs are present as samples at different pitches; on each pass of the song, samples are chosen at random. In theory it could be played on repeat with subtle variation each time.
I did my mixing using a mono Behritone monitor, to avoid depending on too-wide a frequency range or stereo. There is, though, stereo separation in the final version.
When I was done I transferred it to my phone for a test play. I was pleasantly surprised how it sounded a bit more percussive than when played through proper speakers.
That said, while I like the resulting piece as music I’m not entirely sure I’d want to hear this as hold music, but it’s still way more enjoyable than 99% of I encounter on hold
