Disquiet Junto Project 0388: Random Less

[ymeynard]

For once I’m not posting this at the last minute. I enjoyed the restriction, as a way to make the task of composition more manageable. I’m thinking using such a technique for sections of a larger work in the future could be fruitful.

[ryanscottmattingly]

Sorry about the Melvins. Boris is doing some Tokyo shows. That could be cool. You can always reamp a guitar you’re unhappy with. I once worked with a guy who did most things with the intention of “fixing them” later using real-world traditional amplifiers, stomp boxes, stairwells, etc. but captured the feel of those early performances by going simple and direct. I’m likely too lazy to make something like that work.

[Ethan_Hein]

Will have to check them out!

[EPTC]

Used the “Convert Melody to new MIDI track” function in Ableton to generate the drum track out of the recorded bassline.

Well that ended up sounding AWESOME. Once the drums kick in it sounds like two separate completely natural performers, jamming together. The pauses on the drumming, especially. Wonderful track!

[howthenightcame]

They have lots of albums, but I think that the first track on Book M is a good introduction to their world:

[3Keay]

my contribution for the “Random Less”, project.

[3Keay]

My Matrix for choosing instrumentation…

Keay Edwards

[NorthWoods]

Cool prompt! Coming from a musical tradition of punk, metal and industrial, I sometimes have to remind myself that less is more!

In reading over the prompt and looking at the other submissions (great stuff y’all), I thought back to a lesson I had with guitarist Wayne Krantz. I saw him perform at Berklee during Guitar Week in 1998 and was totally blown away–it was like nothing I’d ever seen. I had to sit down with this guy!

Fast forward a couple months and I’m in his Soho apartment, telling him I’m in a rut. He puts on the metronome and tells me to pick two, max three notes from a scale and use these to improvise. What I found was, when I couldn’t just blow randomly through my well-worn licks and scales, I had to really think about phrasing and dynamics. And weirdly, my playing became much more musical.

So, inspired by the prompt and my lesson with Wayne, for this piece I did the following:

1. Asked my daughter to pick the three instruments. They were: piano; three water bottles (shown in the picture–they produce the chiming and percussion sounds); and my classical guitar (she wanted me to play recorder at first but we both agreed that would sound awful )
2. Recorded the piano and water bottles on my phone. The percussion sounds are partly crafted from the sound of me accidentally dropping the wooden spoon I was hitting them with. It sounded pretty cool! I should drop things more often.
3. Dumped the recordings into Live and put down a basic rhythm track. Not much processing, just some limiting, reverb and panning.
4. Put down some guitar. Here I limited myself to just the root, third, fifth, and major seventh. I flubbed this many times! I chose the least-flubbed/most charmingly flubbed version.

[krehg]

https://soundcloud.com/ohm-research/spir-disquiet0388

[Pineyb]

Last week, I reported that there were too many instruments in the house. I used this week’s limitation to choose instruments that happened to be out of the case, and plugged in. I went with the Hammond S-6 (1950s), An Emmons 10 string push pull guitar (1974ish), played through a '72 Deluxe Reverb, and a random software drum machine. I used my ARP 2600 to add reverb to the track and to process the organ through it’s overdriven filter. I don’t know if the 2600 counts as a 4th instrument, as it was just used for processing…

[bassling]

Busy weekend means I’ve only just finished the recording I started on Friday, using the baritone ukulele, upright electric bass and drums selected by rolling dice.

I already had a few chords in mind, but the four-fingered one and a small window to record led me to decide on arranging the parts in Live.

A few chords and phrases were recorded, then some drums at the tempo and I spent a little time on Friday night arranging the instruments in my laptop.

On Saturday morning I knew I’d only have a short amount of time to record the bass, as I was going to be in Matong and Wagga for the following nights.

I was stuck trying to figure out some of the root notes but had an idea the track’s key is G.

While I was waiting for my kids to wake up on Saturday morning, I began programming a MIDI bass part and had an idea to use a 5/4 time signature so the bass would start on a different note each bar.

[wkujater]

So I ended up with:

12 string electric guitar, drumset, and these weird tuned plastic tube kid toys.

I played(?) the drums and the plastic tubes blind to one another with the common tempo coming from a click. Recorded both with a Zoom H1n. Started to assemble something somewhat cohesive in Live, then noodling with the 12 String over that to get ideas. Eventually settled on an A and B section and continued from there. There is a little EHX Memory Boy on the 12 string on the B sections. Otherwise its straight in with Amplitube acting as the amp. The plastic tubes I used C and D in 1 hand, then hit both of those with another note and did multiple passes with different notes - E, F, F# and G. Then in Live I added some delay.

I really enjoyed this one and hope to come back to it and flesh it out some more. I would record the guitar through a real amp, maybe augment the plastic tubes with a complimentary synth, and develop the arrangement further - have it actually go somewhere. Oh - and maybe redo the drums

[swhic]

Randomly selected norns script fugu 3 voices in random

[sevenism]

rolled the dice til i got the instruments i wanted
.
kalimba / 12 string guitar / mountain dulcimer
through protoplasm
podfarm, ambient reverb fx
slowed down a little in audacity

[Pineyb]

Cool! Great tone on the uke. Who made that one?

[bassling]

Cheers. I put it through Softtube’s vintage room amp, as well as a Space Echo VST.

This guy makes lovely instruments:

honni music

[Peter]

Randomly selected from my collection of instruments: a Bulgarian tambura, an ocarina and a mandolin. I composed a simple tune for the ensemble and recorded the parts in Logic Pro. No overdubs or heavy processing – just a little eq and reverb.

[seanohue]

Random selection was thanks to a Ruby one-liner

Treated this almost as a duet, using the ukelele just as a weird intro sound

[plusch]

Here’s mine: https://soundcloud.com/plusch/vibe

I didn’t select instruments at random, but I did limit myself to Sugar Bytes’ Thesys, u-he’s Hive 2, and Sonic Charge’s Microtonic. Put it together in Bitwig Studio, and used FabFilter plugs for EQ, compression, and limiting.

[bellyfullofstars]

It’s been awhile! After making the list of instruments for last week’s challenge, and being daunted by the 48 instruments we found, the idea of using 3 seemed… doable.

We chose 3 at random (well, 6 between @wkujater and I), and the draw gave me: zither, ocarina, and the Audiothingies MicroMonsta.

The zither was disused and mostly out of tune, so I needed a way maximize the sound of the few strings that were in key: enter the ebow. I purposely kept the MicroMonsta somewhat in the background of this minimal sketch, so that the ringing, thrumming texture of the ebowed zither and the warbling melodies of the ocarina would stand out. A nice, airy hiss was added to the mix via the contact pickup.

There’s Avalanche Run delay/reverb and Immerse finishing reverb on the zither and ocarina tracks, to cover my haphazard playing skills and add texture. No outside effects were added to the custom pad patch on the Micromonsta.