I am new to the community, and to modular: https://soundcloud.com/darrendchase/cold-eye
somewhat against my better judgement, i did an interview and recorded a track for AE modular.
here’s the track
the interview is too embarrassing to link.
Lunetta session.
Matt Chistensen (Zelienople) and I released a new 20 minute song for guitar, Micro Mellotron, and modular synth yesterday called “Cargo.” You can check it out on his Bandcamp page.
Well this was my first time getting anything mixed externally. Ironically I learned a lot more about mixing having Matt mix the album as opposed to if I had mixed it myself, because I had to learn actual terms and descriptors for what I wanted. We also mixed from August until December (not kidding) with a sanity break in October (I couldn’t hear the songs anymore) and Matt was really incredible and patient with me the entire time.
The hardest thing for me to fight during the mixing process was my own perfectionism and neuroses. I would constantly go back to Matt and be like “none of this is working, let me work on it”. So I’d go back into the ableton project file and change EVERYTHING about the song, add new harmonies, add different drums, add arps, change the time signature, etc. After I’d send it back to Matt and he’d mix it like an angel, I’d listen to the new version like "what the hell, you just overcomplicated and fussed up everything".
Realistically it could have been done within a month, I just felt so insecure and insufficient in my arrangements that Matt had to mix a billion versions of some of the songs that ended up being pretty true to the original mix. Goodnight Texts is an example where we pretty much went back to the basics, with some minor enhancements. Eat is on the other end of the spectrum, where the changes I made to it (video game sounds) were super last minute and ended up being exactly what the song needed.
It was also super awesome to have someone I could email who knew a lot about music theory, because I pretty much dont know jack. So boy it helped immensely that I could email at 2:00am and be like “does that kick sound like its off key? what the hell is that” and have him to bounce things off of when I felt too stuck in my own head to move past something.
I’m doing it differently this time around, because I learned how to mix better demos while I’m working. Now I’m able to get them pretty damn close to how I want to sound, so I can have him come in and brighten things up or make those drums really kick some ass without having to put Matt through revision hell. Mentally, because the things I’m writing about are different than the subject matter of Ghastly, it’s been easier so far for me to quote on quote “finish a song” and let it be. Also I think I’m more confident that I am making the right choices now, and I try to not ever second guess that when I am bobbing my head and moving my body while producing, thats a great sign that I’m in the right place. There’s more trust there. So, we’ll see if I go mix crazy again, maybe it’s just who I am. But I wouldn’t have known or learned any of this without going through my mixing meltdown.
A quick little study at making a pseudo-natural forest or swamp soundscape.
@jonatron + I’s second album as Outer Heaven is out now, entitled “Slower”. I keep describing it as “like dead c but with eurorack”, but this blurb I wrote explains it a bit better:
Outer Heaven’s “Slower” is moreau13.
Their second release, “Slower” sees Outer Heaven revisiting the areas they explored on “Dredger”, collaging years of personal and collaborative recordings into 7 tracks of freeform material - Jon Scheer aka disc image providing crisp digital manipulation, Brandon Hurtadoproviding hazy tape manipulation. Recorded at “brookhaven, fairfax public access, the house of rock dracula, arlington, and richmond, 2016-2019.” Art by Brandon Hurtado.
digital release available at https://moreaueast.bandcamp.com/album/slower
(tape release will happen if there’s sufficent interest)
Hi! I hope this is the best place for this.
I’ve been working on an album for a good while and I think I’ll be self-releasing it. I’m currently making a small EP that I’ll release before the album to kind of get myself out there. This is the first of the two tracks I intend to make. I would love some opinions on it. Thank you.
Fun day of noodling with iVCS3 and Animoog apps
Thx Simon…might be definitely taking you up on that especially since I just bought my first piece of analog gear, a Behringer Neutron, should be here in a few days - I’m very excited about it but will surely have loads to learn about incorporating it into my workflow and recording and such…can’t wait though!
So I’ve been learning how to create some “space” in my music and made this along the way! Really glad how this one turned out. Used just one acoustic guitar sample for the whole piece.
congrats on the bandcamp daily feature @wrmhmn. Really enjoyed your episode on sound + process. Checking out the record now!
Ambient Glitches
Hi guys, i re-edited my EP as a one track file (i think it works better), and I wrote some info about the tracks in the description.
This EP is the culmination of a year experimenting with my modular synth, and what a year!
Exactly a year ago I bought my first Doepfer mini box, and a few months later I had to buy a much bigger box to make room for all the modules I bought throughout 2018, most of them from Mutable instruments (I started with Tides v1 and Clouds, later Marbles and Plaits would arrive), the DIY modules of Befaco (Rampage and Hex VCA) and the module (filter) that has helped me define / compose / interpret the themes of this EP: Three sisters by Whimsical Raps.
This EP, it would be as the title says, tells the story of a hypothetical trip back and forth to Mars (starting from the Earth it is understood) the first theme “Always ascending // The fall” is the outward journey, the takeoff of the rocket, the vertiginous ascent and acceleration, the gravity of the Earth and the absence of it in space, and, without a break, the heavy “fall” of the capsule on the red planet.
I imagine “Mars anthem” as the first steps of the astronaut on the Martian surface, the fear of the unknown, the weight of gravity.
At first this track did not convince me, I thought about reinterpreting it but (like the rest of the tracks of the EP) it is recorded in a single track after a small previous trial of the interpretation, and obviously it is complicated to replicate the same patch. After giving a lot of thought to the track, I had an idea: to process the audio of the already recorded track with the modular (Clouds and Sisters) with a new interpretation and thus give it a different touch.
Trippy travel // Rover on fire "the astronaut (driving his vehicle) gets lost in a sandstorm and falls into a chasm, manages to continue but his vehicle is damaged and ends up stopping at the foot of Mount Olympus.
“Last broadcast // Forgotten ruins” With the vehicle destroyed, the astronaut decides to venture on foot because he has little time left to consume the oxygen left in the tanks. He finds the access to a cave where he discovers geometric shapes carved into the rock, and a continuous descent that seems to have no end. He stumbles and falls into a well that seems to have no end. The walls of the well include geometric shapes and inscriptions more and more detailed. After a time that seems to be eternal, the well expands and turns into a huge cavern that looks like ruins of an ancient city. When his body touches the ground everything slowly fades away.
“Dark portal // The end” the astronaut awakens, he finds himself in a dark room in which there is only one source of illumination: a small, warm and pulsating light. He slowly approaches the light, decides to touch it and in doing so opens his eyes and he has returned to home, has it been a dream?
Recorded in six short sessions, one for each track (minus “Mars anthem” ) and a long afternoon putting it all together and fine tuning In Ableton live.
Live performance from last night, at a local Open Stage event. Decided to just play one piece this time and evolve it more. Think it worked out pretty well, went in some different directions at the end. Playing longer I found I got much more in the zone, and some points near the end barely realised what I was doing
Modules:
Bass - Spectrum into Ripples
Mid - Lifeforms Primary Osc into Polaris
High - E330 into Humpback
Pad - Clouds
FX - Blackhole DSP and Chronoblob 2
Some of my latest patches
Hi ! First post here.
Heres’ some music I do.
Enjoy.
I’ve been recording Australia’s largest playable guitar in Narrandera and had a chance to experiment with a bow and a bottle.
Wasabi Jones of Highpoint Studios and I are planning to create a multi-sampled instrument for use with Kontakt and other samplers.
Thank you so much Olivier!