Okay, so for week 6 I went with the sub challenge presented in the forums of creating a "solo piece" using only one instrument. My instrument of choice of course was my alto saxophone.
To create this piece, I riffed on my sax in E minor. Afterwards I cut certain sections into droning loops, which I then layered underneath the main sax line with different effects. I think this song came out interesting, what do you think?

For this song I used the following:
- Logic Pro (DAW/various effects)
- Alto Saxophone

*No movie sample this week. :)

J'owl7 years ago

@Birgit Thank you! Glad to hear it.

J'owl7 years ago

@mtheadded Thank you!

Birgit7 years ago

love that!

mtheadded7 years ago

I like it. The sax line becomes almost hypnotic by the end. Very cool.

More submissions by J'owl for Weekly Music 2017

I k now it's been taking me a little longer to finish these things with everything going on, but I'm pretty happy with this one.
Continuing with using the sax as the only sound source- I sampled, pulled into the sampler in Logic and resampled, which allowed me to play chords and a bassline with my sax. I'd say this is probably the most complex I've gone into sampling my sax to create a song.

I'm looking at dropping an EP of these songs after the beginning of the year if anyone is interested. Thank you for your input as always.


Going back to where I left off before my hiatus and continuing creating songs that use only my sax for the source for samples. This includes programming beats in DM-1 using key tapping samples I recorded using my sax, then running those programmed sequences through various effects in Logic Pro. Not as much melodic playing on this one, just a couple lines to break it up a bit.
Overall I'm pretty happy with how this came out. Definitely going on the planned EP of songs created in a similar manner.

Really having a hard time this past week or so getting back into music. Hopefully I can find my pace and muse again soon..
Just wrapped this one up a few minutes ago. Not really a song, more of an idea that got weirder the more I delved into it. Sort of lost my footing here... not remotely close to the idea I had in my head when I started...lol.
Quirky synth-hop?

It's been awhile since I've submitted anything for this streak, but I'll be back soon enough. Been sidetracked with Inktober and trying to reset my brain to work on music. Put together this little beat for a short video I'm going to make of pumpkins with some of my "art" painted on them.
I really wanted a sample from Halloween to scratch over this, but can't seem to find the particular clip online anywhere. The line about believing the boogeyman being real. Anyone familiar with that one or am I just totally imagining that line?

Continuing with last week's challenge of using only my sax to create all the source sounds, I've decided to take what I learned last week and push it even further. Hopefully you guys dig it as much as last week's.

This track was created with all source sounds from my sax. For the rhythm, I sampled various key taps then programmed a beat into DM-1. Then I exported the individual parts into Logic where I further edited my drum beat. I recorded the initial sax pad running it through the Afterneath pedal and then used some Logid effects to broaden the pad sound. I then recorded a "lea" sax line, which I then reversed and placed in a couple places. I exported that lead sax part to my laptop, where I used Traktor to scratch the sample back into Logic. Also tracked some backspins of the sample using Traktor.
This is for a bi-weekly challenge that a Facebook group I belong to is doing. This round is maximum of two synth parts can be used, the rest has to be foley or "acoustically recorded" sounds. I decided to go with no synths. The only thing I might consider is to use a synth bass to add a little more low end, but I think all in all this sounds pretty cool. Your thoughts?

Wrote another chiptune track. This one in a Major key, so it sounds a little more videogame-esque. ;)

Working on more 8bit influenced music this week because I was supposed to do some busking outside PAX today with some chiptune homies, but that sort of fell through, so I just used that time to finish this song. Feeling very self-reflective these past few weeks...

I had a little more time this week to work something out. Toying with different experiments on my drum tracks. Also going through some personal shit that's kinda got me down and it appears to be reflected a little bit in this song.

For this song I used the following:
-DM - The Drum Machine
- Logic Pro (DAW/various effects)
- Alto Saxophone

Yeah yeah, my first late submission. Totally ran out of time this last week and I thought I'd be able to finish this piece yesterday, but that didn't happen. Anyway, I experimented with recording a couple long tones on the sax and then looped those on different tracks with a blend of different effects. I'm curious to hear what you think about this one. For something so minimalistic, I ended up putting quite a bit of time into this, getting the right blend of micro sonic rhythms and droning notes.

Didn't have a lot of time this week to work on anything, but I did manage to bust this out today. Far from finished. I'd like to add scratching and saxing to this song. What do you think?

*No samples (yet).

Finally found the time to multitrack something. Put together a little instrumental hip-hop piece as a theme for a side endeavor of mine (see my submission for this week's weekly art).


Yet another jam... I swear I'm going to get back into writing studio tracks. I've just been trying to do more live streaming, so I figure I'll kill two birds.
I like the sounds/settings that I used in this jam a lot, but I'm still unhappy with the mix. This time the sax seems too quiet in comparison to the rest of the mix. Also, I recorded it a bit hot, so there's a little digital distortion, which I actually kind of like, but definitely not my intention.
My intention with these jams is to release the best (my favorite) ones on bandcamp as free downloads named after the people who "vote" or "react" the most during my performance. I like the ideas presented in this jam, so I'll be re-recording this before I release it on bandcamp.

Not my best improv jam, but not my worst (close). Adjusting to being back to work after vacation has been more tiring than expected, plus I had a gig with my other project, so I just got around to doing any of my own music until today.
Some cool ideas in this, but I feel my mix is off. The sax is a bit louder than I like it in the mix and the drums don't seem as blended with my backing synth lines. I was determined to get something posted to, so here it is. Made some alterations to my jamming rig.

Was on vacation this past week with no time to work on music, so here's an outtake from last week's submission. I'll be back on my game this next week... hopefully.

Yet another improv jam because that's all I've had time for, though I did finish up that album I was working on, so hopefully I can find time to write something new this week on my vacation. :)

Been busy prepping for shows and working on an album that I don't want to leak anything from yet, so another live improvisation will have to do for this week.

Another Live Jam... Been a busy week.

For this song I used the following:
- PO-12 Pocket Operator ran through a
- KP2 Mini Korg Kaoss Pad, manually synced to
- Xzynthesizr running off an iPad
- MicroKorg running through an
- Afterneath pedal
- Alto Saxophone ran through a
- BOSS RV-3 pedal using a
- Shure clip-on mic

This was recorded live to my laptop, bounced out to MP3 and pulled into
-Logic Pro for some clean up (EQ, level adjustment, etc.)

*No movie sample this week

This week my workflow was quite a bit different from all my previous submissions. This week's piece was recorded live during a stream I did on Krue. This is just a live improvisation, so you may hear a couple missed notes. :/

For this song I used the following:
- PO-12 Pocket Operator ran through a
- KP2 Mini Korg Kaoss Pad, manually synced to
- Xzynthesizr running off an iPad
- MicroKorg running through an
- Afterneath pedal
- Alto Saxophone ran through a
- BOSS RV-3 pedal using a
- Shure clip-on mic

This was recorded live to my laptop, bounced out to MP3 and pulled into
-Logic Pro for some clean up (EQ, level adjustment, etc.)

*No movie sample this week

Once again, I just start with drum programming and sort of went from there with no real idea of where I was going to go with this week's song. I ended up with this chill step/post-vaporwave hybrid track, which I'm actually diggin' on. I'm actually pretty happy wit how this turned out.
Definitely has some influence from the direction the other project I'm involved with has been going lately.

For this song I used the following:
-DM - The Drum Machine
- Logic Pro (DAW/various effects)
- Alto Saxophone

*This week also has a movie sample, can you guess from which movie?

Weekly Music 2017

Make a musical composition every week

weekly from 2017-01-02 to 2018-01-01