Submissions by onezero tagged 85bpm

52/52! A return to three tracks of PureSalem Mendiola, recorded in two quick late-night sessions Friday and Saturday. It's been...a week. But here we are.

There's a bit of line hum audible in places; it's weird that that's not typically been the case for a while with this guitar. Bridge, neck, and both-pickup tracks, with some convolution reverb and the usual effect rack on the stereo out.

The title comes from a little town in Pennsylvania, on route 522. (Not far from week 475's namesake Meadow Gap.)

Kind of a late edit on this, but it was a busy weekend. This one's drums (Ableton Acoustified Kit 02), two tracks of Epiphone Embassy II bass (one with EQ-8 low-end rolloff, and the other with Auto-Filter high-pass, played higher on the neck), and two tracks of home-built Res-O-Glas guitar--one through Montreal Assembly Count to Five (the backwards-sounding one) and one straight to the Focusrite, though with some low- and high-pass Auto-Filter with drive.

Sends: one echo (with LFO band-pass Auto-Filter in front), one convolution reverb (with high-pass Auto-Filter in front), and Valhalla Supermassive. There's Wide&Warm preset compression on the stereo output.

Title comes from this week's number, counting from last year.

A friend sold me his Montreal Assembly Count to Five pedal, so that's featured on this week's track. I did a few ambient improvs with that (with home-built Res-O-Glas and CMI E-200 guitar strung with Nashville high tuning), and added Ableton's 64 Pad Kit Jazz drums, and a pass with 80s Epiphone Embassy II bass.

Sends: two convolution reverbs and one echo.

Title comes from the asterism with this name containing M85.

A very late upload by my usual schedule (though not "late" for this streak). All the tracking took place this past weekend, but arrangement wasn't something I could get to until last evening. My usual method of working on these is this:

  1. put up a rhythm, and maybe add keyboards against it
  2. play bass or guitar against it to get some loops
  3. play guitar or bass against those to get more loops
  4. move those snippets around into a structure
  5. adjust levels, add automation/randomization, adjust sends, finishing touches

It was the same thing here, but the pieces weren't quite fitting together until fairly late. Some of the not-quite-fitting might be from A/D latency, which seems to tack a bit higher than the setting when I first open Ableton. It's most notable on bass here, though I did warp some late notes into place when they seemed much later than "feel."

Drums: Ableton 64 Pad Kit Special, with Max Humanizer and 80-90% probability on most drum hits, though 1, 2, and 4 get 100%.

Keys: PureMagnetik Mark Two Berlin

Bass: 80s Epiphone Embassy II, with EQ-8 low-end reduction

Guitars: PureSalem Mendiola through Balls Effects KWB. One channel's mostly neck pickup with the other being mostly bridge.

Sends: Ableton Echo plugin and convolution reverb (BM7 Clear Ambience) with high-pass Auto-Filter in front.

Wide & Warm preset audio effect rack on the stereo output

Title comes from radio emissions from an unknown object in M82.

I'd thought I was going to do something more abstract this week, though my bass- and guitar-playing sessions ended up making it kind of funky. So it's a groove.

Drums: Ableton Fairfax kit, which sounds interestingly synthetic, but also has some impact. I added a touch of Max Humanizer and gave it some room-sized convolution reverb, and automated delay send on the 2 and 4.

Bass: 80s Epiphone Embassy II, on p-pickup. Low-end rolloff with EQ-8, and then another track also of bass, but in the higher register, with high-pass Auto-Filter with a bit of drive.

Guitar: PureSalem Mendiola on the bridge mini-humbucker, through Balls Effects KWB. One got room-sized convolution reverb send, and the other got a much larger hall send.

Title comes from the function of the old 80-type vacuum tube.

This one goes up late for me, though not late for this year's streak. This one is another all-Danelectro-baritone piece, which started with syncopated drums (64 Pad Kit Jazz), got a keyboard line (PureMagnetik Berlin Rhodes), and then a bunch of baritone parts (basslines, chords, lead figures).

My initial pass at collaging these together...just didn't work. So I let it sit a day or so, and reassembled it from sections that I knew worked. Now it's kind of a summer jam.

Drums got some Max Humanizer and some randomization, as well as increased drive from Drum Buss. A couple guitar lines got high-pass auto-filter with drive, and a few got the Glue Compressor. Baritone bass got a bit of EQ-8 low-end rolloff, but not like my real bass does.

Sends: one room-sized convolution reverb (with high-pass auto-filter in front), Delay, Echo, and Valhalla Supermassive.

The stereo mix got an audio effect rack, on the Master Wide & Warm setting--a bit of a change from my usual, but it sounded better here.

Title comes from the number 79 being a Happy prime, Lucky prime, and Sexy prime (with 73).

Carved out a little time this week for a track. My initial thought was to do something shoegazey, and then I immediately started making this vintage-y funk thing. Apparently my internal aesthetic compass is a gyroscope.

Drum racks of Acoustified 15 and Emperor kit (through Drum Buss), Operator with a triangle wave and a hint of 3rd harmonic, Electric on the MkI2 crunch preset, Epi P-J with bass rolloff, and Epi Moderne through Reuss RF-01 and Vox Wah. Sends are a convolution reverb and Echo on Dub Syndicate preset. Full-Chain Master on the master channel.

Title from the iridescent quality of iridium (which gives it its name).