A quick jam with Modular and Meeblip Geode synth (which did the bass).

Sequenced with Deluge and Stillson Hammer MkII. Featuring odd sounds from Plaits and Cursus Iteritas.

I think I'll be trying to work on good melodic parts more this coming year. Doing house and techno beats is fun, but if I can create better melodies it's going to make all of the difference for me.

I got this note from a buddy of mine a few weeks ago:

"Hey,

Just dropping a line about Soy Un Navidad. The only rules are to poorly translate into Spanish and have text-to-speech do vocals. Oh, and send the Spanish lyrics, so I can attach them to the album. Outside of that, feel free to do just about anything that comes to mind. If you have any questions or anything, feel free to reach out."

Liner notes:

I did this track live (after many takes) on my hardware synths. (It kind of felt like hard mode)

• Vocals: Octatrack. I roughly sliced them up and “arranged” them.
• Chords: Some synth on my Deluge
• Organ (Eurorack): Mutable Instruments Braids through a delay and a Spring Reverb and a Polaris filter
• Bass (Euroack): Intellijel Plonk
• Drums (Eurorack): An analog sine wave + Basimilus Iteritas Alter

It’s in the key of F major.

Lyrics:

O Come All Ye Faithful

Oh ven, todos ustedes fieles
Alegre y triunfante
Oh, ven, o vienes a Belén
Ven y miralo
Nacido el Rey de los Ángeles!
Oh ven, adoremoslo
Oh ven, adoremoslo
Oh ven, adoremoslo
Cristo el señor

Canta, coros de ángeles
Canta en exultación
Canten, todos ustedes ciudadanos del cielo arriba!
Gloria a Dios
Toda la gloria en lo más alto
Oh ven, adoremoslo
Oh ven, adoremoslo
Oh ven, adoremoslo
Cristo el señor

Chill-out house I guess. Recorded live, as usual. Going to bring this one to the local modular meetup.

Used the modular with Deluge on partial sequencing and chord duty.

A really upbeat dance song made with my latest gear thingy, the Synthstrom Deluge.

All of the sounds and arrangement is done with that single box.

I haven't fully figured it out, so the sound design is not exactly ear-popping, but I was able to compose and arrange the entire thing using that box (with some EQ and Limiting post-processing in software after recording).

Considering that I got the Deluge a week ago, being able to compose something using only that piece of gear is actually pretty amazing for me.

BTW, as I mentioned last week, I released an improvisational album at http://irwink.bandcamp.com. If you like listening to the Eurorack jams that I post here check it out.

I was working on my National Solo Album Month entry when I realized that I needed a song that was toward the end of the album that doesn't have as much energy as the song before it.

I released the album. It's a bit of a hack because it's super improvisational.

https://irwink.bandcamp.com/releases

A fast song! Techno! Beats! That arp sample that I always use. There's NOTHING risky in this song at all. It was still fun.

Almost forgot to upload this week.

I actually made two songs outside of One-Hour Compo. This one is the better of the two.

Some techno for you all. This is a mini-practice for a synth meetup I'm going to tomorrow.

It's done with Eurorack modular, Analog Four, Octatrack, TR8s, for a LOT of musical tracks, but I only use one track on the Octatrack and two tracks in the Analog 4.

Sorry for "cheating" three weeks in a row by uploading One Hour Compo songs. I've had some busy weekends (seminars, traveling) and haven't really devoted a lot of Me time to music lately.

The theme was a creepy, misty forest (https://compo.thasauce.net/files/materials/OHC576_OHC_576_1.jpg) so I decided to create something that resembled a creepy 80s synthesizer movie soundtrack. In this song, I used the Alesis Andromeda A6 and the Nord Rack 2x for all of the sounds (I didn't have my Analog 4 in the same room at the time, too bad!), along with effects from VSTs (Eventide Quadravox, Valhalla Shimmer, SoundToys EchoBoy, SoundToys Devil-Loc Deluxe, SoundToys Radiator, iZotope Neutron 2) on individual tracks, and iZotope Ozone Elements 8 on the master track.

Next week, I think I will dig deeper with musical expression.

I was traveling so I uploaded my only song this week.

Emotional note here is groovy with a hint of mystery and apprehension.

Another live song to polish up more live skills and arrangement skills. A common problem with me is that I don't create good lead sounds, so this is something I think I need to practice a bit more.

Last week I bought a uPlaits (by Tall Dog) and am trying out a few things now. It essentially takes the place of the E352, but I think the sounds are a little more musical and melodic. Some things I'm trying:

1. More coordinated drops. I try silence in the middle, I don't think I quite succeed.
2. More fills, to keep drums driving and interesting
3. B sections in songs, even though they're in the same chord progression. In this one, I accidentally hit the octave up key midway for a track. It actually sounded good, so I left it. I actually wanted to bring up the next 16-step loop (which I also have).
4. Sounds that are a little more coherent. Plaits just sounds good overall, but things seem to gel together a bit more.
5. Ozone Elements to maximize everything. That's also a bit of a learning curve also.

Instruments used: Only the Eurorack! Main sound sources are BIA (kick/snare), Plonk (hat), Plaits (lead), Cursus Iteritas (arp), and Dixie II+ (bass).

Emotional tone, I wanted something exciting and groovy and danceable. That's usually not hard to do for me.

An all-in-the-Eurorack techno track that I made to try to exercise a new module, uPlaits by Tall Dog (which itself as a smaller version of Mutable Instruments Plaits). It's playing the repeated sequence that you hear throughout the entire song.

There are a few things I should have done after I tried a few takes - I think I should have applied a few more effects to the Plaits and maybe also set up another set of sequences to switch between. I think I'm kind of outgrowing the Stillson Hammer mk2. However I'm mostly happy with the arp sequence, the drums (BIA for the win) and the rather anxiety-inducing lead. Also, it's easy to accidentally self-resonate the Morgasmatron, so I need to remember not to do that if I don't want ear-piercing sines (like at the end of this recording).

I admit that I didn't really think of an emotional tone before starting, but overall it's an apprehensive emotional tone.

I reused the live set I created earlier this week for One Hour Compo because that's what happens when you're lazy but still want to make Weekly Music deadlines.

That all said it really isn't that simple. I redid the lead arp compared to the previous live song, I changed the lead timbre, and then I envisioned a better set of transitions and scene changes.

Song overall is pretty simple. I actually recorded a single take.

I really wanted to give the song a "chill", cyberpunk/electronic feeling, with a bit of groove and direction. That was the aim, I hope I made it!

A trance song. Originally composed for OHC, it was pretty good so I just did mostly touch-ups.

Practicing trying to do pickup recording on my Octatrack with a pretty chill-out track.

The answer is that there are a few problems that I still need to work out, like exactly what size the audio buffer is because it always cuts out.

The song itself is a pretty chill house-is track with Modular and TR-8s. I get a feeling that I need to get a new modular sequencer the more I try to fight the Stillson Hammer, but sequencers are $$$ and I want to save up some money first.

I practiced a song for today's Eurorack modular meetup.

A little random jam with mostly loops that I've already created.

Need to go through some time and add more scenes to the project to vary it melodically.

I'm cheating this week, it was my partner's birthday so I didn't really spend extra time making music.

This song was a live song on my modular with my Octatrack, my TR-8s (as has been usual for the past 3-4 weeks or so), and the Nintendo Switch. I actually changed up the patching a tiny bit to patch in a distorted input of "Corneria - Star Fox" from the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate playlist. You can barely hear it but it's there in the background and this song uses the same BPM and key. I suppose it's almost like a remix if it actually sounded anything like the original.