I ended up working on two tracks this week, and was trying to decide which one to use; then I remembered one of the advantages to this site during alternate years is multiple attachments!
(this really helped me during 2019, because like music, I may not be very good at graphic art but I enjoy it)
The first one is another throwaway industrial joint, but I started getting story vibes while I was trying to mix it into being listenable. I had a vague but coherent character development and plot integration for my weird space opera project (conceived on weeklybeats in 2018 and given life here during 2019, thank you @onezero!)
The second I had named as a jab at myself because I had started out trying to make something starkly different from my usual (threw a random scale at myself among other things) and then it turned out to be one of my most "repeating myself" tracks in a while. My bag of tricks is limited, I get it- but damn you universe/ego/whatever!
The upside is, the story vibe picked up with both of them and I realized the characters and scenario didn't work as well on the moon as they did on earth, so this week marks the official beginning of my third and final album in the Red Rising project. I have decided to embrace the fact that I am the kind of person to start the sequels before I finish the beginning so.. woot!
Also, I have never been able to tell if this site notifies you on comment replies and because I've regretted not commenting / replying more;
@Kedbreak136 thank you! the drums are EZDrummer. It's awesome. Pricey (by far the spendiest thing in my "rack" but it has some of the deepest and most convincing samples I've every heard, and in multiple flavors (I think I was using "tape filter"). On top was a little CamelCrusher for distortion and compression. Before I picked that up, I was using a free plugin was really damn close to that good (especially for the price), MT Powerdrummer which I highly recommend.
@Arcana Dude. Thank you. Your feedback in the past has been pretty influential for me and this time you hit me with the double whammy of; Critical ear but also positive feedback specifically on areas I was trying to improve.
Prefer the first track to the second, feels like a more coherent sound.
Wow, that's prolific.
I like especially the bass sound on tunnel rat. The guitar (?) effect around 1:56 is very cool as well, giving an interesting counter to the main rhythm.
The Habitual Offender track is interesting as well - the mix of heavy guitar and then the piano track.
What is the Red Rising project? Are you releasing your albums on Bandcamp for instance? Do you have a link? Do you create also a story for your tracks and albums?
Also yes, the streak system does have a notification system for the comments. :) Thank you for the info about the drums!
happy 52 y'all! catch you on the flip side.
Rudimentary 4 track sketch. Sort of Johnny Cash meets sludgepunk?
quick little sketch
a quick quasi-ambient joint
forgot to upload Sunday, but i did this over the past weekend.
someone talked me into doing some hip hop beats over the week, it was interesting and fun. I seem to fall into the "dark trap" category most easily,
(ack, had this cued up Sunday and never hit submit)
Back on a sorta synthpop kick. I also finally downloaded Valhalla SuperMassive, wonderful reverb and echo for free!
two layers of crappy finger drumming (one ezdrummer, one ableton stock "blueprint kit" plus a four count shaker loop to tie it together
bass through camelcrusher as always
guitar through guitarrig5 plus ableton stock reverb and delay for the "lead"
i went camping this week :)
here, have a golden apple
¯_(ツ)_/¯
finishing up my little EP sized collection of vaguely "early industrial" homage tracks.
one has a bit of maybe stoner metal in it, and the other was probably influenced by my partner spinning a Cure playlist the other day (the arp at least)
lyrical nod to Murder, inc in "subliminal prototype"
it seems this week's episode of "crimes against beloved musical genres" targets early alt-rock
(my phone's music detection feature agrees, in so much that it basically accused me of plagiarism but hey...)
doubling down on my early 90s industrial vibe experiment. this one is a riff on a Robert Frost piece.
another "twofer". the first one seemed too much like a sonic rut i'm stuck in so i tried something consciously different
weekly from
@Kedbreak136 Thanks! Yeah, that's guitar (through GuitarRig 5, a free and pretty convincing amp simulator and then bitcrushing and a gate with the beat as side channel to get the processed industrial sound and that hard rhythmic chopping). The bass sound is my go-to setup which is literally just one plugin: CamelCrusher. It's free, it does bit crushing and compression but you can also get a nice fuzz distortion out of it. I love it, and use it probably more than I should on everything from vocals to drums, but most especially on bass.
Good to know about the notifications, thanks! Always happy to share info on tools, I try to remember to follow @onezero's lead and include information about recording setup and process because I love reading that kind of thing personally, but I usually forget.
Red Rising is a silly "space (cyberpunk)rock opera" that popped into my head making a weekly track a couple of years ago and has grown into an trilogy, if I can fight through mental blocks and actually finish it. Basically something like Total Recall meets Heinlein's "The moon is a harsh mistress", a people's revolution on mars to shake off the shackles of corporate governance. The first part, "Red Rising" covers that story, most of which is written but I'm still fleshing out details and trying to make myself actually record the rest of the vocals. "Lunar Union" is part two, and ties in the workers rebellion on the moon. The third part I haven't named yet, but it completes the saga by uniting the ongoing movement with related actions back on mother earth.
It started out embracing the silly, lots of easter eggs and obvious nods to pop sci-fi, but then I made a huge mistake and started taking it too seriously. That said, I am pretty pleased with some of the story arcs and fleshed out characters that are coming out of chewing on it far longer than I'd planned.
Oh, because it wasn't already daunting enough I am (at the brilliant suggestion of my partner) also trying to release each album with a companion graphic novel.
So no, no finished albums on bandcamp yet (although that's the plan) but there is a rough hodgepodge of demos for the first album (mostly instrumental) and a story synopsis collecting dust here: https://soundcloud.com/red-rising