Last one of my 52. Another dub. Not entirely sure i've advanced much but i've certainly learnt a few things.

Late again - somewhat ironically as i've written about 6 tracks - however none were properly finished. So this was one of several tracks from this week's session (which continued from last week's session). The set up was i had the noise layers all down and i'd mix into them. It took me a few hours of sample loop faffing to get this down, plus a simple sequence off the CS80V to add some tonality.

Such an inglorious end of year and streak for me. Late submits and missing weeks. Didn't feel like making music in december, my cat died of cancer and it made me really depressed. Started this track a couple weeks ago as an attempt to deconstruct bass of this track - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XRBQ8_kNlM
Arrangement and mixing I'm not proud of.
Was going to start a track for the last week here, but apparently it's not late-submittable for some reason.
So this is my last submission here. Probably upgraded version of it will go to weeklybeats first week. Or maybe gonna find inspiration for another track.
Anyway thank you all for being on this site and streak, these were wonderful and most prolific weeks for me electronic music wise!

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.

Lots going on this final week with the holiday, but I did manage to complete a track...even with a power outage Sunday night.

Part of the concept this week was to include instruments and effects I accumulated in 2019, so we have an acoustic guitar part (vintageparlorguitars.com size-2 parlor) and two electric parts (PureSalem Mendiola, courtesy of Premier Guitar's Mystery Stocking), one of which went through the Balls Effects KWB pedal. Otherwise...this started first as a kind of dub dirge, but got a bit funkier. Other instruments: two drum racks (Cassette 606, Ableton Cyndal kit), Ableton Operator (Funky Organ preset), Ableton Electric (MkI2 Crunchy preset).

Sends: one convolution reverb, one tweaked Echo.

Title from Ernest Rutherford's coinage of "alpha" and "beta" for different kinds of radioactive emissions. (Element 104, the last in our weekly element-related tracks series, was named for him.)

Join us for 2020 over on Weekly Beats!

Finishing up this year by absolutely totally cheating and building a Pure Data patch that shoots generative MIDI sequences at my Roland XV-5080. I did not have time at all to mix and work on this more, so here you have a quite "raw" version of it.

Thanks to everyone who has listened, liked and commented. I hope you have a nice year end holidays time and that next year will be even better than this one!

Not sure why, not feeling very Christmassy at all this year.

happy yule and happy #52 y'all!

Poorly mixed drone sketch made out of samples I made at around 2014 in some granular vst and found now. Not proud of it.

A library demo background track to an 80's Doctor Who program was what i had in mind. I wanted something errie and analog. I've not quite achieved the sound as i think it could be fuller, better seperated with EQ and probably with less hi end to simulate tape better. To be honest the string part at the end work best for me however i wanted to punctuate the piece with something so i added keys - but i used two sets of keys with the somewhat naive view thinking that more analog = more analog. Musically it "hollows" in parts owing to my lack of understanding in chord writing...and theres a duff key in there too as i didn't keep to scale.

A long track. This past week included a show on guitar, through a new Max/MSP patch. The signal chain is a Waves Factory Cassette VST, four parallel tapin/tapout pairs with variable lengths and regeneration, and convolution reverb. Delays and reverb also had variable bleed back to the input, and I set up message objects with fixed delay amounts so that I could snap the delay suddenly to new values. It's a work in progress, but I'm into the direction in which this is going. (UI work is important here; I'm using the Mira app to give more immediate access to the controls.)

Still, kind of a cool wintery vibe here.

Guitar (the Res-O-Glas) is going through a MOYO passive volume pedal and into the Focusrite. I pseudo-mastered this in Live with the Full-Chain Master effects rack.

Title from the unexpected volatility of this week's element, Lawrencium.

same theme, different riff. i wrestled with a lot of the same technical issues as the last couple of weeks, but especially had trouble getting the high end where i wanted with this.

Unexplained hardware issues, computers are too complex.

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

Got one of those Yamaha drum pads and it turns out they are very nice for banging in rhythm parts.

Lots going on this week, including patching for an upcoming show. But here's a track, built up in response to a vague sense of syncopated rhythm. Drums: Ableton's Brush Rack, Acoustified, 20, Impulse of handclacps. Keys: Ableton's Electric (MkI2 Crunchy), Simpler Grand Piano, and bass.

Title from the symbol for this week's element, Nobelium.

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.

rolling with what feels like a consistent sonic style for this month.

shout out to @thawkins, I spaced on replying at the time, (not sure this site even notifies on replies?) but your comment a couple of months ago got me thinking about headroom a lot more, which was key in mixing this one (and also I'd never heard of Six Organs Of Admittance but now have him on my spotify and I appreciate that as much as the comparison)

I like to thinks most things are, but I have my doubts.

bit rushed....anyway.... So this started as a dub track. Sometimes I like to try to break down chords into melodies but with a deep sub and kick driving the whole piece. Then i faffed with a vocal sample to kinda do something a bit weird and diffrent. Finally added some melodies to finish it off. Could probably do with a remix to build it up better but i'm so short on time what with Crimbo coming up. The vocal is a bit loud too. Kinda finished as a deep tech house thing i guess.

A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut

Another late dub track. Simple affair really - doesn't go anywhere really. More a test of layering plates and delays but happened to be one i managed to finish. Not really proud of it though because its hackneyed musically. To be honest...with more time i'd have done some very much deeper and darker. I still might.