w broken voice

reserved

Equipment Used

• n/a

Story

I was sick this week, so I wasn't making music, but will be uploading a song as soon as I have one ready

i had the uncharacteristic urge to make a 12-bar blues this week... and so this is it, plus some extra bits. i wanted something with a sort of late 90s/early 2000s game soundtrack vibe, racing hovercars in the trash future.

A return to fingerpicking on the just-intonation microtonal Tele Deluxe. This one took two quick sessions, late Friday and late Saturday, with an editing pass on Sunday, I was lazy once again, doing guitar straight into the UA Volt.

This one started with the fast pattern you hear at the beginning, which shouldn't have been as difficult to play as it turned out--I was ahead of the bar lines, behind the bar lines, all over the place. Was this in some odd meter? Not that I could tell from counting it out. So I left the notes in place rather than trying to fix them.

Variations were a bit of a challenge, and I ended up varying the density and implicit tempo for different sections. Ultimately it feels natural.

There's the usual convolution reverb send for each of three channels and compression and EQ on the stereo out.

The title comes from Michigan's Port Crescent State Park, 587 feet above sea level.

Speedtrash!

Inspired by the sort of hazy sunshine you get at this time of year ere in the UK at least, warm and pleasant, with the trees still bare.

Never sure how much to compress these sorts of melodic drones, the one part sticks out a bit too much but it's always an experiment.

my next big project is a concept album. i had the idea that each 'character' should probably have their own sonic palette, which would be effectively in conversation throughout the album. one such 'character' is... The Machine. and so this week i thought i would sketch out roughly the sorts of sounds i could imagine for it. this track will not wind up ON the album, but if i polished it up a little, these sorts of 'sketch' tracks might be a fun EP, i don't know.

like last week, i wound up just improvising all of the parts (sometimes on half speed... every note was played by hand rather than arpeggiated, i wanted total control!), then splicing together the decent bits into something more coherent. this worked out well for the machine because like a generative AI, it never does quite the same thing twice. i would probably consider a more focused composition process for the other 2 main characters.

i also added some old movie samples from various sample packs. given the genre i was working in, it just felt incomplete without them. rest in peace, the days of being able to just record your movie samples by hand from home and mostly get away with it. those sounded like fun times.

sadly i started super late (saturday!!) so had barely any time to spend on this. it's certainly not polished. i didn't have time to mix the drums except as a single drum bus (i need to make a project template that will split my battery channels for me. it's getting silly how many times i regret not doing that.). but this challenge is definitely helping me get faster. my first track took 8 hours for 2 minutes of music, vs this one taking 6 hours for 5 minutes.

freetime

Equipment Used

• OP-XY
• Zoia (Stereo Flanger preset)
• Bitwig (recording, reverb, compression, EQ)

Story

I started this beat last week, but decided to let it cook another week, and am glad I gave myself more time with it. I was able to expand the melody a bit, and add some more depth to the drums. I'm really pleased with the result, and feel like I'm finding my groove with the OP-XY again, despite the bugs that have crept into the firmware.

Like last week, a slow three-guitar piece on PureSalem Mendiola. This guitar in particular invites barre chords, and I have a fondness for playing over a major/minor progression. Wistful, but finding some strength somewhere. This one came together quickly--rather more so than some recent weeks, so it's getting uploaded a bit earlier.

No inline effects, but the usual sonic profile: each channel is a different pickup combo. Each channel gets some send to a convolution reverb (theater sized), and the stereo mix gets some compression/eq.

The title comes from the river in Ireland, which at some points flows alongside the R586. Apparently its water is notably clean and clear.

I have been playing some Ghost of Tsushima lately and youtube took me then to some reviews of the new Assasins Creed game, which takes place in Japan. The prologue ends on a scene that is very reminiscent of Sergio Leone movies. As a group of grim samurai appear slowly from the mist, one is directly taken back to the intro of Frank and his gang in Once Upon a Time in the West. So I decided to do a Japanese inspired version of an Ennio Morricone track. After all, we are just closing the loop since a Fistful of Dollar is a remake of Yojimbo by Kurosawa.

I was happy with this track! It's the most time I have spent on a track in ages and I enjoyed the process. I need to go back in the habit to start a track earlier in the week than the weekend.

No tunes the last couple of weeks as I've been away learning Welsh.

Back to this, honestly got very bored of this quickly, didn't intend to finish it, was merely messing about with a 303 VST and went from there. Not the sort of music I want to be making right now.

Three tracks of PureSalem Mendiola, some of it through the Reuss Effects Understate clean boost pedal. This one's gentle and slower, after an intense week.

As usual, there's a send to convolution reverb on each channel, and compression/eq on the stereo mix. Also as usual, the panning is static--one track in each position.

The title comes from the meaning of the place name Cousane in Ireland, along regional road 585.

some good old fashioned printercore. a low effort entry comprised of some improv on a sliced up breakbeat and some keys. the vast majority of the parts are actually sliced up parts of a single improv (per part) in new orders and rhythms. i didnt even have access to headphones for most of it... but that's all good! it's nice to just sketch with what i have available and let it be imperfect.

dinner

Equipment Used

• OP-XY
• Zoia (Frosti preset)
• Bitwig (recording, compression, EQ)

Story

This is actually one of the first beats I made on my OP-XY when I first received it. I liked it but never made it into a song. I decided to pick it back up this week and mess around with it some, and ended up really liking the result. Most of the sound is the OP-XY itself, but the bass is running through a reverb on the ZOIA that gives it a bit of extra grunt and gristle.

I am on a trip so I installed GarageBand on my phone and spent some time in the bullet train to figure out how to use it to make a track. It’s hard to change DAW and I miss a mouse but managed to do something. A track is a track.

returned

Equipment Used

• OP-XY
• Bitwig (recording, compression, reverb, dynamics, EQ)

Story

I received my new OP-XY on Monday, and laid down this beat almost immediately. I then spent the rest of the week trying to write something over the top of it, and failed. I had some decent bass lines but ended up pulling them from this submission, because it made the piece feel incomplete.

Hopefully I can revisit this down the road, because I really like the beat.

Another one-guitar fingerpicking piece, on the microtonal Tele Deluxe in microtonal just intonation. There's a nice sparkle to some of these intervals. No inline effects--just straight into the UA Volt, with one channel for bridge, one neck, one both pickups. There is an additional couple of chords from the bridge in two places when the original line was a bit sparse.

There is the usual convolution reverb, and some compression/eq on the stereo mix.

The title comes from the Lough Allua, near Ireland regional road 584.

i don't feel like i had a lot of time or inspiration to do much this week, but i wanted to play around with beepmap which is fl studio's image-to-sound synthesizer. it was a lot of fun to make some real chaotic stuff! if i had more time it would be nice to refine this some more, but alas, that's not how the week went.

also i guess my circle of 5ths plan was aborted by my last track... so we are gonna be in Eb all month.

Life has ups and downs, we cannot control nor know what's gonna happen tomorrow. But one thing is for sure, this too shall pass.

A track that I enjoyed making and that was pretty painless. I have a jam session on Sunday where I'll be playing bass so I dusted my bass and got to play a little, which prompted this track and the main bass lines. I like the mix of funny vibe and slightly melancholic lines.

This week's track is a return to the fingerpicking guitar trio thing, this time with the Just Intonation Tele Deluxe. Digging into the mechanics of performance, there are hammer-ons I'd like to perform, but find difficult--at the nut, the neck is narrower than a few of my more-fingerpicking-compatible instruments (parlor guitar, PureSalem Mendiola). So it's interesting.

This one was a bit tricky to edit together--many parts begin on an off-beat, and recording over two sessions meant that the feel between some parts ends up quite different.

In any case, there's a gentle, contemplative vibe to this.

The title comes from the minor planet 583 Klotilde.

M8-S06 Remaster

Equipment Used

• M8
• Bitwig (recording, compression, dynamics, EQ)

Story

Another week without my OP-XY, so I once again re-visited a song that I started last year. I really like the sonic space of this song. I tried to apply all my newly acquired EQ abilities to bring out the things I really like in the song using the M8's newish ability to EQ individual instruments. I hope I didn't over-do it.

Hopefully I will be back to making brand-new music next week, as my replacement OP-XY should be here by Tuesday!

sauna, dinner, talk, sake