Worked on the instrumental for a song I started writing a while back.
I really hate how the guitars sound but I'm not sure if that's just my guitar or the amp sim I'm using so I didn't touch it for now.

I haven't sat down to like actually compose in a while - spent a bunch of time on a secret album project (which was primarily me playing guitar poorly 2 weeks ago) then doing the Eurorack modular live set.

Here's Shanna's Theme. Her character is a crystal pirate, so she wanted something piratey - like heroic pirate theme.

Quite happy with this one - once again it seems that the less time I have to make a track, the better it will be.

Better quality on soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/trent-hawkins/20210330-feat-lagoon-city

This is a part from our live stream on Tuesday, with some tweaks in arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cahuMvsxNV8

This is quite a chill track with an electric post-rock vibe. Still some minor glitches in the setup but overall I am quite pleased with the result. The main melody is one improvised track (using the ever faithful looper) over which I added another clean layer, the distorted lead guitar, the bass, some subtle pad (Arturia MicroFreak) while the drums are still from the Rock Drum Machine app - still working on that aspect to find a midi workflow that doesn't make me draw each and every note but still feels more natural and has a better sound.

Due to more family obstacles to overcome, I entered the week thinking all I would post was an ambient bit I had come up with on monday. I somehow ended up polishing it, writing lyrics and recording them to post a full song. I'm still struggling with my voice but I'm not giving up.
Sound design, sequencing and arranging was all done on the Elektron Digitone. I recorded the two tracks in Ableton Live where I added the vocals with diffusion slapback, channel strip (Izoptope Neutron Elements) on all three tracks and a Valhalla Supermassive Reverb send.
I mixed then mastered with Izotope Ozone Elements.

Lossless on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-493253580/the-colors-of-dreams

This is yet another uninspired track.

It started with a simple bass line (which I suspect I probably have used in tens of other tracks in the past) that I was playing around the other day. I was not very inspired so went for simple and efficient, if a bit sad - arps and rubber leads. This always kinda works, like doing pasta in water and instant tomato sauce.

Most of the synths and bass come from FLEX in FL Studio. I had fun with one aspect, which was syncing the bass with the drum kick and leaving pauses. That was inspired by watching a Nik West video where she was explaining her approach to bass. The drums are mostly drum samples from Splice.

Overall I am pretty unhappy with the track. It does not sound bad in itself but it's easy, unoriginal, not trying out something new - it's a bit of a cop out. I feel like a sell out, though I have never really sold anything. I'll need to get more inspiration for something more adventurous. A friend of mine said that weekly beats is like "a celebration of the act of creation". This is what I really want to do every time, hence my disappointment at doing something uninspired. But a lame track is better than no track, so here we go.

very short song, just wanted to record something

Lyrics:
all of my friends
they're doing fine
i don't mind them lying
guess all i'll say
everything's okay
even if you're not this time

More lo-fi easy-going sounds inspired by this time of year. Experiencing a mini warm spell in the UK, dusty sunshine through still-bare trees. Beautiful time of year.

This past week brought unfortunate family news. To be as easy on myself as possible, this week's track is an improvisation with pedal steel guitar and my eight-delay Max/MSP patch. There's a Moyo volume pedal to take the attack off, Waves Factory Cassette for a bit of character, and a convolution reverb for space. The reference delay time is 19300ms, and the individual delays are based on divisions of 21 of that amount. Each delay is a different value.

This is essentially real-time, though I did tweak levels after the fact, and shortened the end fade.

The title is from Euler's idoneal numbers, also called suitable numbers, of which there are 65. (And I hope that this is a suitable tribute to those we've lost this week..)