This is one of those "well, I got something done" tracks--some of the melodic and harmonic elements work well, though I don't know if it works in aggregate. Three tracks of hollowbody Univox in Bb F C tuning, no external effects, but in-Ableton convolution reverb and compression/eq on the stereo mix.

Initially I was going for something sparser, but my reflex in playing was to do something more dense. Some sparse sections did emerge, though, so the next one may focus more on those.

The title comes from Cold Fell in the northern Pennines, a mountain with an elevation of 621 m.

My schedule's been extremely busy of late, and for this weekend, I chose to add some time for recharging. This led to just one late-night Saturday session for recording this piece. This one uses the microtonal Tele Deluxe, though it emphasizes low-integer ratios and consonance. There's a wistful, finding-the-center vibe to this. Rather than record as much as possible and try to work it all in, this one was a little simpler to put together.

Straight into the converter, and just some convolution reverb send and multiband compression/eq on the stereo mix.

The title comes from the Irish road R619's route near Oldcastle.

My initial thought with this week's composition was to start with a longer chord progression (12 beats, broken up over a couple appearances), and respond to it sparsely in two other tracks. It kind of works.

Three tracks of PureSalem Mendiola, standard tuning. No inline effects, just convolution reverb send and the usual compression/eq on the stereo mix.

The title comes from the quasar TON 618.

This past week I took the neck off the bass to tighten the truss rod nut, and after some service (graphite lubricant, tightening truss rod, then cleaning frets, then restringing), I found the bass was much more fun to play. So this one uses two tracks of bass (one P pickup, one J pickup) and two tracks of PureSalem Mendiola guitar (bridge pickup and neck pickup).

The writing process started with bass, and then finding a way of integrating guitar over that. There's a chordal change in the middle that I'm fond of.

No inline effects, but the usual convolution reverb and compression/eq on the mix.

The title comes from Col du Noyer in the French Alps, which has an elevation gain of 616m.

A short Saturday night session with the microtonal Tele Deluxe gives us this piece. In the Monday ambient improv with this guitar, I happened on a pattern with harmonics, thinking to record it later for the weekly piece. That led to some accompanying harmonic patterns, and filling in with some arpeggios, a few chords, and baritone-range lines.

No pedals, but the usual convolution reverb send and compression/eq on the stereo bus.

Title comes from the asteroid 613 Ginevra.

While the weekend was busy, I managed to make time to put together this intuitively structured piece. Initially I recorded a fingerpicked pattern that doesn't appear in the final piece, but which gave shape to it, as it was in 3/4. I'd recorded several other parts in response to it, some of which worked better than others. Some of the mid-stream rejects worked well together, and got pulled back into the final piece. And some parts ended up in 4/4, some of them together, and some against 3/4. Some transitions made more sense if they were a beat or a fraction of a beat shorter, or longer...so we have sections that start a little before or after I ordinarily would have had them.

Three tracks of no-effect PureSalem Mendiola, plus the convolution reverb send and stereo-mix compression/eq.

The title comes from Long Strand, off of Ireland's regional route 598.

I've been getting the sense of changing things up a bit, and this piece is both a different guitar ($35 baglama-tuned Heit Deluxe) and the re-emergence of electric bass guitar. The guitar is tuned GgDDAa, so the outer courses are a fundamental + octave string, with the inner course at unison.

As often happens when I have an abbreviated time for tracking (short sessions Friday and Saturday nights), I end up with a lengthier editing session on Sunday. Still, it kind of hangs together. The notion of adding bass came to me Saturday after the first tracking of just guitar. With the octave courses and unison course, this guitar sounds fairly thick, and takes up a lot of the sonic spectrum in its range...but that leaves available frequencies in the bass range.

No inline effects, but there's a convolution reverb send from each track, and compression/eq on the stereo mix.

The title comes from minor planet 594 Mireille.

Last week, I was hearing the music channeled by the PureSalem Mendiola in standard tuning, and hearing it again this week. This past Friday was also the 50th anniversary of Keith Jarrett's famous concert in Köln, so I started this one with an Am7 > G motion, to see where that would take me. As it turned out, it took me somewhere melodic, through gentle expressions of several emotions. I could easily have made this longer...but thought to keep it under four minutes.

Three channels of PureSalem Mendiola with five-year-old strings, direct into the UA Volt. Some large-hall convolution reverb, and the usual multiband compression/eq on the stereo main.

The title comes from minor planet 578 Happelia, a tiny thing with (possibly) a tiny moon.

This week's track is another intentionally shorter piece, trying to make use of some silences and space. Initially I'd tracked a lot of different phrases in a different key Tuesday evening, a more aggressive approach that I'd liked...but it didn't lead to satisfying development. Finally, a more sparse combination of phrases in a different key seemed to lead somewhere, so I followed those, abandoning the first set. (I did keep them, though they're not used at all here.)

Three tracks of PureSalem Mendiola, with the end of one phrase bumped over to an additional channel, to allow for a note to decay across the beginning of the next phrase. Straight into the UA Volt-1, bit of convolution reverb on the channels and compression/eq on the stereo out. There's a bit of a vibe to this one.

The title comes from a village along England's A517.

To switch things up a bit, this week's track uses the Danelectro Baritone. Three tracks (neck, bridge, both in series) straight into the UA Volt, no pedals. There's the usual convolution reverb and finalizing effects rack. I tracked in a couple quick late-night sessions Friday and Saturday; four clips didn't get used, but I ended up using everything else.

The title comes from the Indian astronomer Aryabhata, who developed many mathematical equations, including one describing the Earth's rotation, in (apparently) 511 CE.

This past week I had two live, in-person performances, and spent some time with tracks from earlier this year--it's the first time I've officially released any of the weeklies. Laodica is a collection of 10 guitar tracks from this year.

So...that all leaves not a lot of time for a new track, but I managed to fit in a three-track guitar thing. The usual signal chain, and PureSalem Mendiola.

The title comes from Ontario's Parry Sound, which has highway 510 running nearby.

Still mining that guitar-only thing with the recent resonator network, though this time I was using the PureSalem Mendiola. Through the resonator, it sounded a lot more like a banjo and less like a rubab, so I leaned into it. This one's very banjo-friendly front-porch picking music. I'm kind of digging the vibe here.

Rhythm guitar got a bit of low-end rolloff with EQ-8, and the mix got the Wide & Warm audio effect rack.

The title comes from two towns in VA and WV near RT 102, which kind of echoed the country-ish flavor here.

This one took a few turns after I'd started working on it. I'd started with a few syncopated drum parts (Ableton's 64 Pad Kit Jazz), and thought there'd be a moody atmospheric thing happening. Then I picked up the Danelectro baritone, and a bassline came out that had some attitude to it. I put a few chords to it, and then the next basslines came out with a lot of swagger. So...out with the plan. I did several more passes with the baritone, mostly straight into the board, but then cut a few leads through the Balls Effects KWB and Vox Wah, finally adding a few more through the Reuss RF-01 (and Vox Wah), which come at the end.

Inline effects: Max Humanizer and Drum Buss on the drums. Some Glue Compressor on the baritone, with some Auto-Filter with drive on the cleaner chordal baritone parts.

Sends: Delay on drums, with two different convolution reverbs (one with high-pass auto-filter to prevent boominess) on the baritone.

Title comes from their being 75 uniform polyhedra, if you omit the infinite ones.

This week...there's been a lot to do, so I only spent a few minutes Friday night coming up with an intuitive drum line. On impulse, I went for one of the drum racks I did using Ableton Operator to generate the drum sounds. Saturday, I tracked bass, initially thinking a bit of 70s electric jazz (after reading Ethan Iverson's interview with Keith Jarrett from some years back) the one drum loop I'd written, and then thought to track more bass against it, higher up the neck. Then...rather than writing guitar, I added some ostinatos with Ableton's Analog, and electric piano lines with Ableton Electric. By this point...there wasn't any jazz left in it.

Inline effects: EQ-8 with different amounts of bass rolloff on each of the two bass lines, Max Humanizer on the drums.

Sends: one room-sized convolution reverb on bass, Valhalla Supermassive for keyboards, and Ableton Echo for occasional rhythm on the drums and keys. There's Full-Chain multiband compression on the stereo mix.

The title comes from Aristotle's notion of the number of layers of the universe.

While busy weeks are common now, this one was notably busy. But here's a track anyway. I had kind of a dub idea in mind, thinking of space and interplay...which I kind of got away from, but perhaps not unlistenably.

Drums: Ableton's Borella kit, with Drum Buss, little tiny synth noises from the Ableton DrumSynth kit, and hand claps with Impulse. Epi P-J bass, and Epi Moderne guitar (through Vox Wah). Operator for the organ part. I tracked some fretless guitar that I didn't end up using...but the fretless will probably reappear soon.

Sends: two convolution reverbs, one Delay, and one Echo.

Title from the etymology of this week's element, actinium.

A return to guitar (Res-O-Glas) and bass (Epi), here's a drifty kind of track, named in part after the 44th department of France.

I started with a Drumulator part, much faster, and slowed it waaaay down, I added hand drum and hand claps, some Operator bass (which I took out) and organ lines, along with grand piano in Simpler...and based on a dream I had, I went back and split the two drum lines, adding a vocoder chain to each one--Analog on the Drumulator and Operator on the hand drum. Grand piano sounded too...grand-piano-y, so I used auto-filter to reduce bandwidth and sent it to sends only. Guitar got some auto-filter, as did the Drumulator kick (to bring out the peak).

Sends are two convolution reverbs and one LFO auto-filter into Simpler. Full-chain master on the 2-bus.