Another three-tracks-of-Danelectro-baritone track, this one focusing mostly on fingerpicking. Straight into the UA Volt 1, but one section (right channel, 2:45-3:10) sounded weirdly lacking in tonal color, so I put it through high-pass auto-filter with drive. (Some of that lack of tone comes from where I was playing on the high strings: the 12th fret's a bit flat, so it's tricky to get a clean note sounding there, and several times the note sounded dead.) There's some convolution reverb and the usual multi band eq/compression on the stereo mix.

The title comes from the asteroid 512 Taurinensis

Another three-guitar/no-drums thing, which fit into a busy weekend in two quick tracking sessions. Some weeks, I'll generate a lot of little motives that could fit in with something stronger, but end up being tossed. This one had only two bits that didn't get used: they could have worked, but I ended up tracking stronger lines over them.

PureSalem Mendiola into the UA Volt 1 (not on the vintage circuit), no pedals. A little convolution reverb, and the usual compression/eq on the stereo out.

The title comes from (again) the minor planet 509 Iolanda.

There's a little more life left in the guitar trio approach. This one started spacious, but developed some chordal motion and melodic interest. PureSalem Mendiola, no inline effects, but some send to a convolution reverb, and the usual compression/eq on the stereo.

The title comes from Emperor Xiaowen starting the equal-field system of agriculture in 485 CE.

A very loungey/dubby kind of thing. By my usual standards this would be late (for various weekend reasons), but I'm taking advantage of this year's scheduling. This one started with sparse drums--initially I was thinking hip-hop, but with the dub echo, extremely mellow electric piano, and pedal steel...it went in a different direction.

Drums: Ableton 64 Pad Dub Techno kit, with Max Humanizer
Keys: PureMagnetik electric piano, Berlin Mark Two, with some auto-pan
Bass: 80s Epiphone Embassy II with flatwounds and EMG selects, p-pickup only, EQ-8 for low-end rolloff.
No-name 70s kit-built 10-string pedal steel with Moyo volume pedal, with Glue compressor and auto-pan

Sends: two Echo channels, one convolution reverb (with high-pass filter in front) for air on drums and bass, and Valhalla Supermassive

Full-chain multi-band compression (flat) on the stereo mix.

Title comes from the largest graceful graph on 14 nodes having 68 edges.

Another intuitively-structured one, this one began with a slow drum beat, and got interesting when I added long-persisting delay with filtering to it. I did a few different rhythms with Ableton's 64 Pad Kit Special drum rack, and added some handclaps, along with some Rhodes which I took out again.

Next up was Epiphone P-J bass, using the usual signal chain (EQ-8 for bass rolloff), though I'd also rolled down the tone control. I'd initially thought of rolling off highs...but changed my mind for this one, so the bass is close to typical.

Guitar was home-built Res-O-Glas through the Balls Effects KWB for a bit of overdrive, and Vox Wah for both tone shaping (rhythm track) and effect (lead track).

Sends: bandpass Auto-Filter with LFO frequency center into Ableton's Echo (analog triplet dub preset, tweaked to remove some noise), Valhalla supermassive on a large reverb preset, and high-pass Auto-Filter in front of a room-sized convolution reverb.

Inline: Bass got EQ-8, while drums got Max Humanizer. Guitars got some auto-pan to get them out of each other's way, though lead guitar also got some Glue Compressor. And I used that channel to do some reversed clips from time to time as well.

The editing/arrangement process involved a lot of cutting things out--I played more than I kept in. (This is even down to certain notes; it just sounded better with things left out.)

Title comes from *67 being the call-waiting-blocking code for a lot of telephone systems.

This was a busy weekend, so I'm getting this up late (for me). It's also just a four-tracker, and short. This started as some syncopated drum patterns in 6/4, with some alternate drum lines in 4/4, and alternating between the two. I used Ableton's 64 Pad Kit Jazz for these, and added a bit of Max Humanizer to slop it up a bit.

I did bass next--the usual Epiphone P-J with just the P pickup. I also did the usual EQ-8 rolloff. Some of these suggested different, related keys, though...I didn't really explore that thoroughly.

Guitars were done in a few passes, but had the same signal path: PureSalem Mendiola through Balls Effects KWB and Vox Wah, though one channel was neck pickup and the other bridge pickup.

Sends: two convolution reverbs, one large room, and one larger hall. There's also Echo plugin. And there's Ableton's Full-Chain multi band compression rack on the output.

Title comes from there being 63 groats in a guinea, according to the old English monetary system.

Running maybe a bit late on this one--hey, it was Thundersnow weekend--but I've been uploading at the start of deadlines, not the finish. So...going to say it's all good.

This one started with some syncopated drums (64 pad kit rock) and a couple (Ableton Grand) piano chords...and I thought to add Epiphone bass (usual P-J, EQ-8 low-end rolloff and reverb send) and...instead of regular guitar, just pedal steel (no effects other than passive volume pedal). I fleshed it out with a few more piano bits, added and removed hand claps, and added some sends: Delay, Valhalla Supermassive, Echo (Dub Syndicate preset), and convolution reverb with high-pass auto-filter in front to avoid low-end buildup. I went back and added some Max Humanizer on drums to reduce the mechanical feeling, and did alternating sends to delay and echo.

The title comes from the ziggurats of the Sumerians, who gave us the 60-minute hour, among other 60-based things.

Welcome to 2021's challenge! And apologies for the date/time confusion! (Looking on the bright side, those of us who've been working toward Sunday evening submissions...now get a chance to submit first thing instead of right before the deadline.)

I started this track late in the week, having a few rhythms in mind, but not much else, I put up some MIDI loops in Ableton's 64 Pad Kit Special (with Max Humanizer), and then responded to them with two tracks of guitar (home-made Res-O-Glas, direct into the Focusrite, with some Ableton Auto-Filter for tone-shaping). The initial thought around the guitar line was related to Miles Okazaki's weekly scale-shape project for 2020 (on Instagram), though the scale I'd started with...I ended up moving away from. Ultimately, I ended up filling in some spaces with reversed clips.

I used the usual Epiphone P-J bass (with low-end EQ-8 rolloff) in response to those guitar lines, and...really, that was about enough. I just needed four tracks.

Sends: Two convolution reverbs (one large, one smaller), one Ableton Delay, and Valhalla Supermassive. Full-Chain multiband compression on the stereo mix.

I'm picking up last year's naming scheme (number of week for the year, starting at 53). The title comes from port 53 being the port for DNS services.

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!

Kind of a mood piece. Much of my musical activity this week was focused on the monthly covers project (Black Sabbath this month), so my work on this one was a little later than usual, and more intuitive and reactive than planned.

Drums: reverse-gated 606 and 808, straight 808, and Ableton Cashon kit. Bit of Ableton Electric piano, and Epi bass, with two tracks of Res-O-Glas guitar (Balls Effects KWB pedal into Vox Wah). Bass got the usual EQ-8 low rolloff, while one channel of guitar got the low-pass and high-pass Auto-filter treatment. Both got Cabinet. Lot of send automation to a channel of Ableton Echo (with LFO band-pass Auto-Filter in front of it), and two different room convolution reverbs for space.

Title from the fact that this week's element, Francium, was the last to be discovered in nature, instead of being produced synthetically.

Capping a couple of weeks of illnesses with some indie mope-rock. I'd started with something else entirely, but the B section (rhythm) baritone guitar line popped up, and the rest followed. Only MIDI instrument is a drum rack of dry funk single-hits with a lot of auto-filter and M4L Humanizer (automated, so that it's sloppier on the slow sections, but tighter on the faster ones). Danelectro baritone (left channel) through auto-filter and cabinet plugins, Res-O-Glas (right channel) through glue compressor, auto-filter, auto-pan tremolo, and cabinet plugin, Res-O-Glas (slow auto-pan) through Reuss RF-01 Repeater Fuzz and Vox Wah, Epiphone bass through EQ-8, side chain compressor, and cabinet plugin. Everything through full-chain master.

(Post-upload, I tweaked the mix and re-uploaded.)