Travel had me starting very late on this one, only doing some initial beats in 6/8 (Ableton 64-pad rock kit) and bass on Friday night, adding a bit of Operator (1st and 3rd partial) late Saturday. Initially I'd thought of adding guitar, but...I found myself enjoying the sparse dub-like quality of this, even though it's not that heavy on the dub delay. It needed something else at the end, so I added three tracks of Simpler with different field recording samples.
Sends: Convolution reverb (with Auto-Filter bass rolloff), Echo (Dem Ducks, with tweaks). Full-chain master on the 2.
Title from a quality of berkelium, this week's element--it emits low-energy electrons, so it's safe to handle...but on the other hand, it decays into the very-radioactive californium, so...if you have the opportunity to handle any, just don't.
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.
Kind of like last week's, this week's tempo was all over the place before I tracked guitar and bass. Finally it seemed like uptempo dub, so here we are. Percussion is the 64-pad Jazz Drum Rack, 64-pad Dub Techno kit, Impulse of some hand drums I have, and hand claps. Keys are Puremagnetik Mark I Rhodes, Drawbar, and CP-70. Guitars: baglama-tuned Heit Deluxe for clean-ish rhythm, and Epiphone Moderne (Reuss RF-01 Fuzz and Vox Wah). Bass is the usual Epiphone P-J (with EQ8 to roll off lows).
Sends: auto-filter to roll off lows before a convolution reverb (marble foyer), and two Echo channels, one Dub Syndicate with high-pass, and one Analog Triplet with an LFO-bandpass filter in front. Full-chain master on everything, and auto-pan on the keys and percussion.
I submitted this, and then listening back...didn't like the lower mids. Here's a corrected mix (still on Sunday!)
Title from the use of erbium in lasers..
This week's track started much differently--at 117bpm. I had some interesting drum patterns going on, but couldn't find a way into them. Guitar and keyboard lines weren't all that interesting. So I took a radical step on Saturday and cranked the bpm down to 68--ah, now it's a dub track. OK. Then I could finish it.
Instruments: Drum Rack of 64-pad single hit jazz kit samples, Drum Rack of Dub Techno single hits, Impulse of hand claps, Operator with pitch mod (sort of a cuíca effect), Puremagnetik CP-70 ("Lite" preset), Epiphone P-J bass (EQ-8 to roll off lows), and Epiphone Moderne (through Balls Effects KWB and Vox Wah) for guitar. At the last minute, I remembered to put Drum Buss on the drums. (Oops.)
Sends: two channels of Echo (Dark Fade and Dub Syndicate presets), and one empty-swimming-pool convolution reverb. Full-chain master on the out.
Title from the use of this week's element, Holmium, an atom of which was used by IBM a couple years back to store one bit of data.
First track of the year! A fairly simple dub jam--606 samples (with automated auto-filter on kick and snare), bass (Epi P-J with EQ-8 rolloff), Ableton's Electric (Crunchy piano with auto-filter drive), and tabla samples. Sends: two convolution reverbs (one large, one smaller) and Echo (Dub Syndicate). Auto-pan on keys and tablas, Full-Chain Master on the stereo buss. I tried adding some other instruments here and there, but they didn't fit, so I'm keeping it simple.
Title comes from sources of iodine, element 53 (because I'm picking up where I left off).
This week I bought an old DOD 545 Wah Filter pedal (the beige one), otherwise known as the Bill Laswell pedal, and built up a little groove in anticipation. Initially I used Korg Minipops samples (thanks, Chris!) but there was a bit-depth grit around them that didn't seem to fit with this particular track, so I ended up replacing it with a drum rack of Analog synths. To supplement the kick, I added 606 kick in one track, and then some DR-660 percussion samples (thanks again to Chris! I remember my old DR-660 fondly; traded it for an MXR EQ...). I added a track of vibes, some of Analog, some Operator...but took them all out in favor of two tracks of Live's Electric plugin. Then I tracked bass through the DOD, and it was enormously low--so much so that I decided the kick should occupy a higher frequency range, and spent time fiddling to get a kind of balance. Saturday night I tracked guitar (Epi Moderne, through Vox Wah and Reuss RF-01, but also just through Vox Wah), and put a rough arrangement together. Some further fiddling, and here we are. (Sends: two convo reverbs, one amp spring and one room, and a delay. Full-chain master on the master channel.)
Title from the Kola Superdeep Borehole, for obvious reasons.
Super-busy week and weekend. But here's a minimal track: just drum rack of Analog for synth drums, ring-modulated tabla, electric bass (Epi P-J into the board, cabinet plugin, reverb send, and rolling off -6 dB below 100Hz, mostly one track but an occasional other voice) and sparse Analog into a reverb send. Sends: two convo reverbs and one delay. Full-chain master on the 2.
Title from the frequency shift plugin on the ring modulated tabla.
More guitar than I'd thought I'd use. Lots of convolution reverb. Completely synthesized drums.
Dry funk kit, hand drum kit, claps, marimba, bass, organ, synth. Tracked guitar, but it was a bit sloppy, and I cut it. (Hey, been sick this weekend.) The goal was to do something like a lost instrumental b-side of a Grace Jones session with Sly and Robbie, with Bill Laswell remixing.
I thought I'd do a house track this week, but the drum pattern was kind of boring...until I cut the tempo in (nearly) half. I'd written some synth parts that I ended up taking out, and then adding piano and Rhodes, along with bass (Epi P-J) and guitar (Epi Moderne, with Vox Wah and occasionally Reuss Repeater Fuzz). There's a drum rack of dry funk drums with a 909 kick (auto-filter on everything to emphasize percussiveness and distort), impulse hand claps, a drum rack of single-hit tabla samples, a drum rack of Rhythm Ace single hits. Lots of things got high-pass auto-filter to carve out some space, and the bass got a sidechain from the 909 kick. M4L humanizer on drums, tablas, and hand claps. Sends are two convolution reverbs (one long for almost everything and one short for the bass and drums) with high-pass auto-filter to keep it from booming, and a chain of simple delay and filter delay with an LFO band-pass auto-filter in front. Nearly everything got auto-pan and the percussion got some delay automation.
Title from the fact that I slowed everything down.
Started planning toward a dark ambient piece, and then wrote a funky bassline. Whoops.
Drums: Drum rack of dry funk drums, with auto-filter high-pass with resonance on both the kick and snare. This also went through a bit crusher, which I automated to vary throughout the track. There's also a 909 kick in places, and some hand claps.
Bass: Epiphone P-J into the Focusrite, with a bit of convolution reverb. Sidechained to the kick.
Keys: Ableton Electric (Wurlitzer) getting Auto-Filter with drive and Auto-Pan for tremolo, Ableton Analog (Glass2 Hollow), Bastl Kastle
Guitar: Epiphone Moderne into the Focusrite, Ableton Auto-Filter (band-pass with drive) and Auto-Pan (tremolo).
M4L Humanizer on all MIDI instruments except the keys, Auto-Pan on almost everything for spatialization, and Full-Chain Master on the two-channel output.
Title...from the election in France, which was better news than not. And it's the anniversary of Dien Bien Phu, so there's that too, if you prefer.
Not feeling particularly well most of the week, so the fundamentals of the track didn't emerge until late in the week, with some simple drum parts, and bass. Initially I went for a sparse post-rock thing, but threw that all out when I reduced the drums to the simplest patterns, and re-built them as something I could reasonably play dubby bass against. (Two tracks of bass--one with cabinet plugin, and one with auto-filter and distortion, both side-chained against the kick) Having been listening to some Laswell projects, I put tables on there as well, and Ableton's Behr stringed instrument. As a last-minute addition, I tracked a bunch of guitar (Res-O through Vox Wah, into band-pass auto-filter), and played a lot with automating sends (one to a convolution reverb, one to LFO band-pass auto-filter into filter delay). M4L Humanizer on the drums and tabla, and full-chain master on the 2-mix.
Title from the wikipedia entry on the number 14:
Take a set of real numbers and apply the closure and complement operations to it in any possible sequence. At most 14 distinct sets can be generated in this way. This holds even if the reals are replaced by a more general topological space. See Kuratowski's closure-complement problem.
(production notes coming soon)
This started kind of funky early in the week, and then (as sometimes happens) things got dubby. I started with an 808 kit, and just wasn't getting the impact I wanted. 909 was better, but distracting from the funk feel, so I replaced the 909 with a kit of dry single hit drums. In editing, I slid the snares a tiny bit late, and the hats a tiny bit forward, to see how that'd sit. I added some percussion and claps, and kick and toms from another kit, high-passing this second kick so it was almost another tom.
I added Ableton's Tension instrument for clavinet and Electric for Wurlizer, both going through band-pass auto-filter, with LFO modulation. I tracked bass (Epiphone P/J on P, into the Focusrite), putting a bit of Cabinet plugin inline, along with side chain compression triggered by the kick. Then I tracked guitar (Epiphone Moderne through Vox Wah), putting it through band-pass auto-filter with drive, giving it a small-amp sound.
Most tracks got some automation to the sends--these were two convolution reverbs (large space and large tracking room), and a filter delay with LFO-band-pass auto-filter going into it for extra wah.
All the drums and percussion got 30ms of M4L Humanizer (maybe shouldn't have used it on the drums--some hits seem too late now), and the master channel got full-chain master.
Title from the fact that, according to Wikipedia, "Twelve is the smallest weight for which a cusp form exists."
This week I wanted to hear something dubby and bass-heavy, with two bass lines going, and this is the result. Tracks: Drum Rack of a trap set played with brushes, with Auto-Filter for tone-shaping. Also a Drum Rack of hand drum hits, Impulse instrument of hand claps, and a 909 kick, all of them going through Auto-Filter to varying degrees as well.
Keys: Electric piano (MKI2 Crunchy) through LFO Auto-Filter for a wah effect, and Operator (Funky Organ).
Bass: two channels of 80s Epiphone P-J (P-pickup only) straight into the board. One channel got 50% of a Cabinet plugin, and the other got Auto-Filter (high-pass with drive) and compression to tame some variance.
Sends: convolution reverb, and a channel of LFO band-pass Auto-Filter into Simple Delay into Filter Delay. The percussion got automation to go to the delay channel at different times, while that was nearly constant for the electric piano. All MIDI instruments got M4L Humanizer, and everything except the trap set and primary bass got Auto-Pan. The master channel got Full-Chain Master for compression/limiting.
Title from the dub feel and ride cymbal.
Whoops, didn't realize at first that our deadline was Saturday night. Here's one I'd been working on this week, out of the desire to hear a Laswell-dubbified Jesus-Lizard kind of thing. Not sure I got there, but it's an interesting direction. Drums: rock kit, some high-pass auto-filter on the kick to boost it, low-pass auto-filter with drive to roll off some overall highs and give it some grit, and I put 24ms of M4L Humanizer on there to give it a bit of breath. (Any more than that felt too slow and sloppy.)
Bass: 80s Epiphone P-J (P only) with flat wounds into the board, some Cabinet plugin to give it air, and a convolution reverb send.
Keys: Clavinet with LFO bandpass auto filter into delay for that hypnotic thing, and Operator (Funky Organ) to give some pad effect.
Guitar: two tracks of Epiphone Moderne through EHX LPB2ube (cranked, two sides cascaded) and Vox Wah for tone shaping.
Sends: two different convolution reverbs (one with a high-pass filter to keep the kick from getting boomy), and three different filter delay combos, some with simple delay, one with band-pass LFO auto-filter for the dubby drum effect.
Also, Full-Chain Master on the 2-mix.
Title is a reference to the Jesus Lizard.
(Edit: brought one of the guitar motives back in toward the middle and end.)
