I couldn't resist recording this piece for the 700th Junto project.
The directions were to show people a glimpse outside my world, so here's my backyard and some of the laundry that I washed today.
As I haven't packed away my drumkit yet for winter, I decided to have a bash.
A 303-style bassline has been added because it was the easiest thing to consider at this time.
One bit of reflection is how I began recording videos for Junto projects at number 100.
Since then that playlist has grown to over 450, which means I've responded to three-quarters of the prompts in that time.
I was first introduced to the Junto community around 027, which involved music from text but I worried my response had misinterpreted the instruction and didn't share it.
At least that's what I've taken from it, as I need to work in video due my own creative constraint established when I abandoned Soundcloud.
My situation depicts randomness as a lava lamp and involves using the random functions on the drum and bass machines to create an original piece of music.
I made a break in their rhythms each time the lava snapped, aside from an abrupt and random break early on.
The haiku shared by Naviar Records arrived as I was playing with my Roland Boutique TB-03 and TR-06, so the theme of spring growing old seemed to resonate like these recreations of older equipment.
It reminded me of the 'Engrish' I've seen photographed that reads "PLEASE PAY YOUR PARKING FEE BEFORE EXISTING".
In the video you can see I've used a Kawai drum machine circuit bent by Diabolical Devices with a King Capitol synth and an Atomosynth Mochika XL going into an Eletro-Harmonics Q-Tron envelope filter.
In Ableton Live I've applied gates, particularly Audio Damage BigSeq, as well as reverbs including Valhalla Shimmer.
At first I came up with an unmusical response to the haiku. I was thinking about hearing miraculous agitations and what a bum steer I thought it'd be chasing the melody from a random arrangement of notes. The result was a bit excruciating.
Then I thought about what could be done with the drum part. The MIDI has been sent to a Roland TR-707 and the clock is running to the Atomosynth Mochika. Under my other hand is a
King Capitol Punishment Utopia Synth, which has two oscillators I think.
Something about the waver at the end appealed. Originally I had guitar, bass, drums and percussion backing, but the fluctuations in my timing took attention away from the phasing.
The phasing was achieved with two loops in Live, one a fraction shorter so the two parts drift out of time over the recording. By the end the transient at the head of one loop was getting ahead of the other.
Phasing is a subtle effect, so it's a bit lost on me but I've heard interesting results with these loops and also a percussion part in an earlier draft. Usually phasing is an unexpected outcome and often I experience it as a nuisance in video production.
To round off my track I added a 909 kick and bass line but it still needed something so I used a 303-style preset and Latin percussion. These were meant to complement the loop but compression has meant they're a bit more dynamic and hog attention from those slight changes in the vocal. Dunno if that'd be right with Reich but happy birthday Steve!
Steve Reich came to my attention via Brian Eno, who has enthused about the phasing technique in 'It's Gonna Rain' -- which is a beaut track. I've also been interested in his rhythmic pieces and see a lot of his influence in the music I enjoy. I've also been happy to have comparisons made with my work.
I considered watching the film again today but settled for listening to tracks on Youtube, including beaut interpretations by James Holden and Benny Benassi.
I spent a little while exploring ideas on a Kaossilator before settling on writing a song using VST synths in Ableton Live. In this track I use V-Station, Oddity, Absynth, Massive and Drumaxx.
My idea was to update the style of electronic music a bit but still make it feel somewhat dated, so acid seemed a good direction.
The initial MIDI files were generated very quickly, then the generative approach continued with the MIDI tools in Live. The arpeggiator, scale and chord ('Film noir' preset!) effects were used to shape the notes before directing them to synths.
Valhalla Shimmer is in the mix and I automated the pitch in places, particularly that decaying effect at the end. There's also Ohmforce Frohmage on the drums for a muffled effect.
After last week I was still in the mood to make electronic music. I used a couple of chord progressions I've been playing on the guitar as MIDI through VST synths including the V Station, which is a bit cheesy but a favourite.
While polishing up the piece last night, I found a way to make the bass less heavy and I like the way it kind of sounds like old acid tracks. They didn't have deep bass.
This weekend I'm making acid, driving basslines from the Mochika and looping snippets of crunchy circuit bent beats from this diabolical Yamaha device. Enjoying it so much I might not get around to recording the Junto piece that's losing my attention.
