Day: April 3, 2011

"H.M.M.J. 2," "H.M.M.J. 3"

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More from my collaboration last year with Travis Hallenbeck: he came to my studio and we played a "live MIDI" set.

"H.M.M.J. 3" [mp3 removed]

Kind of tribal-sounding, with kinetic and varied percussion from Travis' gear. The reverb makes us sound like a Varese ensemble playing in an abandoned factory somewhere, if that's not too boastful.

"H.M.M.J. 2" [mp3 removed]

Nine minutes long, more tunes to work with here and the musical ideas run the gamut. ("The Charles Iveses of repurposed '80s synths" - Post-Hipster magazine)

The process, as explained last May:

A desktop computer plays MIDI files that we prepared in advance. One channel goes out to my gear: the Sidstation synth and Mutator analog filter. All the rest of the channels go to Travis's setup, which includes a midi mixer and Roland MT-32 sound module (see YouTube demo and this diagram).

So it is a live performance in the sense that the computer is dispensing a stream of MIDI on-off notes and we are changing settings on our gear in real time.

I was recording the performance, and did some minor post-production mixing, mostly for EQ and levels.