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.
