September 2013

"Bass Transitions"

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"Bass Transitions" [mp3 removed]

Used a couple of Reaktor instruments (Krypt and Monark) to make riffs for importing and assembling in the Octatrack.
The initial tune is bouncy and vaguely Latin; then it gets discordant and martial; then the "march" gradually and somewhat awkwardly finds its way back to the opening notes.
Awkwardly because the initial melody has been transformed by the surrounding notes in the middle section (without any use of offset) and has to slot back into its original groove (like gears being slightly out of sync).
My usual strategy in these instances is to stretch out the transition time. I might play around with other possibilities.

I've been volume-maximizing all my recent efforts after completion (as in, goosing them up to standard CD levels). Please drop me a line if it sounds too compressed to you.
The "loudness wars" are crazy but it's conform or be the runt of people's iTunes.
I've been making some CDs of songs and end up reducing the overall volume of the disc.
Mostly I listen at low volume levels so I miss whatever artifacts the maximization is causing.

war fever again

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As if we didn't have enough problems, war fever has broken out in Washington DC.
Can anything be done to stop this infectious disease before more people die?
I smeared topical ointment today in the form of emails to Congressman and Senator.
In the past this did not stop the pustular swelling and brain lesions of a truly bad case of Beltway bombing rabies.
The "media" are as usual falling into line. The dunderheaded Kristof, and check out how the Atlantic frames this interview with Alan Grayson, the only sane congressman.
It's great, one supposes, that they're giving him attention but the photo above the interview is a "nutty protestor in a pink shirt" and the headline reads "The Democratic Congressman Who Thinks He Can Stop the Syria War." That seems kind of a leery way to characterize a leader who is pointing out the obvious that "no one has been able to come up with a game plan [on Syria] that makes any sense."

Update: Posted this slightly less breezy comment at Corrente about the Atlantic thing:

Glad that the Atlantic acknowledged the existence of Grayson but the framing of the article undercuts his message. Instead of a photo of Grayson they present a wacky pink-shirted protestor surrounded by calm "suits," directly below the scoffing headline "The Democratic Congressman Who Thinks He Can Stop the Syria War." Oh, that cra-a-azy Congressman. Grayson's level-headed appraisal of the lack of a Syria game plan is largely neutralized by the magazine-provided "optics."

"Wherefore and Who For"

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"Wherefore and Who For" [mp3 removed -- tune is now on Bandcamp]

Continuing with this series of 3 min. all-Octatrack-and-Eurorack tunes.
This is less crunchy than "House Dwellers"; more analog filtering was used.
The Doepfer A-112 module's sample rate control was used to make the sped-up spacy "sweeps" that occur throughout.
The LFO'd, filtered cymbals in the middle section use the Octatrack's inboard FX.
The main melodies are WMD's Gamma Wave wavetable oscillators, tuned a few semitones apart, independently CV-WT-swept, mixed together, and filtered.
No analog oscillators were used - it's all analog processed digital, re-sampled and arranged in the Octatrack.