"Great Grains" [mp3 removed]
Have been wanting to do an impressionistic-style piece with analog and digital instrument sounds interwoven. So this piece has some granular synthesis as well as "fatter" subtractive analog bits. It's not completely amelodic but the tunes are as usual spare.
"Threshold Lurker (Short)" [mp3 removed]
A quieter, shorter version of "Threshold Lurker," with more dynamics. I can't find a compromise between this and the boosted-for-CD mix. One day I will have all this material professionally mastered (400 songs, ri-i-ght).
Update, 2013: Remaximized using the PSP Vintage Warmer plugin, reuploaded.
"Threshold Lurker" [mp3 removed]
Slightly more ambient than usual piece made with a pitched digital delay instrument called "Lurker." This is three "live" performances layered together. Live in the sense of moving virtual knobs or toggling between several semitones of pitch, in real time, recording the results, and then editing. It's "made loud to be played quiet." In many recent tunes have been using mastering "maximizers" for the final mix, but these are just quick fix ways to get the volume up to CD level. I'm not entirely happy with what it's doing to the sound balance but the alternative is a mix that sounds anemic, to my ears. Trying to compromise between concert hall and computer speaker volume is fundamentally insane.
Update, 2013: Replaced with a shorter, re-"mastered" version.
"Vector Repeater" [mp3 removed]
Following in the footsteps of "Distortomatic" (i.e. loud). Interestingly the beats in the earlier tune were demos from a fairly pricy analog filter bank whereas in this one the white-noise rhythms result from what the Reaktor manual calls "sample destruction." At the end of the day it's all ones and zeros.
"Claves of Steel (Beats)" [mp3 moved to Bandcamp]
I find the beats made with this particular softsynth (Reaktor Rhythmaker) to be fairly sensuous*. Here I tried to keep the melody lines from overpowering the rhythm. I realized after the fact that the tune (three notes and a fourth note 1/2 step down) was one I used in an early Mac SE song called "Life in the Mortuary."
*except on my computer speakers
