"Wonky Wee" [mp3 removed]
A familiar advertisement gets samplidelified. Apologies to the composer John Michael Boling for the use of his sound art piece. Mostly done with Cubase and Kontakt 2.
Update: removed two seconds that was throwing off the beat near the end.
Update 2: Added some pitched percussion to the beginning--just a few notes to make the buildup more interesting.
"FM Fatale" [mp3 removed]
Have been teaching myself how to program frequency modulated (additive) synthesis using the FM7 synth, an NI softsynth modeled on the '80s-vintage Yamaha DX7. "Program" rather dignifies it--it's not as if I'm writing the algorithms, just making my own patches within the synth's rather arcane "operator matrix." About half of this song is "my" sounds made that way and the rest factory presets. The rhythm at the beginning is an 808 loop that I am using as "audio in" to the FM7 for effects.
"Iceworld Two" [mp3 removed]
The deep bass throb on this will likely be lost on computer speakers. The bass is a drum loop run through the Mutator analog filter.
The synths are FM4 (the strumming strings-like part, recorded separately and pasted in with a short prayer), Absynth for the "keyboard," and the wispy drumming at the end is an 808 loop with some delay.
"B4 the Blue" [mp3 removed]
After several years of using Cubase SE (the student, or "lite" version) I recently moved to Cubase Essential 4 as my main digital audio work area--also a lite version but with added features such as being able to add effects to audio without first rendering it and the ability to use controller curves for multiple parameters in softsynths (obviating the dreaded "midi learn"). "B4 the Blue" uses several of these features. It's not that radically different from what I've been doing but required a whole lot less steps. I do think having multiple settings changing simultaneously by using overlapping curves will affect my sound quite a bit.
There is a reverbed piano part at about :40 that I'm really happy with--it makes me think of some kind of modal, McCoy Tyner thing but my background is only listening to jazz piano, not playing it. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to keep pushing further and further into music: discovering things that are already inside.
"Dearth of the Cool (2009 Remix)" [mp3 removed]
This is some acoustica done about 3 years ago. It needed more variety in the second half, so added a couple more motifs, and also made the mix more balanced. A jazzy dodecaphonish midi quickie but I like parts of it a lot.
