music - tm

Notes for the Household Kit LP on Bandcamp. These are mostly tech jottings so I remember what I did. Any thoughts, questions, etc on the music itself are welcome at the email address on this about page.

1. Triphop Turnstiles 03:31

An older tune, "Tasteful Triphop," reworked, with added house-y riffs from a Steinberg ROMpler called "Loopmash" and a field recording from the 34th Street subway station. The tinkly digital synth way off in the background, sounding like something from a Paris airport, is a venerable interactive art piece called "Reach," from the N/R/Q platform.

2. Barely See Ya 03:17

The second half of the same field recording. An Orphean ascent from subway bowels (my boots tramping up the staircase) precedes the polyglot voices of a busy midtown intersection. The voices become loop material -- digitally orchestrated, gospel-like (!) call-and-response patterns from random snippets of people talking to cell phones or each other. An older track, "Fuschia Refraction," with self-oscillating filter swoops, was also used here, along with Reaktor Massive riffs to sweeten the proceedings.

3. Noise Chamber 02:59

I made a wav file drum kit of household sounds -- spinning pan lid banging against a water glass, chair wheel rolling and thumping on floor, a shaken container of rice, fist smacking into palm, finger snaps, etc. -- and have been playing it with various hardware and software. Here the sounds are transformed via granular synthesis into crunchy distortion and pitched whines by means of the Qu-Bit Nebulae (Eurorack module -- see LP cover). Also heard throughout is a SID chip processed with various filters and LFOs, and some softsynth beats and bass notes.

4. Green Algae (Octatrack) 02:47

Drum hits from Native Instruments' first generation of Battery "Synthetic Drums" kits, specifically the "Green Algae Atmo" kit (now unavailable from the company), loaded into the Elektron Octatrack sampler/sequencer and massaged into a song.

5. Household Controller 01:18

More sounds from the Household Kit described above, processed through the Qu-Bit Nebulae into drones and percussive thwacks and further altered with Doepfer's A-187-1 digital effects module (reverb, chorus, delay, etc). The marimba and synth were something I wrote in the MIDI piano roll years ago and fished off the hard drive of an older PC. The baroque fillip at the end was added recently.

6. Spunky Cluster (2014) 02:35

A tune from several years ago I thought was finished until this month. Previously posted as "Spunky Cluster (Nausicaa Mix)," without the added melody line first heard at the beginning. The choppy syncopated beats that might stand in for a wah-wah rhythm guitar are turntable scratch samples granularized in Krypt and/or filtered in Reaktor's Analogic Filter Box effect. The airy middle section is an Absynth patch called Nausicaa -- running beneath it I added a field recording of street sounds outside my apartment.

7. Noise Chamber (Massive) 01:52

Another tune with the Household Kit playing in the Qu-Bit Nebulae module, with Doepfer A-187-1 effects. The keyboard part that runs throughout is a Massive preset, suggesting house organ stabs. The challenge here was writing enough variations for it by hand (ear?) in the Cubase MIDI piano roll so it wasn't machine-repetitive, as a composition.

8. Alpha Wave Male 02:10

The "organ" is Linplug's Alpha softsynth. The middle section combines riffs done with Reaktor Krypt-ized modular synth samples (the plucking and clucking bits) layered over sounds from the Green Algae Atmo kit. Then the organ riff comes back in. The Household Kit samples also make an appearance here, played in Battery.

9. Full Metal Hoodie 01:34

The opening riff is a remnant from sessions with Doepfer's A-112 sampler/wavetable oscillator two LPs back (it briefly appears in the background of "Ambiguous Anthem"). Gradually some sounds from the Green Algae Atmo kit are phased in. Then a riff done with those Krypt-ized modular synth samples described in No. 8 above. Then a Massive riff for some sort of closure.

10. Deadly Hiphop Kick Squad 02:50

"Kick Variations," a 2012 track featuring electronic kick drum sounds processed with the modular synth, yielded some samples -- about six in all -- that I play here in Kontakt in a more orchestrated form, with some added percussion. This version was posted in September 2012 as "Kick Variations (Deadly Hiphop Kick Squad)," but for the LP I mastered it slightly louder and added a field recording of street sounds in the middle section. A neighbor's gate clanging comes in at just the right moments.

Am pleased, and yet, humbled, to announce a new LP on Bandcamp: Disc Formation.
10 songs, mostly previously-unpublished but with a couple of older tunes remixed to bring them in line with what I'm doing now.
These songs are less about modular gear (like many modular users, am still reeling from the shocking unveiling of Billy Corgan's vanity synth) and more about softsynths and arrangements on the PC. Experiments with field recordings begun on the 40 Yards from the Machine release continue. Your support in the form of buying the LP or songs would be very encouraging, but all the material can be streamed.

Notes for the Disc Formation LP on Bandcamp. These are mostly tech jottings so I remember what I did. Any thoughts, questions, etc on the music itself are welcome at the email address on this about page.

1. Every Single Person 01:50

The vocals came from a field recording of a recent walk to the local deli and back. Chopped up you can hear "Every single person who comes in on this crew is off tomorrow," me saying "thanks" and "you can keep the penny" to Mr. Lee, and his "OK" in reply. Most of the synth sounds are a Linplug percussion softsynth called Element P, played with Cubase's in-house midi echo and arpeggiator effects.

2. Squeaky Arpeggio (Granular) 01:54

The granular whine running throughout, with and without reverb, was made with the Qu-Bit Nebulae granular synth/sampler module. As accompaniment I wrote a piano part -- quasi-Modernist variations on a quasi-Caribbean theme. For the LP version, I added notes to the piano part and used it as a score for other synths, which replaced the piano almost entirely.

3. The Other James Taylor 02:54

A "groove" made with some scratch samples, drum hits, and various effects on the Octatrack sequencer. The main effects -- delay and comb filter -- are running on Track 8 as a master track.

4. Pernicious Percussion (Massive) 01:29

See notes re: Pernicious Percussion below. This version runs the Vermona file through a mastering effect called "Post Filter," which is a comb filter adding octave jumps to the pitch, among other changes. This is interrupted twice with a mock-chorus consisting of layered softsynth riffs (NI Massive and Steinberg's Retrologue).

5. Titanthropic 01:37

Written and performed entirely in the Octatrack sampler/sequencer. The bass and lead synths are sampler-altered versions of Reaktor Titan riffs I made and loaded in the Octatrack.

6. Snaps and Claps 01:32

More snippets from the same field recording used in "Every Single Person," as well as live recordings of snap and clap sounds from my hands. Synths are Element P and Massive.

7. Frame Jam 03:14

Most of this was done with a granular synth from the Reaktor user library called Frame. Some Massive riffs were added.

8. Tesseract Ranch 2014 02:20

Considerable reworking of a tune from 2007 done with the Electribe rhythm box and Vermona Perfourmer analog synth. Added were an NI Massive riff (the lofty pad) and Element P (randomly arpeggiated bass notes).

9. Pernicious Percussion 02:18

Written and performed on the Octatrack sequencer, using recordings previously made with the Octatrack's MIDI controls driving the Vermona DRM1 Mkii, a vintage analog drum machine. The Octatrack's arpeggiator is triggering random clap, snare, and cowbell sequences at 150 bpm. There is some actual live knob turning in the distorted toms.

10. Calypsum 2014 02:26

One of the first tunes I did in Cubase, nine years ago, "Calypsum 2," completely tightened up and reworked. Was pleased to discover that the original synths (Free Alpha and Kontakt 1.5) are still playable with a little jiggering from the older version of Cubase I used (SE). Am pretty sure this started as a MIDI drum pattern, playing pitched samples in several instruments (if so, a kind of found, accidental melody).

Am pleased to humbly announce two LPs on Bandcamp: Squeaky Arpeggio and 40 Yards from the Machine.
It's 20 songs, split into two groups (apologies to previous buyers for double emails). "Squeaky" is sort of pleasant song hooks; "40 Yards" is more spiky and digital.
"40 Yards" has more previously-unpublished songs than "Squeaky" but the older tunes on both LPs got tweaked to make the LPs consistent overall.

Notes for the 40 Yards from the Machine LP on Bandcamp. These are mostly tech jottings so I remember what I did. Any thoughts, questions, etc on the music itself are welcome at the email address on this about page.

1. Cave Man Sample Dump 03:07

After owning Elektron's Sidstation for a few years, am finally buckling down to programming patches in it instead of merely tweaking presets. When I first acquired the thing the LED menus just seemed too obscure and daunting. I think a couple of years working with modular hardware has helped me understand what I want to program in the SID, which gives me the incentive to get in there and dig around in all those nested subcommands (on a tiny green screen). Having said all that, this is not sophisticated tunesmithing, owing more to the Troggs than Les Paul. As for the vocal samples, processed with Doepfer's A-112 sampler module for Eurorack, it's kind of a first for me to be doing this Art of Noise thing that was beaten to death in the '80s, e.g., using the "duh" in "dump" as a repeated percussion hit. Suddenly, now, I want to hear this again.

2. Bitter Incumbent 02:44

Reaktor's OKI Computer 2, a chiptune-esque wavetable synth, sequenced with the Monoliner virtual sequencer and overtracked, spins out the opening and closing segments. Sandwiched in between is a bazooka blast of arpeggiation emanating from the Sidstation, using two of its oscillators as the alto and the soprano and kind of shamelessly transposing away. Shameless because it's so easy to do -- but I love those harmonies. The basic note-on patterns are coming from the Octatrack.

3. Have Gear Will Geer 02:30

Used the Expert Sleepers ES-4 module to trigger and LFO-sculpt various modular patches. At the end I had a collection of patterns that were too diverse to beatmatch or melodymatch into a proper song, so I made a "suite." The title has nothing whatsoever to do with Will Geer's amazing performance as an evil Colonel Sanders-cum-Dick Cheney CEO in John Frankenheimer's film Seconds.

4. Lapdance Landscape 03:47

This started out as an industrial throbber done live with the modular synth (making use of various oscillator-type modules and assorted envelopes), but then a wistful tune was added. The latter is the Massive (wavetable) softsynth, starting from a blank preset and building up a chord (0-2-7 -- what is that?) with some modulation and effects. The only canned sounds were some hihats but even those got effects.

5. Your Toy Army 01:34

Pure Sidstation sounds, driven by MIDI notes from the Octatrack. The opening is the preset "Chordmemry," with jiggered LFOs. Other sounds are patches I made from scratch, including the noisy wavetable one that sounds like an ancient computer game -- which one I couldn't say.

6. Texas Sawtooth Massacre 02:33

Sounds from the computer_controlled_rack (the name I gave my modular on the Modular Grid gear fetish website), MIDI-triggered, sampled, and arranged in the Octatrack. The main excitement here is a gritty wavetable sample originating in the WMD Gamma Wave Source module, sampled by the Doepfer A-112 in wavetable mode (with CV-sweeping of the table at my barbaric skill level), played as a MIDI controlled synth (with hi, lo and notch filters), sampled in the Octatrack, then "sliced" and rearranged to make 10 or so patterns. There is also a bass line and the reappearance of the most famous beat in the history of electronic music. This is kind of rough going at the outset but gets better as it progresses IMHO.
Note: after the above was written I remixed this, with a hand-crafted substitute breakbeat (before and after the redo, it's slowed down about 30 bpm for this song) and also EQ'd to removed some high pitched spikes that were drilling through my eardrum.

7. House Dwellers 02:40

All-Octatrack-and-Eurorack rendition of a House-like tune. This is pretty crunchy, what with all the low-bit-depth and low-sample-rate sampling going on. Am happy with the way this came together, using the Octatrack to MIDI-trigger and sample 1- to 4-bar motifs that are layered and arranged. One modular synth riff was borrowed from an earlier track, "Soul Fusion Disassembly."

8. The Enveloping Shape 02:37

Long chains of random percussion sounds were edited down to discrete loops and layered. The idea was to find musicality in noise. The percussion originated with some Reaktor beats individually manicured and played in the computer_controlled_rack's two lo-fi sampler modules, the Doepfer A-112 and the ADDAC wav player. LFOs were used to scramble wav order, sample start time, loop size, sample rate, etc -- all the classic tricks you can do with these units -- and the output went to modular filters and delays that were further LFO'd. Seductive as the output was, it was further wrangled to make blocklike patterns that could be assembled in Cubase into a composition. Am thinking more of music these days as a process like filmmaking, where you do all your shooting and then retire to the editing room to make the film. The title comes from a plugin I used to reduce certain transients from explosive, speaker-rending pops to something more listenable (Steinberg's "envelope shaper").

9. 40 Yards from the Machine 03:09

Spoken word sample ("some forty yards from the machine," randomly read aloud from Charles Fort's book Wild Talents) recorded in the Doepfer A-112 sampler module in "wavetable record" mode with the Expert Sleepers Silent Way LFO (20HZ Sine Wave) modulating the CV at the input stage. Despite the manual's promise of "drastic" effects resulting from this, so far all it seems to do is add a crackle to the recorded wav. Am probably doing it wrong but in wavetable mode it doesn't really matter what the sample "sounds like" because it's just repeating small snippets of the waveforms. On playback, Silent Way LFOs set to various speeds, waveforms, and ranges modulate the wavetable output, yielding mangled vocals and staccato pulses that resolve into pitched buzzes and hums. This raw output is then snipped and rearranged in Cubase to make musical patterns and severely damaged-sounding robotic vocalese.

10. Ambigious Anthem 00:41

NI Massive synth preset "Ambiguous" played over Sidstation beats from a Battery kit I made a while back. Some sampler module texture near the end of the track.