music - tm

"Old Game Score" [mp3 removed]

This isn't old or from a game but it is an imaginary music score. The synth sounds converted to 8-bit by the Doepfer A-112 sampler have a vintage character but this autopastiche includes much 24-bit engineering behind the scenes: compressors, EQ, reverb, multitracking of audio. Some of the pitch and sample rate changes are done with knobs and some with software after the fact. Soapbox sentiment: our ears have to somehow learn to distinguish between the use of old techniques for backward-looking or nostalgic reasons and the conscious mining and manipulation of textures and ideas that were dropped all too quickly in the forced march of modernization.

"Retro Jungle Kit" [mp3 removed -- a revised version is on Bandcamp]

One of the Native Instruments software samplers (Intakt - discontinued) has "kits" with drum and bass loops so you can make tracks, like playing with Lego. I mixed loops from different kits and added some effects and other instruments, mostly to hide seams where the beats were slightly off. Used one of my Doepfer A-112 wavetable demos as a background "atmospheric."

"My Life As A Tank" [mp3 removed]

This is done with software synths: Linplug's Alpha 3 (trying it out--sadly it doesn't store settings any better than version 2 did); Oki Computer 2; Intakt (for the breakbeat). Title inspired by a post-human fantasy in Charles Stross' novel Glasshouse.

"Dribble Chords" [mp3 removed -- an altered version of this can be heard on Bandcamp]

Mostly software-based. The Element P rhythm synth is run through MIDI effects (echo and a "chorder") to create the main riffs. Rhythms are the Sidstation sample kit I made a few years ago. The quasi-jazzy quasi-organ is an OKI Computer 2 patch that I made, always on the verge of going out of tune (in contrast to the machine-like tuned percussion of the Element P).

"Doepfer A-112 Wavetable Demo 1" [mp3 removed]

"Doepfer A-112 Wavetable Demo 2" [mp3 removed]

The Doepfer A-112 sampler module has two modes, sampler and wavetable. You can record audio as an 8 bit sample and play it back as a wavetable--a type of synthesis where graphic waveform snippets are cycled and used as an oscillator. In both of these examples I sampled a melodic patch played by the mini-synth (module on the far right) and then switched the A-112 to wavetable mode.
In the first example, the playback speed is set to a low pitch and a slow-sweeping, external LFO (from the mini-synth) acts as a real-time control voltage triggering different parts of the "table." This alters the pitch, causes stuttering (like a CD skipping) and also gives the sample a nasty edge. Even toothier is the second example, where a graph drawn in the MIDI pitchbend control editor on my PC plays different parts of the wavetable, also acting as a sequence of control voltages for the table.
The Reaktor "spring tank" reverb is intermittently mixed in as a plug in effect for the final recorded audio.