"Tesseract Ranch" [mp3 removed]
My contribution to the tech house genre. This is all live hardware sequenced (no overdubbing) with some EQ and reverb added after the fact.
Update: I substituted the "dry" mix of this--no EQ or reverb. The effects were "bodying up" the sound at the expense of some of the DSP nuances.
im not sure about exactly what tech house is, but this is also bangin.
the muddy mix with your effects [ive only listened to the dry one] might have been a combo of the reverb and those analog-ish hi hats, especially the 'open hat'...huge splashes of essentially white noise have that obvious tendency to bleach out everything else, but thats also what they're good for and finding the mix/balance is really tricky. i think im struggling still to pick up some of those snares n stuff in the background and i cant tell if you mean it.
it's really solid as-is but still has a bit of room especially for a melody - you could pry drop one of your "slow robollywood" style melodies in.
or i've been listening to a lot of early/mid 90s new york hard house lately, like junior vasquez stuff, dj duke, hardtrax, etc...emma and i think thats where music's gonna go cos it hasn't been hit yet by the ironic dance scene...and that style of using teeny bits of totally random non-referential vocals samples, but cut and rearranged in a way to suggest melody, especially a t.m. style melody, would work great here.
Thanks, and thanks for the critique.
I think I'm working up to what you're describing.
If I add a synth to the midi chain I can put in tunes.
Up till a couple of months ago I wrote everything in the piano roll but I'm finding I like the hardware step keys.
Re: the type of music you're talking about, the vocal stuff--I really love Todd Edwards. My understanding is his wordless vocals influenced 2-Step Garage (and probably later music).
I haven't explored pitched samples of vocal snippets yet, but you're right, it would add a lot.
my pleasure tom, i am trying to contribute cos i find this 'open' process of yours really fascinating and i noticed when you posted a song maybe someone would comment with "thats cool" or "nice!" or something, whereas your animated gifs and other work got 8-10 meaty comments.
im into todd edwards too, he's great. in london he is totally revered by pretty much every dance/garage/grime producer i've ever talked to.
back to process..do you mean that at the moment you're sequencing totally live with your boxes and using your computer as a 2-track?
Sorry I guess saying "I like Todd Edwards" is a bit like saying "I like George Clinton"--but it's been a while and I just had to blurt it out.
Yes, this tune is just the boxes using the computer as a 2 track. It's no big thing once it's in the computer to add other parts to it, or to record the MIDI and use that to drive the hardware while adding softsynths, etc. I've done that on that other tunes but there's something about working the whole thing out on the hardware and letting it play through that I'm finding spontaneous and appealing.
Also FYI, this was the original (fast) Robollywood--I put it up in '05: [4 MB .mp3]
Kind of a manic prog thing. The main lead lines are MIDI drum patterns that I ran through synths and massaged into some kind of harmony.
Oh, and as for "that's cool" or "nice"--any response is appreciated in the yawning vacuum that is most individual creators' working lives. It helps to know just that someone checked it out (besides the robot mp3 sites).
Nice.
thats cool.
im just thinking a bit about your use of the boxes live...cos its not just that you've chosen to use a consumer object a la microsoft paint with a banal proprietary interface, you're using something with two interfaces and have chosen the more 'limited' one [step-buttons vs. midi] on purpose.
is the choice to do live step sequencing still a default?? seems a bit different cos it's not a reaction to the powerpoint-ness of the buttons since you've already got access to features beyond them if you want it.
with my tb303 i love the buttons because they really are the nature of the beast, there's nothing else to do but use them. but with my yamaha dx200 - early noughties fm groovebox - i hate them, conceptually anyway [they look quite cool], because it's a midi controlled synth with some buttons slapped on there that just double a few things the midi interface can do better.
It's all pretty much defaults.
(BTW just so it's clear the choice at the moment isn't between the hardware sequencer buttons and a midi controller's buttons, it's between the sequencer and my mouse. When I started doing this I consciously avoided anything with a keyboard as a reaction to lapsed childhood piano lessons, so I've been writing all my music clicking in the piano roll (plus copying-and-pasting etc).) Partly this is the visual artist in me trying to be contrary.
Of course the software sequencer is a proprietary interface too but what it gives in terms of being able to sculpt the sound it loses in the speed of pushing and erasing buttons. Another reason I don't use a midi controller is a lot of the softsynths have lousy midi learn, which I discovered in writing controller curves.
On the issue of defaults, here is a post I did a year or so ago agonizing over presets and art vs club music. I think I still agree with most of it.
The only thing that's happened since is I tweak more now. The Electribe presets are horrible so I change almost every knob setting and mostly make up my own beats (a few legacies from the factory are chopped up in there--I especially like the stored "knob movements" from the demos that continue to add delay and modulation changes--at unpredictable intervals--after the whole rhythm has been redone.)
It's not hacking, that's for sure--it's just letting the ear make a lot of choices in a totally commercial environment.
there's still somethin funny in there tho...
like take mspaint and electribe as two consumer objects that aren't normally used as tools to make contemporary art. with the first one you're using it as designed because there's no other way to use it, with the second you are making a specific choice to only use it in a certain way...you could use it as designed in other ways and i think there's a difference. you're right it's not a hacking difference, but it's still there.
maybe whats coming out of this is a quesiton about "defaultness"... what is "default" for a tool that's actual default state has it interfacing to an open protocol [in the electribe's case it's midi]??
surprised about the keyboard thing cos i'd think the childhood piano stuff would be a source of inspiration...like charles ives style but more stupid. i get around it when i need to by playing with just my two index fingers.
I wish the Electribe were more open! It only sends/receives note on/velocity/program changes. Supposedly you can do something with NRPNs but I don't have a clue.
With both the Electribe and MSPaintbrush the work is rarely confined within the four corners of the interface.
While I'm pushing buttons the Electribe is driving other synths or drum machines via MIDI and piping the audio back into computer for further mangling.
With MSPaintbrush my "classic" (obscure) pieces take the output as a starting point. I'm running the paper through the printer multiple times to get ink overlays you could never see on the screen and then cutting up the paper with an X-acto knife, taping the scraps back together, etc. Those animated GIFs are in and out of other imaging programs for cropping, batch processing of lightness levels, etc.
Both are default mainly in the sense that the original programming is not hidden--you know it's Paintbrush and the Electribe has a characteristic DSP (cheap) brassy "twang."
But there's loads of intervention for artistic ends.
|
"Tesseract Ranch" [mp3 removed]
My contribution to the tech house genre. This is all live hardware sequenced (no overdubbing) with some EQ and reverb added after the fact.
Update: I substituted the "dry" mix of this--no EQ or reverb. The effects were "bodying up" the sound at the expense of some of the DSP nuances.
- tom moody 2-14-2007 9:06 am
im not sure about exactly what tech house is, but this is also bangin.
the muddy mix with your effects [ive only listened to the dry one] might have been a combo of the reverb and those analog-ish hi hats, especially the 'open hat'...huge splashes of essentially white noise have that obvious tendency to bleach out everything else, but thats also what they're good for and finding the mix/balance is really tricky. i think im struggling still to pick up some of those snares n stuff in the background and i cant tell if you mean it.
it's really solid as-is but still has a bit of room especially for a melody - you could pry drop one of your "slow robollywood" style melodies in.
or i've been listening to a lot of early/mid 90s new york hard house lately, like junior vasquez stuff, dj duke, hardtrax, etc...emma and i think thats where music's gonna go cos it hasn't been hit yet by the ironic dance scene...and that style of using teeny bits of totally random non-referential vocals samples, but cut and rearranged in a way to suggest melody, especially a t.m. style melody, would work great here.
- p.d. (guest) 2-16-2007 8:28 pm
Thanks, and thanks for the critique.
I think I'm working up to what you're describing.
If I add a synth to the midi chain I can put in tunes.
Up till a couple of months ago I wrote everything in the piano roll but I'm finding I like the hardware step keys.
Re: the type of music you're talking about, the vocal stuff--I really love Todd Edwards. My understanding is his wordless vocals influenced 2-Step Garage (and probably later music).
I haven't explored pitched samples of vocal snippets yet, but you're right, it would add a lot.
- tom moody 2-16-2007 10:05 pm
my pleasure tom, i am trying to contribute cos i find this 'open' process of yours really fascinating and i noticed when you posted a song maybe someone would comment with "thats cool" or "nice!" or something, whereas your animated gifs and other work got 8-10 meaty comments.
im into todd edwards too, he's great. in london he is totally revered by pretty much every dance/garage/grime producer i've ever talked to.
back to process..do you mean that at the moment you're sequencing totally live with your boxes and using your computer as a 2-track?
- p.d. (guest) 2-17-2007 3:03 am
Sorry I guess saying "I like Todd Edwards" is a bit like saying "I like George Clinton"--but it's been a while and I just had to blurt it out.
Yes, this tune is just the boxes using the computer as a 2 track. It's no big thing once it's in the computer to add other parts to it, or to record the MIDI and use that to drive the hardware while adding softsynths, etc. I've done that on that other tunes but there's something about working the whole thing out on the hardware and letting it play through that I'm finding spontaneous and appealing.
- tom moody 2-17-2007 6:03 am
Also FYI, this was the original (fast) Robollywood--I put it up in '05: [4 MB .mp3]
Kind of a manic prog thing. The main lead lines are MIDI drum patterns that I ran through synths and massaged into some kind of harmony.
- tom moody 2-17-2007 7:25 am
Oh, and as for "that's cool" or "nice"--any response is appreciated in the yawning vacuum that is most individual creators' working lives. It helps to know just that someone checked it out (besides the robot mp3 sites).
- tom moody 2-17-2007 7:52 pm
Nice.
- mark 2-17-2007 8:56 pm
thats cool.
im just thinking a bit about your use of the boxes live...cos its not just that you've chosen to use a consumer object a la microsoft paint with a banal proprietary interface, you're using something with two interfaces and have chosen the more 'limited' one [step-buttons vs. midi] on purpose.
is the choice to do live step sequencing still a default?? seems a bit different cos it's not a reaction to the powerpoint-ness of the buttons since you've already got access to features beyond them if you want it.
with my tb303 i love the buttons because they really are the nature of the beast, there's nothing else to do but use them. but with my yamaha dx200 - early noughties fm groovebox - i hate them, conceptually anyway [they look quite cool], because it's a midi controlled synth with some buttons slapped on there that just double a few things the midi interface can do better.
- p.d. (guest) 2-18-2007 2:33 am
It's all pretty much defaults.
(BTW just so it's clear the choice at the moment isn't between the hardware sequencer buttons and a midi controller's buttons, it's between the sequencer and my mouse. When I started doing this I consciously avoided anything with a keyboard as a reaction to lapsed childhood piano lessons, so I've been writing all my music clicking in the piano roll (plus copying-and-pasting etc).) Partly this is the visual artist in me trying to be contrary.
Of course the software sequencer is a proprietary interface too but what it gives in terms of being able to sculpt the sound it loses in the speed of pushing and erasing buttons. Another reason I don't use a midi controller is a lot of the softsynths have lousy midi learn, which I discovered in writing controller curves.
On the issue of defaults, here is a post I did a year or so ago agonizing over presets and art vs club music. I think I still agree with most of it.
The only thing that's happened since is I tweak more now. The Electribe presets are horrible so I change almost every knob setting and mostly make up my own beats (a few legacies from the factory are chopped up in there--I especially like the stored "knob movements" from the demos that continue to add delay and modulation changes--at unpredictable intervals--after the whole rhythm has been redone.)
It's not hacking, that's for sure--it's just letting the ear make a lot of choices in a totally commercial environment.
- tom moody 2-18-2007 3:34 am
there's still somethin funny in there tho...
like take mspaint and electribe as two consumer objects that aren't normally used as tools to make contemporary art. with the first one you're using it as designed because there's no other way to use it, with the second you are making a specific choice to only use it in a certain way...you could use it as designed in other ways and i think there's a difference. you're right it's not a hacking difference, but it's still there.
maybe whats coming out of this is a quesiton about "defaultness"... what is "default" for a tool that's actual default state has it interfacing to an open protocol [in the electribe's case it's midi]??
surprised about the keyboard thing cos i'd think the childhood piano stuff would be a source of inspiration...like charles ives style but more stupid. i get around it when i need to by playing with just my two index fingers.
- p.d. (guest) 2-18-2007 4:53 am
I wish the Electribe were more open! It only sends/receives note on/velocity/program changes. Supposedly you can do something with NRPNs but I don't have a clue.
With both the Electribe and MSPaintbrush the work is rarely confined within the four corners of the interface.
While I'm pushing buttons the Electribe is driving other synths or drum machines via MIDI and piping the audio back into computer for further mangling.
With MSPaintbrush my "classic" (obscure) pieces take the output as a starting point. I'm running the paper through the printer multiple times to get ink overlays you could never see on the screen and then cutting up the paper with an X-acto knife, taping the scraps back together, etc. Those animated GIFs are in and out of other imaging programs for cropping, batch processing of lightness levels, etc.
Both are default mainly in the sense that the original programming is not hidden--you know it's Paintbrush and the Electribe has a characteristic DSP (cheap) brassy "twang."
But there's loads of intervention for artistic ends.
- tom moody 2-18-2007 5:42 am