I was playing around with Wusik EVE when I discovered that you could do some interesting ribbon-controller style sweeps using the mouse on the instrument’s mini-keyboard. This is one of those tracks, where I was playing around with some octave shifts with one of the interesting Mellotron sounds. WHile I was playing it, I thought it sounded slightly like the intro to the movie 2001, but not really… hence the title.
Alchemist/Dark Alchemist
A short while ago, Camel Audio was offering one of those nifty “pay what you want” deals for one of their sound sets, which came with a fairly versatile software player for them, along with some default sounds. I was playing around with some of the arpeggiation presets that were included, and found that one of them made for some very interesting sequences, and I just started playing with it live. I happened to record one of the takes, and this is the result. Not a very interesting story to be sure, but sometimes you just start playing around with various instruments, and suddenly you find inspiration.
Dark Alchemist is a continuation of the series started with Alchemist, and is another, somewhat more random/dissonant take on the sequence.
Techno Jam
This is a techno jam.
3 Arp Experiment/Insanity
Essentially, this piece started off as three seperately played live arpeggiations – one focusing on a sort of standard synth sound, one “playing” a preset not unlike a military ship’s warning klaxon, and one of a glistening crescendo loaded with piercingly high frequencies. The first piece contains all the sequences, one after the other. The second piece, Insanity, mixed all 3 of them together… simultaneously. The result is an absolute sonic cacophony of insane noise – which, surprisingly enough, I actually like listening to (at least until it makes my ears start bleeding and I have to reach for the volume off control in desperation). Be forewarned – not for the faint of heart.
Ambient Distance
Playing live, with an echoey, ambient synth environment (unfortunately, I can’t remember which synth I was using for this, but it might have been FilterScape). A very relaxing, flowing ambient techno track.
Famicom Jam/Apreggiations
Ahhh… it feels so good to finally have some actual equipment! As to the song, I’ve always liked video game music, especially the “chiptunes” available from old systems, such as the NES and Genesis. They have a pure sound, and pioneered a variety of interesting sounds, including some fascinating arpeggiations. It is a sound that is not replicated much these days except by enthusiasts (perhaps for a good reason), but for their time, the consoles (and especially RPG games on the consoles) were able to reproduce a huge variety of interesting, polyphonic sounds that went far beyond the blips and bleeps of every early computer games. I almost get the sense that this same transition is now being made on cellphones and other handheld devices… At any rate, the Japanese name for the NES was the Famicom, hence the name.
Fast-forward to today, when I finally registered the incredible Vanguard synth instrument. For me, the Vanguard indicates a very large evolution in sound for me, as I can finally recreate some of the trance-inspired sounds that I’ve been trying to locate for quite some time. If you’re really into trance, check it out – it almost sounds better than some software synths that cost twice as much, and you can find a large number of preset banks for it if you’re determined enough. Anyway, one of those preset banks, by ProSounds, has a very interesting arpeggiated preset that, for some reason, reminded me of those interesting, early synth presets that were present on some of the early consoles.
So, I decided to just jam with a variety of different chord structures and sequences – and these tracks are the result. Unlike many of my other tracks, which are preprogrammed before being recorded, both of these pieces were performed live (the second piece was slightly quantized to fix a small glitch). The first piece is basically me just jamming away – in the second one, I try to pay a little more attention to specific patterns. Believe me, this is a great preset to just jam to, and let yourself be inspired… I could probably play around with this sound for a good half-hour if I was determined, but that’s a bit much for this website to handle :)
These tracks are of slightly higher quality than some of the previous ones (160kbps). I’m going to try this slightly upgraded sound quality for now, assuming that it doesn’t end up taking too much space on the site… I think the sound quality is just slightly better. As I’m writing this, I’m occasionally moving my hand over and trying some additional arpeggiations between sentences… Programming music in advance is nice for the exactness of the composition that you can create, but it’s definitely fun to just play around with a sound in realtime and see what you can come up with.
Production Notes: Sequenced in Logic Express. Instruments: Vanguard Synth (Prosounds Preset). Method: Recorded live using external keyboard controller. (I plan on adding this info to all of my tracks eventually, so that you have an idea how the track was built)
Klangulate
This is what happens when radical effects are applied to me banging crazily on pot lids. It sounds better, or at least more interesting, than that description implies.
http://www.idlecircuits.com/digintmedia/klangulate.mp3
Temple Mount
Temple Mount, in my opinion, is one of the most professional-sounding songs I was able to produce in my old studio setup. It’s also the first song written (somewhat) with a purpose in mind. After having a radio show for a while, it seemed like a good idea to have an actual theme for my show. That being said, the inspiration for this song is probably from a remix of “Now We Know” by Hawkeye, which was used as an opening song in one of my first mixes for the program, as it had that kind of “radio news show theme” sound. In the end, though, Temple Mount ended up not sounding much like it – the closest comparison I could make is with some of the electronic sounds found in 80’s New Wave music. As for the name, I composed this music shortly after seeing “Black Hawk Down,” and had initially wanted to name it Mogadishu (in reference to “Madagascar” by Art of Trance, arguably one of the best electronic songs in existence) but decided against it. I finally decided to name it Temple Mount in reference to the horrendous violence that was occurring in the Middle East at the time. After all, if people listened to electronic music instead of blow each other up, wouldn’t the world be a much better place?
Fun Fact: Temple Mount was the intro music to my broadcast radio show, Life to a Beat (on KZSC Radio), for most of its broadcast run.
My Song
I almost wanted to call this track “Mr. Garage Band Demo Song.” Because, in essence, that’s what this is – a cool demo of me basically “playing around” and trying out all of the different features of Apple’s excellent looper/synth/sequencer, GarageBand. Instead, I decided on the name “My Song,” as this is the default track name assigned by GarageBand… still, despite that, this is still quite an original compilation, and definitely has a distinct “digint” feel to it.
This project was actually done in a number of sessions over the course of a couple of months – mainly because when I got up to 4 tracks of audio, my old computer didn’t have the juice to support any more, so I picked it up again when my new comp arrived. In terms of influences, I guess I was going for a slightly experimental-ambient sound, with maybe a slighty Bassic kind of sound… it definitely ended up in my usual experimental style, though.
If you listen closely, you’ll notice quite a few of Apple’s “stock” loops in this piece… although probably with some sounds you haven’t heard out of GarageBand before. This is because a number of the sounds are sampled from the excellent Green Oak Crystal audiounit synth. At any rate, I definitely like the ambience and ever-changing nature of this piece… this piece may not be for everyone, as it has its dissonant spots (ah, who am I kidding? If you’ve gotten through some of my other music, I’m sure you can handle this), but I find that I have this urge to play it over and over again…
I was originally going to post the first, slightly rougher version, but I decided to go back in and clean up a few spots before I posted the “re-tuned” release.
Remix Test
I recently received the Garageband Jam Pack 2: Remix Tools, and decided to try them out. This unimaginatively named track is the result – it essentially is to Remix Tools what My Song was to the default GarageBand setup. This one, though, features GarageBand’s piano instrument, some of the new Remix Tools drum sets, and various other sound kits.