August 19, 2011
particulate...
by Chris Randall
My latest micronaut EP, particular, is now available at Bandcamp for download, pay what you want at least a dollar. This EP was essentially an experiment at removing the DAW and its ludicrously powerful audio editing tools and stacks of effects from the recording equation, and hitting a reel of tape like the Old Days.
I also, unlike that recent YouTube video I put up, eschewed MIDI entirely, relying on CV/Gate sequencing from the Roland CMU-800R/Apple //e combo or good old-fashioned playing. The majority of the percussion on the EP comes from a combo of the CMU-800R's built-in drums and the Monotribe. Either one by itself wasn't sonically sophisticated enough to support a track, but the two together opened up a much broader spectrum.
Most of the pad sounds are from the alphaSyntauri, something it is singularly good at. They are all coming through an Eventide TimeFactor pedal to give them some motion and stereo width. I necessarily played all these, as well as the main melody line in compumusic, direct-to-tape, as there is no way to sequence the alphaSyntauri, at least where it can sync with the outside world. (It actually has a fairly powerful sequencer in Metatrak, but it can only sequence itself.)
I use the Korg 770 here and there for sound FX and drones, the two things it is good at. The MS20 gets used quite a bit, and any time you hear a sequenced melody line, it is most likely my little Euro-Rack modular, sequenced from the CMU-800R. In a couple cases, the bass or a melody are coming from the Monotribe, but as I haven't given it separate outs yet, I'm not a fan of tracking melodic material in with one of my two drum tracks. But needs must...
One of the two places I bowed to modernity was with the Curtis app for the iPad (stuck in its iO Dock), which I used for a lot of the little squeaky sound effects and shit.
The other place I allowed for the 21st Century was in send 'verb. The only hardware verb I have worth a shit is the Lexicon 300, and for reasons that would be tedious to explain here, it would have been difficult to use. However, Eos has several patches that are direct clones of Lexicon 300 patches, so I made a little patch in Plogue Bidule, and used my MacBook Pro as, for all intents and purposes, a hardware 'verb on an aux send from the console, with Eos on one aux for the long 'verbs and ValhallaRoom on the other aux for the drum 'verb.
Anyhow, this was quite fun to make. A real brain-bender in places as I tried to either figure out a technique for doing what I was hearing in my head, or tried to remember long-forgotten methods of recording in an all-analog environment. Note that there are no bounces on this EP. I did all four tracks with four mono tracks and two stereo pairs. I mixed sounds in some tracks where they could stand it (notably in the first song, synclok, which has quite a bit of overdubbing) but otherwise, what you hear is what I recorded, in one pass where I could pull it off; mostly I had to do the alphaSyntauri shit in a second go-round because it uses the same computer as the CMU-800R, and, well...
The one thing I forgot about working with tape: when you're doing multiple takes on a 7 minute song late at night, the minute or so it takes to rewind is good for nodding off.
16 comments:
After only 30 seconds of listening to synclock I clicked the "buy now" button. This is great stuff. The CMU-800R and monotribe make an unexpectedly nice combination.
Sounds nice, I particularly like the last track. How did you mix it? Analogically?
I hope the "technical reasons" for not using the Lexicon 300 isn't "my cables weren't long enough."
I hope the "technical reasons" for not using the Lexicon 300 isn't "my cables weren't long enough."
The technical reason was that I didn't have any way to hook the 300 up to this mixer without some serious Redneck Engineering. The 300 is all balanced, and the aux sends and returns on the mixer are RCA. This poses a technical challenge of fairly epic proportions, and while it could be overcome, it seemed easier to just use the Mac as a hardware reverb. I mean, at the end of the day, they're both algorithms running on a computer with A/D/A, right?
-CR
-CR
Bandcamp is rapidly becoming the place where I spend the most money on music. Yesterday I bought the new super-rad Supercommuter release, today is for Micronaut! I think I failed to buy the last Micronaut release too? I'll have to double-check and add that to the purchase if I failed.
CR, might I suggest reminding us more than once when you make a Micronaut release! Our memories are terrible and shit sits open in a tab for months on end until we get around to it. ;)
Not to steal any thunder from the Micronaut release, but seriously guys, while you're over at Bandcamp, give Supercommuter a listen:
link [supercommuter.ne...]
It's recorded while sitting in traffic, for the most part. Plus, the $10 purchase goes to Child's Play, the best charity on earth.
CR, might I suggest reminding us more than once when you make a Micronaut release! Our memories are terrible and shit sits open in a tab for months on end until we get around to it. ;)
Not to steal any thunder from the Micronaut release, but seriously guys, while you're over at Bandcamp, give Supercommuter a listen:
link [supercommuter.ne...]
It's recorded while sitting in traffic, for the most part. Plus, the $10 purchase goes to Child's Play, the best charity on earth.
If by "complex" you mean "noisy, half-assed, and generally disturbing to all concerned," then by all means.
Ultimately, there was nothing to be gained by cutting and soldering, other than preventing you from sniping at me for something you wouldn't have done yourself.
There, I said it.
Also, it's worth noting that if you have both of them, you'll see that Eos is easily as good as the Lexicon 300, at least as far as the halls go. Superhall is a far more sophisticated algorithm than the long chorused halls in the 300. The closest the 300 can come is Gothic Hall, which, while quite good, doesn't have the density of Eos at longer times. In this application, Eos is the better reverb regardless.
-CR
Ultimately, there was nothing to be gained by cutting and soldering, other than preventing you from sniping at me for something you wouldn't have done yourself.
There, I said it.
Also, it's worth noting that if you have both of them, you'll see that Eos is easily as good as the Lexicon 300, at least as far as the halls go. Superhall is a far more sophisticated algorithm than the long chorused halls in the 300. The closest the 300 can come is Gothic Hall, which, while quite good, doesn't have the density of Eos at longer times. In this application, Eos is the better reverb regardless.
-CR
Like afreshcupofjoe, the first 30 seconds sold me. Amazing how a little good reverb can make so much difference. Good stuff.
IM gonna buy it in a sec... I just killed a spider the size of your monotribe... took some redneck engineering.
damm .. That tune "Smooth"... warm... feeling it... melody...sub melody is like some classic dancehall bassline... bravo...
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