DAY 31 : Eric

This is the last day.
Phase 1 over.

Thanx for listening.

DAY 30 : Eric

Tempo : 118
Color : blue LED



I finally managed to use my Monome as a note sequencer thanx to the MonoChrome VST plugin in FL-Studio host.
It's nice but not all that I dreamt.

DAY 27 : Eric

Tempo : 88 and 120 BPM
Color : warm green

Individual patterns recorded on Palm TX with Bhajis Loops in Parc Montsouris, sequenced/mixed with 64_step with Monome, and added reverb and some phaser with FL-Studio (no mastering with Izotope this time).
I like the pure sound of sine waves...
Second track features thunder sound recording from my home and washing-machine sound from my parents home.

DAY 26 : Eric

"How much time did you take for composing Rage Hard ?"
"About five minutes."

DAY 21 : Eric

Le jardin secret


Tempo : 134
Color : green and marble

I wanted to visit the garden, too.
Thanx Sonic ;-)

DAY 20 : Eric

J'ai besoin de rêves.
Between sweet warm and fresh cold.
I need to make dreams.


A simple tune made with only my guitar, an automatic volume pedal (the SV2, since my regular volume pedal seems to now make cracks :-( I should buy an optical one), and delay on FL-Studio, and then just few cuts on the track.
Using an A/B box is quite useful for me : I can rehearse/preview the notes on another amp (for instance my bass amp (yes !)) while the loop/drone is running, so I didn't make false notes ;-)

DAY 17 : Eric (2)

Tempo : N/A
Color : steel green

One of my favourite "exercise" and approach to ambiance, and one of the simplest :
here, 5 notes, randomly modulated in amplitude, and injected to a phaser followed by a chorus, for a feeling of floating in the air over a city of the future with only calm and serenity in the mind.
My Technopia variations are inspired by an old computer graphics video "Welcome to technopia" seen at Imagina.

One day, I'll make a one hour version to be burnt on a CD for sleeping.

DAY 15 : Eric

Usine à betterave

Tempo : 140BPM
Color : clearblue

I didn't program drums for quiet a while.
This time, I just wanted to have fun with dry drum part.
I cut the release of kick and snare to have "tight" drums.
At first, I was not inspired, I though that I would do crap like so many times when it doesn't start good.
But since the drums and the bass are almost funny, I found a way to fresh tones (though the weather wasn't actually "in tune" with my song).
For CommonTones I like to make short tunes, because I haven't much time to make the tune, but I'd like to make this tune last much more.
Maybe in a global CommonTones remix ;-)

DAY 13 : Eric

Tempo : 28
Color : marble

This morning I played with pseudo random sequenced notes, I added lot of reverberation, and since I love the reverberated part of the notes instead of their appeareance (I kinda love the ghost or shadow of the notes), I wanted to change the point of view in order to hear this nice reverberation.
I add the simple idea of just slowing down the tempo to 28BPM, probably inspired by the Leif INGE work on Beethoven 9th stretched out to 24 hours.
The result is more dramatic, by the way.
Oh and I used three flangers to modulate the sound.

DAY 10 : Eric

Tempo : 120
Color : saturated sepia

I was not satisfied yesterday with my improvization based upon my "Jump into my life" song (coming from a dream). Since I first pass my finger over the strings when just checking the sound, I then recorded an impriovization with too hard string touch.
This afternoon, I decided to redo the experimentation upon "Jump" but using my bow, to obtain a soft sound attack. I used AmbiLoop (and TriggerFinger to control it) for recording the phrases.
It appears that it also reminds me of old images from movies (short movies).
Since I was rather inspired, I recorded three experimentations though they are very close in terms of ambiance.
I hope you will hear the gentle wind though I hadn't include such sound here.

DAY 9 : Eric

Dreamcloud

Tempo : 136BPM
Colour : purple over black

This morning, I had an music idea, some notes coming from my awaking state of mind.
I put them down on FL Studio. I tried to finalize this idea this afternoon ... but I lack of time. Maybe I'll developp this idea outside CommonTone frame.

DAY 8 : Eric

Tempo : 140
Color : fresh green

This morning, walking in Parc Montsouris, I was listening to some drone songs I made.
Rain has fallen.
Forgot that drone music can be enough to express feelings.

I first try to make this commontone with my bassguitar ... but it didn't come ...
So I use my guitar, again ;-)
Notes when played one time may be nice, but sometimes they need to be played more.
This time, I just plugged the guitar right into my Fostex mixer and then into my soundcard. I'm planning on using LDT gear, a LP2ube preamp from EHX, in place of my failing Fostex.
Of course, there are effects (mdsp@SmartElectronix Analog Delay, Kjaerhus audio Classic Chorus and Kjaerhus audio Classic Delay), all freeware.

DAY 6 : eric

Tempo : 129
Color : blood green

This week-end, I installed FL-Studio on the 2nd computer of my mother.
So I had only the samples and instruments provided with FL.
I used bass and choir samples, plus Simsynth analog emulation, I explored a bit the possibilities of granular synthesis to make the choir voice cry.
Bass part uses random to select the notes I chose, tweaked a bit and give preferences to some ones.
Minimum dramatic effect at the beginning.

Day 3 : Eric

Springarden



Color : green
Tempo : 120

In the garden, layed down on grass, with fresh air. As simple as it could seems it's not a feeling so much expressed in music.

For this tune, I just use my guitar plugged into the PC thru my old FOSTEX analog mixer and recorded and looped with Ambiloop (wonderful looper, controllable by MIDI, and freeware !). Then I mixed on FL-Studio "live" with knobs.

DAY 2 : Eric

Color : Amber-red
Tempo : 132

No beginning, no end.
One note or another, very few preferences. An approach to ambient non-intrusive music.
It could last 4 minutes or 1 hour.
A first real attempt at making live experimentation with electronic gear.

M-AUDIO Trigger Finger used to arrange the track "live", a premiere for me. I understand now that is not as easy as it seems when I see Kraftwerk "live", though they are almost just turning knobs, sliders, and playing some notes, plus singing vocals.