WEEK 4: LDT

THE JUNGLE OUTPOST


Tempo: 120 BPM

LDT: LDT: Korg MicroKorg, Korg ER-1, Novation XioSynth, Ebo, Traveler Guitar with Roland GK-2 pickup, Boss WP-20G Wave Processor, Cloud 9 Distortion, Digitech DigiDelay, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Line 6 Otto Filter, Zoom MRS8, assembled with Sound Forge and Acid Pro

WEEK 4: LDT [Adding Things]

This final track has proven to be a real challenge to complete. On Thursday evening I added some additional elements using my new Line 6 Otto Filter in conjunction with the Boss WP-20G and Cloud 9 Distortion. For echo I used the Digitech Digideay. I drove the WP-20G with my GK2 fitted Traveler Guitar and used both a flat pick and Ebo on the tracks I recorded.

This weekend was the beginning of Buddhist Lent so I traveled to the area around Korat to stay with my Girlfriend Sandy's family. Her parents home is a traditional old style Thai wooden house on stilts and the area around is rural. There is not much in the way of a cellular signal and no internet at all. I brought my Zoom MRS8 and Novation XioSynth along with me as I had hoped that I would find some time to finish off the recording.

After being there for a day what I had recorded previously sounded completely different to me. I was suddenly inspired to record additional tracks with the XioSynth and at around midnight on Sunday night I snuck outside and recorded ten minutes of the strange night noised made by the bugs and other creatures. I took these sounds and made several loops from them at various speeds including the orignal. The slowed loops sound truly spooky.

As for Eric and Darren's samples I believe the only one that will be truly recognizable will be Darren's drum loop. The other samples which I used, including one of Eric's guitar bits, have been put through sound forge in such a way that they fit in with the dreamy jungle journey.

WEEK 4: LDT [contributor]

Week 4 Contribution



This week I have decided to provide Eric and Darren samples that were created using three of my Korg units. The first four tones I recorded were from my Korg MicroKorg. I spend much of Friday evening tweaking some sounds specifically for this week. These are the sounds I've decided to share. The others may appear in my final contribution along side Darren and Eirc's samples.



The second group of samples are beats created on my Korg ER1. I varied the BPM halving it from the prescribed 120 BPM to 60 BPM to make it a little more interresting. I also recorded two loops with distortions from inboard effects on my Zoom MRS8 recorder. I didn't use the Sherman.



The last group of sounds was created using my old Korg Sigma. I ran it through my Cloud 9 Flanger and Digitech Digiday since it has no inboard effects of its own. The Sigma has great oscillators. The problem I'm having with it now is none of them seem to want to stay in tune for more than three seconds and some of the dials are suffering from their age as well.

Hopefully there are enough things here to be of use.

WEEK 4: s o n i c b r a t [NOTES]

Hello everyone. We have come to the final week of Phase 2. What to expect? Well, in this final week, all 3 of us will be supplying samples/loops in the Key of E and tempo 120bpm. At the same time, all 3 of us will be using these samples to cut a track each. So that's 3 different renditions of the same set of samples. Take it as a show down between us 3 or simply interpretations of music. I am sure it will be interesting to see what music can be churned out of 3 different individuals, using the same set of samples/loops. Stay tuned.

WEEK 3: LDT [contributor]

For this weeks contribution I decided to work with my now rarely used Roland MC-303 Groove Box. This is not the original one I bought back ten years ago. That one is packed safely in a water proof storage container in Oakville. I picked this used one up here a few years ago at Pantip Plaza.

The MC-303 was a little work horse for me back in the day. It provided drums, sequences and backing pads for the band I had with Chris Chiasson (Stick) and Richard Forsley (Guitar). It later provided the same for Snowmelter. By 1999 I was very good at programming it and its only limitation seemed to be the lack of memory available for the user. There was no way to delete the hundreds of stupid preset "grooves" (which how sound hilariously dated) and the user was only allowed a measly 50 slots.

The MC-303 sound engine is basically the Roland Sound Canvas which features PCM sample based wave forms as the tonal building blocks. They can be filtered and messed with extensively and the drum sets contain the TR-808 and TR-909 kits. The other tone sets include lots of synth, piano, bell, and other sounds. There are some rather useless sound effects but if they are pitched down enough they can be used to create some wonderfully strange and spooky sounds.

For today's experiment I worked up several sound sets for Eric. For processing I ran the MC-303 through the Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube tube preamp and into the Zoom MRS8 recorder. The MC-303 was slaved to the Zoom's MIDI clock for tempo. I used the Zoom's internal effects to process the signal further. I recorded a few variations of a string pad to start. Afterwards I recorded several drum loops through some heavy distortion and some odd EQing and compression.

I used my Novation Bass Station for a MIDI control and the remaining bits were recorded with the MC-303's tone back slaved to the Bass Station. Once I'd recorded 12 short tracks I imported the tracks to Lappy and normalized all the tracks in Sound Forge before sending them off.

WEEK 2: LDT

The Diabolical Plans of Monseiur Diabolical


Tempo 80 BPM

LDT: Novation Bass Station, Novation XioSynth, Yamaha AN200, Sherman Filter Bank, Zoom MRS8, assembled with Sound Forge and Acid Pro

WEEK 2: LDT [Update]

Diabolical Structures

The "framework" I pieced together from the supplied samples to act as some sort of guide collapsed last night under the weight of my frustration. A frustration usually reserved for dealing with all things Microsoft. The sort of frustration that might result in Grover-like arm waving and screaming. In any event at about 10:30 pm I simply gave up in dispair.



















This evening I attacked the situation from a different direction. Instead of using the framework I began with laying down various drum tracks at 40, 80 and 160 BPM. I used my Yamaha AN200 and ran it through the Sherman Filter Bank and the results mirrored the sound of last nights frustration. I recorded five tracks of this, setting the Sherman on full blast for complete sonic destruction of the drum loops.



















Once I'd expended all myself with this process I'd managed to create an unlistenable assault of squashed beats and shrill frequencies that proved to be as totally useless as my ill fated framework.

So.... I loaded up a blank project and began again using the Novation Bass Station and the AN200 as a MIDI slave.



















And lo, it came to pass that my Muse, Space Walk Shirely herself stopped by and granted me a little idea that just might do the trick.

WEEK 2: LDT [Render 02]

Contributions Contributed

Now I have received plenty of samples and the process begins of trimming and arranging things into some sort of framework upon which I can hang some sort of final idea. I now also remember why I enjoy playing and recording over the tedious effort of dragging and dropping samples and loops.

The MP3 posted today is an assembly of some of the various parts, some of which have been messed with extensively in Sound Forge. What you hear doesn't include a signal beep or bump produced by me, its all either Eric or Darren. I have transfered this same track from a Wav format rendering to the Zoom format and have uploaded it into my MRS8 where upon I will begin the process of further editing and recording various additional bits and bobs.

I will keep you posted on the results if and when they happen.

WEEK 2: LDT [Render 01]

LDT: Escape Traveler Guitar with Roland GK2 pick-up, Boss WP-20G Wave Processor (pads), Yamaha AN200 (drums), assembled in Acid Pro and Sound Forge

Eric sent me quite a few samples to play with. One batch consisted of some voice things, and the other some guitar sounds. Once I had downloaded them I took them straight into Acid Pro without any normalization or tweaking in Sound Forge. I arranged them in a grid with various parts coming in and out then looked for some drums that were recorded at 80 BPM. I found three tracks I recorded recently for something else and dropped those in to the song for a basic start. I also pulled two pads from the same source that were created with the Boss WP-20G Wave Processor and added those. Then I began to arrange and tighten up what was there. I doubled one of Eric's guitar tracks and dropped its pitch by an octave. I also dropped both of the Wave Processor pads by an octave. One drum bit was recorded at 160 BPM so I dropped that by an octave and brought the beats down to 80 per minute. At that point I added volume envelopes to mix what was there.

The intent of this first render is not to influence Darren's contributions or even give any sort of idea of how the final result will sound. This process which is sort of standard for me is to organize in my mind what is there, and to provide something to listen over the course of the next day or so on my iPod. Normally I would listen to the first render for a week or two before going at it more however in this case 24 hours will have to do. Once I've received Darren's parts I will add them to the sonic stew, mix and let simmer until I have absorbed it enough to add what is needed to finish it off.

WEEK 2: LDT [Introduction]

Some Thoughts on Sample Based Music

I first began using Acid Pro as a system of music making in 2000 about six months

after leaving Canada. At the time my only other instrument was an acoustic guitar that I'd bought in my travels. Acid Pro gave me the ability to paste in small pieces of sound or music and build complex sequences. Originally I used the loops that were provided with Acid Pro and would mess with them as much as possible in order to make them my own. Later I began to record my own loops using various software synths. As I began to acquire more hardware and I moved away from doing music with looped samples. I began to use Acid Pro exclusively as a means of mixing tracks that I'd recorded on my small digital eight track recorder and rendering a final mix in Wav format to be tweaked and mastered in Sound Forge.

The use of samples (to be provided by Eric and Darren) to create a track is in some ways a return to the roots of my computer based recording process. I have yet to hear what exactly they will send me and I have no idea whether I will use their loops exclusively, add more of my own or if I will throw in some tracks recorded on my digital eight track. I will however post at least two versions of what will come as a way of showing the process in some greater detail.

For my week as the featured artist I have requested that the others provide tracks with a BPM count of 80 BPM in the key of D. Look for their contributions over the next several days and my efforts to follow on Thursday and Saturday.

LDT

WEEK 1: LDT [contributor]

Sample contributions by LDT:
Yamaha AN200, Zoom MRS8, normalized in Sound Forge.



Tempo: 100bpm
Key: A

All samples uploaded created by and copyright of LDT.

COMMONTONES PHASE II

Three musicians...
Three minds...
One song...

A weekly affair between the trio. Their first music making effort as an entity rather than solitude contributions. They will be working on a single piece weekly, a song a week, for the entire month of July. This is their next step, something they had in mind for a long time... and finally materializing. This is only the beginning.

PHASE DESCRIPTION:

In PHASE II, one musician will be appointed the "musician of the week" at the beginning of each week. This renders the other two "contributors". At the beginning of each week, the "contributors" will provide short audio samples of their own creations, anything goes (sounds, guitar, synth, etc), uploading to COMMONTONES. The "musician of the week" will collect these samples, and over the course of the week, compose and arrange a piece with the samples, plus his own input. The song will be uploaded here at the end of each week in the month.

This makes three songs, in three weeks, with the trio taking turns to be the "musician of the week". In the final week (week 4), all three will be contributing at the beginning of the week, and all three will be cutting a track from all the samples provided. Rendering three songs by the end of the week and loading them up on COMMONTONES. At the end of the project, there will be 6 songs in total.

Please join us in this journey of creating music on cyber-space.

--------------------------------------------------------------
PHASE SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1:
Musician of the week - Sonicbrat
Contributors - Eric, LDT

WEEK 2:
Musician of the week - LDT
Contributors - Eric, Sonicbrat

WEEK 3:
Musician of the week - Eric
Contributors - LDT, Sonicbrat

WEEK 4:
Musicians of the week - ALL
Contributors - ALL

DAY 31: LDT

"My Ghost Sits Here"


Tempo: 80 bpm
Color : which ever you like

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assembled in Sound Forge and Acid Pro. Feel free to comment.

DAY 30: LDT

"Last River"


Tempo : 40 bpm
color: some

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assembled in Sound Forge and Acid Pro. Feel free to comment.

DAY 29: LDT

"FINAL RETURN"


Tempo: 70 bpm
color: all

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assemble in Sound Forge and Acid Pro. Feel free to comment.

DAY 28: LDT

"Temple Bell"


Tempo: NA
Color: all

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assembled in Sound Forge and Acid Pro.

Feel free to comment.

DAY 27: LDT

"Free To Fly"


Tempo: 128 Bpm
color : all

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assembled in Sound Forge and Acid Pro.

Feel free to comment.

DAY 26: LDT

"The Divine Island"


Tempo: 70 bpm
Colour: all

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assembled in Sound Forge and Acid Pro.

Feel free to comment

DAY 25: LDT

"Walking on Water"


Tempo: NA
Color : Ocean

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB 2ube, Zoom MRS8, assembled in Sound Forge and Acid Pro.

Feel free to comment.

DAY 24: LDT

"Reaching the Coastline"


Tempo: 80 bpm
Colour: blue

LDT: Novation XioSynth, Electro Harmonix LPB