Cluster Drone

Yesterday, I played around with my old idea of random and control of music with hardware interface.
So I assigned the volume of 8 notes to the 8 knobs of my Trigger Finger, plus other controls for the filter.
This morning, I listent to it on my MP3 player, it was fresh, though theoritically very dissonant.


Guess what are the notes they are ;-)
(it's an idea that comes from some experience of SonicBrat)

Locking on sinewaves

This morning, took some moments of calm (or almost) in the Montsouris park to experiment a track on my Palm TX with simple sine waves and buffer lock effect.
The result is here, experimented/tweaked live on the Palm plugged into my EHX tube preamp.

The first track is harsher than the second one, more melodic. If you can't stand the listening on the first, please go directly to the second. Don't be afraid of that noise ;-)

Don't try to adjust your speaker system, the glitches are "normal".

Into space

Few days ago, I bought a T-Rex Bass Juice (bass distortion), and a Morley Little Alligator volume pedal.
The Morley choice was due to its optical technology which prevent from cracks from regular pot volume pedals.
I bought it because my regular volume pedal (George Dennis) was cracking.
For helping me with ambiance during the recording, I used my BOSS DD-20 Giga Delay, but the actual delay that you can hear is the Analog Delay VST plugin from MDSP at mdsp.smartelectronix.com/classic (and also the round-pan).
I recorded four loop drones today, and especially one improvized with 2001 Space Odissey chapter 29 in background, so you can listen to the track almost in sync with chapter 29 of 2001.

At least some fun

Using the BOSS RC-2 as background

Yesterday, I was jamming alone, trying to find a way of putting an electric bass on my forthcoming new version of Light Tube ().
I'll probably add this bass melodic line or something similar, but it was actually also fun, I wanted to play the idiot for the video.
The background loop is performed by the BOSS RC-2 (the bass line was by myself).

Between the phases : Eric August 3rd 2007

Aaahhhh, I wish I could sleep a moment under the trees of LDT's land ...

But not for now.
Now is between the phases ... between phase II and phase "what?"
So let's have fun with some new (hardware/software) gear.
I purchased DrumSynth plugin for FL Studio because I discovered that some parameters could be tweaked in real-time ...

WEEK 4 : E r i c

Angels of the garden


For this last rendition of the month, I used only the samples provided by Darren and LDT.
At first, I didn't know how to make my way with all these samples (especially mines ;-), but with a nice reverb over the harmonics of bass notes, inspiration comes. I love reverb, you must be knowing this, now.
And I tried not to pitch up/down the samples; they are only sliced, granulized or stretched.
I don't usually make songs in "multi parts" nowadays, I used to do this in my first years of play with FastTrackerII but this commontone song in multi parts is almost novelty.
Though I had some doubts about the idea of this phase II, I think now that it can be a good thing to do this samples exchange but with deeper direction to make a kind of offline jam session between us.

WEEK 4: Eric [contributor]

Here is my contribution for the week 4.
Alas, I just saw that the MP3 versions of my samples are pitched up for a unknown reason (I used RazorLame) :-(
Anyway, Darren and LDT have received the WAV vresions that are in the good sample rate.
For this contribution, I recorded my LAG guitar, my CORT 5-string bass (with and without distorsion, with and without EHX Small Clone chorus), and my voice. All of this passing thru a EHX Black Finger compressor and a EHX LP2ube preamp. I used a SHURE SM-58 for the voice. And AmbiLoop for recording on the computer.

(sorry for the pictures, I didn't manage to post them)

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 : Eric [originator]

And voila, here is the tune I made with the samples provided by Darren and LDT. Tempo 115 Key D.
Please note that I use no other samples.
I re-sequenced the drums manually (then quantized) with my TriggerFinger.
I used Morphine VST additive synth to bend the vocal sample.

Plus, I also include a little experiment with some of the samples that I tried to mix like a Oval song ;-)

WEEK 3 : Eric [originator]

Hello,
It's now up to me to make the mix.
I have the intention to perform heavy destruction on the samples I will be given by Sonic Darren and LDT.
Perhaps using granular, or just slicing, or using my brand new VST plugin : Morphine (additive synth).

Deeps,

WEEK 2: Eric [contributor]

Tempo is 80BPM
Samples are not top high quality (I still have to work this out ;-)

WEEK 1: Eric [contributor]

Tempo is 100BPM but some loop clips have been recorded with another length
Key is A

These are my first contributions to the Phase II for SonicBrat.
Alas, there are digital clipping in some of the audio samples (PROTECT YOUR LOUDSPEAKER !). I didn't hear them when I was recording under AmbiLoop, strange ...

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 : 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 30 : Eric

Tempo : unknown
Color : neon red

Loose improvizations. I apologize for the false notes and the bad sound. It was taken with my Olympus voice recorder, it seems that I put it too close to the amp speaker.
It seems that Sonic and I both have the envy of taking the axe ;-)

Anyway I like this kind of bad sound sometimes...

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 24 : Eric

Tempo : 120
Color : amber

A new try on making a drone with guitar sounds.
Looks a bit like Oval, but needs more ... vision !

DAY 23 : Eric

Tempo : 100
Color : steel green

I managed to communicate with my Monome40h, for now it's only under Max/Msp, and with its the 40h_64step application developped by Monome team, that takes 7 samples wich are triggered by the Monome.
I all made this afternoon, recording guitar parts with AmbiLoop first, then sequeced them with Max/Msp and Monome.
Actually, I should have worked more on the samples, and use slices of samples instead of whole samples to really make textures.
This was my first attempt, but yet exciting; it would be better next time.