January 11th, 2012
It is Wednesday and made some experiments. Lately, the ritornello of Depeche Mode’s Photographic has been haunting me. So i made an identitarian copy-and-remix, into what seems to be, a “techno” rework. LOL.
Anyways. I first recorded drums from the old program Rebirth onto my pocket recorder (hence the “beeps” in the beginning and end). Then I ran the pocket recorder through my Moog for some filter juice-up and recorded it in Ardour (see pic. above). Some basic techno yo.
The rest is freestyle. I added a Moog bassline, then I played a secondary melody using a dual-oscillator lead. For the major theme, in the last part of the song, I midi-wired up my Juno and my Moog for some extra phattness. Somewhere in the background there is a pad from the Juno, but I couldn’t make the LFO to sync properly with the beat, but that is all right.
Anyways, a quite experimental out-of-tune (especially towards the end, everything is really out of tune) little melody-tribute:
ogg |
mp3 |
wav
Posted in analog, kopimism, rebirth, upbeat, work in progress | No Comments »
January 9th, 2012
Some sequences straight off the mixer table:
ogg |
mp3
ogg |
mp3
.wav-files will be provided on demand.
Posted in kraut, repetitive, sequencer, soundscape | No Comments »
January 5th, 2012
2012 it is 30 years since the great album Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa was released.
Bambaataa was a kopimist, and he sampled Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk to produce the album, besides using his 808 in a revolutionary cool way. At the time, sampling (copying) was very controversial, but in retrospect, he showed us the right way!
Also, today there was news about that the Church of Kopimi had been recognized by the state as a religion.
So, to celebrate this, I listened to Trans-Europe Express, copied the melodies to my brain, my fingers reproducing them on my Juno 106, then added some drums with my Monotribe running through the overdriven Moog filter. Then some bass. And, voila, we have a (displaced) copy that went through several analog holes before it re-emerged on the internets.
Please note: this is a sloppy version that I recorded on the fly in four separate tracks (more than that wouldn’t work on an old tape recorder). Sorry for some off beat notes.
ogg |
mp3 |
wav
Posted in Juno, analog, kopimism, upbeat | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2012
Ever wondered how airplanes sound? Well, you probably have and then didn’t care much, since it is a common and boring sound.
However, since I’m mildly worried about planes crashing, I always listen very carefully to sounds while flying. After a while, you start to appreciate its “musical” qualities. When the sound withdraws, it is just background noise, but when you really listen in, there are great variations in the engine sounds.
So, I tried to reproduce them with my synthesizers. After all, what is a recording or a sample compared to true synthesis!
A jet engine is like an oscillator. It makes a tone, and harmonics. It changes in pitch when fuel is added, but meanwhile, the cockpit is like a filter (especially like a lowpass filter). But there are two primary sounds when seated: the engine and the air conditioning fan over your head. To make airplane sounds, you thus need oscillators, filters and a noise generator.
In this first one, I made a low but rich tone in the bottom (Moog LP), and a higher one with lots of white noise on top of that (Monotribe). Both engine and fan. A little sample from a Sao Paolo airport in the beginning, to get the feeling of boarding:
ogg |
mp3 |
wav
While at it, I made some more chaotic aero sounds, with lots of planes that seem to be crashing towards the ground. After a while the Juno takes over, and the polyphony turns into chords.
ogg |
mp3 |
wav
Posted in analog, soundscape | No Comments »
January 1st, 2012
Made a really weird piece of sound. Detuned synthesizers and out of beat LFOs.
Sounds like background music of a cheap Italian zombie movie.
ogg |
mp3 |
wav
Posted in analog, cyberpunk, kraut, repetitive | No Comments »
January 1st, 2012
Haunted by a metallic taste in my mouth, caused by yesterday’s champagne, I took a walk to clear my head. Every shop was closed, and evening came very fast. My nervous system had the shapes of barbed wire, strapped onto a weakened piece of flesh.
Then there is no other escape than six oscillators and a noise generator, jacked into the amplifier and pushed in waves towards the ears. Tiny little shores, breaking the waves that roll in from the west, while a machinic low frequency tries to push the water away.
A bit of a rough recording. All sounds made by the Juno 106:
ogg |
mp3 |
wav |
Posted in Juno, analog, cyberpunk, winter | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2011
One of my favourite songs from the 1980s is Depeche Mode’s Photographic. Just listen to this in-your-face-cyberpunk-dark-live-version. Creeps me out with joy.
Anyways. I found a decent acapella using the file sharing service called google on the interwebs. Normally, the first thing I do is to try to determine BPM, but since I wanna make this remix totally 80s, I need to stick to pre-MIDI drum machines.
So, I fired up my Monotribe and tried to manually set a decent drum rhythm. It failed, almost. Cutting and moving around a bit, the vocals are almost in tune. Then I set the arpeggiator of my Moog Little Phatty to 146 BPM, and it almost works with the drums. The rest, well, its the Juno 106.
Beware, this is just a very early work in progress clip. Posting it on the interweb for the lulz.
mp3.
Oh, and the synthesizers aren’t even in tune LOL… analog charm, so they say…
Posted in work in progress | No Comments »
December 18th, 2011
While I was tweaking I came over a cool sound on my Juno 106. Very close, but far from identical, to the original soundtrack. Delay added (in masses).
First Juno, then Moog LP, then both of them together. If anyone wants a sample (btw, I play a clumsy note wrong on the last recording).
mp3 pocket recording.
Posted in Juno, analog | No Comments »
December 18th, 2011
Yesterday I was in this terrible club, full of hard working petit bourgeoisie trying to dance on the crowded floor. It doesn’t rly matter, because I had a fun time with friends anyway. The music was however quite terrible.
So, this morning I felt like revenge. I switched on the Doepfer sequencer and made a flat line on the knobs, wired it to my Moog LP to chase some bassline, then into the Juno 106 for stratosphere sounds, and finally, into the computer to send some sync clock to Rebirth (my digital substitute for not affording a real 909). In between, some Monotribe LFO-saturated madness, and then straight to my little pocket recorder out of the mixer.
Only mp3 this time (my Sony recorder only supports that).
mp3
Posted in Juno, analog, dance, rebirth, repetitive, sequencer | No Comments »
December 17th, 2011
Woke up and made some coffee. Started to run a little sequence while I was checking my e-mail, and then I started to add some drums on the Roland TR-505. It sounded a bit like a samba rhythm. Added some more weird sounds from the Monotribe, and then I hit record on the computer.
So, straight off the mixer, here comes ten minutes of saturday breakfast beats. Raw and unmastered:
ogg |
mp3 |
wav
Posted in 505, analog, monotribe, repetitive, sequencer | 2 Comments »