You got away, you're sure you got away (from those stardwelling experimenters), now you have to make a life. Another chapter in the "you got abducted by aliens" saga.

Let's take a pause, I'd like to share an update on how my process has changed for this round of 8 tracks. I've been dividing these weeks up into 8 week chunks, trying to keep to a theme or a process for each 8 weeks to explore new ideas more deeply than I normally do. This is week 7 in the third bundle of weeks, so I'm almost done. What's different about previous workflows and processes? Way back in WB week 1 I described my MPC based beat making process...heavy on samples, spent most of my time looking for good material on records or youtube. I still like that process an awful lot and continue to use it. Weeklybeats has meant I've had to go down different paths to avoid breaking the copyright rule, which has been a good push. It led me to adopting an Elektron workflow that I like, here's how it goes,

0. Working with the Elektron "dark trinity", which I built up over the years through well timed used buys. The rytm & analog four are new (to me, bought used). I'm just scratching the surface of their abilities. Octatrack is the master clock, mixer and effects (big thanks to EZBot and his excellent Youtube videos on how these machines all can play well together), there's also a Digitone (mk1) in the mix and everything runs through an analog heat (mk2 + fx) on the master bus. It's a beefy setup, I'm lucky to have it and I don't do it justice.
1. OT sends program changes to the rytm & A4, so each song ends up being a bank in elektron terms. I copy the previous weeks bank, but delete the patterns and usually delete the machines to get new sounds. I've been using the same OT scene effects for a while, again...shout out to EZBot. During the week I poke around at patterns until I get a loop I like.
2. I copy that loop to a new pattern and tweak. Usually cutting lines and adding new ones.
3. I record live takes of the patterns stacked up on one another to see what an arrangement could feel like and then listen back to those recordings the next day(s). Putting a bit of time between the recording and the listening has been good. I end up being more critical (in a good way) but also end up liking things too, which can sometimes be hard to do. It's easy to be negatively critical of your own work, it's harder to like what you've done...putting some space in between helps imo.
4. On Saturday (or sooner, just depends) I either decide I like one of the recordings and start the mastering process, or decide I need to record a new arrangement.
5. There's some variability in this next step. During the middle of this round of 8 I did a recording for the Disquiet Junto (you can listen to it here). The track was slightly tongue in cheek, used a ton of Splice samples and stuck to a by-the-book techno club track arrangement. I ended up liking the process a bunch and thought the result was pretty good. It ended up influencing a couple of weeks of WB submissions, though it also showed how arrangment of splice samples isn't the same as an arrangement of my own sounds. Anyway, the variation in this step is whether I create a song arrangement in the Octatrack or I switch patterns "live". I lean towards the live approach, but...we'll see what happens over time.
6. Regardless of where I ended up recording the track, I take the final mix and run it through the Logic mastering plugin. I made the mistake of thinking I didn't need this one week and ended up with a super-bass heavy mess that I needed to revise. Since then, I'm using this as my final step to get the track at the right volume and give it a bit of oomph. It's been a really important step in my overall process.
7. upload and start again.

Like all good workflows, I tweak it along the way. For this week I followed the above pretty closely, except I ended up running the mix through a GRM Atelier effect chain...for weird flavor.

Tags: dubtechno, electronic, elektron, experimental, lofi, process, soyougottookbyaliens, week 23 2026, workflow, View by:cmcavoy