Scoundrel
By Continuous Nonlinearities on February 21, 2026 7:38 pm
I was watching a video on industrial bass sounds, and it made me go "yeah, FM bass!" So I broke out the Volca FM and found a good preset ("Pluckkey"), and I think I adjusted the envelope a little? Initially I was thinking this would just be a part to put in a couple times but then it became the basis of the whole thing.
After working on the song a bit more, I accidentally overheard the Volca playing the part on its own speaker, which I liked, so broke out the field recorder and mixed that in, adding a bit of bite and definition that worked well together.
Death By Audio Rooms on gate mode on the Digitakt drums gave me a good approximately D tone, setting my key. Spooky gothy string pad via Alpha Juno.
Plinky synth from the Prophet 6: my initial version was too plinky and I had to turn down the high pass resonance. It sits better now. There was initially going to be more plinks! But it did not actually add! This is one of the things I am working on, not playing every instrument constantly, they are allowed to just do small parts. It is hard.
Random speech via an audiobook on Project Gutenberg, "Seven Wives and Seven Prisons: Or, Experiences in the Life of a Matrimonial Monomaniac" by L.A. Abbott, read by Kehinde and released to public domain, and fragmented by Chase Bliss Blooper (though in retrospect this might've been a better job for Habit). Title inspired by this selection.
High background chime is a guitar loop in the Montreal Assembly Count to 5 into Pladask Baklengs, with Chase Bliss Lost & Found giving a bit of stereo ambience. I tried to mix in different pitches of loop but it isn't very obvious for the most part.
And then field recorder of the whole mix for a bit of air.
Overall this is probably a bit too long and could use a bit more variation in the drum part, but that is basically everything I write. This could probably turn into a great 4 1/2 minute track with a little more structuring and an actual vocal. Fun to write it, anyway!
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)