WeeklyBeats.com / Music / CosmicCairns's music / Gamma Ray Grey
Gamma Ray Grey
By CosmicCairns on May 14, 2020 7:29 amSo as I mentioned last week I was supposed to be leaving for a vacation in Kauai and I would have been gone most of this week, but because of a certain virus that shall remain unnamed I had to cancel. That was all well and good, but then these days when I would have been gone having fun turned into the worst week I've had all year so far due to a variety of reasons, mostly work related. Ugh. Don't really feel like getting into all the details, but it was a pretty soul crushing week.
I tried to do something a little moody, possibly melancholic this week. The main part of the song was built around a simple synth melody. I added a tiny bit of vocals with some off-the-cuff lyrics that don't really mean much of anything. Then I thought it would be fun to add an intro to the song. Way back in February before this whole mess started, my long-time friend in real life and fellow Weekly Beats participant cfurrow was in town for work and we managed to hang out and do a little recording. We made a bunch of cello loops so I decided to sample a little bit of one of them for the intro. I thought it would be cool to add a simple piano part to it, but I ran into an issue in that the cello loop wasn't in tune with my synth. It was about a half tone or so off. My Korg has one of those manual pitch bender levers so I kind of tried to bend the piano into pitch with the cello loop, but it was pretty hard to keep it in the exact right spot. I think my hand is getting less steady either because of impending old age or the stress of the week so the lever kind of wavered back and forth a little. At any rate it was difficult to keep it in pitch, but then I thought it sounded a little like noodling on an old out-of-tune piano and I kind of liked that so I kept it as is. That's pretty much all I've got to say about this one. Hope everyone out there had a better week than I did.
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Sucks to hear about your vacation and shitty week man, hopefully we'll be back to somewhat of normalcy soon. And flights will be cheaper as demand spools back up, so rescheduling your trip should work out fine too. This is a cool ass little tune man, really digging all the parts and all the different places it goes. So many different sounds and textures. Hey also, I dont know which Korg synth your working with but I found out the other day that my Minilogue XD has a key command that tunes the oscillators. May be something to look into.
Thanks! Yeah, I know my korg has a lot of complex functions, which I've barely scratched the surface of. I'm sure there's lots of ways to tackle such issues either through the korg itself or with software, but I didn't have the time or the motivation to look into it this week. And I actually think imperfections sometimes "add" a bit of a human element to songs, which can be a good thing.
Chrisfoo wrote:Sucks to hear about your vacation and shitty week man, hopefully we'll be back to somewhat of normalcy soon. And flights will be cheaper as demand spools back up, so rescheduling your trip should work out fine too. This is a cool ass little tune man, really digging all the parts and all the different places it goes. So many different sounds and textures. Hey also, I dont know which Korg synth your working with but I found out the other day that my Minilogue XD has a key command that tunes the oscillators. May be something to look into.
Thanks! Yeah, I know my korg has a lot of complex functions, which I've barely scratched the surface of. I'm sure there's lots of ways to tackle such issues either through the korg itself or with software, but I didn't have the time or the motivation to look into it this week. And I actually think imperfections sometimes "add" a bit of a human element to songs, which can be a good thing.
Good call! I agree, if it’s too perfect it doesn’t seem authentic. I’m still newish to the world of synths so even the fact that they can go out of tune was new and mind blowing to me.
the intro seems to be fitting into a charly chaplin film!!! so sweet!!! The song itself has a kind of positive and no melancholic vibe to me. But probably your songtext is more depressing, unfortunately I do not unstand.
Great use of the Korg synth. Very tasty low frequencies.
Hope this was cathartic to make! Sounds great man, this song comes in waves! 
CosmicCairns wrote:Chrisfoo wrote:Sucks to hear about your vacation and shitty week man, hopefully we'll be back to somewhat of normalcy soon. And flights will be cheaper as demand spools back up, so rescheduling your trip should work out fine too. This is a cool ass little tune man, really digging all the parts and all the different places it goes. So many different sounds and textures. Hey also, I dont know which Korg synth your working with but I found out the other day that my Minilogue XD has a key command that tunes the oscillators. May be something to look into.
Thanks! Yeah, I know my korg has a lot of complex functions, which I've barely scratched the surface of. I'm sure there's lots of ways to tackle such issues either through the korg itself or with software, but I didn't have the time or the motivation to look into it this week. And I actually think imperfections sometimes "add" a bit of a human element to songs, which can be a good thing.
Good call! I agree, if it’s too perfect it doesn’t seem authentic. I’m still newish to the world of synths so even the fact that they can go out of tune was new and mind blowing to me.
I know, synth technology is crazy, especially nowadays. I've had my korg for like 14 years or something and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of all that it can do. I mostly just enjoy the wide variety of sounds it offers.
the intro seems to be fitting into a charly chaplin film!!! so sweet!!! The song itself has a kind of positive and no melancholic vibe to me. But probably your songtext is more depressing, unfortunately I do not unstand.
Great use of the Korg synth. Very tasty low frequencies.
Thanks! The melancholy is maybe a little subtle, but perhaps I'm reading more into it than is really there. Don't worry about understanding the lyrics. They don't mean anything. I was in a hurry and just made up some words to fill in because I wanted some vocals.
Hope this was cathartic to make! Sounds great man, this song comes in waves!
Thanks. It felt somewhat soothing I think, other than messing with the pitch issue in the intro. The main part of the song just kind of flowed out.
The synths are so psychedelic. I like that
The synths are so psychedelic. I like that
Thanks! I enjoy some psychedelic synths for sure.
This opening is really relaxing! Love the peaceful guitar, it feels like a lullaby.
This opening is really relaxing! Love the peaceful guitar, it feels like a lullaby.
Thanks! I think I was trying to go for a relaxing vibe. I'm not totally sure where my head was at though to be honest. I felt a bit frazzled this week.
Made me think of brian wilson a little nice harmonies, nice pads. This flows along so well. Very relaxing. Not sad, not happy, just is. Sorry to hear about you week. Sometimes the tough weeks lead to great songs? I'm often surprised by what comes out on those tough weeks.
Super melancholy feel to this week's track. Really enjoyed those backing woo vocals that thicken up the bassier parts of the chord progression. I hope you have a better upcoming week and can avoid the cv_blues
Made me think of brian wilson a little nice harmonies, nice pads. This flows along so well. Very relaxing. Not sad, not happy, just is. Sorry to hear about you week. Sometimes the tough weeks lead to great songs? I'm often surprised by what comes out on those tough weeks.
I was thinking about that the other night. Maybe some good will come in the long-run. They say great art is supposed to come from suffering, or something like that.
Super melancholy feel to this week's track. Really enjoyed those backing woo vocals that thicken up the bassier parts of the chord progression. I hope you have a better upcoming week and can avoid the cv_blues
Thanks! I'm doing a bit better already. Just had a mega-stressful time at work and was feeling super burned out, but hopefully I'll be able to recharge a little bit here.
All things considered, it's a pretty soothing song.
A really different sound this week. That bass synth and layers of vocal (or chorus effect) are top notch! Dreamy trippy feeling. Nice how it keeps building in layers and complexity. I don't really pick up on the pitch issue, as I hear lots of synth and some detuning is always a good thing with layers of synth. Sorry you had a shitty week. Hope this one is better!
All things considered, it's a pretty soothing song.
I'm good with labeling it as a soothing vibe. Thanks!
A really different sound this week. That bass synth and layers of vocal (or chorus effect) are top notch! Dreamy trippy feeling. Nice how it keeps building in layers and complexity. I don't really pick up on the pitch issue, as I hear lots of synth and some detuning is always a good thing with layers of synth. Sorry you had a shitty week. Hope this one is better!
The pitch issue only happened at the very beginning because I was manually trying to bend the pitch of my korg to match the previously recorded cello loop. It just kind of wavers out of pitch a few times. I don't think it's disastrous or anything, and maybe it's not even all that noticeable. I think it would have sounded pretty bad if I hadn't bent it so it was closer in pitch though. And thanks, this week was definitely an improvement on last week.
Sucks to hear about your vacation and shitty week man, hopefully we'll be back to somewhat of normalcy soon. And flights will be cheaper as demand spools back up, so rescheduling your trip should work out fine too. This is a cool ass little tune man, really digging all the parts and all the different places it goes. So many different sounds and textures. Hey also, I dont know which Korg synth your working with but I found out the other day that my Minilogue XD has a key command that tunes the oscillators. May be something to look into.