‹ Production notes
This one got started early in the week on the OP-1 Field with a bitcrushed drumbeat and a heavy FM bass, each passing through some crunchy FX. Sampled both into the Dirtywave M8, the bass with help of the M8 external instrument. M8+OP1F over usb is such an amazing duo.
The A part was made by having an LFO modulated LPF on the bass, which turned it into this staccato synthwave direction. The gnarly B part is the same sample without the filter. Getting the Hypersynth in place for the melody really brought the eighties dystopian vibe into focus. I did have a hard time moving away from the main chord progression, so it stays the same for almost the entire song. Structurally it could've used some more work towards the end, but I ran out of time to do a bridge.
This track was written to double-dip for the M8 Community Jam. This time the theme is "Crunchy," and the optional challenge is to sample a daily-life sound. For that reason, I recorded my living room clock (which is actually quite loud) and chopped it up to use as a percussive layer. It's pretty subtle, especially when it's playing along with the main drumloop hihats.
At the end I tried running the M8 output through the Analog Heat MKII for even more crunch. That didn’t add anything flattering, so I fell back on mastering in Logic. I forgot my iLok at work (again), which means my fancy plugins were off-limits. This is just a sprinkling of EQ, tape saturation and warble, transformer saturation, sausage fattener, hard clipping, and some final safety limiting.
Even had about two hours to spare before the deadline. Hooray for a healthy sleep schedule!