0F
Online
Melbourne
Devieus wrote:

I'm not going to touch a single note, none, instead I wrote/am writing a proc-gen music generator to get closer to music theory. I have 0 control over the outcome, but aim to change parameters every week so I do actually work on my songs.

ooh, I'm pretty interested in hearing this!

onezero
Offline
Pittsburgh, PA

2014: First time doing the weekly thing.  First half of the year...very spotty.  Second half had some good tracks, though.  Did all 52.

2015: Without WB, I decided to keep going on my own, and did all 52.  I think I got better at editing pieces, and I had more keepers this year.  I did a few weeks with Tidal live coding to generate at least part of the piece, and that was kind of interesting.  Also finished building a guitar, and that's become my main instrument.  And I bought a wah pedal, so that gets a lot of use as well.

I tend to work more organically, and go for "what do I want to hear right now?" when doing pieces. I expect that'll stay the same in 2016, and I'll probably also stick to my rhythm of mining a methodology for a few weeks, and then taking a left turn into something else.

Judgement Act
Offline
Adelaide, Australia

I'm going to break the habit I've had since 2012 and actually release music, it'll be great.

DBOYD
Offline
Olympia, WA

This will be my first time participating in Weekly Beats, though I knew about WB2014 I was still new to using trackers. My goals for WB2016 would be:

-Learning other trackers besides LSDJ
-Not being a perfectionist. This is one reason why I don't release music as often as I'd like. As well as...
-Not being lazy. Same reason as above wink
-Experimenting with my compositional process.

Tackling this on top of two other albums I'm working on will be hella crazy, but I'm striving for a track on all 52 weeks, even if it's just a demo or a draft, as long as it is complete from start to finish at least.

BOULDER D4SH
Offline
Finland

2014 i made all tracks with Live. 2016 i try to do all tracks with Maschine MK1.

home taping association
Offline
Newcastle - UK

i want to try and utilise external hardware a little bit better.  i've snapped up some volcas and pocket operators so want to try and include them in my workflow a little bit more.

and to understand what a compressor does...

spry
Online
Cincinnati, Ohio

im so glad to see so many great/enthusiastic responses to this.  i was surprised in 2014 about how many returning and new people decided to participate and im glad to see theres still a bunch of people interested.  its a great concept in general and just the idea of doing something publicly keeps you honest to the intentions you have in going into it.  something i also want to do in 2016 is maybe hopefully listen and respond to more of my peers submissions :X it takes a lot of time to both make and listen to submissions but since im hoping to cut my time down to an hour on studio time, it might make more sense to listen for a few minutes too!

Breakmagos
Offline
York, UK

I'm hoping to incorporate a lot more live instruments, voice and hardware into my work this year. I've been revisiting my youth a lot in 2015, listening to a lot of Punk, Grunge and Indie Rock so am hoping to (somehow??) incorporate those influences more into my electronic works. I too would like to listen to more others work than I did in 2014.

laguna
Offline
Madrid, Spain
spry wrote:

... something i also want to do in 2016 is maybe hopefully listen and respond to more of my peers submissions :X ...

I think that's the key. When I did my first WB back in 2012 I kept it all to myself, with almost no feedback and hardly ever listening to other people's music. When I got back in 2014 I started feeling this more like a community and less like "homework". Truth is I produced some music in 2015, but missed all the great musicians that were a true inspiration throught 2014.

As a personal goal: I want to improve my Reaktor skills, finally learn some Max For Live, use my recently learnt Chuck skills and finally get to use Maschine and Arturia SparkLE.

I've collected some new gear and got rid of some other hardware. I built a simple modular synth. Now I want to put all my software to good use so I could feel I'm getting the most of my current setup.

I think I'll be very interesting to hear other people's work this year. Maybe more sharing between us (collabs, samples, source code...)

Lyons
Offline
Melbourne, Aus
laguna wrote:
spry wrote:

... something i also want to do in 2016 is maybe hopefully listen and respond to more of my peers submissions :X ...

I think that's the key. When I did my first WB back in 2012 I kept it all to myself, with almost no feedback and hardly ever listening to other people's music. When I got back in 2014 I started feeling this more like a community and less like "homework". Truth is I produced some music in 2015, but missed all the great musicians that were a true inspiration throught 2014.

I can totally relate to that. If you remember '12EPs' (Weekylbeats spinoff in 2013) it was almost the same format except there was no commenting on tracks which meant that nobody got to communicate. I finished it along with 3 others but there was no community and it just felt like homework. WB14 was a completely different experience.

Dkstr
Offline
Helsinki, Finland

All hardware this year. Octatrack as the "daw", Analog Four, Dreadbox Erebus, Microbrute and some other stuff. More interested to do jam sort of songs than compositions with clear verses etc.

bgrier
Offline
Edmonton, Canada
Devieus wrote:

... this year I'm not going to touch a single note, none, instead I wrote/am writing a proc-gen music generator to get closer to music theory. I have 0 control over the outcome, but aim to change parameters every week so I do actually work on my songs.

/sits up and pays attention/

Can't wait to see what the algorithm comes up with ;D

bgrier
Offline
Edmonton, Canada

Fell off the bandwagon after changing jobs a couple of times and had shifting priorities. Things are stable again so I have time to revisit this. Looking forward to refreshing my engineering skills and improving my musicianship. Mostly iOS and lite-DAW, though fascinated by synth/strings.

sinewave
Offline
Stockholm

My WB 2k12 was done entirely on the OP-1. It featured heavily in 2k14 too but I added some PD stuff and modular. This year (and last), I am now a "registered composer" at Elektronmusikstudio in Stockholm so I'll be using the Serge and Buchla modulars there from time to time. But there are countless other experiments to be carried out too...most likely many will be featuring the device I have invented (with friends) in my day job...automat.

bryface
Offline
vancouver, canada

- i got an iPad this year, so i'll probably spend time figuring out different ways to use it for DAW-type stuff, recording, mangling etc.

- still don't feel like i'm adept enough at most desktop DAWs so i'll probably steep myself more in them

- will try to establish reusable workflows for live recording and/or sound design

- increased focus on getting more confident with mastering, multiband compression, cleaner mixes, etc.

already did the full 52 last time, so i'm not feeling as much pressure to satisfy EVERY week.

iLKke
Offline
Psydney

2014 for me was about getting from the groovy loop stage (something I used to get stuck at a lot) to something that is interesting for at least 1-2 mins. Six months in I got much better at that thing but realised it takes A LOT more when I want a proper 4 min-ish track with plenty of meat on its bones.

2016 My first focus is going to be on writing melodies as opposed to say sound design. I have some ideas where I might go from there but I'm gonna let things move freely. Also I hope to try some things off my sizable list of ideas that I keep adding to but almost never read.

But I'm really here for the good company wink