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Casiochord

By laguna on February 14, 2016 11:57 pm

Hello everybody. I hope you all have a great week, wherever you are !!!

This one's a compromise between working within the limitations of (old?) hardware and the magic of the DAW. I wanted to give life to a new cheap "oldschool" sampler I purchased but it needed some upgrades and that project will have to wait at least one more week. In the meantime, I dug into my archives and found this little sketch built using an Akai MPC 1000.

It was my first real usable program for the machine, built upon the (famous?) Casiochord mode of my beloved Casio PT-100. Those easy stacked squarewaves used as one-finger-bass striked me as the most futuristic thing when I was 9 so maybe I hope to strike a chord in some of you.

Drums are crappy Korg DDD1 samples chopped in the MPC and resampled through the internal FX until they weren't recognizable. Slight pitchdown on Ableton.

Those simple chords were sampled and resampled with some filter envelopes inside the Akai, then chopped again until I got some fat synth stabs. There's no real bass in the song, and it's just 3 tracks plus 2 sends.

I currently don't own the machine anymore but I respected the original arrangement and added some mastering and FX/atmosphere in Live 9. Chorus for the synths and more punch. Hope it's not too simple. I personally think it has some nice shuffled swing going on at least smile

There you can see the whole arrangement. There's not much to it really


Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Share Alike (BY-SA)

Nice use of automation. Love that bounce-back echo.

Jim Wood wrote:

Nice use of automation. Love that bounce-back echo.

Thanks Jim. Since my material is usually quite monotone, I need that automation to give it some interest smile


Sk-1 gif... close enough...

Ipaghost wrote:


Sk-1 gif... close enough...

Man, I know any teenager on Tumblr knows about them but... How do you get those amazing GIFs ? smile

Yes, close enough... Shall we let the Casio parade begin?

Peace

laguna wrote:
Ipaghost wrote:


Sk-1 gif... close enough...

laguna wrote:
Ipaghost wrote:


Sk-1 gif... close enough...

Man, I know any teenager on Tumblr knows about them but... How do you get those amazing GIFs ? smile

Yes, close enough... Shall we let the Casio parade begin?

Peace


I typically use:
http://giphy.com/
https://www.google.com/imghp?tbm=isch&a … p:animated
https://www.tumblr.com/search/gif

Select search for fast gif searching.
Easy image embed for fast bbcode img pasting.

Baller B) The synth and drums make a good combo

nothing like re-contextualizing an old tablehooter big_smile. Love how lush the filter sweeps sound on that PT-100!

casiochord (and yamaha's equivalent) are both very guilty pleasures of mine >: )

might try sampling some toy keyboards into my OP-1 for this week actually, cheers for the inspiration big_smile

Yum, I love how you processed the chords.

how nicely old skool! My head keeps on nodding non-stop!

Lovin' this!!  Hehehehe. It's amazing what you can get out of these units with some filtering / processing.  That tuned drum sound is spot on too!!

ah shit! try again

Alphaglitch wrote:

[/url]
Sk-1 gif... close enough...

?!? Your track this week was definetely dope, Alphaglitch

tim koch wrote:

ah shit! try again

Haha That's precisely it. I sampled a recent thrift store find: the Casio PT100. Fitted some jack outputs, but didn't "superpimped" it like that sweet one.

As a kid, however, I had this beauty. Well, he's still sitting a few meters from me, always in the studio:


This is the height of old school cool. Less is more and this track hits the spot. Love the use of old school tech.

Very cool track!

Considering that it's the same repeating chord pattern, this is not repetitive at all! Good job smile

Cool backstory on the casio.  I never got my hands on one when I was a kid.  Just one of those Yamaha PSR500 type deals smile It had like two sounds and a decent sequencer.  That being said, this is a cool track.  The chords have a nice mid range thickness to them and the drums definitely have a nice swing to them.  Nice work! smile

My first synth was a Casio VL-1, I wonder what happened to it? Cool track btw smile

Thumbs up.

Great track and thanks for sharing your process!

laguna wrote:
Alphaglitch wrote:

[/url]
Sk-1 gif... close enough...

?!? Your track this week was definetely dope, Alphaglitch

In support of this track, I was getting the Casio parade going with a repost! This track had me jumping around my room! Great work buddy!

Great track, thanks for sharing the workflow, really enjoy how you have something different each week

This is awesome--totally enjoyable beat, just lightly grimy texture, fun little surprises throughout.  I'm digging it.  Nicely done, Laguna!

man, you got a great movement in the sound with that automation! loved the pitched down brakes.

Great idea to do this and nice execution, sounds great, like the shuffle feel. Never played with a PT, but have fond memories of other Casio's when I was kid for sure.

hey i know i'm late but yes, it's groovy! i do think i hear some kraftwerk references there, right? autobahn middle part?

Very interesting piece, reminds me a bit of Kraftwerk smile

Thanks everybody and sorry for the late reply. If you read week 8 description you'll see that I had a busy project smile

Hope you're all doing well and I'll be looking forward to catch up with your music

Brackleforth wrote:

Baller B) The synth and drums make a good combo

Thanks, Brackleforth

license wrote:

Yum, I love how you processed the chords.

Akai envelopes are a little bit tricky and unintuitive IMHO, but when layered I discovered they could do some neat stuff... still learning !!!

dj someguy wrote:

how nicely old skool! My head keeps on nodding non-stop!

Thank you man! I really loved what you did with that 707 a couple of weeks back... you took me back to those R&S days smile

LydiaPrimate wrote:

Very cool track!

Thank you, Lydia. Enjoying every "ambient" release you're lately putting out


Edmund Snyder wrote:

Thumbs up.

To you, Sir! Don't forget to send some mixes my way so we could discuss some production

Sodabelly wrote:

Considering that it's the same repeating chord pattern, this is not repetitive at all! Good job smile

Thanks Sodabelly. I would give one arm to have your songwriting skils, so I'm flattered you don't find this one completely boring smile Really appreciated.

7506 wrote:

My first synth was a Casio VL-1, I wonder what happened to it? Cool track btw smile

I recently found a perfect VL1 for 5 euros, mislabeled as "defective" on a thrift shop! Thanks for listening, 7506

OP-1 Kenobi wrote:

nothing like re-contextualizing an old tablehooter big_smile. Love how lush the filter sweeps sound on that PT-100!

casiochord (and yamaha's equivalent) are both very guilty pleasures of mine >: )

might try sampling some toy keyboards into my OP-1 for this week actually, cheers for the inspiration big_smile

What was the name of the "casiochord" on the Yamaha? "autobass" maybe? I remember that schoolyard rivalry between the different models... Didn't saw a Yamaha PSR until my late teens.

Would be really interesting what magic can you do with some 80's stuff and your OP-1 skills smile


cTrix wrote:

Lovin' this!!  Hehehehe. It's amazing what you can get out of these units with some filtering / processing.  That tuned drum sound is spot on too!!

Thank you, cTrix. You really keep me pushing my skills and searching for inspiration with each and every of your releases... Hope we could share some E-MU love soon wink

And again, thanks for the shout out on your awesome DnB jam... I was flattered smile

cfurrow wrote:

Great track and thanks for sharing your process!

Thank you for listening. Hope I'm not getting too dense with all those production details.

Lyons wrote:

This is the height of old school cool. Less is more and this track hits the spot. Love the use of old school tech.

Sorry for the late reply, Lyons. THanks for the appreciation. It took me a while to appreciate the sheer simplicity of the MPC, though I went for his little sibling, the MPC 500.

Jason Nijjer wrote:

Great track, thanks for sharing the workflow, really enjoy how you have something different each week

Well, thank you for listening and giving your feedback. Sometimes to my ears everything ends sounding the same, so I'm glad you feel some variation here smile

onezero wrote:

This is awesome--totally enjoyable beat, just lightly grimy texture, fun little surprises throughout.  I'm digging it.  Nicely done, Laguna!

Thank you Maurice. That Jarvis Cocker GIF gave me my LOL moment of the week smile

Have you tried the MPC resampling? I guess you'll do wonders with it




matheusleston wrote:

man, you got a great movement in the sound with that automation! loved the pitched down brakes.

Molto obrigado, Matheus! It was kinda difficult to get something interesting from that box. The effect I'm using is not exactly a "break", but a combination of both pitched normal and down beats, so I fade out the normal and fade in the slow one in a quick transition... Good when there's no realtime pitch change available smile

miraclemiles wrote:

Great idea to do this and nice execution, sounds great, like the shuffle feel. Never played with a PT, but have fond memories of other Casio's when I was kid for sure.

Don't hesitate to grab one next time you find one. You surely could get it for next to nothing !

colorful grey wrote:

hey i know i'm late but yes, it's groovy! i do think i hear some kraftwerk references there, right? autobahn middle part?

m2K7 wrote:

Very interesting piece, reminds me a bit of Kraftwerk smile

Wow, it's flattering to hear there's some Kraftwerk here smile I was more into Dabrye when I made this one... well, I was more into "how come this box (the MPC) is so famous yet so f***ing LIMITED?" smile

I've been myself more of a "Komputer Welt/Tour De France" kinda guy, so I'll have to check "Autobahn" again smile

laguna wrote:


To you, Sir! Don't forget to send some mixes my way so we could discuss some production

I've been swamped, but I will get to it soon.

Así se hace, vamos! big_smile

Naikymusic wrote:

Así se hace, vamos! big_smile

Gracias, tio!!!

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