Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
Starting January 1st 2024 GMT each participant will have one week to upload one finished composition. Any style of music or selection of instruments are welcomed and encouraged. Sign up or Login to get started or check our FAQ for any help or questions you may have.

Wanted to Fly

By miraclemiles on November 8, 2020 11:57 pm

Switching things up again this week! Decided to make a track with only sounds from hardware gear, and wanted to incoporate voice somehow. To make life harder but keep getting better, I decided I'd practice more video and capture the whole process as well. I recorded audio and video in three 1 - 2 hour sessions, Friday and Saturday. Friday was drums and bass. Used the Launchpad pro for the first time sequencing the model:cycles. Then did bass (and some surprise glitchy sounds) from the Circuit Monostation. Saturday was about vocals, so switched out the setup and did Mininova (again controlled by Launchpad - I like using the scale mode to keep me in key), Organelle and Kaoss Pad (which I don't think I ended up using anything from these due to being rushed to finish. Synced up video Saturday night and edited on Sunday. A little rushed in editing on Sunday, and again the video slowed me down a bit. I was documenting most of the process of creation, talking about it on video, which is different, and slows the flow. In the last minutes of editing, I stopped talking about process and just got into the zone and finished up. I'm going to go back and document it after the fact though. Will probably share that longer "process" video int the future. But since since I recorded the jam sessions while created this, and Live is awesome at video, I was able to create video synced to song that kinda feels live. Had one clip that wasn't cooperating with warping, so just turned that into a feature and added a part where time sloooowwws down. Kind of glad that happened actually, the slowing down stuff is fun. Made up the lyrics on the spot. Not sure about what or why, but that's what came to me: "Wanted to fly but got too high ...  when it's gone it's gone ... " something like that. Maybe the meaning will come to me.

AND super happy the election is over and happy with the outcome. Let's move forward!

Update ... here's the video. I couldn't resist getting weird. Used Zwobot (max for live modules), and let it pick new filter every measure. Nice and simple.

Cool video and neat to see a bit of your process.  I totally hear you about being relieved the election is over and with the result.  Election years always wear me out, but this one was really weighing me down.  This is a good soundtrack for beginning to move forward.

Love the video, man. Also really dig the vocals in this piece; trippy and a good fit for the music. Also cool to see someone playing with the model:cycles in such a fun way. I have the model:samples but haven't spent enough time exploring it; this is good inspiration. smile

Very cool bass lines and I like the weird vocals. Nice track.

I dig all the beat breakdowns!

The bass has an awesome tone here - fat and distorted just in a right way. The glitchy sound that you add here and there is pretty cool too. There is a tongue in the cheek vibe to this track that I really enjoy. smile

This sounds excellent. A great performance of your hardware and a appropriate documentation in videoart.

CosmicCairns wrote:

Cool video and neat to see a bit of your process.  I totally hear you about being relieved the election is over and with the result.  Election years always wear me out, but this one was really weighing me down.  This is a good soundtrack for beginning to move forward.

Thank you! Much relief for sure, but it still drags on in some ways. I think things will sort out just fine though. Soundtrack for moving forward, I like that idea!

hent03 wrote:

Love the video, man. Also really dig the vocals in this piece; trippy and a good fit for the music. Also cool to see someone playing with the model:cycles in such a fun way. I have the model:samples but haven't spent enough time exploring it; this is good inspiration. smile

Thanks so much, glad you liked, and thought video fit. I like doing weird vocals a lot. Model cycles is great, but really wanted to figure out some live playing on it, so the launchpad is helping with that. I had model samples for a while, then sold. It was really fun. Glad to provide a little inspiration.

djippy wrote:

Very cool bass lines and I like the weird vocals. Nice track.

Thanks very much. That monostation is so good at bass lines.

license wrote:

I dig all the beat breakdowns!

Thanks! Those slowdown parts? Wish I could say it was fully intentional. I guess it partly was, it was happy accidents that put me in that direction. Something to try more, so easy to play with time like that in Live. Was good to practive this hardware setup for some of our next jams too!

Kedbreak136 wrote:

The bass has an awesome tone here - fat and distorted just in a right way. The glitchy sound that you add here and there is pretty cool too. There is a tongue in the cheek vibe to this track that I really enjoy. smile

There is a little tongue and cheek vibe, can't be too serious I suppose. That monostation comes through on the bass, I was actually going to try for clean tone, but just rolled with what came out with less tweaking, going with the flow. Those glitches were some more happy accidents too, love when that happens. Glad I kept it.

Q-Rosh wrote:

This sounds excellent. A great performance of your hardware and a appropriate documentation in videoart.

Thank you! Glad the performance aspect came through. I thinking of some of these creations as videoart. Something I'm trying to explore more these days.

Again, really like where you are going with these videos, just adds a whole new layer, fun to watch the process of assembling the track and all the different hardware used. 

Jason Nijjer wrote:

Again, really like where you are going with these videos, just adds a whole new layer, fun to watch the process of assembling the track and all the different hardware used.

Appreciate hearing that! Glad you liked. I'm looking at footage now where I talked about the process, wow, the talking is a whole other layer to take in ... not sure I can handle it. Cheers!

YO this is awesome to see you switch it up.  I also recently discovered Zwobot (from a Model:Cycles video!) and want to learn to make crazy videos!!

Impressive work!

orangedrink wrote:

YO this is awesome to see you switch it up.  I also recently discovered Zwobot (from a Model:Cycles video!) and want to learn to make crazy videos!!

Impressive work!

Thanks very much! Zwobot is powerful and fun, but a little finicky and takes a bit of learning.

A groovy track especially with the bassline.  The slowed down glitchy parts are cool escape from the original groove.  Well done!

Tone Matrix wrote:

A groovy track especially with the bassline.  The slowed down glitchy parts are cool escape from the original groove.  Well done!

Thank you! Glad you liked!

emily wrote:

Oooh, that's lovely, thank you. I keep hearing about people seeing bald eagles. Someone on weekly beats ... my parents over in Western Washington state ... I saw a few this summer. Awe inspiring. Then I remember to pick up my smallish dog. I think he's eagle snack size, gotta watch out.

miraclemiles wrote:
emily wrote:

Oooh, that's lovely, thank you. I keep hearing about people seeing bald eagles. Someone on weekly beats ... my parents over in Western Washington state ... I saw a few this summer. Awe inspiring. Then I remember to pick up my smallish dog. I think he's eagle snack size, gotta watch out.

i somehow landed on "eagles picking up animal video's" one day - it was so scary but so fascinating!  we thought we saw one round here near the river once & they nest in a state park about 20miles from here - but we don't often see them

You need to login to leave a comment.
Login Sign-up