WB just ate all my text here ... sigh. Here we go again.
Longest song of the series warning, of the year, wall of sound warning, and extra long text warning part 5. Also part 5 of Titan City Nights, the final part, for now. Gave it my usual shitty AirPods test listen and it made me cry, so it can't be that bad.
‹ story
Running up the fire escape, playful steps behind me, this stupid giddy excitement like we're kids, memories of a childhood I never had, he probably never had either, making up for lost time all-grown-up, driven by sweat and sex and the anticipation of some brief moment of escape from the chaos of the city below, the stifling fog, the perpetual smell of rust and hot copper on the wind, the rain, always the rain, pouring down now as we reach the summit, blinding me, crack of thunder and the rare flash of lightning and then the clouds roll away like ink in water and -
He stops just behind me, weak in the knees, silent, both of us slack-jawed and staring at the sky. Our eyes adjust to the void and we see the stars shining back.
Not the rain, now, clouding my vision, just tears.
I feel a hand grab onto mine, squeeze tight, look over at a smile glistening with the departed rain. He kisses my cheek, an unexpected act of tenderness in a quagmire of need and want and urgency. I take a breath and know there's time for all of that later.
The glass horizon shudders, and Titan announces its rising with a burning yellow haze.
We slide down together, back to back, lie down head to head, and watch the stars as they flee from the day to come.
‹ LONG composition notes but read if you ever had questions about this series
This is another live performance with semi-modular/modular gear:
Subharmonicon bringing the twinkling of stars
ASM Hydrasynth as the voice of the cosmos
Moog Grandmother as the roar of Titan rising
Pulsar-23 as the pulse of the city
Various effect pedals and modular effects
Recorded to a 1010 bluebox eurorack version.
Unlike the previous tracks in this series, *I did not edit this one down for time*, the Moog grandmother parts have been rearranged and everything was mixed etc in daw, but the Hydrasynth and Subharmonicon are their full length performance, so if you were wondering how these tracks sounded "live", this is pretty close.
There were a couple questions as to how I was making this music, so here's a few answers!
It starts on the live setup, usually with the "soul" of the track, and for this series that was most often the Hydrasynth. This is essentially a sound-bed of sorts, and the hydra's extensive modulation options and really fantastic macro setup allows for a huge amount of "performability" in its patches, so this really does become the heart and soul of the performance.
Pulsar-23 is my dream/nightmare drum machine, and I tend to use it as often as possible - in these tracks, somewhat percussive but mostly atmospheric elements. Essentially it's the heartbeat of the song, and the heartbeat of the city.
A note on Pulsar-23 if you are one of those considering it as a purchase: you gotta love the sound, you gotta love the bizarre and weird workflow, and you gotta love the accidents and complications. You also gotta realize that while it can sound great "raw", it really sings with effects - all of its oscillators have rich harmonic content that just blooms like nothing else when it hits reverb and overdrive. The best advice I can give if you are considering a Pulsar-23 is to binge as many and as diverse a collection of performance/instructional videos as possible. Make sure you like the sound, make sure you're excited about working with it and fucking around with alligator clips and wires and weirdness. Even then, you'll have to learn to love it once it's in your hands.
Grandmother plays that improvised expressive role - I usually build a patch with a lot of intention for the sound that it'll have, and then when I'm recording takes, noodle around and make a mess. I try to be as free as possible here because I know it's gonna be chopped to pieces in DAW.
And then other elements - like the subharmonicon - come in when I realize I need something else.
My modular rack, Microcosm and Zoia take care of most of the effects, and there are a lot of effects. I am a big fan of things that do micro-looping and textures because, well, it does a lot of work for me right out of the live rig.
My strategy for a week is to have a solid setup on the live gear done by Wednesday, and then I spend Thursday and Friday making tweaks and practicing and recording. I try to get 2-3 takes if I have time, but Friday night I gotta have everything off the rig and into the DAW.
DAW is mostly mixing and some edits/arrangements and generally a fair amount of repair. The fucking Microcosm just loves to let its follower-envelopes clip and pop and crackle if your audio input gets suddenly loud (hello Hydrasynth with its lack of internal limiter), and if you have a modular rig, you almost certainly have a noise floor.
I try to edit so there's a musical narrative, and then adjust elements to suit some kind of arc, though this is technically "ambient" so I try to not really get into structure so much as atmosphere/mood. There aren't too many effects added apart from spatial effects (reverb, mostly), sometimes some granular stuff if something needs it, and some gentle saturation before mastering (Ozone 12, and let me tell you, mastering this shit is a pain in the ass).
And then a shitty mp3 because of the size limitations at weekly beats.
Probably 12-16 hours of work total each week, with about 4-6 of those spent in DAW.
Enjoy!
The brassy pad at 5:59 is so good too. Oooh that magical arp around 9:18! 
Love the tension towards the end that releases so delicately. Excellent work! 
