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the metal tide

By neon liminal on April 21, 2024 9:38 pm

Alternate title: "Whoops, it's techno." Also, fair warning, this becomes a big hard wall of sound.

We started the week off deciding to emulate a Soma Cosmos in VCV Rack, and use it as an effects rack in Ableton, with the intent of having the Soma Lyra8 and my lovely PRS guitar serve as audio sources for an improvisational, relaxed, distortion and echo-laden ambient track. There were some recordings, there was a lovely guitar riff (my skills are out of date but wasn't bad), there was some tweaking.

The Cosmos patch started having some issues which I couldn't resolve in an easy manner (the signal would randomly pan hard left), so I ended up building something similar with stock Ableton stuff in an effects rack .... more improvisation....

... and then "hey, let's put a kick behind this" .... "hey, let's add an acid lead" .... "hey let's throw the BPM up to 130 WHOOPS ITS TECHNO"

Also new this week: experimenting with a techno rumble, letting excess reverb/delay tails make a texture, and using some hard compression and distortion on my drums.

I think I achieved something pretty hardcore and a good drone, and pretty much all on the tonic. One lesson I learned - I tried to "lead" this with the Lyra, then I tried to "lead" this with the acid, but it came down to the drums to make some structure. When in doubt, look to the drums.

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I'm a fan of the techno rumble.  This is a good banger with lots of nasty acid line.  Kickin'!

Fucking slaps! Those drums are so thick and heavy and the acid bass, my goodness.


Fucking hell, that 2:13 mark hits so good.  That was a lot of fun.

I don't even know if I can tell where the guitar went, maybe you can post the original somewhere sometime, just for fun
Meanwhile, good song, with techno being very sneaky like that
- Ebrit

And what a glorious wall of sound it is!

I liked when it was brought back a notch at ~1:40 or so…which made the punch at 2:15 feel damn near ecstatic. Great build up to the end. I want to hear this over a huge sound system and let the wall of sound just wash over me. Great stuff…and even better because “whoops!”

this is sick! loved the acid, great track

Dang this goes hard. Really cool how the synth texture and overall feel shifts throughout. Before I knew it my face was melting lol

THIS TRANSPORTED ME
WTF NEON LIMINAL
heart

Lyra 8 for techno? I was intrigued before I hit "Play", but I can't really hear it in the end result big_smile

But since the acidline is excellent, I'm not complaining.

rdomain wrote:

I'm a fan of the techno rumble.  This is a good banger with lots of nasty acid line.  Kickin'!

Daddy's first rumble! I haven't used it much because as much as it sounds great when done well, and I love its origins, most of the time when I watch a YouTube video on "BETTER RUMBLES" they sound like a mixing nightmare. So I tried to do it my way and I think I got a pretty good result.

BarristerPlong wrote:

Fucking slaps! Those drums are so thick and heavy and the acid bass, my goodness.

THE VAPORS that'll be something I need to record a vocal for and distort the shit out of it.


lament.config wrote:

Fucking hell, that 2:13 mark hits so good.  That was a lot of fun.

Thanks! Yeah that build was super fun.


Devieus wrote:

I don't even know if I can tell where the guitar went, maybe you can post the original somewhere sometime, just for fun
Meanwhile, good song, with techno being very sneaky like that
- Ebrit

Thanks! The guitar went into another song lol, maybe for the future (it didn't make it to this track). It was pretty good though so it'll make it to weekly eventually.


nedsferatu wrote:

this is sick! loved the acid, great track

Thanks man, means a lot, you make a wicked acid break!

Cursory wrote:

Dang this goes hard. Really cool how the synth texture and overall feel shifts throughout. Before I knew it my face was melting lol

OH GAWD NOT YOUR FACE!!!! I consider that a high compliment lol

jwh wrote:

THIS TRANSPORTED ME
WTF NEON LIMINAL
heart


heart<3<3 WHERE DID IT TAKE YOU?! heart<3<3

rplktr wrote:

Lyra 8 for techno? I was intrigued before I hit "Play", but I can't really hear it in the end result big_smile

But since the acidline is excellent, I'm not complaining.

It's basically been pushed into the background texture ... I actually did a few takes after posting cuz I wasn't happy with the Lyra part and wanted to work on the master more. But definitely texture more than lead so ...

.... challenge accepted! Week 18 will feature some Lyra techno, probably textured and a sampled instrument or something ... maybe a lead ... and more acid, because the solution is always more acid.

(... week 17 in the works already obviously, waiting to get recorded tonight, more live BS2 / Normand mono, also I figured out an issue with the last time I worked with that setup, notably, too much compression on the digitakt being fed into more compression on the multi-track I hadn't realized I'd left turned up and well ... it destroyed the drum line in mastering ... so hopefully this coming week will be better)

neon liminal wrote:


jwh wrote:

THIS TRANSPORTED ME
WTF NEON LIMINAL
heart


heart<3<3 WHERE DID IT TAKE YOU?! heart<3<3

pretty sure it was chicago.
that point in the night (morning).
am i back? am i a human again? what is happening over there? am i a human?
_neon liminal beat starts_
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOSH
I AM NOT BACK YET / I AM NOT A HUMAN AGAIN / I AM EVERY HUMAN
AGAIN
CRYING/DANCING/LAUGHING/

jwh wrote:

pretty sure it was chicago.
that point in the night (morning).
am i back? am i a human again? what is happening over there? am i a human?
_neon liminal beat starts_
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOSH
I AM NOT BACK YET / I AM NOT A HUMAN AGAIN / I AM EVERY HUMAN
AGAIN
CRYING/DANCING/LAUGHING/

LITERALLY DYING LAUGHING WHERE AM I

EXACTLY heart

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