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.

Caterer

By onezero on May 8, 2022 11:42 pm

Some unexpected turns this week: I noticed that the power cable for my Focusrite A/D was frayed, with bare wires. Turns out, that replacement part is out of stock everywhere, as is the nearest Novation/Focusrite equivalent. So I ordered a generic one with the same specs (12VDC, 1A, center+) while I work something out, whether that's from Focusrite, or a retailer that gets one in or something.

Except...the backup adapter's arrival was delayed from Friday to Saturday, and then to late Sunday. So this week's track is entirely in the box, with no physical instruments. (Finally I did get it, and it does work!) 

Having come up with some vaguely funky, but weird and slow drum parts, I went several rounds before finding decent instrumental voices to go with them. Having attended an Ableton meetup a few weeks ago, one local composer demonstrated how he likes to drop samples into Simpler and turn them into something they're not: melodic samples can be easily modulated into drums; drum hits can have a very short segment looped into a tonal instrument. So I went that way for a couple instruments.

Drums: 64 Pad Kit Rock, though with a touch of Corpus (membrane) for extra weird resonance. And, of course, the usual Max Humanizer.

Simpler: one floor tom sample with a short segment looped for bass, and one bowed/rubbed xylophone sample, for the vocal-sounding line.

Electric piano: E-Piano MkII Old.

Collision: High Pad.

Everything but the drums got auto-pan.

Sends: one Echo plugin, one convolution reverb, and one Valhalla Supermassive.

The title comes from the number 436 being in the Lazy Caterer's Sequence, but that sounds a bit pejorative. (Shouldn't it be the efficient caterer?)

Audio works licensed by author under:
Copyright All rights reserved

Very smooth, even without the physical instruments.
- Spider

finally getting around to listening to others' work! thanks for listening to some of mine back in the year.

this was was definitely brooding, almost like a slow heavy metal track, and then the electric piano gave it some creepy lightness in a sense.

always tricky with equipment failures, which then lead to...creative constraints! like how you went all in the box and played with some new techniques. well pivoted. onwards to your next ones!

also tell me more of this MATH (~lazy~ _efficient_ caterer's sequence)!

eoe.vibin wrote:

also tell me more of this MATH (~lazy~ _efficient_ caterer's sequence)!

Thank you! I should have linked to the Wikipedia page, of course,.

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