Oxidizer
By onezero on February 28, 2016 10:34 pm
Kind of an evolving piece here. Lotsa guitar, lots of changes during the creation process, and only becoming a thing at the very end. I started with a drum machine line using glitchy samples from a Visco Space Drum, with an 808 for contrast. Then another drum machine line using some single-hit samples from a hand drum I have, and...there was a kind of groove. I added a number of potential bass and pad lines in Operator...but removed them during the week, keeping only one (sine-tone with a sine-wave tremolo from auto-pan). After tracking guitar (three different Moderne parts and one Res-O-Glas part) and bass (80s Epiphone), the Visco stopped sounding interestingly glitchy in this context and started sounding wrong--particularly on the hat, which sounded like a robot stepping on a wet 4-bit sponge over and over.
To replace the Visco, I went with another track of single-hit 808 samples, which then opened up the potential for comb-filtering and frequency collisions with the other track of 808 samples. On the kicks, I got around that by checking with Spectrum, and applying both filtering (within the Impulse instrument) and nudging the pitch on the kick (which also got them out of the way of the fundamental of the bass). Then the guitars--some of which used the Amp plugin on the Fendery setting--started sounding squelchy. So I replaced both the Saturators on several channels and the Amp plugin with the Overdrive plugin, each set to different frequency curves and amounts. Across the board, it sounded a lot better.
Everything got some auto-pan for L-R variation, while MIDI channels got Humanizer (max delay of 32 ms) and additional auto-pan for slight random volume fluctuations. Send channels: two Convolution Reverbs, one using the Bigger Spaces/Very Large Cathedral impulse (preceded by an effective bandpass with two auto-filters), and one with the Ambience and Small Room/Medium & Bright impulse. I also used a Filter Delay send channel on the Res-O-Glas, and a channel of Buffer Shuffler 2.0 (randomizing on 16ths, left and right independently) on guitars and the one Operator pad. The whole mix got the Full Chain Master.
The result? Well...kind of grooves in places. A struggle to put together and mix. The title comes from week 8: atomic number 8 is oxygen--just try breathing without it.
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