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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / orangedrink's music / Erase The Hard Drives

Erase The Hard Drives

By orangedrink on July 12, 2020 10:10 pm

Still working upstairs with headphones and non-ideal speakers, my goal for the week is to fix up the basement and enjoy the new LIGHTS and ELECTRICAL SOCKETS that our electrician installed.  Next project is to investigate some sound absorption panels and maybe carpeting?


I'm in a grumpy mood, and did this track in about 2 hrs.  To me, the track is about the "partial triplet" of the synths vs. the kick pattern that moves from upbeat to four on the floor.  The mastering was just randomly dropping limiter and compression plug-ins but I actually kinda like it this time.  Really awesome synth samples from Machinedrum (he had a free set on that Converse Sample Library that seems to be down sad ) and the drums are from The Kount.  The repetition of the synth chord reminded me of a bad disk drive trying to force reading the disk, hence the title.  I'm working on the Digitakt because I'm trying to learn it more.  It's not as easy to "perform" as the Model:Cycles, but it is WAY more powerful.  Model:Cycles is a bike; Digitakt is a sports car w/nitrous oxide BOOST. 


Thanks for all the great comments last week.  For those of you just joining, I'm looking for advice on how to be a better musician.  Things that I want to do:


- Learn music theory.  I signed up for a free Coursera class and am trying to complete it.  I also have a good book about guitar music theory.  My thought was that learning music theory both on the piano and guitar would help me have a broader understanding and not get locked into the note presentation on a particular instrument.  Side note, this is why I love the Ableton Push - the grid presents the notes in a completely uniform fashion with no bias.


- Practice singing with a pitch detector.  I have some ideas on how to practice, but I hate it.


- Record some cover songs - good way to learn new chords, techniques, and will have a nice side benefit as advertising and potentially bring in a new audience


- Figure out a music practice schedule where I rotate between trumpet, drums, vocals, guitar, piano, and electronic devices/programming.  And set benchmark goals for each.


- Keep the studio organized.  Sounds silly but I realize that if the cables, power connection, instruction manual, and accessories for a synth aren't readily available - I'm not using it.  Gratefully I received some money from my online shows and have used that to buy new cables and drumsticks (I got metal brushes for the first time!) so everything should be a bit more organized and functional.


- Collaborate!  Best way to learn is from THE BEST - once I get the studio repaired, I want to record some odds and ends and share them with others for some potential collaborations!  If you are interested in working together, let me know.  I can send you a drum beat or a guitar riff or something and we can go from there.


Music goals for next week: 1) tidy studio  2) listen to all the week 28 tracks on my followed artists list 3) come up with a list of goals per instrument 4) send something to Lynden 5) work on the new website


Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike (BY-NC-SA)

Heck yes to that chord progression. And that beat. And the choice of pads. This is insanely cool.

EXCELLENT work. I'm glad to see you adopting the crunch time production approach 8| 2 hours well spent.

Sounds great! Good samples are inspiring

You have an ambitious plan, but I bet it will pay off dividends.  Keeping the studio space organized is a real issue for me, but I'm not great at keeping anything organized honestly.  But yeah, it sucks when you avoid using something because it's "inconvenient".  I'd be down for a collaboration sometime.  I could always use some cool drum beats to build on.  This track came out awesome, too.  You seem to be making the most out of your technical limitations at the moment.

good idea danceable, maybe more abrupt stabs, separating mixing would make it HUGE

gesceap wrote:

good idea danceable, maybe more abrupt stabs, separating mixing would make it HUGE

ooo tell me more about this idea - like panning all the various elements?

orangedrink wrote:
gesceap wrote:

good idea danceable, maybe more abrupt stabs, separating mixing would make it HUGE

ooo tell me more about this idea - like panning all the various elements?

Thoughts when listening
Stabs short decay, same length all
Mix the stabs mid range bandpass, maybe lofi filter?
Drums need low some highs, some stereo sep
Bass fill the low freq
Compress master etc

Glad you can put together great tunes like this in a couple hours, that’s a hefty list of goals, I hope you will still have time for weeklybeats.  Great use of samples on this one, like how everything has a chugging along momentum.

Mmm I really dig this. I agree with gesceap's feedback - it sounds a bit chunky. But I still dig it.

Also I really respect your conscious efforts to become better at your craft. I would like to do the same but I haven't committed to anything yet.

This track really starts to pop when the kick/snare come in. That's a very satisfying groove. I was expecting more motion/variation in the chords though over time especially because they're so jazzy - maybe a changeup to a major section. There isn't really a melody - not exactly necessary on a groove-based track like this but even three notes in the middle suggesting or implying a melody can go a long way especially if they're REALLY spaced out. For this I imagine a pretty minimalist melody.

There's so much to do with music theory. I really enjoy learning it but also learning how and when theory basically doesn't apply.

This made me move! Love those synths. Good feedback in the comments here. So much goodness here on WB. Nice goal list, goals and some target milestones are really good for moving forward. Exciting your studio is getting some improvements, that should feel great!

Bangin drums! Jazzy color to the chords sounds great against the rhythm.

Reilly Farrell wrote:

Heck yes to that chord progression. And that beat. And the choice of pads. This is insanely cool.

Thank you and thanks to Machinedrum for his chords!

spry wrote:

EXCELLENT work. I'm glad to see you adopting the crunch time production approach 8| 2 hours well spent.

Learned it from you, Obi-Wan!

7506 wrote:

Sounds great! Good samples are inspiring

Thanks so much!

CosmicCairns wrote:

You have an ambitious plan, but I bet it will pay off dividends.  Keeping the studio space organized is a real issue for me, but I'm not great at keeping anything organized honestly.  But yeah, it sucks when you avoid using something because it's "inconvenient".  I'd be down for a collaboration sometime.  I could always use some cool drum beats to build on.  This track came out awesome, too.  You seem to be making the most out of your technical limitations at the moment.

Thanks, I know the more organized I am, the faster and more ambitious I can be - hopefully with some quality of life improvements like lights, electrical sockets, AND A COMPREHENSIVE INSECT DEFENSE SYSTEM - I can do more!  I got you down on the collab list!

Ipaghost wrote:

Wait that seems like a bad idea, no?

gesceap wrote:

Thoughts when listening
Stabs short decay, same length all
Mix the stabs mid range bandpass, maybe lofi filter?
Drums need low some highs, some stereo sep
Bass fill the low freq
Compress master etc

Thanks for all your tips, I realize that there is a lot I can do with mastering software once I move back into the basement!  Great notes, I really appreciate it.

Jason Nijjer wrote:

Glad you can put together great tunes like this in a couple hours, that’s a hefty list of goals, I hope you will still have time for weeklybeats.  Great use of samples on this one, like how everything has a chugging along momentum.

WeeklyBeats is priority #1!!!  Thanks, this felt dancey to me.

license wrote:

Mmm I really dig this. I agree with gesceap's feedback - it sounds a bit chunky. But I still dig it.

license wrote:

Also I really respect your conscious efforts to become better at your craft. I would like to do the same but I haven't committed to anything yet.

I'm definitely not perfect at meeting any of these goals, but I'm trying! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Arcana wrote:

This track really starts to pop when the kick/snare come in. That's a very satisfying groove. I was expecting more motion/variation in the chords though over time especially because they're so jazzy - maybe a changeup to a major section. There isn't really a melody - not exactly necessary on a groove-based track like this but even three notes in the middle suggesting or implying a melody can go a long way especially if they're REALLY spaced out. For this I imagine a pretty minimalist melody.

There's so much to do with music theory. I really enjoy learning it but also learning how and when theory basically doesn't apply.

Thanks so much!  Yeah, unfortunately the chords are samples - I would have loved to have changed a note here and there to create a new section.  BUT I think I want to go back and pitch shift some of the chords to make a new section.  That could be cool.  I also wanted a melody but ran out of tracks!  I have an idea for a chiptune melody line that I would overlay.  Thanks for your ideas and listening!


miraclemiles wrote:

This made me move! Love those synths. Good feedback in the comments here. So much goodness here on WB. Nice goal list, goals and some target milestones are really good for moving forward. Exciting your studio is getting some improvements, that should feel great!

Thanks!  Yeah, WB crew is the BEST (yourself included, buster!)  Hopefully this is the week!

NWSPR wrote:

Bangin drums! Jazzy color to the chords sounds great against the rhythm.

Thanks my man!  Machinedrum did those chords and had them on a sample pack - his chord choices are so exquisite; he inspires me to learn music theory!

Love how the chord stabs interweave with the beat.  I envy your to-do-list.  I need to organize myself a bit better.  The desk gets messy and then the actual computer with the desktop oof even more of a mess!  (Untitled folder2, Untitled folder11ty)  Here's to knocking some of those off that list!

dude this is a straight banger!

this is me trying to breakdance to it:

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