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.

WeeklyBeats.com / Music / rplktr's music / Same As It Ever Was

Same As It Ever Was

By rplktr on April 28, 2024 3:40 pm

stone out of focus

I welcome all critical feedback.

···

This week the project at the Disquiet Junto was titled "Stone Out of Focus". The prompt was to "record your impression of the sound of stone aging". The title is an obvious nod to Aphex Twin's track known as "Stone In Focus".

I rejected my first intuition, which was to create a static drone. Instead, I made an analog kit on Analog Rytm with sounds that reminded me of some of those grating sounds of stone processing. I recorded a 62 BPM groove with the kit, the tempo being sort of a resting heart rate. I also took into account the Aphex Twin angle, and lifted the chords from “Stone In Focus”, transposed to be in tune with the drum kit. I used two Moog Mother-32s to play the notes so there’s a stereo image there, and via the magic of vocoding melded them with the drum groove.

This was definitely somewhat out of my comfort zone to cull my intuition to add a true lead, a break, and make it more of a pop song. But the themes required some level of staticity.

···

62 BPM 4/4, G-major.

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

Really beautiful. I love the (fully wet echo/reverb?) lead that exists in its own space in the background, almost as if someone is playing in response from across a lake. And I love the groove.

And the Rytm sounds so good. I'm currently having an argument with the compressor in my Digitakt. We are drifting towards a new drum machine.

This works very nicely. Sure, the nod to stone in focus is obvious, but it's not like it's a bad thing at all. The repetition of the simple piece with the evolution of some of the effects and tones and colors is quite nice.
I can't imagine how hard it is to fight that impulse to just add more stuff - I feel it myself all the time. Great discipline!

Great track, the effects are used very effectively here. Love it smile

i'm really into this. love how much space you left in, and i can hear the stones getting older.

neon liminal wrote:

Really beautiful. I love the (fully wet echo/reverb?) lead that exists in its own space in the background, almost as if someone is playing in response from across a lake.

+1

the resonance that rises throughout the track builds intensity in a really nice way, can definitely feel a sense of mounting tension that lies unobserved until an eventual crack (a la stone)
good stuff

The rhythm of the drums is great, and I enjoy the building up of the lead in the background, like a second song emerging!

Love this! Nice space in the groove, and I like how the chords flow in sync with it. Yes to the magic of vocoding, can do so much. I think of very slow slow time when I think of a stone aging, but this tempo of resting heart rate feels good. It does remind me of some contemporary electronic sound and feel.

Panning and mixing are sooo nice here smile The airy pads/swells in the background are such an enjoyable sound. Feels like floating away, could really listen to this for a while. I wanted it to be longer! lol Thankfully I can just keep clicking play.

this is sick, nice track! favorited

well the title made me think of this:

i really like this - the soundscape is enjoyable - i love rocks and could sit with them an age and age - what a fascinating prompt!

Immediate awesome soundscape!   Love the grittiness and the sweet stereo mix sounds great.  The outro fx were a nice touch.  Love that Aphex track too, thanks for reminding me it had been awhile smile

Very cool! The percussive element of this track works really well. It gives it a lot of momentum and tension.

neon liminal wrote:

Really beautiful. I love the (fully wet echo/reverb?) lead that exists in its own space in the background, almost as if someone is playing in response from across a lake. And I love the groove.

And the Rytm sounds so good. I'm currently having an argument with the compressor in my Digitakt. We are drifting towards a new drum machine.

Thanks for pointing out the counterpoint theme, I was quite pleased how it turned out.
Rytm is the only machine I've got where even when it freezes up I'm not even mad. It just sounds great every single time.

jegasus wrote:

I can't imagine how hard it is to fight that impulse to just add more stuff - I feel it myself all the time. Great discipline!

Yeah, RDJ was a master of keeping things focused (pun not intended) with SAW2.

Sodabelly wrote:

Great track, the effects are used very effectively here. Love it smile

Thank you!

jwh wrote:

and i can hear the stones getting older.

That's a lyric piece if I ever saw one!

offbrand wrote:

the resonance that rises throughout the track builds intensity in a really nice way, can definitely feel a sense of mounting tension that lies unobserved until an eventual crack (a la stone)
good stuff

Thanks for your close listen!

alterationx10 wrote:

The rhythm of the drums is great, and I enjoy the building up of the lead in the background, like a second song emerging!

Thank you, the B theme is something I'm pretty happy about here.

miraclemiles wrote:

Yes to the magic of vocoding, can do so much.

Yeah, I should use that more!

Cursory wrote:

I wanted it to be longer! lol

Haha, that's my usual complaint around here big_smile

nedsferatu wrote:

this is sick, nice track! favorited

Glad you like it!

emily wrote:

well the title made me think of this:

Ha, this does fit in more ways than one!

Tone Matrix wrote:

Love that Aphex track too, thanks for reminding me it had been awhile smile

Yeah, I didn't know it back in the day as my copy of SAW2 didn't include it. It is a classic, though.

pineapple_dan wrote:

The percussive element of this track works really well. It gives it a lot of momentum and tension.

Thanks for the listen and the comment, Dan!

You need to login to leave a comment.
Login Sign-up