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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / scottux's music / Breaching the Atmosphere

Breaching the Atmosphere

By scottux on February 14, 2016 12:52 am

Equipment

:
These two Modular Synths
1. Miss New Boopy - https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/249067
2. https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/229628
These Guitar Pedals
1. Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl Mk II - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32qrmB103ao
2. Old Blood Black Fountain - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVdEBFWFqWE
3. Strymon Big Sky - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvH8Or_rkFY
And this sequencer
1. Novation Circuit

Before composing


Some background: Bryan Levay and I perform modular synthesis in a variety of genres and experiments. This song is one performance we'll be showcasing at an experimental music show March 5th. Our intention was to explore a sound-space that might hold optimism and excitement in the same breath as overwhelming fear, like astronauts leaving Earth's atmosphere must've felt in the face of such hostile conditions.

After completion


The song ended up being entirely too long! Dammit. Well, too long for the max filesize on this site. However, the entire performance is available here!


As for the intent, I think in our mastering we ended up compressing the audio too much, so some of the lower rumbly stuff ended up overpowering other elements in the mix.

BONUS SONG


I actually completed last week's song in time but forgot to upload it before the deadline! So you get a second song, and the same writeup I give any of my songs.

Equipment


1. Miss New Boopy - https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/249067

Before composition


I wanted to just explore the possibilities of this new modular setup and bring the Mutable Instruments Rings into my workflow, so this is largely an exploration of those concepts with little refinement. Also wanted to get a handle on my other new module, the Make Noise Tempi, and so all the dynamics and rhythmic investigations are the result of futzing with that.

After completion


I think I'd like to spend a LOT more time with the Rings and my pedal board. I feel like the textures it's capable of producing are just too tasty. I also think I need to get a longer cable for my RF Nomad, as I think it'd be really interesting to find what kinds of signals might be floating around my head that I wouldn't find otherwise.

Here's the second song!
[soundcloud]245554418[/soundcloud]

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

Missed your stuff last week, so I'm happy to have some bonus material. Maybe if you talk to Phil Harmonic he could create a link for you to upload it on its proper slot.

I'm myself studing some blueprints to build some Mutable Instrument clones (they're open source!). Some Cloud magic would be lovely.

Piece is nice, with some vague "hawaian" vibe because of those long "guitar" slides. Bass is solid and those noise sweeps remind me of a sea of waves and patching under the shade of a palm tree. Coconut modular it is? smile

About this week's piece. it feels more like a jam. Nice atmospheres and a lot of interesting elemnents, though it feels a little bit long IMHO and maybe would benefit from some edits. Anyway, I guess it's an Eurorack exploration after all, isn't it?

Your rig seems like a lot of fun, BTW

beautiful detuning, beautiful sounds

This is awesome--I love the major-key quality of this piece, as well as the fuzzy/floatiness. Excellent stuff!  (Also cool that you're using an RF Nomad, since I know Russell.)

laguna wrote:

Missed your stuff last week, so I'm happy to have some bonus material. Maybe if you talk to Phil Harmonic he could create a link for you to upload it on its proper slot.

I'm myself studing some blueprints to build some Mutable Instrument clones (they're open source!). Some Cloud magic would be lovely.

Piece is nice, with some vague "hawaian" vibe because of those long "guitar" slides. Bass is solid and those noise sweeps remind me of a sea of waves and patching under the shade of a palm tree. Coconut modular it is? smile

About this week's piece. it feels more like a jam. Nice atmospheres and a lot of interesting elemnents, though it feels a little bit long IMHO and maybe would benefit from some edits. Anyway, I guess it's an Eurorack exploration after all, isn't it?

Your rig seems like a lot of fun, BTW


Thanks, this rig is even smaller than my total rig, just putting together a portable setup for the show. And yeah, I agree entirely there's not enough going on to warrant the runtime. I even remember the day we recorded it I felt like we'd done like maybe 7-9 minutes of jam time and then I looked at the actual record length and was a little baffled. I even got my partner in crime to do a new mastering to avoid the sharp compression we're getting from one super loud bassy element. Wish I could re-upload. I'm gonna try to record the full performance and probably post some of it here that week. Good notes, man! Really helpful and encouraging feedback big_smile

yan_g wrote:

beautiful detuning, beautiful sounds


If you ever need this kind of perfect, analog detuning, I can't recommend the Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl MkII. It's a bit pricy ($350), but oh dear lord is it perfect.

onezero wrote:

This is awesome--I love the major-key quality of this piece, as well as the fuzzy/floatiness. Excellent stuff!  (Also cool that you're using an RF Nomad, since I know Russell.)


Yeah, I've been super into crafting sort of ominous or otherwise dark/mangled pieces using a major progression. Here's another example of that, an ambient piece I did some months ago that actually has a rather upbeat feeling despite it's slow movement.
[soundcloud]231782529[/soundcloud]

oh, wow, that is really amazing. great textures, amazing bass content!

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