More Tidal Cycles + Ableton Live and VSTs. This time I mostly worked with various Arturia synths, such as reproductions of the ARP 2600, Juno 6 (in my opinion, the star of this track) and Jupiter 8. I also tried out a new LinnDrum plugin that I recently bought.
I wanted to do something with an odd time signature again. This one has 5 beats in a measure. I did try to be a bit more consistent with the signature compared to last week's submission.
I made use of the sequencing possibilities in Tidal Cycles, so the arrangement was prebaked. I did manipulate the sounds (filters and so on) using a Launch Control XL.
I wonder if it would be fun to add the Tidal Cycles script that I used for this, including some notes I wrote to myself.
‹ script
-- patterns
let lead1 =
struct "1 0 0 1 <0 1 0>"
$ note "<e4 g4> <fs4 [b4 d5] b4>"
# "midilead" # midichan 0
lead2 =
struct "0 1 0 1 <0 1>"
$ note "g5 b4 <fs5 [a4 c5] d5>"
# "midilead" # midichan 1
lead3 =
stack [
struct "1 0 1 0 <1 0 1>"
$ note "<g5 a5> <fs5 e5>" # legato 1.3
# "midilead" # midichan 2,
ccn 56 # ccv (slow 8 $ range 40 80 sine)
# "midifx" # midichan 0
]
bass =
struct "0 0 1 0 1"
$ note "<e4 b4> <fs4 e4>"
# "midibass" # midichan 0
pad =
slow 2
$ note "<e5 g4 b4@2>"
# "midipad" # midichan 0
drumsA =
stack [
struct "1 0 1 0 0" $ midinote 36 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "0 0 0 1 0" $ midinote 40 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "0 < 1 [1 1]> 0 1 [1 1]" $ midinote 42 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "<1 0 0> 0 0 0 0" $ midinote 46 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "0 1 0 0 1" $ midinote 69 # "mididrums" # midichan 0
]
drumsB =
stack [
struct "0 < 1 [1 1]> 0 1 [1 1]" $ midinote 42 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "<1 0 0> 0 0 0 0" $ midinote 46 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "0 1 0 0 1" $ midinote 69 # "mididrums" # midichan 0
]
drumsC =
stack [
struct "1 0 1 0 0" $ midinote 36 # "mididrums" # midichan 0,
struct "0 < 1 [1 1]> 0 1 [1 1]" $ midinote 42 # "mididrums" # midichan 0
]
drumsD =
stack [
struct "1 0 1 0 0" $ midinote 36 # "mididrums" # midichan 0
]
{-
Game plan:
Lead 2 slider 1 is 6 at resting level
Start with delay send on lead 1 more or less all the way done.
Open it in the intro.
Start with pad vox filtered down and introduce vox once pad comes.
Then start filtering down lead2.
Then we lead 3 comes in, slowly filter out lead 1 and prepare for lead 2 coming back.
Then filter out vox again, maybe turn it halfway to the other sound it has.
But set it back to zero when pad finishes.
Bring back lead 1 to normal filter cutoff level.
Slowly filter out lead 2 during the break as well.
Then when the pad hits again after the break, slowly filter the vox in again.
Make sure lead2 is at default level again.
Filter out pad again when breakdown starts.
Filter everything else out later on as well. Lead 2 should be last to leave.
-}
do
setcps(145/60/4)
resetCycles
d1 $ seqP [
(0, 64, lead1),
(96, 168, lead1)
]
d2 $ seqP [
(16, 48, lead2),
(64, 96, lead2),
(128, 168, lead2)
]
d3 $ seqP [
(24, 168, bass)
]
d4 $ seqP [
(48, 96, lead3),
(112, 136, lead3)
]
d5 $ seqP [
(32, 96, pad),
(112, 160, pad)
]
d6 $ seqP [
(24, 32, drumsD),
(32, 48, drumsC),
(48, 80, drumsA),
(80, 96, drumsB),
(96, 136, drumsA),
(136, 160, drumsB)
]
. It would definitely be easy to add variation. With a true live coding approach (which is what Tidal Cycles is 'meant for') you would do this by adjusting the patterns in real time. However, with the approach I've taken here I could just as well prepare some variations that I can then sequence. So the limitation here was simply my imagination and perhaps also doing this in one go. 
) might have to give it a try