loch ness
By wangus on February 27, 2022 11:53 pm
M8 tracker, single track, all synthesized, no samples. raw internal render.
Last week I listened to not one, but two M8 one-track challenge pieces:
And with a bit less time for WB this week (and a couple non-inspiring sketches*), I thought I'd try it myself.
*Actually, two bits of influence toward this track:
- 142BPM brostep-y beat when I was playing with M8 + Expressive E touché
- Focus on wavesynth, from a quick Around the World recreation. MULT + WARP can hit some nice electric guitar/bass tones, and cranked further, gnarly bass hits.
The track started with the kick drum, made with only two operators in the FM engine. The other two became a bass tone, for a fat unified kick + bass. Wavesynth is the other main chunky patch in play.
(The snare started as a wavesynth placeholder, but ended up still wavesynth, just with some 400Hz table modulation for grit)
Tricks used to get more layered sound on one track:
* FM chords, of course. I used some janky detuning, and "mismatched" modulators (base frequency modulator on PIT-shifted carriers) for a grating sound sometimes.
* The combo kick+bass noted above. Fat.
* Long reverb on short notes to sustain tones.
* 100% feedback delay. This is the most notable piece of this track, I think.
The M8 can control all the parameters of the delay effect in sequenced FX commands. All over the place here, I dial up 100% feedback, and instrument delay send, but often initially with 0 delay mix volume, and 0 instrument dry send. So the instrument doesn't play where sequenced, but comes in when I turn up the delay output volume.
Things I wanted to explore more, but didn't have time:
* More variation of the bass tone. There are lots of knobs to tweak in these patches for lots of interesting timbres, but I didn't have time to run through the track adding automation al over.[/*]
* Altered intonation. Would have given some really cool tone to the second half, where I have the bass note modulating the other two in the chords.[/*]
* More development in the second half, harmonically, and coming back to the bass grit section.[/*]
* All-out micro-optimized delay feedback layering. With infinite looping delay, notes in the sequence can land in a different order in the delay feedback, and there's all sorts of interesting timing manipulations to be had with delay time and tempo/groove modifications. I wanted to make a brainteaser section, silently assembling a complex phrase to reveal when the delay volume is turned up.
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