pizza pants percent
By wangus on May 22, 2022 11:56 pm
pizz pants % WR
DONE. 10 OP-1 tracks in 10 weeks straight. i am TIRED lmao, the OP-1 is wonderful but just not good for blasting out tracks this rate (at least the kind of music I like making).
I kicked off this week filling the "gaps" in the past 9 submissions, launching ideas in directions none of the previous went.
* Hadn't done any in B minor yet. (nor E minor, and only one each A and D minor). There's the key.
* Plotted the past 9 tempos on a number line, and there was a conspicuous gap between 130 and 150BPM or so. 138BPM it is.
* Somehow I didn't use the STRING engine at all? (i think?) So we kicked off with that.
* Once in the past 9 weeks I used random-mode ENDLESS sequencer, and that was probably the first I'd *ever* used the feature. So STRING pizzicato-ish sound, on a two-step random sequence.
* Aside from some intros/outros, a lot of the past 9 tracks have been "segmented" (for lack of a better word). The tracks develop, but it's like disjoint 8/16bar loops tied with short buildups/fills. I wanted some longer-scale dynamics. So we don't get any percussion till over a minute in, and even then, only a broken loop till over 2mins in.
* Some past tracks were lacking in drum beat variation. So here I nearly filled the FINGER sequencer with variations (also a lunkering negative-swing groove). If I started this more than 2 days ago, I would have done even more. The high tempo asks for all-over-the-place energy.
* Last week I loaded the OG OP-1 factory drum patches, which I hadn't touched since they were swapped out in the 2016 OS update. They're way goofier than I remember; harsh highs, weird kit construction (why are half the hits in MXD snares?), like 6 kits of glitch sounds. But there are definitely some really good sounds if you dig.
* I rarely use delay/echo effects? But prominent here. (including GRID with large X/Y values, instead of the small values I normally use to get bitcrush-y effects). (GRID with a tempo-synced LFO to feedback can sound awesome)
Some other things I like in this:
* Was digging into DSYNTH for some sound effects (the mode/filter ranges still make no sense sometimes...), and stumbled on an effect I had never acknowledged before, that the oscillators can be pushed into some sort of frequency-reflecting behavior (aliasing? just a consequence of the modulation algorithms?). So you can get the apparent pitch of the note to go down when you play keys up. Weird.
* Using the "white" range of SPRING to great effect here. It's normally super unhelpfully clangorous, and you have to dial it almost fully blue to be useful, but here the metallic timbre is doing good work.
* Used most synth engines: CLUSTER, DR WAVE, DSYNTH, FM, PULSE, SAMPLER, STRING, VOLTAGE. All but DIGITAL, DNA, and PHASE.
* Prominent use of every effect engine! It's not hard to use all of them if you're trying to, but I think it's rare for them all to come up organically in the creative process. (examples: CWO on the main drum beat. DELAY on the main strings. GRID to "break" the first percussion. NITRO is bread-and-butter like a stupid EQ. PHONE subtly glitching chord pads. PUNCH beefing up square-wave bass. SPRING for shockwave impact.
anyway, long story short, i'm super happy with this track as a conclusion to the OP-1's term in my WB2022 journey. It'll be back sometime I'm sure, but I have so much other gear I want to pick back up...
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