Archive for January, 2016
Grant
January 31, 2016
Day 158: Sunday 31 Jan 2016
Meditations On A Moonscape:
A Soundscape. Slow, sparse, with lots of space.
I feel myself being pulled in two directions at the moment; one is like this simple and sparse with silence and space as a central feature, the other is busy and crowded with different instruments and sounds. I need to allow myself time to explore both tendencies.
This track is related to yesterday’s because I began with one of my Poseidon jams which I fed into Borderlands Granular and did a 7 minute jam; it went through 3 distinct phases so I split it into 3 files. The third and most sparse is what you hear here. I loaded it into Auria and time stretched it and added reverb. My intention was to use this as the beginning of a more complex piece but it just really worked as is. The only other thing I did was to use an uneffected version on another track at a lower volume, this added a subtle clarity to the sound while leaving the reverb to work its magic.
I hope you enjoy.
Grant
January 30, 2016
Day 157: Saturday 30 Jan 2016
Once Upon A Time:
I’m not sure how to classify today’s track, some sort of electronica, that’s the best I can do. Any suggestions anyone?
It’s a whimsical piece anyway, fun, slightly silly.
Only three apps were used to make this; it all takes place within Auria, the beat is from Patterning, and all the other sounds are from Poseidon which is fast becoming one of my favourite synths.
I began with the bell-like tinkling arpeggio and built up from there adding sounds and arranging as I went.
Grant
January 29, 2016
Day 156: Friday 29 Jan 2016
Shut Up And Ampersand:
A Beatscape with Spoken Word. That seems to be thing lately 🙂
I have a few Sector files sitting around that I have made using different drum apps; for the purpose of cutting them up into arrangeable chunks. I took one of these, made using a heavily distorted DM1, and cut out some promising sounds which I loaded into Patterning and made a beat. I jammed this beat into AudioShare and treated it with Dedalus, then loaded it into Auria and used it as the backbone for today’s track.
I had earlier sung some half prepared words into AudioShare with Altispace as effect. Not as a final recording but as a memory aid for the rhythm and phrasing, I decided to load this into Borderlands Granular to use as a carpet of sound for the beat. The resulting file was slowed by 50% in TwistedWave, and both versions put into Auria and mixed low with lots of reverb.
I had also earlier given some classic B grade movie cliches to Trudi (if you haven’t been following along Trudi is a fictional character I have been developing, voiced with iSpeech TTS, AltiSpace, and TwistedWave), I now loaded these and sprinkled them along the timeline.
The final two elements were a drone from Addictive Synth and some piano chords from Lyra.
Grant
January 28, 2016
Day 155: Thurs 28 Jan 2016
Non Interference Policy:
Part Ambient Part Beatscape. Today’s track was difficult to pull off; partly because it took awhile for me to give it a shape and a story, partly because I can’t keyboard very well, and partly because I had various technical difficulties. Midi always gives me trouble.
One of the issues with trying to finish a track a day is that sometimes I feel the track needs more work. That is the case today. Perhaps I will return to this one day and try to polish it some more. Perhaps when, and if, I get a little more comfortable with midi 🙂
Anyway I used my Axiom Pro midi keyboard to record the synth line which was the start of this track. I began with TF7 but it refused to play nice with Auria (dropping out the sound and requiring restarts) so I moved to Poseidon. My keyboard skills are rudimentary so a little midi tweaking was required, after which I copied the midi to three more tracks: one to iSem for bass, one to Lyra for piano, and another to Lyra for electric piano.
The drums are from Patterning, one track with high hats was effected with Muckracker, and the other without the hats was effected with Caramel.
Grant
January 27, 2016
Day 154: Weds 27 Jan 2016
Returned Mind:
Beatscape/Spoken Word.
TC-11; synth abstractions. iSem; bassline. Patterning; beat. TwistedWave, Auria, and AudioShare; utilities. AltiSpace; effect. Auria also supplied reverb, delay, and compression.
Grant
January 26, 2016
Day 153: Tuesday 26 Jan 2016
My Clouded/Crowded Mind:
This Playlist is five tracks/one track, intended to be listened to in the above sequence. It/they are a combination of Ambient and Abstract Soundscapes which hopefully make for whole listening experience.
This has been building for a while; elements of these tracks where made today, yesterday, and last week.
The apps involved were: iDensity, Grain Science, Borderlands Granular, TC11, AUFX:Dub, AUFX:Space, SilQ, Auria, AudioShare, TwistedWave, and (in a first for this blog, a non iPad app) Absynth 5. I did two jams on my MacBook and used Dropbox to transfer them to the iPad for inclusion in these sessions.
Grant
January 25, 2016
Day 152: Monday 25 Jan 2016
Trial And Error:
I honestly don’t know what to call this; I’m trying to reapproach the guitar and fit it into my current music making. Still a little rusty on the strings.
I used BiasFX for the guitar sounds, recorded into Auria.
I began by programming the drums in Patterning then added an arpeggio jam with Addictive Synth. Once that was in place I jammed three tracks of guitar. Finally I removed parts of the beat, just to let the track breathe a little more.
It’s only about 80% there; mainly because my playing isn’t quite up to it, but also because I haven’t fully realised the concept yet. But I guess that’s ok, baby steps.
Grant
January 24, 2016
Day 151: Sunday 24 Jan 2016
(L)ove:
An Ambient Dronescape.
I made the dronescape using 4 tracks of Addictive Synthinto Auria, hitting the dice for random sounds and jamming with the ones I liked. Then I sang accapella into AudioShare (just whatever came into my head, which was about my love for my wife). I treated this file with Turnado and cut out my favourite bit which I blended into the drones to complete the composition.
Grant
January 23, 2016
Day 150: Saturday 23 Jan 2016
For My Best Friend:
A guitar jam recorded into Auria using ToneStack, plus a drone from Addictive Synth.
Sometimes simple is best 🙂
Grant
January 22, 2016
Day 149: Friday 22 Jan 2016
Heaven’s Smile:
A sparse Beatscape with drone and sung vocal (sorry about that).
A little silly perhaps, but I tried to sing one of my poem/lyrics. I began by using VoiceJamStudio and trying to build up something but I could not make it work (perhaps i am misunderstanding the app) anyway, I gave up and moved to Auria where I sang the main line and then tried to harmonise.
I then added a drone from Poseidon, a beat from Patterning, another beat from DM1, and a small segment of an earlier beat that I made with Cyclop, AUFX:Space, AUFX:Dub, Dedalus, and AudioShare.