Posted by Grant

Grant

Musing on Day 300 and Thank You All

Notes and Musings No Comment
Well, it is day 300 of this Track A Day odyssey. It feels like I’m almost finished though there are still 65 tracks to make. Whew!
I must admit to being a little tired and to more than once regretting embarking on this journey in the first place.
It has however been very useful to me, not least in helping me overcome my chronic procrastination problem (though I am still procrastinating on reading manuals), but also it has helped me focus on the sounds that I like and on the sort of tracks I would like to aim for in the future. That alone makes it a useful exercise and a successful venture in my book.
I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to my beautiful and wonderful wife Lene without whose love and support nothing at all would be possible.
Also a huge thank you to those few but intrepid souls who have been following this journey. Knowing that you are listening has provided much needed incentive and kept me going when things got hard.
Also thank you to the amazing people at the iPad Musicians Group on Facebook who have provided encouragement, friendship, knowledge, and above all fun.
We’re nearly there Trackers!
Big Big Thanks to all.
Love Grant.
Grant

Day 299: Weds 22 June 2016

Audio, EDM, Tracks No Comment

Figure Of Speech (Blah Blah Blah):

I’m continuing to embrace my inner ‘blippy bloppy’ today with Figure 🙂

So after I made a thing in the app I exported all three parts to AudioShare via AudioCopy (if you are unfamiliar with Figure it gives you three elements to play with: a drum track, a bass track, and a lead track).

Once in AudioShare I treated them with FLUX:FX and Caramel then imported all the effected and uneffected parts to Auria for arrangement and/or assemblage.

Grant

Day 298: Tuesday 21 June 2016

Audio, Beatscape, Tracks No Comment

Icarus Summarizes:

I have been continuing with my experimentations with the Abu Dhabi and Bilbao gadgets in Korg’s Gadget, and while it’s been fun I’ve struggled to make a whole track by beginning with them. So today I have combined three of these attempts into one track whose genre I am therefore going to describe as Patchwork Beatscape HipHop (hee hee).

I loaded some beats that I made in Alchemy and ElasticDrums into Abu Dhabi as well as using some inbuilt stuff.

I exported the tracks into Auria and spent ages collaging them together then finally added a two word vocal which I cut up and arranged into the timeline.

 

Grant

Day 297: Monday 20 June 2016

Ambient, Audio, Soundscape, Tracks No Comment

Crazy Mars Procession:

An Ambient Soundscape.

I began in Sparkle, doing a jam using a mixture of files made in TC-11, iElectribe, and iMaschine as both Source and Target (I confess to total ignorance about how Sparkle works, I just play with it and see what happens).

I then loaded the result into TwistedWave where I slowed it by half and lowered it by an octave. Then I lowered that by another octave.

All three versions went to Auria for arranging, where I also added a few moments of an iElectribe beat and some moments of a MicroBrute sample.

Grant

Day 296: Sunday 19 June 2016

Audio, Beatscape, Tracks No Comment

Dragonfly Rising:

A Beatscape today made entirely in Gadget. I really struggled to get anything today but must admit that in the end I’m very pleased with this.

I experimented with some Gadgets that I’ve barely used: BilBao and Abu Dhabi, loading two instances of each and using my own files to load into Abu Dhabi for cutting up (iMPC Pro). I must admit it was a lot of fun. I also used one instance of London and one of Darwin (for the bassline).

I also used AudioShare, Auria, ApeDelay, and Dedalus in the process.

Grant

Day 295: Saturday 18 June 2016

Abstract, Audio, Beatscape, Tracks, Vocalscape No Comment

Nit Picking (for The Lord):

I have no idea what to call this one, I’m going with ‘Abstract Beatscape/Vocalscape’ but I’m not entirely sure if that’s right, though it’s an accurate enough description I suppose. Which is fine, we don’t have to cater to obsessive genre labelling now do we? We don’t want to hand the world over to the marketing people do we?

But I digress.

This piece revolves around the juxtaposition of two elements; each one simple but filled with subtle changes, each coming and going and sharing the space in semi-regular but subtly changing ways.

At 9 and a half minutes it’s a fairly long track but, for me, the small variations and unexpected fluctuations hold my interest throughout. Let me know what you think.

The beat was made with Patterning and FLUX:FX in AudioShare. The vocal was made with Samplr, FLUX:FX, Auria, and AudioShare. Both were made on different days a month or so ago and have been sitting in AudioShare awaiting their moment in the sun. Today I put them both into Auria and collaged/arranged them as you hear here. (hee hee I said ‘hear here’ hee hee)

Peace out tracklings.

Grant

Day 294: Friday 17 June 2016

Ambient, Audio, Beatscape, Tracks No Comment

Indus Valley Sunday:

An Ambient Beatscape made from a simple combination of iMPC Pro, Shoom, and Auria.

I had difficulty today getting any results; I made three tracks but ended up throwing away two of them and even this one had to be rearranged several times until it finally swam into focus.

Grant

Day 293: Thursday 16 June 2016

Audio, Pianoscape, Tracks No Comment

Occasional Meanderings #1:

It’s been a while since I used my keyboard controllers and did a little electric piano stuff.

Not that I claim any real skills on the keys, but hey if I took anything from the punk/post-punk years it’s the idea that heart and passion and guts are more important than technical skills, you can accomplish a lot with a little. With luck.

You should certainly never let a lack of skills stop you moving, the skills will develop as you go if you give yourself a chance.

I began with Korg’s Module (my favourite iOS electric piano), I jammed it into Auria using the MicroBrute as a midi controller (the keys are small and it’s only 2 octaves but it will do in a pinch). Next I copied the audio to another two tracks, raising one by an octave and lowering the other by an octave, then panning them left and right and mixing them low, just to add a frisson of textural complexity.

I mixed this down to AudioShare and ran it through ApeFilter, reloaded it to Auria and mixed it in to add to the texture.

I had already cut out a few choice moments and added them to two different tracks with different echo effects, now I added a track with occasional hits that I had recorded with the MicroBrute earlier in the day (keep an ear out for more of these which I will be making to load into drum machines soon).

The final touch was the pièce de résistance which finally gave the track room to breathe and gave it life. I loaded it into my favourite Dedalus preset at 0.75 sample ratio.

Oh yeah, I like it slow. I always have a tendency to play too fast it seems 🙂

PS This is a nice example of how I like to work; a combination of jamming/improvisation and careful construction/collage. The balance between the two varying day by day and track by track.

Grant

Day 292: Weds 15 June 2016

Ambient, Audio, Tracks No Comment

It Doesn’t Phase Me:

A sort of Ambient piece today. I began with PhaseRings loaded in Auria and jammed 3 tracks with variations in sound and scales, but all within the one custom composition in PhaseRings. Then I loaded Phase84 and jammed 2 tracks of that with different sounds. Finally I mixed it down to AudioShare and ran it through Dedalus at 0.5 sample ratio.

Grant

Day 291: Tuesday 14 June 2016

Ambient, Audio, Tracks No Comment

In The Mood:

I seem to be in an strangely conflicted mood lately, veering wildly between very electronicy sounding dance/downtempo stuff and long abstract soundscape/ambient stuff. Today is of the latter variety, a nearly 16 minute three movement ambient piece.

The stars of today’s drama are Moodscaper for the first and third movements and Laplace for the second movement, supported by Auria, AudioShare, TwistedWave, Dedalus, ApeFilter, Crystalline, and FLUX:FX.

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