Archive for the Beatscape category
Grant
April 10, 2016
Day 226: Sunday 10 April 2016
Auxiliary Trilogy:
You may have noticed that I like series; images and sounds and tracks that fit together to make a larger whole. Sometimes I present them in the form of a playlist and sometimes, as here, I fit them together in one track.
I’m not sure which is the best strategy. Perhaps it depends.
Anyway this is a Beatscape/Soundscape in three parts.
I began with Auxy, an app that I got some time ago but never tried. I’m sure my initial play only scratched the surface but I quickly got something that I liked, and you can’t ask more from an app than that 🙂
I jammed into AudioShare by muting and triggering the parts, then did my fav trick of slowing it down in TwistedWave and effecting it with Dedalus. So I ended up with a track at 72 bpm which sounds like me. Cool.
But I was looking for something a little darker, a little harder. So I effected it with Muckraker and with Caramel to see which would give me the distorted edge that I was looking for. I liked both results so I loaded all three into Auria, panning each distorted version one left and one right and mixing them quite low so they provided a textural flavour without overwhelming the sound.
So far I was loving it but felt that the initial arrangement could be improved, so I did a little cutting and pasting. Once that was achieved I still felt it needed more darkness. Or perhaps abrasiveness is the word I’m looking for.
Earlier in the week I had used a flute sample by DJ Puzzle to make a drumbeat in Patterning which I feed into Grain Science and got some wonderful feedback like metallic-sheetmetal-on-the-chalkboard-of-your-soul kind of sounds, and I thought they would compliment this track. So I added them and cut/arranged them to suit.
Thus was finished Part One: Auxiliary.
I loved the combination of the feedback sounds so much that I felt they deserved a track of their own. I combined them and timestretched them to the same length. I felt they needed something else but wasn’t sure what, so I trawled my folders of sounds looking for a match and found a File that I had recorded last year using Thor.
Thus was finished Part Two: Ancillary.
Now, these two tracks obviously belonged together but they didn’t seem to be a complete thing so I went back to Part One and made a more compact, succinct version that I felt rounded out the story and the journey.
So if you are interested:
Part One: Auxiliary is 0.00-4.03
Part Two: Ancillary is 4.03-7.00
Part Three: Auxillary Reprise is 7.00-9.06
Thanks for your attention. Peace Out.
Grant
April 6, 2016
Day 222: Weds 6 April 2016
Jason’s Magic Flute (The Cast Assembles):
The story of Jason’s flute sample continues. DJ Puzzle supplied a sample of himself playing the Bansuri flute and I’m seeing what I can make of it.
In this track I’ve loaded the sample into Patterning for some manipulation and beat making, I’ve also revisited yesterday’s iSpark beat but added some more to it. I recorded both into Auria at the same time while muting/unmuting parts of iSpark and playing some sounds manually.
I had previously recorded the Patterning beat into AudioShare with Dedalus while doing the muting/unmuting thing, and I loaded this file into Grain Science and got an almost metallic feedback sound that I adore. I ran it through TwistedWave to slow it and add a little more texture, then added it to the Auria project. A little cutting and arranging completed the composition.
Grant
April 2, 2016
Day 219: Saturday 2 April 2016
Waiting:
A Beatscape.
I made this on my iPhone while sitting in the car waiting to pick my son up from school.
There are two apps that spring to mind as sure fire track makers; one is Alchemy which I used two days ago, the other is iMaschine which I have used here. I find both apps so inspiring to use and almost always come up with something that I like whenever I use them. Here I have used the older first version of iMaschine because that was on my phone, the newer iMaschine 2 is more versatile still.
I made this beat and simple bassline at 100 bpm recording it into AudioShare while muting/unmuting parts and FX. I really liked it, but decided to try it slower as that often seems to really open things up. Instead of just recording it again at a slower speed I decided to visit another fav app of mine TwistedWave, you have probably noticed how often it gets used on this blog. The reason is that while I really really like things slow, I also like the artifacts that this apps algorithms add to the sound. It adds a texture that really suits my music.
Finally I ran it through Dedalus which is a another great app for textural goodness.
Grant
March 31, 2016
Day 217: Thursday 31 March 2016
Beat Me With An Ostrich Egg (Till The Yolk Runs Out My Eyes):
Beatscape.
Beats provided by Alchemy and iSpark, effects by Wow Filter, arranged in Auria.
The vocals were sang straight into Auria for another project and effected with the inbuilt reverb and echo. I cut out two snippets for this track.
Peace Out.
Grant
March 30, 2016
Day 216: Weds 30 March 2016
Grace Under Fire:
An Abstract Beatscape.
Today I used Alchemy;Â honestly every time I open this app I get a track. It’s so easy to use and inspiring.
I made two related pieces with some variations on sounds, and loaded both into Auria along with a track from iPulsaret that I made 2 days ago using an iMaschine file and effecting it with ApeFilter and Crystalline in AudioShare.
Grant
March 28, 2016
Day 214: Monday 28 March 2016
All Will Be Still:
An Ambient Beatscape with Spoken Word.
Today began with Xynthesizr which I enjoy but don’t use often; I made three ‘songs’ with related scales and bpm’s and jammed them into AudioShare, switching between them and altering parameters as I went. I did this twice and got good but quite different results both times which I effected with Dedalus.
Next I put both into Auria and combined them along with a simple beat from iSpark, again jamming between settings as I recorded. Next I cut out one bass drum hit and repeated it occasionally in it’s own track and effected it with Crystalline.
I felt it needed something more, something abstract; so I turned to iDensity which I loaded with a Module electric piano track in all 4 positions. The result of that was feed into Grain Science and effected with Crystalline and Bias FX. This was then added to Auria and arranged.
The final ingredient was the vocals, I wrote the words and then recorded them using AudioShare, AUFX:Peak, and AltiSpace.
The Video:
iColorama, HyperDroste, PicFrame, Pinnacle Pro, CinemaFXV. In that order 🙂
Grant
March 26, 2016
Day 211: Friday 25 March 2016
Scratching At The Dawn:
Ambient Beatscape.
This is a combination of just two elements, both of which could be a track on its own I feel, but together they are better still.
First I made the beatscape using Patterning set to 20 bpm for a slow and sparse feel. Recorded into AudioShare with AUFX:Dub (using the Drifting Loop preset) while muting and unmuting parts.
Second I did a jam with Cube Synth using a similar technique ie recorded into AudioShare with AUFX:Dub; but this time I switched between three different bass patches in Cube Synth that I had made earlier.
Both times it took two or three attempts before I got a composition that I was happy with.
I made them one after the other and they felt like they belonged together so I loaded both into Auria and bingo!
Grant
March 22, 2016
Day 208: Tuesday 22 March 2016
Hobnailed Boot Shuffle:
A beatscape.
Patterning was used for the beats; several drum kits of my own were used and all recorded into Auria for mixing. Then an arpeggio from Addictive Synth was added. The result was imported to TwistedWave where it was slowed by 80% and lowered by 400 cents. Then that was loaded into Dedalus and slowed again. The result is therefore 20 bpm.
Oh yeah I like it slow!
Grant
March 20, 2016
Day 206: Sunday 20 March 2016
Slight Returns Forecast:
Dark Ambient Beatscape, perhaps?
The arpeggio began in Addictive Synth and was textured and slowed in Dedalus before being joined in Auria by the beat; which is a version of the one used in yesterday’s track using iSpark, AudioShare, Dedalus, Muckraker, Caramel, Emo Chorus, AUFX:Dub, Nebulizer, and Sliver. I added another shortish Addictive Synth part which I then time stretched and treated with the inbuilt chorus. The final touch was the bell sound, for which I used FM4.
Grant
March 19, 2016
Day 205: Saturday 19 March 2016
These Beta Blockers Are Making Me Thirsty:
A Beatscape.
I used iSpark for the beat and Addictive Synth for the bass. Recorded with AudioShare and arranged in Auria. Effects used on the drums are: Dedalus, Muckraker, Caramel, Emo Chorus, AUFX:Dub, Nebulizer, and Sliver.
The initial beat from iSpark was 27.25 bars long at 60 bpm, I recorded it into AudioShare and then recorded versions of it using the different effects; I tried others but only used the ones I’ve listed. That left me with the original beat and six effected versions, I loaded all seven into Auria and did a little panning and mixing of volumes. Then I did some cutting and pasting and arranging and muting until I had this composition sketched out.
Finally I turned to Addictive Synth for the bass arpeggio which I kept short and simple. Incorporating it into the mix required a little more arranging.
Musing:
It is difficult when making music like this to know when to stop or what else might be required, we have so much potential at our finger tips. For example I could have carried on adding sounds and parts to my hearts content. But it does feel finished to me, so I’ve left it here.
Of course part of the nature of this endeavour (posting one track each day) is that I must work quickly and I don’t have the luxury of excruciating over tracks and decisions. Which perhaps is leading me to a certain type of composition and a certain type of working.
There is something to be said for working quickly; hopefully it means I’m working from the heart and the gut, and not giving my misgivings and sense of inadequacy time to impose it’s usual dictatorship on my actions.