Archive for the Beatscape category
Grant
March 3, 2016
Day 190: Thursday 3 March 2016
Sock Puppet For Jesus:
An Ambient Beatscape with Spoken Word.
This week has largely revolved around two new apps: Arturia’s iSpark and Yuri Turov’s Shoom (which is still in beta).
Today is no different.
I began today by playing with iSpark; exploring it’s sounds and playing a little more with it’s song structure capabilities. I came up with a two and a half minute drum beat that I liked and which I recorded using 4 different drum kits. Next I loaded all four into Auria and made a 6 minute Beatscape by arranging and combining the four different versions.
Yesterday I made a 10 minute Dronescape by combining two slightly different Shoom jams. I felt this would make a good ground for my Beatscape, and sure enough when I combined them they fit well.
I still felt it needed a little more but didn’t want to start including basslines or leady things, so I browsed my folders of abstract jams and found two that I thought would enhance the track. One was made with iDensity and the other with Sparkle.
Now it was nearly finished but I felt it needed a bit more focus. So I called on Trudi.
(If you’re new here you may not know that Trudi is a fictional character who has been developing over the course of this blog. She condescends to take time off from her day job at Station FCKU to provide vocals for some of my tracks. Usually I type her words into iSpeech TTS, slow it down slightly in TwistedWave, and move it into AudioShare for a little Reverb which today was provided by Reverb from Amazing Noises)
She brought her own lyrics today 🙂
Thank you Trudi.
Grant
March 2, 2016
Day 189: Weds 2 Mar 2016
Cold Fire:
A Soundscape/Beatscape with Spoken Word.
The ambient dronescape is courtesy of Shoom which is featuring heavily this week because I’m beta testing it. The beat is from iSpark with the help of Dedalus, apeDelay, Dubfilter, and Caramel. They were combined in Auria and the vocals were recorded straight into their own track.
Grant
February 26, 2016
Day 184: Friday 26 Feb 2016
Doing Qi Gong On The Precipice:
https://soundcloud.com/grant-horsnell/doing-qi-gong-on-the-precipice
A Beatscape.
The new Arturia iSpark drum app is the core of this one, with a little help from Auria, AudioShare, TwistedWave, and BeatMaker 2. But 95% iSpark.
Grant
February 23, 2016
Day 181: Tuesday 23 Feb 2016
So Low (Setting #3):
A Beatscape with Spoken Word.
What is a Beatscape I hear you ask? If you are new to this blog it is a fair question. A Beatscape is made entirely or mostly from drums or a drum machine, and comes from a Soundscape perspective.
Why Spoken Word Grant? Because I have a dodgy singing voice of course. And because there is a long history of spoken word and music joining together in many formats and over many centuries. I’m just trying to find a way to do it that makes sense for me.
Thanks for asking dear listener.
The beat is from iSpark with a little help from Cube Synth. They were assembled in Auria along with the spoken word piece that I had previously recorded using AudioShare and AltiSpace;Â but which I today reversed with TwistedWave, added delay with AUFX:Dub, and then reversed back.
Grant
February 20, 2016
Day 178: Saturday 20 Feb 2016
Standing To Attention:
A Beatscape.
I’m still in a drum app frame of mind. Today it’s my first attempt with Arturia’s new iSpark. So far it seems well suited to my Beatscape concept. Here I made a simple beat with three variations in the patterns bank and then jammed those into AudioShare.
Grant
February 19, 2016
Day 177: Friday 19 Feb 2016
Friday/Grumpy:
Beatscape.
A pure Beatscape today, nothing but iMaschine 2, with Auria to arrange it.
I have been seriously grumpy the last few days; lack of sleep I think. Anyway I was not in the mood for pissing about with melodies or ambient niceties. So… drumbeats was the order of the day.
Hitting things! Oh yeah!
I made quite a few, this was the fifth or sixth I think, I had calmed down a little by now 🙂
I made this slow, sparse beat in iMaschine 2, and really liked it but was not sure how to do the arrangement I wanted in the app. So I exported each of the four layers separately, and imported them into an Auria project so that I could arrange it.
I’m definitely in a drum mood, so expect a plethora of Beatscapes over the next few days 🙂
Grant
February 13, 2016
Day 171: Saturday 13 Feb 2016
4 Thousand 4 Hundred & 4 Teen (Ways To Stay):
An Ambient Beatscape, slow and sparse ’cause that’s how I roll.
Another Gadget track. Like yesterday’s this was sitting in Gadget when I opened it for the first time in nearly a year; so I finished it today.
Grant
February 12, 2016
Day 170: Friday 12 Feb 2016
Hurry Up & Wait:
An Ambient Beatscape.
Today’s track is all Gadget. It’s not an app that I’ve used much but I have been intending to work with it a little more, so today I tried it out again. There were four small projects in there from my previous attempts to get acquainted and this is one of those; worked over, rearranged, slowed, and added to.
Grant
February 10, 2016
Day 168: Weds 10 Feb 2016
Follow Me Not – A Bass & Beat ‘Scape In Three Parts:
Intro 0.00-2.42 Body 2.42-8.10 Reprise 8.10-10.42
It’s a Bass ‘Scape! Four layers of bass plus a beat.
This is only my second attempt to incorporate Michelle (my favourite bass who has just returned to my life after an eighteen month absence) into my iPad music making. She is loving it! It is so good to get reaquainted.
I started by loading up Bias Amp and trying out some bass amp models until I found one I liked, then I put that into Bias FX where it slotted straight into a guitar FX chain that was open there, I loved the combination so kept it, just adjusting a few parameters.
Next I opened Auria, put Patterning on one track and Bias FX on another and jammed away.
I recorded several jams, all flowing from each other, and chose 4 for this track; the intro was recorded without the drums and has a free flowing style, while the other three fit together as they are variations of one idea. Still, not all bits worked as a whole so I spent some time arranging.
I also redesigned the drumbeat and recorded it on two tracks with different sounds and slight variations, but ended up keeping the original beat as well because it still fitted and provided some subtle variation.
So this is three tracks of drums and four tracks of bass. A real throwback to my early days 🙂
Grant
February 9, 2016
Day 167: Tuesday 9 Feb 2016
The Education Of Michael ReCycle:
Yesterday’s track was an assemblage based on pieces from one of my ‘scrap’ folders, a group of places where I keep interesting bits that I might use one day.
Today began with another of those pieces.
This time a jam from DM1; to which I added some iMaschine 2 hits, and a fragment from a GrainScience jam.
Once I had arranged these to my satisfaction in Auria, I added some bass using Bias Amp and Bias FX.