Archive for the Supplementary category
Grant
June 4, 2016
Grant
May 5, 2016
Supplementary Post 5 May 2016
PopFix Simple Edit:
A simpler and I think better version of the track that I posted on Day 230. I made it on the same day but chose the other track. I’ve changed my mind so here it is if you’re interested 🙂
Grant
February 24, 2016
Grant
December 11, 2015
Supplementary Post: The Parallel Line Series
All five tracks from this series in one easy to listen to playlist.
Grant
November 29, 2015
Supplementary Post: The Prophet Series
The last three days posts have each centred around one vocal line from the inimitable Trudi McBoody (fictional presenter at Station FCKU), so I thought I’d present them all together in one playlist for easy listening. Plus I’ve added two other tracks that belong in the same series.
I hope you enjoy.
Grant
November 26, 2015
Supplementary Post: The Metal Heart Trilogy
The last three days posts are all related; here they are in one playlist for those interested 🙂
Grant
November 15, 2015
Supplementary Post: Studio View
A little look at the current www.trackaday.net studio.
The laptop is solely for admin duties at the moment; uploading to SoundCloud and YouTube, posting to the blog through WordPress (none of these is working consistently on the iPad at the moment), helping clear space on the iPad my transferring and cataloguing to the external drive (this bit is more intended than actual) etc.
All music making and recording so far has been done on the iPad and/or the iPhones.
All videos too.
The notebook is indispensable, it is my working diary; I log my progress each day and record what has happened. I often return to files recoded earlier and this reminds what I’ve done when. I also jot down thoughts, notes, musings, and lyric ideas as they arise. And yes I use the highlighters daily too 🙂
I don’t have studio monitors or even proper headphones, they are on my list. As is a multichannel audio interface; I do have the iRig Pro for single channel recording but it’s been causing me grief so it’s in the doghouse.
Things I do have that haven’t seen much use lately but which I may incorporate: an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a MicroBrute, a PolyEvolver, a 49 key midi controller, a mike, guitar pedals and modeller, Logic 8, Ableton Live, and a Maschine.
Also soon to arrive from Australia; my favourite bass and my mandolin.
Plenty to be going on with 🙂
Grant
November 2, 2015
Musing on Stuff and Supplementary Post
I often make more than one track in a day, sometimes they are exploring different apps or different approaches. But often I think they must reflect my mood because they end up in the same place, or at least feeling like they belong together.
Todays post (Day 67) was a very minimal ambient piece made entirely with one patch in one synth and just played. Very much as I might play a guitar, no switching apps or collaging, just two notes interacting.
Which brings me to a thing that I have been musing about.
How much or how little is needed for a track? How simple can it be? How do we tell when something is finished? When it doesn’t need any more? Would spending more time on these things improve them? Is perfection necessary or just annoying and counter productive? Perhaps these are two different states of being?
These are some of the questions that I am probing with my ‘Year Of Posting’. But as yet I have no answers.
Your comments and ideas would be appreciated.
As an example I include a playlist of all yesterdays tracks. The first three are all made with one patch in CubeSynth and definitely belong together as minimalist pieces. The fourth went through a more complicated journey; CrystalSynthXT, Dedalus, FLUX:FX, TwistedWave, and Borderlands Granular (more like my usual mode of working though without the trip to Auria for collaging), and yet somehow it feels like it belongs here.
Anyway Peace out peeps.
Grant
October 22, 2015
Day 57: Supplementary Post
Perspective: A Drama In Three Parts:
Musing:
Each track I make is a journey; there are usually twists and turns (often wrong turns), there are decisions made, decisions rescinded, backflips, and surprises. I never know when I start where I’m going to end up.
Sometimes the result is close to the initial idea or intention. Sometimes the work takes on a life of it’s own and I have to hold on for dear life while it works itself out. Often I have nothing in mind, but just begin and try to keep myself alert for the possibilities and signs of life that unfold.
I am anthropomorphising I know. So be it.
The creative process does seem to be out of my control; but I’m too much an atheist to attribute it to spirits, or muses, or being receptive to some god or other. Perhaps it’s something to do with Freud’s Subconscious, or Jung’s Collective Subconscious, or perhaps I’m being all Zen, or attuning myself to the Tao. Whatever. Take your pick, or use your own metaphor. It’s great fun! It’s the stuff of life!
Anyway…takes a breath…
Todays track had three way stations on it’s journey, three moments of clarity, almost like shrines along a pilgrimage: one near the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. As it should be I suppose.
If you so choose, come journey with me.
The Tracks:
Part One is the original Beatscape that started it all.
Part Two is how I clothed the Beatscape but with the Beatscape removed.
Part Three is the resolution, the arrival, the conclusion.
Cube Synth, Patterning, iFretless Bass, Dedalus, Emo Chorus.