Grant
December 21, 2015
Day 116: Sunday 20 Dec 2015
For What They Did:
A Soundscape with vocal.
A fairly simple process today, inspired by Jacobs tutorials on TC11 I fired it up and had a play (it intimidates me).
I quickly found a groovy patch and did three jams which I slowed down and lowered using TwistedWave before putting into Auria for mixing.
Then I added a vocal line for Trudi using iSpeech TTS, AUFX:Space, and TwistedWave.
Grant
December 19, 2015
Day 115: Saturday 19 Dec 2015
It Beats Me:
A Beatscape.
I began with DM1 and jammed it into AudioShare. Then I effected it with Reverb TFN and AUFX:Dub, and again with FLUX:FX before mixing them all in Auria. Finally I added two tracks of an abstract patch in Addictive Synth.
Grant
December 18, 2015
Day 114: Friday 18 Dec 2015
The Protagonist Walks The Dog:
A Soundscape made from a field recording.
I began with a recording of myself walking the dog which I made on my iPhone using Røde Rec.
I tidied it up a bit and added reverb and delay using the inbuilt effects in Auria.
Then I added a slow arpeggio from Addsynth which I time stretched to fit (making it slower still), again using Auria’s inbuilt abilities.
Grant
December 17, 2015
Day 113: Thursday 17 Dec
Quiet Joy:
A happy little arpeggiated electronica thingy 😃
A very simple little piece today, I had intended to do more with it but somehow it just seemed to exist in it’s own pleasant world, so I let it be.
The arp was done in Addictive Synth and I added three tracks of drums in Auria: one by DM1, one by Patterning, and one by iMaschine 2.
Simple but fun.
Grant
December 16, 2015
Day 112: Weds 16 Dec 2015
Quantum:
A Beatscape.
I haven’t use iKaossilator in ages so I thought I’d revisit. The set that was already loaded was one I used to make a track back in August, pre Trackaday. You can see and hear it here if you’d like:
https://youtu.be/7kRcY2UIbH8?list=PLa0nkDL_1SkyyVisbN5e0OuS_efQQl5zZ.
I still really like its cool, chill vibe so I thought I’d try resetting it.
I began by jamming iKaossilator into AudioShare with Dedalus in the effect chain. Then I slowed it in TwistedWave by 80% giving a bpm of 48. I also lowered it by 100 cents because…reasons.
I loaded it into Auria and added a simple drumbeat from DM1 which I cut up and arranged.
Grant
December 15, 2015
Day 111: Tuesday 15 Dec
Oldowan Dreaming:
An Ambient Beatscape.
I began this by making a new beat in Patterning using my own drum kit. Once I had it set up I jammed it into AudioShare with Dedalus; for this jam I concentrated on one of the sparser elements of the beat.
Then I loaded that into Auria with a small part of an old unfinished track that I did in Rebirth. I arranged these elements and then added: some jangling bells (kindly provided by Jason Donnelly from the iPad Musicians Group), some PhaseRings, and another old piece that I did on guitar so many years ago that I don’t remember the apps used (but I slowed it using TwistedWave).
Grant
December 15, 2015
Day 110: Mon 14 Dec 2015
Hunter & Hunted:
An Ambient Drone Beatscape piece with Spoken Word. How’s that for a mix.
Wow, this one took all day!
Bear with me while I go through my thinking and process.
I began with FM1 (I love FM synthesis and for some reason haven’t used it much of late). I played around trying out patches and fiddling and jamming until I found a bass drone that I loved and a melody that went with it. I jammed this into Auria along with a simple drum beat that I cooked up in DM1 for the occasion.
(It took 4 or 5 goes until I got it right but let’s never speak of that again).
Next I cut these up and arranged them in a pleasing way…
It was okay, but it wasn’t yet a ‘thing’.
I decided to duplicate the drum beat to effect it but I accidentally misplaced it on the timeline…AWESOME sound…(ok let’s pretend I meant to do that and move on)…
Duplicate the beat again re original intention 🙂
SO… now I’ve got a slow bass drone and three mixed and panned tracks of drums that sound good…but not great…not yet a ‘thing’…
How about I load the bass drone into TwistedWave and raise it by an octave…and by another octave…and by another fifth…
…yeah I’m liking it.
But I’m not Loving it.
Where is the ‘thing’?
I went back to DM1 and added a bass drum only version of the drum beat for emphasis…
Nearer…
My wonderful wife suggested I try PhaseRings…what a great idea!
I jammed two tracks and panned them hard left and right…
Nearly there…
Finally I reached into my folder of poems and lyrics, which I have read into AudioShare with AltiSpace, and chose one that I thought would fit. I put it into TwistedWave and slowed it by 86%, and then spent AGES fitting it into the track.
Oh, and there was some other drum arranging too…
It became one of my most complicated tracks to make so far, but I’m really happy with it.
Enjoy.
Grant
December 13, 2015
Day 109: Sunday 13 Dec 2015
Caught:
A slow piece of electronica with Spoken Word.
Figure was the start of this; I made an 8 bar piece at 80 bpm and reversed it with TwistedWave before taking both into Auria and arranging the pieces. I effected some parts with Dedalus, and some with Emo Chorus. I also took a drums only version of the Figure file and arranged that along the timeline.
So far it sounded fine, but I must admit I find using apps like Figure and iKaossilator a little difficult, they are fun but the results tend towards an EDM thing that gets just a little too poppy for my tastes. I need to tweak things for a darker vibe I guess. And if you’ve been following my posts you may well guess what I did next, that’s right…
‘If in doubt, Slow it down’.
It was already quite slow at 80 bpm but I slowed it by 80% in TwistedWave giving a bpm of 56, not to mention a slight robotic tinge as an artefact of the algorithm, which I love.
I opened a new project in Auria, imported this new file, and added a file of me reading a poem which I had recorded into AudioShare. I felt I had read it a little fast for this context so I slowed it 90% which gave it a better feel. Finally I did a little arranging.
Grant
December 12, 2015
Day 108: Saturday 12 Dec 2015
A Space Between:
An Ambient Dronescape.
A simple piece today, that began with a bass drone patch I made in Poseidon. When you record within the app Poseidon has both an audio and a midi file which you can access in iTunes.
First I took the audio file and reversed it in TwistedWave, then I mixed both versions in Auria. So far so usual, but I have upgraded to Auria Pro this week so I was keen to become acquainted with it’s midi capabilities. Therefore I added the midi file to the project and repeated it in several tracks. So here we have two FabFilter 2 tracks, and one from Addictive Synth, and one from iSem. Not very sophisticated use of midi I know, but it’s a start 🙂
Grant
December 11, 2015
Supplementary Post: The Parallel Line Series
All five tracks from this series in one easy to listen to playlist.