Finally, a new piece of music! Something between D'n'B and you-name-it :) The title refers to the engineering challenges which Martin Molin is currently facing building his Marble Machine X ... but also to a quality everyone needs when facing life.

Enjoy!

Resilience

This one has been lying around for about a year before I got around to finishing it. Now we are all thoroughly reminded that many things we took for granted are simply not for granted, and often beyond our control. It is high time to remind ourselves that our best refuge is not of this world:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’
— from Psalm 91

Groping For Hold

Some substeps to a snare sound with Ragnarök Softsynth by Full Bucket. 

Some theory

I like the snare to sound a bit acoustic. Of course, it is impossible, to get a proper real snare with a synthesizer. However, one can do a lot with that little synth Ragnarök, even though it has no pitch-envelope. I was surprised about that.
It is important for an acoustic snare, that the rattle after the snap is something else then pure white noise. Imagine a snare drum, when the cables (i.e. the snare) are lifted off the head of the drum. Once hit, the membrane would oscillate and sound rather like a tom.
But when the noise element touches the skin of the snare-drum, the noise element absorbs energy from the skin and turns it into noise. So the oscillation sounds much weaker and shorter than without the noise element. But as the oscillation of the drum is the energy source of the noise, the oscillation will always be audible, at least a bit.

This is why I don't start with the noise, but with the oscillation.


The tutorial

1.    Start with a pulse wave of Ragnarök, and a highpass-filter that is adjusted so that the lowest frequency of the 8” pulse wave is still audible. I took the 18dB/oct filter. I played the synth at A#2. Why highpass? We will see in step 4.
2.    I added the 16” and the 4” pulse waves for a fatter sound. I'm sure this is not always the right approach, but in this case it does well. Furthermore, I used the EQ of Ragnarök to turn the higher frequencies down and boost the low frequencies. This is, because we are using a highpass filter and cannot cut off the high frequencies by another mean. And I turned the Overdrive a bit more than the half way up … this is not really necessary.
3.    Now turn the oscillation into something like an FM sound using the LFO. Thus, we need a pretty high frequency for the LFO. And then, of course, we need to raise the FM amplitude. It is important, that it is not the highest possible amplitude. I used a bit less than half way of the knob.
4.    Turn up the filter resonance to half way. This gives the sound a “boom”, a boost at (almost) the bottom end of all audible frequencies. This is why I used a highpass-filter.
5.    Introduce the filter-envelope. I go about two marks high for the amount. You can use an AD-Envelope with attack set to zero.
6.    Adjust the filter-envelope. Basically set the decay to a decent amount. I took two marks long. That makes a bit of the snap.
7.    Adjust the amplitude-envelope. Basically set the decay to a decent amount.
8.    Add some noise until it sounds well.
9.    To make the sound tighter, you can compress it decently. The effect of the compressor is, that it turns the amplitude of the sound down very quickly. Of course one can decrease the decay of the amplitude-envelope. But that makes the whole sound shorter. If you want a quick decrease of the amplitude, but want the sound to last long, you need to use a compressor. This is what I did.

Snare Tutorial

Most of us have expectations towards life, e.g. I wanna do this, I wanna get that. Obviously, not all of them will come true. But there are things that are worth being patient and persistent for. Blessed is the man who knows what these are... 

DAW: Ableton Live 9
28 instances of OBDX
All FX DAW native

MIDI Effects:
Chord 
Pitch 

Audio Effects:
Limiter 
Compressor 
EQ Eight 
Reverb  (modulation disabled)
Ping Pong Delay 
Simple Delay 
Utility

Expectations And Patience (One Synth Challenge #93 OBXD - 13th place)

As I was creating sounds for Synth1, I thought why not enter OSC#98 with some of them? I tried some emulation stuff (thanks to Photonic for a good starting point for piano in his "Signal Lost" presets).
Note that I actually can't play piano and therefore the piano line ended up being a bit monotonous. Anyway, enjoy! :)

15 instances of Synth1 in Live 9
ALMOST no external FX thanks to built-in ones: only Ableton's Limiter on Master and Kjaerhus' Classic Reverb on plucked strings.

No Rush (One Synth Challenge #98 - Synth1 - 3rd place)

Quick entry to OSC#103 - Noisetar by NUSofting

A dream can become a huge thing in our lives. In contrast to those who say "never let go of your dream" I say that it can at times be better to let a dream die, leaving grief and sadness for a while. But if the dream has become a burden, it will be a relief in the long run to let it go. A new freedom, for a cause more than worth it. 
Don't be afraid of Ashes and Rain. 

16 x Noisetar

Ableton Live Effects
EQ Eight
Comressor
Limiter
Reverb
Ping Pong Delay
Utility
a few MIDI Effects

Ashes And Rain (One Synth Challenge #103 Noisetar - 3rd place)

The track details are here: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7036379#p7036379


This song is about the life as someone who is being supplied with everything they need - how it is to be carried. I regard myself as such a person. He who cares for me knows everything I need and is able to provide for me. This doesn't mean my life is always easy. There are certain circumstances that have been bugging me my whole life and there is no relief in sight. However, I can say that He is always with me. He has comforted me countless times in my sadness. He often doesn't remove the circumstances, but he helps to go right through them. And, best of all, He gives me an eternal hope that can't be destroyed by anything: he will give me a life without pain, a life with healthy relationships etc. after this one. 
And what I (really) believe, is this: That this is for everyone. Jesus knows you, and he waits for you to seek him and talk to him. He loves you just as you are.



The pic is taken from 
http://vunature.com/field-clouds-landscape-rain-house-awesome-nature-wallpapers-hd-1080p/house-field-landscape-rain-clouds-wallpaper-hd-nature-pc/

Provision (One Synth Challenge #109 Fathom - 2nd place)

Link to KVR submission post: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7526840#p7526840

This is my submission for the One Synth Challenge 127 where we could choose any one U-He synth (Hive 2 came out just before this round). I picked Zebralette because I always wanted to properly dive into that synth which is a sound design power house. It has a very unusual workflow compared to Virtual Analog style synthesizers, but it's totally worth it. Plus, it is amazingly CPU efficient for what it is capable of. 

This piece is about the situation where loved ones are leaving on a new journey. I am left behind with torn feelings. On the one hand side I know they won't be available to me as much as they used to. I have to let them go. On the other hand side, I wish them all the best from the bottom of my heart and it is exciting to see them take big steps forward into new territory, and to support them as well as I can. 
Though I often feel like the one who is left behind, I believe I am here for a purpose and I don't have to be afraid of the future. (Actually I'm taking steps forward, too ... only it's not very obvious ;)


DAW: Ableton Live 10.1 
Zebralette: 53x

Ableton Live's Audio FX:
Compressor: 37 (35 of which for sidechaining)
EQ Eight: 32
Reverb: 18
Delay: 14
Utility: 10
Multiband Dynamics: 5
Limiter: 3
Glue Compressor: 2

Ableton Live's MIDI FX:
Chord (on some percs)
Pitch
Velocity

Metering:
Youlean Loudness Meter
JScope
Voxengo SPAN

Watching Them Go (One Synth Challenge #127 - Any one U-He - Zebralette)

Sending some love to all the nerds out there :)
This song is for you.

Made with the open source OBXD synthesizer and some drum samples in Ableton Live.

Love To All Nerds Out There

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe." - proverbs 18,10
This is one of my favourite statements from the bible :)

I Will See You Through It All (revised version)

This is my submission for the One Synth Challenge #133 with the synth Cheese Machine 2. This time, I wanted to go without layering instances to make my sounds, and to keep FX usage fairly light.

14 x Cheese Machine 2 in Ableton Live 10
Only Live's internal FX used:
12 x EQ Eight
9 x Delay
2 x Reverb
1 x Utility
1 x Limiter

Instance purposes: pads, muted pluck, guitar(ish) pluck, deep piano, bass drone, deep thump, reverse fx, lead synth, chirp arp, plucky bass, melody piano, flute arp, slow stabs, additional arp (subtle at the final climax)

Image taken from Pexels (by James Wheeler) with thanks

Voluntary Obedience (One Synth Challenge #133 - Cheeze Machine 2)

I always hated Tyrell N6, mainly because of its awkward oscillator section. But because there are so many people who love it, I wanted to give it a shot.

Also shout out to the OSC people who got me into Drum and Bass, mainly @mmghost, @zarf and @jruegg. This song is heavily inspired by mid-late 90s "intelligent"/atmospheric D'n'B (e.g. Artemis, PFM) and of course the OSC people. However, even all this good inspiration doesn't cure me entirely from my awkward-transition-illness x)

Sit back and enjoy!



38 x Tyrell N6 in Ableton Live 10

Live's Audio Effects
14 x EQ Eight
14 x Delay
12 x Reverb
4 x Compressor (3 for sidechaining)
3 x Utility
1 x Limiter

3rd Party Audio Effects
2 x GClip

Live's MIDI Tools
6 x Chord (for percussion)
1 x Pitch
1 x Velocity

Image made by Johan Neven at flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)

Carl_saved - Climate Change In Spring (Tyrell N6)

This is only my second attempt on a proper 4 on the floor track so far. There might be more in the future, as I have come to appreciate this style (good for dancing ;).

Inside Out

Recently, I finally got jBridge to dig out those old VSTis from the 32bit era. Oh, how I missed them! I immediately started jamming around, and this is what I came up with.

Featuring:
TS-808
Minimogue VA
eFemme (a 4 operator FM synth)
DSK ChoirZ
U-Go M-Theory

I hope you enjoy as I did making this :)

The Antiques

This piece started during a collab with @jruegg, however, we settled on something else. So I finished it on my own.
Thanks, Josias, for the collab! He made a good portion of the sounds and also is the author of the very start of this track.

Who would have thought that such nice sounding strings would come out of Bazz::Murda?

Soft Spot

Hi there, thanks for peeking in :)

I am student of physics, and I love to make music, and I love synthesizers. 

I see music as a gift. 
"Every song, every single melody
Everything I play and sing I dedicate to thee.
Oh my lord, that is all I want to do:
Thank you for letting me be the tap it's going through.
It comes back to you."

(from "Today", Dieter Falk)

Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCssBgDx5VibUewPXUObxKvQ

Carl

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