A pad-heavy exploration of the internal Jupiter Xm sound engine, plus the JD-800 and Vocal Designer model expansions. The majority of the sounds in this track are custom patches written for the Xm and/or JD-800.

Sgr A-Star

Classic house-inspired jam in Ableton Live Suite 11 with Push controller(plus week-long tinkering in Live with automation and effects).

The title is a working title and was just my reminder to press record and just start something.

"Gear" used in this track:
Ableton Live Suite 11
Ableton Push controller (first version w/ Akai)
Roland Cloud TR-909
Roland Cloud TR-707
Roland Cloud XV-5080 (just for 3 percussion samples)
Roland Cloud SH-101 (x2, one for sub bass and the other for the "acid" sweep bass)
Roland Cloud Juno 60 (top of the bass tone)
Roland Cloud Juno 106 (lead melody patch)
Roland Cloud Jupiter 4 (random arpeggio, sliced here to an 8-bar loop)
Roland Cloud Jupiter 8 (phased pad sound)
Roland Cloud JX-3P (additional motion pad layer)
Korg Legacy Collection M1 (piano patch 😉)

Startin Sumthin

Radio plus ring mod plus Eurorack effects plus performance mixer. What's the worst that could happen?

Nothin on the Radio

Fun with spam voice mail and the Scooper. Not sure, but I think I heard it turn into a bassline spontaneously at some point in there.

Scam Likely

In and out of the box with the Behringer TD-3-MO, a ton of Arturia and Moog FX including Fragments and the MF-109S among a bunch of others; the main beats are Korg Electribe ER-1 and Arturia Spark plus some Roland Cloud TR-909 and TR-707 along with some Jupiter 4 and Promars through another ton of FX.

Glitchtribe M-O [Ball of Mud Mix]

As usual, I spent more time throwing samples and attempting to mix instead of arranging the track, but here it is. (Possibly) a better mix and certainly a couple more samples from the collection.
This one's (still) got the Korg Electribe ER-1 softsynth, Arturia Spark 2 and Roland TR-909 (some Roland Cloud and some actual TR-909) layered with Cloud TR-707, plus Behringer TD-3-MO and Arturia Fragments FX all over the drums and some bass from Promars as well as pads from Jupiter 4 (both from the Cloud), plus a heaping helping of Moogerfooger soft pedals on just about anything that's making a sound.

Glitchtribe MO

Always wanted to do a Download-style distorted 909 breakbeat over a four-on-the-floor, and always wanted to play with treating radio samples as percussion and fly-ins. Most of the other noises in this are SH-4d sounds like basses and accessory percussion. TR-909 is Roland Cloud instances run through gobs of FX in Ableton.

Extemperaneous Radio Jam

4 preset SH-4d patches and a preset SH-4d rhythm kit sequenced in Ableton Live in an ad-hoc jam session. Some FX added in the DAW after the fact as well.

Ambient Bells

With the Roland Aira System 1 being released shortly I felt like trying my hand at a supersquare-inspired lead.

Instruments used: Korg Kronos, Access Virus Classic, Alesis Micron, Roland TR-8, Native Instruments Absynth 5, Apple Logic Studio 9 Ultrabeat, EXS-24 & effects.

The main lead sound is the Korg Kronos using the MS-20EX and PolysixEX engines with 8 PW/PWM voices detuned on each part.  There's a TR-8 kick (with heavy reverb), Access Virus Classic arpeggio and bass parts, Alesis Micron bass and other Korg Kronos engines contributing bass, pads, strings and leads to the mix.  Most effects are done in Apple Logic Sudio 9 and additional percussion elements are provided by Ultrabeat, EXS-24 and additional pad elements from Native Instruments Absynth 5.

Susqua

June 29th version of Susqua.  Used Korg Kronos for pads, leads, basses and some percussion (MS-20EX/PolysixEX custom lead and some tweaked factory pads, basses and kits in the HD-1 engine), TR-8 for the 808 boom kick and some 909 toms and snare (with tons of reverb!), Access Virus Classic for the squidgy bass/arpeggiator, Alesis Micron for some additional bass layers, Native Instruments Absynth 5 for additional pad layers and textures, Korg Legacy collection Mono/Poly for some arpeggiator and pad textures, Apple Logic DAW, Ultrabeat for the main loop (run through EVOC24 and tube overdrive) and also to provide gating for the Mono/Poly and finally some EXS-24 sampled drums to layer in the mix.

It's a big-sounding mix ;-)


Susqua [BIG Mix]

Parallel 11

Late-ish night noodle on Big Sky Past Voices patch with the guitar going through a Marshall plexi plug-in and into the Big Sky as a hardware send.
I'm holding the guitar up to the monitors to get some proper feedback going, but also aiming a desk fan directly at the pickups at one point, and even standing in front of an AC unit aimed into the pickups to see what kind of interesting tones we can generate. There's also a bit of running power and audio cables in parallel, which is a no-no, just to see what it sounds like through this effects patch.
I'm also playing the fretboard with 2 hands at times to get different chordal shapes and movement.

Past Voices Drone

I highly recommend headphones for this one due to the stereo field.

Roland Cloud jam in Ableton Live which turned into a bit more of a track. Tons of post processing going on in this one. It all started with a custom JD-800 patch I made while messing around with the JD-08 Boutique as a control surface. I added a TB-303 bassline in the same key and just kind of went crazy with throwing layers on it.

Autumnal Equinox

Three custom pads from Zen Core/Zenology/Jupiter Xm/MC-707/MC-101. I made these in Zenology since it's easier that way.
Might work well with some trippy visualizer 😉

Zen Cloud Pads

Jam on a song idea around a Korg Kronos piano and a bunch of custom pad patches and other weird sfx I've made over the past 10 or so years. A few parts were thrown through Arturia's EFX Fragments and there's also a custom Ableton Wavetable patch I made from one of the Kronos sfx samples.

Space Notcookies

Sample run through several layers of vocoding, slowed down and vocoded back into itself with effects in between connections and at the end. Very trippy with headphones.

Alien Apnea

I have no idea how this track came about, other than it involved a lot of feedback and heaps of granular effects. It's super dark, very creepy, there's something that sounds like voices in there- and it's definitely not voices xD
I highly recommend headphones for this one.

One Mrs. Hippie

This started out as an experiment with effects chains and running samples through them. Some Berlin, modular-inspired pulsating bass and unsettling, LFO-bedraggled noise added in, and you get a pretty freaky-sounding track.
I definitely recommend headphones to get the full stereo effect.

That's the Rules Number One

Look Up to Space

A slightly modified version of the erstwhile-posted track, Look up to Space. I tweaked the EQ on the vocal samples, choir and rhythmic loop. The rhythmic loop is the same sample from Alien Apnea- also posted earlier.

This track is built around 2 semi-polyrhythmic loops. One is a vocal clip with a ton of treatment courtesy of Ableton Live and Max for Live plug-ins and some Arturia FX. The other is Ableton V-Piano running through copious reverb and some additional Arturia FX like Fragments.

I'm sure I was channeling some Warp records on this one: Autechre and Aphex Twin (Selected Ambient Works style), and had fun mixing elements in and then out.

Spinning In Space

All hardware jam with the Akai MPC One driving the Moog Rogue via CV/gate and the Jupiter 6 via MIDI, SH-4d doing strictly rhythm and Boutique TB-03 driving the Jupiter-Xm choral part. Everything is going into a Roland MX-1 and into Ableton Live as a strictly multi-track recorder during the session. Some effects and automation were added later.
This was a workout session to get practice with setting everything up and wiring it up.

Aquarian Jam

Chicago house- and acid-inspired track for my jennimi.

This track is based around an impromptu jam in Ableton Live 9 using the Push controller.  It features Roland System-1 for stabs/hits and pads, SH-101 plug-out for the bassline, Korg's Legacy Collection M1 and Wavestation for house piano, stabs and ambience, Arturia's Spark Vintage Collection for TR-909 and TR-707 parts and a Roland TB-303 for some serious motion.

Big thanks to James from Freemasons for the brilliant mastering and production videos.  I found them to be absolutely invaluable.

Please feel free to add this track to your playlist or DJ setlist, just pretty please link back or in some way give credit for the track ;-)

My jennimi [Club Mix]

808 Day morning jam session.  Just the TR-8 doing the 808 bits and a trusty TB-303 filling out the track.  Reverb and compression are from Ableton Live 9.

808 Day

Acid jam in Logic Pro with TB-303 and an MC-202 sample I created. Drums are Logic's Ultrabeat 808 kit and there are some Korg Legacy Collection elements and movie/TV samples floating around as well.

You Want the Acid [v0.1]

Some Autechre elements, a little IDM a la Pinneal and some Orbital and even Massive Attack influence (which I binged a few hours to going into the studio for this one).

The kick is Roland's SH-101 plug-in/-out for the System-1, the main bass is the Roland System-1 (lightly tweaked preset), the secondary bleep bass comes from Arturia's ARP-2600V.  Pads and strings come from Native Instruments' Absynth and Arturia's Matrix 12V.  The sound FX and percussive noises come also from Absynth as well as Korg's M1 plug-in.

Pineal Orbit [mkII] [Remastered]

This track is 132 BPM but feels much slower.  It started as a jam to audition several custom-made pads and SFX patches made with the Korg Kronos's AL-1 and MOD-7 engines.  It ended up dreamier and slower than I expected and decided to add a ton of reverb and some light tape delay to each patch.  There are 6 custom patches, 1 Kronos preset pad and a preset drum kit (trance kit).  I thought the overall "track" sounded a bit like Autechre with the noise loop and decided to keep what would normally be a toss-away...

Can't Fight the Sleep

This is the first test track using a new Logic Express 8 environment setup specifically for the outboard gear.  Everything except the Virus Classic is accounted for in this mix: TB-303 (the distorted "lead" line), MC-202 (bass line- sounding rather chunky! ;-) ), MPC-1000 (kick drum), Kronos (hi-hats- yeah, only hi-hats...), Micron (Minimoog-y acid house bass/lead), microKORG (rave strings playing the same Micron line and providing a vocoded acid house backing track), MoPho (just sprinkled in some sound effects).  All instruments are going into an Alesis MultiMix 16 firewire mixer and the TB-303/MC-202 are synched to Logic Express's master clock using a Korg KMS-30 sync box.  All outboard gear except the Kronos are connected via a midiman 2x2 (MPC-1000) and M-Audio 4x4 USB-MIDI adapter (microKORG, Micron and MoPho are on the M-Audio).
This is basically a proof-of-concept that all tracks can be sequenced and recorded with separate tracks and channels using Logic's environment capabilities and several USB-MIDI adapters (oh, and the firewire mixer).  It's a sort-of nod to acid house with the psychedelic bass/lead and 303.  Nothing in the way of knob-twiddling or change-ups or even judicious use of the stereo field but it's just a fun jam to blow off steam from the hours of setup required to get everything connected!

White Hole

Jamming with the TR, TB, JP, SH and MS-20, grooving on polyrhythmic techno/acid/house patterns.  Mostly one take with effects and additional mixing after the live take.

Polyuana

I originally wrote this song as a bittersweet ode to a recent visit to southmost Texas to see my parents.  I didn't know at the time that it would be the last time I'd see my father in person.  The song has since taken on a more bittersweet feeling and I now consider it to be my farewell song to my father.

Recorded in 2004 in my home studio as a live PA track and recorded live to my Tascam CDRW-5000 burner.

The main bassline throughout the song is a Moog Rogue being sequenced by a Roland TB-303.  I used a Roland JX-10 as the master keyboard and for one of the layered pad sounds.  The other pads are coming from a Korg NS5R (I remember using 'Mast World' but I forget which other pads are in there).  There are also 4 layers of a Roland SH-32 being sequenced as a multitimbral unit by the MPC- the lead line, 2 clarinet-sounding parts and another pad sound.  The drums are all coming from the MPC-1000 using the stock sounds from the unit and run through a Behringer MX-1804X console's reverb and delay effects.  The song was structured using the Akai MPC-1000 workflow to queue up patterns and mute/unmute parts.

Paisaje Verde

Caution: high dynamic range and serious bass.  Seriously, the spectrum is just all over the place since I'm trying to capture the essence of jamming out with the just unit.

Noodling with the built-in sequencer.  Enjoying the inclusion of the per-step glide and decided to go full-out TB-303 emulation on this analog beastie.

Only using built-in effects and a light bit of outboard compression due to the dynamic range (it has that certain ladder characteristic where the bass drops out at higher emphasis and comes booming back in at lower amounts).

SE-02 Does TB-303

Jamming out a Boutique acid house loop live-PA style on a Sunday morning over some coffee.

Based around a minor 3rd chord on the JU-06A (in Juno 106 mode) as a built-in sequence (on a pure manual patch).
The TB-03 is exclusively using a sawtooth wave and the built-in distortion is being modulated manually as the track progresses.
The TR-09 is pretty self-explanatory and is just running a single pattern.  The Jupiter Xm is providing the strings (scene 01-11 Jupiter Edge with some minor tweaks to make it more breathy).

All the gear is daisy-chained using external MIDI and 3.5mm audio cables.  All the FX are built into the units themselves.  There is no compression or any other EQ or FX from the DAW- this is about as raw as these things get ;-)

Sunday Boutique Xm Jam

Electronic- I don't care what it takes to make a track as long as it's electronic: spaghetti, dread-locked tangles of patch cables, ridiculous VST plug-ins, feedback loops, external effects, old-school analog synthesizers or iPad apps.  You might find noise and experimental "tracks" here, live PA, maybe some ambient, downtempo, trance or analog drones.

What you definitely *will* find: Roland TB-303, Roland MC-202, Roland Alpha-Juno 1, Moog Rogue, Dave Smith MoPho, Korg Kronos, Korg microKORG, Alesis Micron, Akai MPC-1000, Ableton Push.

Lately I've been getting more into house music and early acid house which clearly shows in my newer compositions.  I've been migrating from Logic to Ableton Live but I do like to keep up with production and mixing/remixing in both.  The Ableton Push controller makes the composition part fun again ;-)  Regardless of the DAW, it's still amazing to be able to get hands-on with patch creation, performing parts and massaging the flow of a track with outboard gear (especially analogs :-)!) and dedicated controllers.

cynkh

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