This is my first track on the amazing op-1. This is (almost) completely produced on the op-1. It has a built in FM-radio, so the samples are whatever I happened to find on the air at the time I was looking. The sampled song is by the Finnish artist Tapani Kansa and it's called "Veikko Nieminen" (from 1978).

The "life on other planets" sample I got from an old interview on Youtube and the solo at the end I played on an external keyboard to have a little more range and control. Also didn't want to break the op-1 keyboard with my "expressiveness". 

I did move everything from the op-1 to Ableton at the end to give it some stereo width, some EQ and some Reverb. I don't think that is strictly necessary though - it sounds good on the op-1 as well.

Life on other planets

This is my first track for Jamuary 2023. Written and performed on a Teenage Engineering op-z. Really amazing device that's fully capable to serve as a groovebox for entire, full-featured tracks.

#jamuary2023: Shoot the Robots on op-z

My second entry in the #jamuary2023 challenge. It is now clear I will at the most deliver a track every other day because of my limited spare time.

It's a lot of fun though and always inspiring to actually use your devices and produce instead of just watching tutorials all the time. Which is what Jamuary is all about.

#jamuary2023: We all go a little mad sometimes - Digitakt

Probably my last track of #jamuary2023. This one featuring my new Synthstrom Deluge. It took a while to become friends with this new beast of a synth / sampler / sequencer with virtually no display, but I think I sort of got there before the end of the month.

The Deluge acts as a sequencer for the mc-101 and the j-6 by Roland and the Deluge handles all the samples itself. 

Thanks for listening!

Jan27 - Stargazing

My first decent try to use external gear with my Synthstrom Deluge. The deluge is a crazy powerful sequencer and most importantly connecting your favourite hardware gear is pretty easy.

The whole track is made completely dawless with three devices:

Drums: Syntakt and loop samples on the Deluge
Bass: Moog Minitaur
Sequencing: Deluge
Synth sounds: Syntakt and Deluge patches by Boards of Deluge

Hypnotized

This month saw the return of a dear friend: the Elektron Digitakt. I just find it very easy to produce music very quickly with the combination of Syntakt and Digitakt.

Samples are from Youtube (the retro drum beat) and Loopcloud, which has excellent Elektron Digitakt integration. 

When I got the Deluge I sold my Digitakt, because on paper they do the same thing. But I found myself thinking about the Digitakt workflow very often while working on the Deluge. The simple explanation is that it's hard to get samples from a computer to the Deluge.  And sure enough, I called the guy whom I sold the Digitakt to and asked him if it was maybe gathering dust on his table and he confirmed it was so. Long story short, I now have my original Digitakt on my table again and it's not gathering dust. The Deluge on the other hand...

You make me high

Sound sample of myself playing the first phrase of the Largo part of the RV 443 Piccolo Concerto by Vivaldi. I am using a virtual pipe organ "Grand Orgue" with the excellent free sample set called "Friesach".

Vivaldi - Largo from piccolo concerto RV 443 organ transcription

This is just a test how well the newly released Blofeld plugin works on my 6th gen iPad mini. And the answer is: beautifully. I never really saw more than 50% cpu utilization with 3 Waldorf tracks and 3 Zoa generators in AUM. 

Here's the setup:
- One Zoa game-of-life midi generator instance with 3 generators active
- One Waldorf Blofeld track for pads receiving notes from the Zoa generator 1 with a pace of 4 bars
- One Waldorf Blofeld track for arps receiving notes from the Zoa generator 2 with a pace of 8th notes
- One Waldorf Blofeld track for bass receiving notes from the Zoa generator 3 with a pace of dotted 8ths
- One vadrum2 drum synth track for the drum track

Zero composition from my part: it's all generative music in the key of C minor and the Zoa instance is just playing game of life by itself and translating that into notes in the appropriate key at predefined pace.

Blofeld-test1

This is my first track in almost five years made fully on an iPad and more or less fully with  generative tools. I made it in AUM, used chordjam to find a pretty ordinary chord progression, then sent that chord progression to Zoa as well as a Waldord Blofeld pad preset. 

Most of the melodic sounds in this track come from the newly released Waldorf Blofeld auv3 plugin. Zoa generates an arp that drives the bright melodic arp sound in Blofeld.

The bass riff is just randomly generated in EG Nodes, the newish sequencer tool auv3 plugin. It has this riff generator with a dice button you press to get a bass riff. 

I also used Relic Waves to generate random sound effects like wooshes and booms you can hear throughout the track. The fx happens at the first step of a bar, but might sometimes not happen and might sometimes be a mix of two or more fx. 

Finally, the spoken sample is just one of the first Azerbaijani channels I found in an auv3 radio plugin. Especially the first slice of the sample is very rhythmical and fits the beat ver well. I think you'll know when you hear it. 

Sprinkled in lots of audio fx plugins, like Rymdigare for ambience, reverb, delay and Kosmonout / perforator for trance gate-like effects as well as some weird delays.

The drums I made myself, but they are nothing to write home about:  just some basic beats with two overlayed drumkits from Vadrum2.

All in all I made this track in one sitting and then refined it the next. I am pleasantly surprised how easy it is to work just completely on the ipad with no outside tools. Especially now that we have so incredibly powerful synths in auv3 format. And cheap too! Blofeld hardware costs hundreds. Plugin cost 14€!

A little background: I had the longest break from iPad music by going fully dawless. I owned some excellent synths and had a great time, but ultimately wasn't finishing tracks as easily as I wanted to. So back to the iPad to see what it feels like and with all the things I've learned from the dawless world, it felt easier than ever to finish this track. It also helps not to let perfect be the enemy of good enough and just release the track so I can go on to the next one.

This is my first track made in Drambo on my iPad. It features rap lyrics in French on top of a chill electronic beat. It also has female lyrics or soundbites as well as some spoken sentences. 

The special thing about this is that all my spoken samples are generated by AI with a text to sound effect tool. So the french rap is not real, but the product of me asking for "A male rapping rhythmically in French". I've then picked the four best rap sequences, chopped them up, time stretched them and fit them to my beat and to the overal vibe of the track. Very exciting new way to make music. 

I don't see this as cheating any more than going to Splice or Loopcloud and searching for "female lyrics in French". I'm borrowing samples in both cases and sampling is, as we know, a completely legitimate way of producing music. 

The title "Paroles de Personne" fittingly means "Words of nobody", because these speakers don't really exist and it's not even real French (a details which is probably painfully obvious to French-speakers). It just sounds French to my untrained ear. 

Hope you like it! 

Paroles de Personne

Pikainen äänitys säestyksestä laulajalle harjoittelua varten. Inspiksenä käytetty Mikael Happosen Youtube versiota.

Vielä vaiheessa - laitan tuoreemman version kun saan äänitettyä. Nuotitkin löytyvät ja pistän Musescoreen kunhan saan valmiiksi.

jcalais

Popular tracks