My first few hours of playing around with Live in many years. A very scrappy sketch but it rolls along nicely, I think.

Loose

A mellow, down-tempo acid jam with the TB-03, TR-06, Matriarch, and Mother 32. The Blue Sky and Space Echo RE-201 providing the reverb and delay.

Transience

A (warts and all) practice session between Bosco and myself I recorded about 10 years ago.

Canon Practice

More messing about in Live. About 40 minutes worth this time, mainly with the strings and brass.

Ensemble Sketch

A fun remix (more of a collage, really) of The Neo's "Birthday" that I did for Emma's 40th, complete with sampled felicitations from friends and family.

Birthday (For Em)

More messing about, this time at a slower tempo. 

Piano dub

Result of my first half hour or so using Push. 

first push

I accidentally a whole dance track. Finished at the beginning of 2014 at Coalcliff.

Is it dangerous?

This is a remix of The Neo's "Angel Touches" that I did for them in 2003. It appears on their album "Serotonin".

Angular Touches

Quiet number that I put together in 2002 using Sonic Foundry's ACID (I think). 

Masala

A remix I did of FourPlay's "Lilli Pilli Drive" for their album "Digital Manipulations" in 2001. Drum & Bass breakbeat, strings, and vocal cut-ups. 

Lilli Pilli Drive (Superposition Mix)

Some messing around on a Friday night – trying out working on my new monitors. I think the drum/clicks have potential to be part of something better.

Inland

A submission to Nils Frahm's Screws Reworked project. I set myself a constraint of using only sounds from the original track (plus liberal use of processing of course). 

You (Amity Mix)

A collaboration with Jack and Anja. Recorded in Barcelona, built up in Darwin, and finally arranged and mixed in Canberra. 

Faulted (feat. Jack & Anja Tinapple)

Tweaking about with Live's Analog instrument in an attempt to learn how to do better synthesis design. Added some 808 kicks & claps for fun, and passed the lot through a Diffuse delay.

Bass Sequence (Sound Test)

First day with the Microbrute. Still figuring out what sounds I can get from this thing. Drums and delay via Ableton Live.

Microbrute sound test

My first attempt at a Berlin School-style piece on the Microbrute. Arpeggios sequenced in Live 9 with tweaking recorded live. The delay is Surreal Machine's fantastic Magnetic effect. 

Watching

Layering some softer, pad-like sounds from the Microbrute. Running the lot through Diffuse.

Unfolded

Late night dubby techno noodling. All sounds (drums, bass, pads, leads, FX) generated from the Microbrute. Arrangement and production done in Ableton Live using the fantastic Magnetic and Diffuse devices from Surreal Machines.

Drained

Some techno-ish noodling with my synths. It builds slowly, please be patient. The title is a nod to See Feel and The Field who are a definite influence here. 

The Mother 32 is on bass duty and the Microbrute is providing the low bowed sound. The Field-esque off-rhythm vocals sounds are manipulated sounds from a trip to Beijing. The washy synth is an Ableton Analog device. Drums are from a standard, overdriven 808 kit plus higher-pitched stuff from Patterning.

Sea Field

Something I'd was playing around with on the weekend. It's not perfect but I'm done messing with it so here you go.

Electric piano lead is a Rhodes 73. Higher pitched versions are courtesy of Ableton's "Tone" warping mode. Longer high pads are the Rhodes samples stretched and reversed. Arpeggios are from a Minilogue with the dynamics and filtering recorded live (hence some clicking and abrupt changes). The bass line is a Mother 32. Percussion is a mix of filtered clips and some recorded sounds.

Repair

Getting the hang of my new modular set up (Rings, Clouds, Peaks, Veils) and having it play nicely with my Mother 32, Microbrute, and Minilogue, which also feature on this track. I also tried to work in more harmony and polyrhythms than I'm usually comfortable doing.

Jangly percussion and the vocal hits are samples from a Taiko performance I recorded in Nozawa Onsen in January, 2017.

Volvere

A blend of synths and Rhodes electric piano. Live mixed out-of-the-box then lightly tweaked inside Ableton. 

Main pad: Minilogue
Piano: Rhodes
Buzzy synth lead: Microbrute
Bleepy textures: Moog Mother32 + Clouds + Quadra + Function
Delay: Strymon El Capistan
Drums: Ableton

Control

A jet lagged Sunday morning jam on my modular setup after two weeks away.

Main sequence is from the Moog Mother 32 while I tweak it live. The Mutable Instruments Rings provides the plucked string sounds, sequenced from the Eloquencer. Drums are the Bastl TeaKick, 2hp Snare, and Noise Engineering BIA, with lots of modulation on the BIA from the XAOC Devices Batumi. The Mother 32 and Rings are run through my newly acquired Space Echo RE-201. The Rings and BIA hi-hats are also fed through an Intellijel Springray2. 

Everything is recorded and mixed live through the Befaco Hexmix and Hexpander, with a touch of mastering in Ableton to  sort out the levels.

Video: https://youtu.be/_sZ0eLXDPhQ

Sunday Morning Jet Lag (Live Modular Jam)

Quiet improvisation on the Fender Rhodes going into a combination of Eurorack FX (Clouds, SpringRay2, and LRMSMSLR) and a Space Echo RE-201.

Recorded as a single take and lightly mastered (volume bump, EQ, compression, stereo widening) in Ableton.

Video (with pre-mastered audio): https://youtu.be/FRmPMhn6PD0

Quiescent

Recovery

A jam with the Moog Model 15 app and the Rhodes. Ended up running them through Clouds and other effects in my Eurorack setup before arranging and mixing down in Ableton.

Throwback

After learning about Vuza Canons (maximally repeating, non-periodic rhythmic canons) I thought I'd tried composing something with them. 

This particular Vuza canon spans 6 bars in 12/4 for a total of 72 notes per repetition using 6 voices. Since we have twelves already, I thought it would be fun to try to work through all twelve notes in the chromatic scale as well. Each voice introduces the same rhythmic motif, first repeating C using that rhythm, then the next voice introduces the same rhythm a fifth up in G, and so on until the 6 voice in B. 

As the canon moves back to repeating the first it shifts up a semitone to C# and repeats the rising fifths again thereby repeating the over all 72 notes of the canon a total of 12 times to arrive back at C in the first voice.

I used the Moog Matriarch as the main voice for the canon, running through a Space Echo RE-201. The Moog Mother 32 is playing the root note on bass as each new voice in the canon is introduced. The breakbeat was added and arranged in Ableton. 

More on Vuza Canons here: https://alpof.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/rhythmic-canons-6/

Vuza Canon Breakbeat

The Moog Subharmonicon is playing through a very slow sequence while its cutoff is being swept back and forth from the Mother 32’s LFO. The Mother 32’s noise out is going through two of the Three Sisters’ filters and then through Cold Mac to become a stereo pair. The Mother 32 is also holding a low bass note. The Qu-Bit Nebulae v2 is playing a sample I recorded in a ski field Japan for background atmosphere.

Clouds is pitched up and providing reverb and texture, as is the Intellijel SpringRay and Worng LRMSMSLR. Everything is being slowly modulated from either the Batumi + 4ms SISM, the NanoRand v2, and the Quadra in LFO mode.

A trebly Space Echo is repeating the high end with lots of feedback.

Send Return Fade

Live, single take recording of a mellow jam with the Moog Subharmonicon, Mother 32, and Matriarch running through a Space Echo and Spring Reverb.

Drums are a Tea Kick and BIA sequenced from a Tempi. Recorded into Ableton via a Soundcraft MTK-12 mixer where some light EQ and compression was done.

Amalgam

Boundary Conditions

A chill jam with the Moog family: Matriarch, Mother 32, Subharmonicon, and DFAM.

The Matriarch is playing a random, 2 octave arpeggio with its oscillators in round robin mode and set to 16', 8', 4' and 2'. Its LFOs are controlling its stereo filters' cutoff and filter env amount and filter 1 has its resonance at 10 o'clock. Its stereo delay on high feedback turns the random notes into a nice bed of tones.

The DFAM has its pitch sequence controlling its cutoff and the Subharmonicon's sequencers are controlling its VCO decay and VCF decay.

The Subharmonicon is playing the little polyrhythmic stabs and it running through the Space Echo.

The Mother 32 is doing the slow bass tones which are being echoed by a pitched up Clouds.

Everything recorded live through a Soundcraft MTK12 into Ableton Live where some EQing, compression, etc. was added to clean up the sound.

Video of this performance here: https://youtu.be/vnlGpf_HqJ8

As it is in the wires so it is in the air

Mostly modular instrumental synth noodling.

Mark D. Reid

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