This was a test about my additive synthesis editing skills (basically within Cameleon 5000 and Virsyn Cube virtual instruments) and its blend with subtractive synthesis sounds (some sounds from the Prophet 5 simulation in the Korg OASYS PCI).

P.S. Composed during the making of this article (in italian): 
http://www.musimac.it/news/sintesi-additiva-è-lora

Additive Subtraction (2005)

About a decade ago, one night I dreamed of a tune played on a steel guitar (which I don't play). Oddly enough, I awoke, and I quickly started to put it down in the sequencer, with the intent to finish it the morning after. Of course, the morning after I didn't recall ANYTHING about the tune, not even a hint, so the piece remained unfinished (barely started, actually), and I never attempted to complete it afterwards. Here it is.

By the way, the sounds are almost entirely played on a Korg OASYS PCI, with some Wavestation, some Roland D-110 and some FM7.

Steel Dream (2004)

I originally conceived this sequence as a soundtrack for a fashion video featuring pretty women on the runway. I sampled, sliced and effected some orchestral sounds here and there, added some virtual instruments in Logic (mostly Zebra), and that's it.

P.S. It stops abrutply because it had to match the video's length.

Miss

This song is the result of my absolute first try with a computer sequencer, done in 1989 on Cubase 2 (Atari), and with only a Roland D-110 as a sound generator (my «studio» was just that : an Atari computer, a Roland D-110, a pair of cheap headphones and a domestic hi-fi set). Not even a [music] keyboard.

It's all MIDI, no overdubs, no audio tracks nor effects — just the D-110's eight parts played by Cubase through MIDI. I used to record that on a stereo cassette tape!

I actually learnt Cubase through composing and arranging this lame song, since all music was entered note-for-note in the Key Edit and in the Drum Edit windows (no [music] keyboard!), and I made extensive use of the Mixer track, surfing through the sysex code of the D-110 to squeeze every bit off of the 32-partials 8-timbres-plus-drums sound architecture. Besides, I programmed most of the D-110's sounds with the aid of an editor/librarian (Steinberg SynthWorks for D-110).

Why do I put this here on SoundCloud? Because, even if it was a mere zero-value exercise to learn Cubase, it's my first completed song — a bit like Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime. Laughable by today's standards, nevertheless my first «dime» ;-)

Jean Blues (1989)

Still another blast from the past. Ten years ago (2004) I entered a music composition contest with strict and awkward rules frankly I completely forgot, posting this track, improvised during an afternoon with an image in my mind of a multi-millenarian evolution of some species of living beings, from a primitive, simple, slow and clumsy form of life to a complex and efficient organism — hence the title "Clade" (life always evolves in clades).

I used just three sounds: Roland D-50's Cathedral Organ, a sampled piano and a physically modelled acoustic guitar of the Korg OASYS PCI.

Clade (2004)

I toyed with this short piece with one purpose: to test the new mixer, back in 2004, so there are no virtual instruments, just a bunch of (digital) hardware synths: Roland D-50, Korg Wavestation, Yamaha TG77, Yamaha MU10 (yes, that cheap drums track) Roland D-110, and the analog output of a Korg OASYS PCI.

Growing Desease (2004)

After I bought an iPad Pro (which is blazingly fast) I have been able to comfortably edit in Auria this experimental little piece — performed using iOS virtual instruments only (Animoog, Magellan, Impaktor, iDensity) — to improve a bit timing and synchronization.

ScarlettPro

My SoundCloud page is kinda becoming a personal museum of old unfinished pieces done with very basic gear when I was young: in example, this is an experimental (!) bit I composed and recorded during the early nineties in which a Korg Wavestation SR and a Roland D-110 were played via MIDI in multi-timbral mode and in multi-channel audio output (a peculiar 8-channel surround, that is) from a MIDI-only Cubase 2 on an Atari — with no overdubs.

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