Been listening to more random music theory vids across YT, got a little obsessed with descending fifths so that became the catalyst for this track. It got a bit wild and as the pieces stacked up I became less and less sure of the overall harmonic structure, but I'm calling it down for now.

Down 5

This is now the most time and effort I've sunk into polishing an idea in every direction. Sound design, arrangement, mixing and mastering. I got some awesome feedback from some folks who were very generous with their time and of course that then paralysed me when it came to actually feeling like it was done (or at least "good enough").

Korg M1 & Triton make up the base piano and string layers.
U-he Diva for the bass and leads.
Soundtoys Effect Rack used all over the place.
Shaperbox providing movement, mostly panning and volume modulation.

Ventilated, see

Totally addicted to doing everything I possibly can with Soundtoys at the moment. 20+ instances on this little thing. So much fun.

Cover image: Still Life by Josef Mangold

Untitled (jungle 2024-03-25)

three wires on blue

Went down the rabbit whole of the state of chiptune VSTs and methods in 2024. Settled on State Machine Bitflip and Magic8bit for now. Loving these sounds.

The beat is just ripped straight from an NI expansion pack, very mildly chopped and processed.

8bit untitled

Latest WSAP weekly challenge from 21st July. See below for the challenge description.

I found it incredibly difficult to stay in lydian. In the end I ripped the harmonic ideas for this almost entirely from Super Mario Galaxy's "Space Junk Galaxy".

I started with the bass and then the drum groove, once I had that the overall feel for the rest of the piece came together pretty quickly.

Chords from CZ V, lead and bells on top are both bx_oberhausen. Liberal amounts of Spacer and Effectrack for FX, mostly reverbs and delays, bit of gritty saturation.

------- challenge --------
Challenge is to make a House track between 115-125 bpm in the Lydian mode. 

Since it was so cool for us to learn a different mode, I figured I continue on that theme. 
The lydian mode is common in scores, because of its ability to create an etheral mood.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN IF YOU HAPPEN TO USE SOMETHING FOR EVEN 1 MILLISECOND THAT IS OUT OF LYDIAN MODE, ITS BAD. FOCUS ON ETHEREAL VIBES, USE LYDIAN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!!! but, don’t be afraid to color outside of the lines a little

READ THIS PART NEXT AND INTERNALIZE IT

Your track will be heavily evaluated on the ethereal feeling!!! 

YEAH BABY YEAH!!!

pale blue

Father's day weekend always seems to bring out the good vibes. I jammed around for ages on the keys with the minimoog until I got this bass line that I really like the bounce of. Gotta remember to use jamming more when composing.

brioche & black coffee

After much deliberation I've finally decided to try out some hardware to augment the software production. Behringer Edge is first cab off the rank. I'm having a tonne of fun playing around with it prior to any actual focused learning, just completely random knob twiddling until I find something I like the sound of.

Cover credit to https://randomdailyart.com/art/2024-10-06/

edge fragment 1

First time playing with the Edge and Neutron together. I set up a few top perc patterns and some multi-FX then played the entire thing in live. Messy raw techno.

neutron edge 1st fragment

I got some great feedback off https://soundcloud.com/screamish/gin-n-jungle. This a reworking of that track with less mallets and more ambience and fx.

gin n jungle (ambience edit)

Been away on a big trip. This is the first time getting "into the studio" in 2025. Felt like getting out the hardware and makin some drones.

untitled (2025-01-21 crave drones w lair)

Started out with Dyad, exploring poly-rhythms. Then drums with some kits from the Infinite Escape NI expansion, patterns built up with some help from Hats4Dayz. Drones/chords in the background out of the Drone Lab pack in Live, heaps of effects and modulation. Then out comes the Neutron cos I wanted to explore making subtler, gentler yet still gritty/nasty tones. I'm getting far more comfortable coming up with my own patches for it now. This has a combo of a real slow Env2 summed with some attenuated sine LFO with keytracking onto the Freq Mod. Love that combo.

Live crashed on me 3 times while making this :/ Not chuffed with that. The recovery process works OK but this is making me paranoid and more inclined to spend more time in Bitwig.

Untitled (2025-01-28 dyad drone minimal)

Another goal-less bit of experimentation going roughly: dyad bass bleeps, kicks, pigment 6 modal engine sound design exploration into the bells lead, pigment6 preset surfing to the pads with a heap of FX experimentation from tantra2, the rest of the fkn owl.

Untitled (2025-02-02 dyad rhythms pigment6 modal)

Totally revamped the studio setup. This is the first jam with it all set up. Played around with the Edge for drums/kick, Crave and E330 for a lead sound and the Neutron for a bass. Ditched the Edge cos I couldn't solve latency issues with the internal sequencer going into the DAW, replaced all the drums with some midi-programmed Battery stuff. Happy with that "rominimal" feel in the drums even if the rest of the elements aren't much in that style.

Got a wonderful source of interference showing up at the headphones, luckily not in the recording I think (although still need to test that).

Untitled (2025-02-10 rack it all up)

Just got GraphicVCO from Erica Synths and a stylish MI Rings clone. First messin about.

Untitled (2025-02-11 graphicvco into rings)

Had my head in the eurorack world for a while. Decided I'd try and make a "track" for once, not just endless patching and jamming and noodling, but try and bring some of the philosophy of modulation and sound design I've been developing in the hardware across to here.

Untitled (2025-03-01 superwave slinky delays & decays)

Started out exploring Oneiroi trying out some noise and drones and the usual, but somehow ended up wanting some chords and the next thing I know I'm trying out euclidean sequencing some Vult Trummor drums and there we are.

Untitled (2025-03-15 rampage oneiroi techno)

Started off following a great little Omri Cohen VCV Rack tutorial, then part way through (with the kick, bass and crispy texture down) I decided to bring in the hardware. Trying my hand at layering on heaps of complex modulation through a combo of betumi, maths, quad vca, and some mults I feel like I was able to coax some interesting sounds out of Graphic VCO into Squawk Dirty (on moog mode) and Rings. No pitches sequenced for anything, just static pitches and some slight LFO drift across the frequency of Rings.

Untitled (2025-03-24 vcv hybrid techno)

A very quick jam after a big day out. Meditation to unwind. All software, all Fors devices (with just the UA SpecOps added for the crrrrrrrunch and weird spectral shimmer). Cranked out the main idea in 10 mins, another hour to get it to an arrangement that felt nice enough.

Untitled (2025-03-30 dyad tela sala crushed)

A messy live jam driving everything with the Oxi One for the first time. Going for atonal techno sounds, there are pitch signals going in but none of the oscillators are tuned so it's a real mess harmonically. Just having a good time with the new toys.

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