I started building this as a backing track to play over as I believe was its original purpose. The piece is constructed of loops two melodic lines of different lengths repeated a unique combination of notes each repeat, I used Arturia's emulation of the EMS Synthi that Eno originally used for the piece and Soundtoy's Echoplex emulation Echo Boy to create a fairly close approximation to the original.There are additional tacks of both lines on solo Viola or Cello and Flute or Bassoon that rise and fall to provide interesting timbres. It's pretty straightforward to start but around the 30 minute mark I layer in a couple of instances of Valhalla's Delay and Valhalla's Shimmer reverb to allow the sounds to become more diffused. There is also some growing tape distortion using U-He's Satin tape emulator.

Discreet Backing Track

Cleaning up my various hard drives, I found this little fella that I thought might fit into a project I am finishing up that uses almost exclusively emulations of 70s/80s gear. I reworked the existing pad on a similar sounding CS80 patch I created and dropped the baseline into a MiniMoog track (is there any better bass than a MiniMoog?) Anyway, what a delightful surprise this morning. Give it a listen.

Stephen Boocks