Jamming session with Grand Classic piano Bosendorfer piano sound enhanced with a filter delay and a beat repeat. I started out with the piano experimenting with different ways of playing the same melody and pitching the sound with audio effects. I added a simple beat and some loops that came with Ableton Live 8. Finished it off with a choir sound from the Miroslav collection. The iMac crashed converting the Ableton project file to wav, hence the messy beginning. Like most of my experiments it is a rough idea of what it could be. I personally enjoy the sound quality of the piano and the weird things Ableton can do to that beautiful classical sound. :-)


Crashing iMac - Wicked classic

The original of the other version I posted. The backbone of the song. To some critics reminiscent of the Chemical Brothers. Which I take as an honorable compliment for an amateur musician. 

Sequel One - Latin insane (Original Mix)

Remix I made of the Everything but the girl song Missing. Threw in a lot of beat repeat and delay on a vocal version of the song. Tweaked the interval of the beat repeat with the Trigger Finger pad. Not a perfect mix, but I find it pretty chill.

Everything But The Girl - Missing (Sequel One Out of space mix)

Happy trance song from what I call the retro collection. Dates back about 15 years. I had a set-up with a pentium1 running Cubase Audio Lite. Sounds come from a Yamaha CS1X, Roland MC303, Kawai K4, Yamaha TG33 and Korg M3R. The drums were run from the MC303 in sync with Cubase.

Sequel One - Paradise lost (Floating mix)

Mellow trance song/soundtrack from what I call the retro collection. Dates back about 15 years. I had a set-up with a pentium1 running Cubase Audio Lite. Sounds come from a Yamaha CS1X, Roland MC303, Kawai K4, Yamaha TG33 and Korg M3R. 

Sequel One - Mello Ritmico (Trancy chill mix)

Groovy minimal house soundtrack from what I call the retro collection. Dates back about 15 years. This one was made with the basics: Atari 1040ST with Cubase Lite (on floppy disk!!!) and the Yamaha CS1X. 

Sequel One - C1x Groove (Basic mix)

Fully made on a Roland MC303. Dates back 15 years to The Retro Collection. I like the arpeggio overlays. Very simple straightforward track.

Sequel One - Dark Street (Light at the end of the tunnel mix)

Dance trance track fully made on a Roland MC303. Dates back about 15 years. Again fooling around with the MC's arpeggios. 

Sequel One - Orange Dog (The essence mix)

Commercial dance/trance song. Dates back 15 years. Atari 1040ST, Roland MC303, Yamaha CS1X. Inspired by It's a rainy day. 

Sequel One - Universe (While everybody is asleep edit)

Dance/trance. Dates back 15 years. Made on Atari 1040ST, Roland MC303 and Yamaha CS1X.

Sequel One - Histoires (Original edit)

Second take on a song I made mainly with the Miroslav Philarmonik VST plug-in collection in Ableton Live 8. The piano sound comes from the Ivory II Grand Classic Pianos collection. It sounds a bit sterile because I messed up the original's recorded velocity settings by equalizing them. All in all the sound collections are amazing.  I managed to run 19 VST plug-in tracks simultaneously. It seems to be the maximum performance my little iMac 1.7 dualcore can pull. Will post further updates while I keep tweaking / expanding the track. 

Symphonia (v0.2)

For me making music is a way of relaxing, thinking about nothing else, just becoming one with melodies and rhythms. I have been fooling around with synthesizers for more than 30 years. Starting with Roland Juno and Jupiter synths I loaned from my babysitter at the time. I evolved over the years from my first Casio to Korg M3R, Kawai K4, Yamaha TG33, Yamaha CS1X, Roland MC303, Korg M3R, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, my first Cubase lite and so on, on a journey though music technology. Now I have a little music studio centered around an iMac running Ableton Live 8. The sound card is an external Steinberg CI2. I use two USB controllers: an Akai APC40 and an M-Audio Trigger Finger. I also have a Korg padKONTROL but connecting it has seemed to be overkill so far. Will keep you posted on any change of policy in the future. I mainly use a Roland SH201 as keyboard. It contains good sounds as well so once in a while I throw its sound source into a mix. I connected it via USB to the iMac. Next to the SH201 my instrument collection consists of a Korg Triton proX that is connected through a classic Midi connection (M-Audio midiman anniversary edition). Finally there is a Roland MC909 I hardly ever use because it can only midi synch with Ableton (you can control only one instrument at a time via midi). Although the SH201, MC909 and the Triton are magnificent instruments that easily beat whatever sounds Ableton can generate (especially the Korg in the classic piano and strings section as well as in the synth pad area), you will for now only find songs based on the Ableton sounds here. Call it laziness but recording an audio version of a track using only internal sounds is much easier than tracks that use external sound sources. So far I haven't taken the time of recording sounds coming from the external synths. It has seemed an unsurmountable effort to route the audio exits through the Steinberg CI2s audio inputs. My set-up is completed by a Yamaha MG16/4 mixing console that is sent to two KRK Systems VXT6 studio monitors. 
As far as my music is concerned: these are the results of me having fun in my comfort zone. Do not look for professional, fully edited tracks. I usually have an idea, fool a bit around with it and render the track as final. The results are purposefully raw. Having said that: if you feel the urge to perfect a remix of one of the tracks, I can in most cases provide you with the Ableton project file. 

Update 19/02/2011: 
2011 has brought a clean up and revamping of the set up. I kicked out the MC909. Never used it frankly. The D-Beam controllers are nice but inaccurate. There is one on the SH201 and the Trigger Finger and APC40 offer more than enough freedom to control anything I can imagine. Now that the MC909 is gone, I have more room on my desk. It gives me more space to move around the mouse. I have given up on recording the external synths. I bought two magnificent plug-ins: Ivory II Grand Pianos and the Miroslav Philarmonik collection. They are a definite strain on my poor iMac 1.7Ghz 8Gb Ram. I need a faster machine but will hold off on buying one for now. The new sounds are amazing. It has taken years to convince me but I believe we have finally reached an era where plug-ins sound better than external synths. A fact that I can only applaud because plug-ins make it easier to record as discussed before. I got rid of the Steinberg CI2 card. The USB connection it supports was too slow for the new VST plug-ins and became a bottleneck. The shop where I bought it apologized for ever selling it to me and offered to take it back for 100€. I replaced the CI2 with an Edirol Audio Capture FA-66 FireWire. The difference is astounding. Both the processing speed and the sound quality are unlike anything I have ever seen/heard. Finally I couldn't resist investing in a series of Avox sound processing plug-ins and a Sontronics STC-2 studio mike. The sound processing plug-ins cover auto-tune and ten other harmony/choir and voice color effects. The studio mike is too sensitive. When I try recording audio I need to wear headphones and kill the monitors unless I want to enjoy feedback. That's obvious, but when I move the mouse it sounds like a freight train is driving through the room. I need to create a separate booth for audio recording the mike. In the meantime I'm enjoying the classical sound collections. They inspire me to make symphonic film music. I also want to experiment mixing electronic sounds with the classical ones. We'll see where it leads to. I have uploaded a first throw at a classical piece under Symphonia.     

Steve Delien

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