Music Making

[Dusty Chalk]

I know a couple of us make music as well as listen to it, so I thought I'd start a thread on it.

For example, despite being a classically trained musician, I had never heard of Negative Harmony before, but now I'm all over it.

Also, I found this instructive:

 

[Torpedo]

I watched the negative harmony video a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a different expression of the use of parallel tonalities and the conception of a tonality as whole that would include the chords and modes derived from its tonic, subdominant, dominant and both parallel (the ascending and descending) tonalities. When improvising it all comes down to how fast you can think and play it.

[Dusty Chalk]

For me, looking at tabs created by fans, it helped me understand why some notes would sound wrong and right at the same time.  But yeah, now that I understand what’s going on, it can help make an arrangement sound jazzier by utilizing it or more correct by not using it. I tend to like doing a straight arrangement initially and then get jazzy in the bridge or outro.

[Dusty Chalk]

@knuckledragger @ironbut anyone who believes there's no such thing as too many samples.

https://reverb.com/software/samples-and-loops/reverb/3514-reverb-drum-machines-the-complete-collection

[Emooze]

I recently have been slowly acquiring modular synthesizer parts and stuff. I have nothing to present yet as it still sounds rather flat to me (need more gear) but the hobby seemed like the natural progression of being in this hobby and being a DIYer.

[Dusty Chalk]

You just need a DAW.  Modular synthesizers are typically monophonic, so you only get to hear the one melody.  Overdub a few things together and it will start to sound more complete. 
 

A reverb would help, too.

[Emooze]

Not quite, what I need is more gear (typical). I've seen some stuff where they are essentially building entire separate synths within the same case then just syncing the sequencers off of the same clock or clock dividers to get what I would call, polyphonic sound. Stupid, pricey, but I have a goal to do shit without a DAW.

I found a project to use a gieger counter to introduce randomness into the pattern so that may be the next step.

[Dusty Chalk]

Geiger counters have no sense of rhythm. 

Okay, if you want more gear instead of a DAW, then yes, more gear.  I would recommend thinking of them in groups with the ability to sync aspects of them (especially sequencers), with dividers and multipliers so that they still unified.

Fake polyphony!

And get a nice warm guitar tube amp with a reverb, like a Fender Reverb. 

[acidbasement]

12 hours ago, Emooze said:

Not quite, what I need is more gear (typical). I've seen some stuff where they are essentially building entire separate synths within the same case then just syncing the sequencers off of the same clock or clock dividers to get what I would call, polyphonic sound. Stupid, pricey, but I have a goal to do shit without a DAW.

I found a project to use a gieger counter to introduce randomness into the pattern so that may be the next step.

I'm absolutely loving my Synthstrom Deluge. More than just a groovebox, it also has midi I/O, 2 CV outs, and 4 gate outs. And it acts as a USB host, which I don't even understand but people are excited about it. Check it out and we can be nerds together. I'm modular-curious at this point, but mostly I'm interested in FM and other digital synth sounds. They're a lot cheaper, for one thing, but also I love industrial music. I'm trying to assemble a fleet of cheap old 90's-era rack synths, to run through effects. I have an Arturia Minibrute for bass/lead stuff.

Edited October 29, 2019 by acidbasement

[Dusty Chalk]

11 hours ago, acidbasement said:

...I'm interested in FM and other digital synth sounds. They're a lot cheaper, for one thing, but also I love industrial music. I'm trying to assemble a fleet of cheap old 90's-era rack synths, to run through effects. 

We need to talk.  I have a JP-8080, several E-mu modules (including the Morpheus), a Quadraverb GT...plus I spent a lot of time hanging out with rivetheads and goths in the 90s.  
 

I used to cite Skinny Puppy as one of my top 3 favourite acts...

[Emooze]

Cool. You do you. I'm gonna bow out of this.

[acidbasement]

1 hour ago, Dusty Chalk said:

We need to talk.  I have a JP-8080, several E-mu modules (including the Morpheus), a Quadraverb GT...plus I spent a lot of time hanging out with rivetheads and goths in the 90s.  
 

I used to cite Skinny Puppy as one of my top 3 favourite acts...

Sweet. I've got a Yamaha TX-81Z and an Alesis QSR so far. The only effects unit I have is a Zoom MS-70CDR. I want to get something for overdrive/distortion, that will work at line levels.

I feel like my next big purchase will be a drum machine, possibly the Elektron Model:Samples. But I don't know, there is a point where owning more gear causes me to get less done.

[Dusty Chalk]

Ayup.

[acidbasement]

Hoping inspiration strikes tonight.

[Dusty Chalk]

On 10/29/2019 at 10:55 PM, Emooze said:

Cool. You do you. I'm gonna bow out of this.

I’m sorry, I’ll shut up, please feel free to continue to share your progress, I doubt I’m the only one interested.

[acidbasement]

I am really interested in modular synths, even though I don't quite grasp how they work. Please share.

[Emooze]

This is one of the better videos I have found explaining a lot of the basics in one video. Everything he talks about is applicable, really regardless of the synth format, even extending to non-modular synths.

 

[ironbut]

Hey guys. I just stumbled across this thread and even though it seems to be more hardware oriented so far, I'll try and contribute.

Regarding Euro Rack, the way I learned is fooling around with VCV Rack. It's a virtual euro rack system that's almost free. That is, there are modules that aren't free but there's no reason you couldn't learn everything on the free modules.

There are tons of YouTube videos on learning and using it but here's an overview.

 

[acidbasement]

I think I'm performing some synthy stuff in public tomorrow night at a rave-type party. Here's hoping I don't shit the bed!

[Torpedo]

^Have  a great time. That they like it is way less important  

[grawk]

Break a leg

[HiWire]

Found this composition bit while surfing YouTube (Why 80s Pop Music Sounds So Good):

 

Bonus – gated reverb drums are old news to most of us, but check out the attached Spotify list in the description for a mix of old and new gated-reverb songs:

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by HiWire

[ironbut]

For you hardware folks,..

Here's some cool tabletop equipment stands I stumbled across.

Very reasonable and it sounds like the maker is willing to expand his offerings if the demand is there.

https://www.3dwaves.net/

[acidbasement]

All the Samples From Mars are available for $39 right now. I just bought them. My Deluge plays multisamples, and I'd like to get another device that will do it too - I'll probably try out a Raspberry Pi for this at some point.

[Grahame]

Meanwhile ...

via: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/02/amazons_ai_keyboard/

more here: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-deepcomposer-compose-music-with-generative-machine-learning-models/

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Grahame