Track composed entirely of one shots from a Eurorack Modular

[Brisbot]

https://soundcloud.com/evoava/eurorack-hash-modgrid

This track is composed almost entirely from standalone (one-off) samples from a eurorack & moog. Got to play with one about 2 months ago, recorded a loooot (about 8 hours) of sounds.

also recorded a lot from a moog. I only used midi from a certain scale, and got a ton of samples in many different notes in the scale. A few hours of this. With different patches dialed in.

After I did this (during two separate weekends so it took a while) I went ahead and combined them in this little composition. The goal was to make something interesting from one-shots as opposed to neatly putting down midi and working on it normally. Instead I opted to make the sounds, and then try to make a coherent composition out of them.

This is the result.

Oh yeah, also a few synthesized drum samples from a minipops. The pops in a minipops sound amazing! It was sampled, I don't have access to one of these :)

I felt like I needed to approach music making differently to see if I could get incredibly different results. The process kind of matched the end result. Since almost everything was recorded using manual movements, many sounds sound kind of 'wild', imho. Instead of carefully modulating everything, this more wild approach definitely is sweet and I play to use it more often in the future. I recommend it.

[Nil]

Pretty nice one!

[coax]

sounds great

[Brisbot]

Thanks for listening. Any suggestions you can think of? I am getting to play with one again this weekend, so I am looking for suggestions of what to do. I should start going in with little bit of a plan. heh

[kausto]

Yeah, sounds great.

[kausto]

Try to do something in style of Akunk with this

[Brisbot]

Wow, oh yes that suggestion is great. It works well since it kinda sounds like a lot of little one shots. I'll be getting one shots again (It's my only choice really since I don't own one and won't for some time)

Maybe I should learn to better synthesize drums.

Then there's that part in akunk where the bass/midrange bass stabs come in that I could try an synthesize.

The casual nature of Akunk would probably work real well in a track like this.

[caze]

sounds cool. did you mutli-sample everything or just edit together the audio snippets? and is the main bass just single notes or various phrases cut up?

[Brisbot]

sounds cool. did you mutli-sample everything or just edit together the audio snippets? and is the main bass just single notes or various phrases cut up?

What do you mean by multi-sample?

 

I basically did my thing with the rack, I tried synthesizing sounds I thought of I ended up with hours of audio, and then cut it into 20 minute segments which made it easier to sift though.

 

Then I slowly put it together. The main bass is actually the moog sampled pretty extensively. I made a few different bass patches and while I was doing that, set the midi to the scale (to narrow down the number of bits I'll have to sift through) and tweaked various parameters while I was sampling it. What you hear are the notes cut up that I had midi for and played randomly. So I'd make a 1/8th 1/4th 1/2 half note, etc. (not many 1/3rds but I did have a few) and automate it manually.

 

I hope that clears the question up

 

There are a LOT of unused bits on both ends. There is a lot of bits that aren't useful either, such as the crazy glitchouts that keep going and going. I couldn't find much of that to use, but maybe I was just not imaginative enough!

[caze]

What do you mean by multi-sample?

I basically did my thing with the rack, I tried synthesizing sounds I thought of I ended up with hours of audio, and then cut it into 20 minute segments which made it easier to sift though.

 

Then I slowly put it together. The main bass is actually the moog sampled pretty extensively. I made a few different bass patches and while I was doing that, set the midi to the scale (to narrow down the number of bits I'll have to sift through) and tweaked various parameters while I was sampling it. What you hear are the notes cut up that I had midi for and played randomly. So I'd make a 1/8th 1/4th 1/2 half note, etc. (not many 1/3rds but I did have a few) and automate it manually.

 

I hope that clears the question up

 

 

by multi sample I meant layered the hits up in a sampler with a wav for every note (or at least several, to avoid pitch shifting the samples) and played it back via midi.

[Brisbot]

Oh yeah, I did. Not for everything. I'm kind of scatterbrained and get bored easily so I did both. I usually closed my eyes and listened to the playback (I ended up sequencing everything in my DAW due to time constraints with the hardware, so I could get the most out of it). I listened as hard as I could for the most interesting bits.

I used the sampler for the part at 2:20 the most, which made it easier to manipulate as there were many similar samples in this vein and made it easier to find the ones that sounded the best. Those are all one-shots I made. There are actually probably like a thousand similar samples in the audio file, one after the other, very quickly.

The bass though was manually sequenced. I could have used a sampler, but I managed without I suppose.

One thing to note is that while I was recording the audio, the patches were recorded one after the other. So the part at 2:20 comes from a single long stretch of audio.

Ok that was a bit of a longer answer for a short question. heh

[Brisbot]

Ok weird the edit option isn't working atm?

Anyway, that said If I were being methodical I would have used the sampler more. I think as a side effect of having only used it sparingly, meant the track was even more.. well unpredictable maybe... than it could have been. With a sampler you're more likely to put similar audio together, whereas if you're picking out the parts manually it can probably make the track a bit more scatterbrained itself.

Just a thought. I'm probably going to use a sampler more next time that all said.

[caze]

doesn't sound like there's much fx going on in the DAW either, is that correct? just a bit of panning and reverb or something.

[Brisbot]

oh wow you posted fast, I posted a second post btw right above.

Oh yes I did a little of it. I DID add some flangering and phasing, very subtle in there, on top of everything. One good trick I like to employ is to, when I'm almost done with a track, is to chain the bass/ leads/ drums into a 'sub-master' like channel so that would be 3-sub masters for bass leads and drums. And then put tack on very subtle phasing/flanging on top. I call it 'glue' myself since it kind of glues the elements together, imho. By subtle I mean the wet is usually like 2-3%. I did pan, but there is plenty of panning from the source material as well. It noticeably improves the mix. Then sometimes I put a little more in the master channel but I decided not to.

Also subtle reverb. I used a plate verb actually for some of the eurorack stuff :). Then some stuff didn't have verb so I used a vst plateverb for those.

[caze]

yeah, I've often used subtle flanging and chorusing on samples to glue them together (short reverb also). works well, especially if the samples are coming from disparate sources, they often sound obviously out of place without something to smear the frequencies about a bit.

[Brisbot]

haha, yep. Short reverb/ subtle flanging and phasing are some of my favorite sounds. Things that work in the background/behind the scenes makes everything better!

[Nil]

Are all the drums made with the Minipops?

[Brisbot]

Oh, no. btw I think I mentioned I just have samples of a minipops!

One example of a minipops drum is at 2:05, that little 'snare' sound in the left ear. With a tiny bit of plate verb. That's actually a rim sample, oddly enough, but it sounds snare-y.

Also one of my kicks were from a minipops, and the other.. i think a 909 or 808. Damn I forget. Actually it might be a DR660. I need to look at it when I get home.

Oh yes, and that 'noise' based snare is minipops throughout. Like at 1:11, that noise in mono is totally mini

[o00o]

If you told me this is something afx did I would totally belive you

[o00o]

how do you get your hands on these? is there a studio next to you?

[Brisbot]

how do you get your hands on these? is there a studio next to you?

Well I am pretty much lucky. (I'm going to go play with an even bigger one Saturday:D, but I DO have to schedule it and it's usually a few weeks ahead.)

 

I'm lucky because I have a friend who has a LOT of analog stuff. I have occasional access to those, and his dad knows a professor at a nearby university about an hour away who runs the electronic music department. Basically students are in there like all the time, every day of the week, so you have to schedule ahead, but since I know people who know people I can get in, even tho I'm not a student.

 

The studios are split up into 4 different rooms w/ different setups. The big ones have the modulars (the picture of the modular on my song isn't the one, the one I used is a smaller :) heh.

 

Tho the one I'm getting to use is their biggest equipment. The also have an older modular thing I haven't asked about yet. I am excited if you can't tell. !!!

 

Thanks for the compliment, tho I've got to say if someone told me this was Aphex I'd have my doubts, but then again I am fairly critical of my music. It may be this way with you too, but it takes months after I finish a track to REALLY enjoy it as if I was a listener.

 

If there's any suggestions for what to do with the modular setup I'm all ears!

 

 

[th555]

You could try to get some generative sequencing going, I reckon if it's a big system with some cool timing/trigger/logic stuff you can basically have an entire track by just letting a patch free-run.

[flacid]

If you told me this is something afx did I would totally belive you

 

+1

 

Really enjoyed this. Great sounds and melodies but also the difference between this and most other tunes on here is the transitions. The track moves along really well, keeps things interesting and varied. Wicked track.

[Brisbot]

You could try to get some generative sequencing going, I reckon if it's a big system with some cool timing/trigger/logic stuff you can basically have an entire track by just letting a patch free-run.

Yes that's definitely a good idea. I'd do this if I owned one (I do plan on it but it may be years into the future)

 

I ended up doing the same thing as last time, but with a focus more on one shots, I think I may try making an akunkesque track, but different since I hate the idea of copying another human's music as it undermines yours imo. Just take inspiration from :)

 

 

 

 

If you told me this is something afx did I would totally belive you

 

+1

 

Really enjoyed this. Great sounds and melodies but also the difference between this and most other tunes on here is the transitions. The track moves along really well, keeps things interesting and varied. Wicked track.

 

Man if someone showed me this track and said it was AFX I'd call BS quickly haha ;)

 

Yeah the transitions are good imo, I need a better method of making music tho, the one I currently have is a huge time waster in some senses.