your weekly thawkins

[thawkins]

Trying to fix up some old tracks instead of making more unfinished tracks.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by thawkins

[thawkins]

This is a kind of a quickie, not really focused enough to be a "real track" because I was just trying to test using all of my hardware gear at the same time and only keeping the MIDI sequencing part in the computer.

[thawkins]

Also heads up for the stream this Tuesday will be special: https://scanlines.xyz/t/streamlines-004-ft-tubular-corporation-x-trent-hawkins-tues-9-22/217

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by thawkins

[thawkins]

 

[thawkins]

Decided to work on a track from 2011. Not sure if I improved anything though...

 

[thawkins]

 

[thawkins]

Based off the same project as the previous one.

 

[thawkins]

The bassline in the chorus makes me cringe but I had to rush this one

[thawkins]

New track, not something old that I am fixing up, and for a change I am really happy with this:

 

[thawkins]

Another collab with Machine Gun Ibiza:

 

[thawkins]

Experimenting with a workflow where I only store MIDI and Live project configuration and render the track realtime from hardware. Let's see how I feel about this track tomorrow.

[thawkins]

This week's instalment is just the intro part of our jam last week with Tubular Corporation, which you can find online through the link in my sig.

[springymajig]

Listened to the last couple of tracks and they're very nice, very smooth, well recorded and produced, super relaxing. But the song in your signature there... that one is BEAUTIFUL, love the way the bassline shifts and harmonises with everything else around 2 minutes in and onwards, that little progression that cycles is really really pretty.

[thawkins]

On 11/27/2020 at 10:25 PM, springymajig said:

Listened to the last couple of tracks and they're very nice, very smooth, well recorded and produced, super relaxing. But the song in your signature there... that one is BEAUTIFUL, love the way the bassline shifts and harmonises with everything else around 2 minutes in and onwards, that little progression that cycles is really really pretty.

Thanks, really glad to see that this stuff resonates even though recently I have not really done any IDM style music at all. It's been more this calm/relaxing style of I don't even know what it is.

 

Here is last week's track that I forgot to share on Sunday, something like that track in my signature:

 

[snack master]

On 9/28/2020 at 3:21 AM, thawkins said:

 

i'm curious how you got the kinda floaty, pulsing, ethereal quality in the first part of this track.  is it through the use of LFO and a delay?

On 11/1/2020 at 2:38 PM, thawkins said:

New track, not something old that I am fixing up, and for a change I am really happy with this:

 

really like this one, great vibes.  i like the use of jazzy drums alongside synths.

 

[thawkins]

1 hour ago, snack master said:

i'm curious how you got the kinda floaty, pulsing, ethereal quality in the first part of this track.  is it through the use of LFO and a delay?

really like this one, great vibes.  i like the use of jazzy drums alongside synths.

 

For sat 26 sep, I checked my Live set and it's 3 tracks of the same instrument, 2nd pitched +19st and 3rd +31st (12+19). Each track has a Chord trigger arppegiator and a NoteModulator M4L device. On the first two tracks the notemodulator is just setting velocity of every second note to 0 - but since the arpeggiator is in chord mode (and chords are all two notes) it sometimes drops the low and sometimes the high note. Why it pulsates like that may actually be a kind of happy accident, because the midi is not 100% on the grid and every other run of the loop switches the dropped notes. Also, all those tracks are 'faded in' by Velocity modulation and the Random is set to 19 on the velocity effect.

Ah screw it I am just uploading the screenshot. Project tempo is 120bpm at 4/4.

tl;dr No LFOs, some Velocity modulation and Randomness.

[thawkins]

Thanks for the interest and glad you liked my track(s).

[thawkins]

Continuing these experiments with Yamah DTX12M and other stuff I have set up on my table.

[willochill]

On 12/7/2020 at 4:19 AM, thawkins said:

Continuing these experiments with Yamah DTX12M and other stuff I have set up on my table.

Man, that epiano is magical...

[thawkins]

2 hours ago, willochill said:

Man, that epiano is magical...

Thanks. That's actually a guitar preset off Roland XV-5080. There is an epiano-wurlitzer preset doing chords in the background though.

[thawkins]

Tried to apply the pomodoro method of working 25 minutes, then taking a break, in order to finish this one quickly. I guess it sort of worked even though I forgot to start the timer a couple of times.

Heavily based off the outro part of our jam session with Tubular Corporation last Tuesday (see links in my sig to find the full version).

 

[thawkins]

I took the intro from our last stream with Tubular Corporation and added some drums and a solo:
 

 

[Guest]

Hello, these songs are awesome. I was going through the thread and saw your album. The music for programming song is so cool. I like the pads and atmosphere in the beginning, but it sounds great all the way through when melodies get going and drums come in. I used to listen to a lot of krautrock, and the music reminds me some of one of my favorites, the album Zuckerzeit by the German band Cluster.

I wanted to ask about the weekly beats thing. I was thinking about giving it a try this year, and I am curious about how it was for you and if it helped you learn new things. I like to noodle around with synths while recording and then spend a lot of time editing later. I feel like the weekly beats thing can force me to make more music and not get lost so much in details or worry if everything is perfect. Wanted to ask how the experience was.

[thawkins]

On 12/22/2020 at 10:33 AM, bupkis said:

Hello, these songs are awesome. I was going through the thread and saw your album. The music for programming song is so cool. I like the pads and atmosphere in the beginning, but it sounds great all the way through when melodies get going and drums come in. I used to listen to a lot of krautrock, and the music reminds me some of one of my favorites, the album Zuckerzeit by the German band Cluster.

I wanted to ask about the weekly beats thing. I was thinking about giving it a try this year, and I am curious about how it was for you and if it helped you learn new things. I like to noodle around with synths while recording and then spend a lot of time editing later. I feel like the weekly beats thing can force me to make more music and not get lost so much in details or worry if everything is perfect. Wanted to ask how the experience was.

Thanks, glad you like it. I am also into krautrock a lot even though I don't really know all the albums.

As for the weekly beats, personally I find it super motivating and has helped for me to learn a lot of things. Off the top of my head:

• scheduling time every week to do this is great for ensuring that you regularly do music stuff that has a tangible result
• you learn to be creative and you can try out different things every week
• you will get better and more efficient working with your tools
• nice to be able to post new stuff regularly on your soundcloud or somewhere else
• not every track you make is going to be good, but over the course of time you will end up with a couple really good ones that you can make an album out of

There are downsides too of course. I notice that this weekly rush to finish something means that I have a hard time finishing any more long term stuff, like putting together an album or something more polished and 'ready'. Sometimes I end up rushing the weekly track and feel like I just wasted a bunch of time, but usually when I listen to it months later I don't hate it so much anymore.

But generally I think the weekly routine is really nice and in the end it is what you make of it - you could just post a raw jam session or spend some time making a short track that is fully mixed. You can just do a thing where you post 52 1-minute tracks for the whole year. In the end the important thing is that you regularly do your music stuff and aim to get better at whatever you are doing, this will definitely pay off in the end: even if you do not like any of your weekly tracks, you will now have muscle memory and technique to be able to execute your dreams much better.

 

Anyway I'll stop typing now and post the final weekly for this year.

 

 

[Guest]

thanks for your reply. The weekly beats thing sounds cool and I definitely want to try it. All of the things you say you learned are things I want to work on and that bit about posting 52 1 minute sketches sounds motivating. Listening to your last track of the year now, sounds good!