First, the primary instruments...
This is my first synthesizer... an Arturia MicroBrute. I got her on a whim from Amazon on May 18th, 2018. As a kid, I never played an instrument and thought an analog synth would be a great idea: I could play with headphones so no one would be bothered by my noise, it's got enough dials and sliders to be more interesting that a regular instrument that makes a single sound, and it's got an incredible amount of geek appeal. Expectations were met... no regrets. This is a really great little synth.
My second synth is a Korg Minilogue. I purchased her while in a laundromat on July 25th, 2018 after having my eye on it for weeks. After a lot of research, this has a lot of features that I really wanted to play with: 2 oscillators, 4 voices of polyphony, 8 modes for those voices, tape delay effects, bigger keys, and an arpeggiator. My initial reactions were mixed, mainly because of my own inexperience. It was actually after receiving a Korg Volca FM for my birthday that I really got a feel for the sequencer... and YouTube taught me a few tricks (hint: there is portamento, it's just hidden) to really get the most out of it. This is another really great synth.
What promises to be my final synthesizer is a Moog Sub37. She's a real beauty. It's a really cool combination of the Korg's arpeggiator with the Microbrute's sequencer and oscillators. A single oscillator on its own has some of the most soulful sound I've ever heard, and together, they can be mean and beefy. The filter is obviously in a class of its own. The form-factor is great and the construction is really other-wordly. I say without hyperbole that this is the synthesizer end-game for me.
A guitar-- bought from a friend (can't remember the date)-- and mandolin-- bought on vacation in Chicago on 10 July, 2019-- will be added here soon.
Every music sample posted on this page is released to the public domain under the WTFPL.
I've got a soft spot for Christmas music, and I've been practicing for a while... but, I kinda missed the boat on recording it all. With that said, I'm thinking about starting a Celtic music album. I have just-about-equal parts of Irish and Scottish tunes planned out. Arangements are the difficult bit.
19 May, 2019: From Ireland, a favorite reel of mine. This was created mainly with Mowgli's sequencer. The "B" part was played with Synthey via MIDI. The "A" part, Bass and accent tracks also by Mowgli. This was probably my most ambitious project to date, and I'm pretty happy with it.
This was actually the third take on the song. The first two
were also multi-layer monstrosties, but this also involved the
first recorded use of my Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail delay.
14 February, 2019: From Scotland, this was on my short-list to
get recorded. To begin with, I've got one verse with some backing.
Both parts played by my gal Silverstar.
Everyone knows Christmas music. May as well spread some cheer. It gives me practice reading sheet music, anyway.
5 December, 2018: Whipped this one up in a severe time crunch. Call
it a test run?
9 December, 2018: Two synth version with Mowgli playing the background,
fatter sounds and synthey for the lead.
23 November, 2018: Quick and dirty rendition of Deck The Halls
on Mowgli. Listen to that legato!
I'm making slow progress toward creating a synthwave demo album. There'll be a basic sci-fi storyline that a bunch of tracks loosely follow. There aren't that many worth considering, for this project, and what's below may never make it.
10 April, 2019: Took a break while learning the
guitar and doing some live work that wasn't worth
recording. This almost made that category. I got a
few techniques regarding timing and the randomizer on
the arpeggiator down with this. Recorded entirely with
Mowgli.
12 December, 2018: A kind of industrial sound made
with Silverstar's sequencer and both Silverstar
and Synthey's output. This is yet another piece
and still not a proper song. Though I'm considering
it a test, I still like it.
30 November, 2018: Maybe I'm not cut out for music, but I do enjoy making it. There are a few rough spots.
I love the idea of using an analog synth as a drum machine, so this track features exactly that. Then, I wrote a pretty simple melody and programmed it into the sequencer. There was more I wanted to add, but I don't want to mess this up too much more than it already is.
This was made entirely with Synthey, by the way.
23 November, 2018: I've recorded more stuff, but none of it seems to be good enough. Even this has a few rough spots, but I found a cool tune, put it into the sequencer and decided to simply record it with some variations. I added a sequenced beat beneath it (intentionally subtle) to pound a little bass.
You'll notice around the three-quarters mark, there
are actually a lot of notes in this sequence that just
run together-- only one envelope is active (for the
most part), and there's enough glide and release to
make things run together. I kinda like the technique,
though there are parts where it's clear that that's what's
happening.
21 October, 2018: From the brand new Moog-- I spent an hour and recorded the three separate tracks for this. It was ultimately a lot of fun and I'd like to do more like this.
The percussion track and the padding were both done
with the arpeggiator, and the lead was just done by
hand. I didn't mean for the padding track to sound like
the Stranger Things theme, but I'm kinda glad it does.
Anything below this point is treading waters... All the tracks listed below were synced and mixed using either Audacity or Reaper, though all the fades and cool effects come directly from the synths (unless mentioned otherwise).
9 September, 2018: More from the Korg. I've fallen
in love with the sequencer on this and its ability
to construct sounds incrementally. Using it in
conjuction with the arpeggiator and tape delay
makes for some really pretty sounds. I'm using
VC0 2 on a lower octave triangle as a sub, and the
results are pretty good. This probably belongs above
the "early meddlings" line...
9 September, 2018: I've had the Korg for about a month
yet, and I bought some snazzy new equipment... I also
realized I'm way overdue for some recording. After
listening to some improv darkwave stuff, I figured I might
give it a try. The results are a little disappointing, but
having a three-octave keyboard certainly helps produce
wider sounds. LFO should have been modulated... listening
back on cheaper headphones, that wave-shape oscillation
is a bit jarring and annoying.
7 July, 2019
Angie's birthday is coming up right quick... and
since I've been into music for these past 16ish months,
it seems fitting I'd make something again this year.
This just happens to be the first recording I've made with
Monica's my new guitar backed with Mowgli, the
most powerful synth on the planet. Somehow, it's barebones,
but it's something more. Anyway, I hope the heart
shines through.
17 June, 2018:
Angie's birthday is in less than a month. Figured I'd try this
out. Took about ten minutes (plus distractions) to learn.
14 June, 2018: Somebody just had to tell me that an
analog synth sounds like the sound chip from an NES. They just
had to. So, after hours of practice, I finally made
a passable attempt at ths. No hyperbole.... about four
hours of practice and retakes for 24 seconds of music.
There may be more practice
and another attempt here in the future. It's a fun tune to play.
3 June, 2018: So, I grew up listening to a lot of Irish
music. I wanted to practice some sheet music but forgot
my earbuds, so I had to use the synth as a MIDI controller
for this one. There are two tracks: an "ambient strings"
track for the background, and a basic piano track for
the melody. I'm not unhappy with it.
1 June, 2018: I've had this theme in my head before. In fact, I think any time I've tried composing music before purchasing a synthesizer, this has come up... so it's good to get these 14 seconds over with right now... Warbly background is courtesy of the sequencer running at a -1 octave with some cool filter work for the quiet part. The lead isn't anything special, though it is a sound I like.
I've moved over to Reaper primarily as my DAW. It
seems easy enough to use and may get me into MIDI.
25 May, 2018: Darth Vader's theme has a lot of flats... so, I only fought my way through two bars. I think I was playing with the filters correctly to get a badass cross-fade between the two tunes... Also, it's fun cranking all the knobs up (the "metalizer" and "brute factor" especially) to get the badass bass. LFO was also used on the two fades.
My tempo still sucks. If I practiced a few more hours, things would've turned out better. We're still early in this musical adventure, though. I'm sure I'll visit this one again.
Also still working on input levels. I'm clearly recording
more loudly than my mic input likes.
25 May, 2018:
I found that messing with square and triangle
waves with some filtering and upping the attack a little
can make a kind of light, windy melodica sound,
and messing with decay and sawtooth waves, some pretty
cool accents can be made. I wrote two little melodies
here and stuck it all together. I'm not happy with
how it turned out, but it's a dose more complicated
than the previous... Rather regrettably, no sequencer
was used here, and my tempo jumps around.
23 May, 2018:
The first "piece" I composed was 6 seconds long and, due to
my lack of faith in myself, I used the sequencer exclusively
for both tracks. It's a cross between video-gamey and jingly...