Kara-Moon Forum

Switchback (http://www.emdotambient.com/Music/Emdot_Ambient-Switchback.mp3)

Okay, this one has some definite Kraftwerk influences . . . but it turns out to be a jazzy, lounge-ish, shoegazer drive through mountain roads in a convertible with the top down on a sunny day.

Why 7/8 time? I was watching this PROGRAM on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album and they mentioned that Money begins in 7/8 time. So I had it on my mind and gave it a try.

Instruments:
15 instances of Albino3
GTG FreeDrum (nice little program, I've overlooked this one for a long time)

FX:
GuitarRig2 (on the trumpety sound)
RetroDelay (on the trumpety sound)
Depth II (Benedict's SSPI)
SSP Space (Benedict's SSPI)
SmearCampaign (Benedict's SSPII)
LPGEQ2_1
SupaPhaser

Ok, I close my eyes and I'm through... ;D
The time signature and drums sound are combined to make a nice driving rhythm. It works very well
Typical ambient-inspired melodies and nice variations throughout the track, it really flows.
A working train of sounds...

Cheers

Danke! This ones another case of letting the song take it's own course.

Brilliant stuff, really good selection of sound and rhythms and, like money, it doesn't advertise the difference of its time signature too much and actually is quite relaxing to listen to. I love the little effect sounds, remind me of early Jarre stuff. Sort of the music I'd love to hear in a do***entary about space or an industrial process with only the music going on and no text or sounds to spoil it. I love the reverse ending!

Edit: apparently there's an overzealous profanity filter active. Ok then: doKUMentary. Better? ;)

Thanks a lot Marc! I've always adored the synth SFX in Jarres old work. Schulze, too, used a lot of them. I'm constantly tempted to put them in. This one really needed something to soften the smooth jazzy feel, and the SFX seem to do the trick.

The thing about working in this odd time signature was how what I thought I knew about drum tracks had to be radically altered . . . and yet the end result is such that if I hadn't know in was in 7/8 . . . I probably never would have noticed. It's even more obvious in Money, but frankly, I had never realized it before seeing the . . .
Ha ha! Why do you think I wrote PROGRAM instead of doSEMENtary in my original post?

Brilliant song. I like it! Very nice combinations of different elements I recognize from old masters. Old ingredients combined in a new style. Great work !!!  ;)

Thanks very much, Moon! Always good to get encouragement from el Moderator!

Your welcome! But keep in mind, now I'm expecting more songs like this  ;)
By the way, I didn't knew Albino was capable for filling all parts of a song like this. Aren't the 15 parts killing your cpu ? (or do you record the tracks in group?)

Ha, ha! I can't promise anything, but it's a possibility. I'm really busy on a time consuming project with a friend, so I have little time for composing. But every now and then I obsess over one song of my own for two or three nights. Limiting myself to one synth makes that a bit easier. Fewer choices to make.

Albino3 is incredibly versatile. The new layer features make it even more so as you can have up to 4 sounds/arps going at once, and is more cpu friendly than running 4 instances of the program to do the same thing. This makes doing actual drum tracks in Albino much easier, as you can write whole drum tracks using the arp. I've used 2 of these in this song, along with the main drum part which comes from GTG FreeDrum.

I haven't actually kept track of the specific cpu usage, but on the two all-Albino tracks I've done so far, my Athlon AMD64 4000+ 2.41 GHz seems to be able to run 10 or 11 instances of Albino3 plus any FX before I start running out of cpu in Cubase SX3. At that point I start freezing tracks and/or rendering them and reloading them as audio. On my earlier one I did that with the guitar-like leads and the Battery3 drum track. With this one, I did it only on one of the SFX tracks, which I wanted to do some audio editing on (using an envelope to force a quick cut off of the sound--kind of a manually created gate effect).

Thanks for the info !  ;)

It looks like I'm not the only one here who don't have enough time to make music. My other projects are keeping me away from my DAW too. But hey, my music isn't that great so I better make people happy with the work for Kara-Moon  ;D

The project taking up all my time is a commercial CD project, though an independantly produced/release one, so it's unlikely to give me much monetary reward . . . but I'm learning a lot and will pick up a good number of credits (co-producer, engineer, mixing/mastering, synth and drum programming, possibly some arrangement credits as well). I'm already seeing the results of this experience in my own music, especially in the mixing/mastering department.

Wow, this one attracks your attention from the first seconds.
Good & interesting compostion, enjoyed to listening to it.

I think the trumpet sound litle riffs (in the first part) could benefit from been a bit more upfront in  the mix.

Thumbs up for your commercial CD project. If all songs are like that, I wil buy it  8)

Kara

Very nice track and forever changing to keep the listener interested throughout. This track definitely did'nt develop into what i was expecting from the first minute or so. I thought it was going to be a Tangerine type piece and i was really surprised when the percussion came in. Really enjoyed this, it's very creative and original. Great stuff.  :)

Thanks all! Just went back to listen to it for the first time in a while...then realized I haven't been over here in days.

Kara: the CD project is totally, totally different from this. It's all drum/bass/guitar/voice with a little tiny bit of synth thrown in. Rock/psychedelic rock/maybe (gasp!) a bit of country thrown in. My presence will be more like Eno to U2 (only different) ;D

blipp: I had no idea where this was going when I started. The original sound that inspired the song ended up being the least important thing in it. The song starts with a string/arp layered preset. The second arp part that fades in is the sound I originally was going to build the whole work around, and it ends up just fading in, dropping out and never being heard again. I find it's sometimes good not to hold my original ideas too sacred.

Really glad you all liked it!

What can I say, standing at the end of a long line of compliments you so richly deserve?

..it's gorgeous..thanks.

Wyatt

Thanks, Wyatt!