Old and New

[emdot_ambient]

There need to be more posts here, so to pitch in and give this site a boost, here are two songs of mine.

This is an old tune . . . in fact it's the first tune I ever put on the old Auditorium site (and KVR), but this one's been newly remastered: Behrlinesque.
This one's based on a simple repetitive Pro-53 riff, the first part you hear in the song. The rest was built on top of that pattern using samples of Orchestron violin, an FM7 lead, the Giga Clean Elec Guitar sample set, an Albino arpeggio part, and Oddity accents.


And then my latest tune, which was posted on the old Auditorium not more than a day or two before it went bye-bye: Trois Albinos.
Made with 13 instances of Albino3, two of them run through NI's GuitarRig2, and a TR-606 sample set in Battery3 (which I took apart a bit and altered for the reverse drum sounds). The additional drum sounds come from Albion3 presets. At least 4 of the Albino3 presets are layers with up to 3 different sounds playing. So to do all this in Albino2 you'd probably have to use up to 20 instances of the program. I did have to freeze some tracks in order to go over 11 Albino3 instances plus FX in Cubase SX3. But, 11 of them, some running layers . . . that's pretty impressive.

[Ed]

Behrlinesque

one of those titles that fit the track, the meadows of europe
very nice melodic statement, gentle arps plucking around it
enjoyed emdot, kinda washed over me, proly consumed the room as it was played

I'll catch the other one next time

take care

[emdot_ambient]

Thanks, Ed! That's a very different piece for me in a way: it has a singular sound world that hasn't come up again since it was composed (early 2005). I'm glad the title fits. It's actually a combination of Behrman and Berlin. At first the song started sounding like a David Behrman piece (On The Other Ocean), but rapidly transformed into an early Kraftwerk influenced work (Ralf & Florian with some Trans Europe Express mixed in--melodically it shares something with the song Endless from TEE). And yet it ended up being like neither of these.

It's been universally acclaimed as one of my best. My father even likes this one

Thanks for listening!

[elv]

Liked both track, but the newer one is just rocking

[emdot_ambient]

Rocking, not Rokken?

 

Thanks. The two songs do represent very different poles of musical expression, though they share quite a bit as well.

[one]

Hi Emdot

So nice to see you here!!


Behrlinesque. is GREAT!! reminds of Bowie's Low..


Soo soothing I love it!


I'll come back later to hear your new one...



1

[emdot_ambient]

Thanks, one! And what a compliment. Bowie's Low is one of my all time favorite albums. I swear some of the songs on it can bring me to tears even after knowing it for . . . OMG, that album is 30 years old!

Hard to believe that much time has passed since then, and still it stands up as a singular work. No one today would ever put an album out like that. So much stylistic variation and breaking so many conventions.

So . . . do you think Philip Glass will want do do a symphony of my piece, then?

[Marc JX8P]

Behrlinesque:
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Wonderful, to me it also has a Tangerine Dream style to it with a touch of Vangelis and Ton Scherpenzeel. Very relaxing. Great synth sounds and wonderful harmonies. The main synth pattern gets a bit much after three minutes though, it would have been nice if it maybe faded in and out on some spots or if it were transposed for a few bars. However, it's not that much of a problem that I can't enjoy the rest of the melodies. What I really like about this one is how analogue it sounds and the quality of the mix and panning, every part is very distinct and clear.

Trois Albinos:
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Great intro, cool sounds. Definetely has a cinematic quality to it. Cool drums and I love that distorted lead. At some places it also has that cool Jarre live sound he sometimes uses in tracks like Digisequencer. I'd be very interested to hear how you approach such a track as it sounds both painstakingly detailed and improvised. Very cool!

[emdot_ambient]

Thanks for listening, Marc!

I'm glad you said that about the mix in Behrlinesque. I really labored long over getting all the parts right. Then a few weeks ago I realized I had never really gone through the mastering phase for that song, so I polished it off in a couple of nights and really liked the results. Glad you did, too.

And you hit my process on Trois Albinos dead on: it was painstaking and also fairly improvised

I started by making 4 Albino tracks that were, oh, I don't know, maybe 8 measures long? Something like that. I put them in a loop and improvised the parts. This built up the core parts of the piece. I then copied the MIDI tracks and pasted them back-to-back in different combinations that sounded good, extending the piece and varying the compositional density. Once I had a framework built, I started improvising shorter MIDI track over various parts using new instances of Albino. These new parts also suggested alterations in some of the older tracks, so I'd go in and handmake variations within specific copies of the MIDI tracks. I was running out of CPU by the time I hit 10 or 11 instances of Albino, so when I got to the guitar-like distorted sounds, I improvised a bunch of leads using 2 different presets, then rendered the files to audio, chopped them up, and assembled them in the composition wherever they seemed to fit. This kept forcing me to extend the piece, because they were sounding good, but I was running out of room . . . so out of the other 10 or 11 Albino tracks, I'd do the cut/paste/modify to build up backing tracks for the lead sounds. I purposefully left 2 places where the composition changes its mood, density and instrument combinations, adding new drum tracks with Albino, and dashing in some arpeggio patterns. The core drums were done in Battery 3 using samples of the Roland TR-606 drum machine. I rendered this to audio, too, and did some reverse sections to alter the beats.

In all, it was an intuitive process that came together over 3 fairly intensive days. I let the song take its own form without thinking it through too much, so I think that's why it sounds improvised. That and the fact that I would alter older parts to fit new ones . . . kind of jamming on my own work.

[Ed]

I heard Trois before, but definately worth another listen,
really dig that guitar sound and the way things float around it
very cool rhythmic work
coolness

[emdot_ambient]

Thanks, Ed!

The guitar parts were made from two presets in Albino 3 run through GuitarRig2. The funny thing is, both of them are very synthy type leads, monophonic, and not very guitar-like. I think the presets were Kraft W Lead and Kraft Lead. The GuitarRig set up was different on both, but very similar. One of the sounds (except for the intro guitar lead) is panned slightly left, the other slightly right, so you can hear in the mix how the two have been blended in a kind of call and response as the sound shifts left and right.

I used the arp and layer features in Albino3 pretty extensively throughout, usually with 4 or more arps going at once (considering the different arps in each layered sound), but TBH, they're all factory presets, though tweaked ever so slightly, and one layered sound was built by me out of two other factory presets.

[Oren]

emdot_ambient,

Being new to the genre, it's not really appropriate to comment/critique, but suffice to say that I enjoyed both pieces.

Wood carving is a hobby I pursue, and I got out the folding knife and a bit of beach wood while listening - a very happy way to get mellow and creative!

Thanks for the education,

Oren.

[Wyatt]

I'm  starting to like this kind of music..I'm not an expert, but I am an expert on knowing what I like and I like both of these.

..yes different, and yet not so different. Very good quality work that is a pleasure to listen to.

..one of these days I will re-read your explanations, when I understand the workings better..you guys are driving me nuts with these layers

Wyatt

[emdot_ambient]

Thanks for lisening and commenting, Oren and Wyatt!

Oren, I can see where this kind of music would really be good with woodworking. You need a calm, clarity to do woodworking: meditative but active . . . focused. Glad you enjoyed!

Wyat: layers is where it's at, baby!