"The Recluse" - from DRUMOPERATOR Ambient Electronic LP "slowfork"

in dsound •  7 years ago  (edited)


4am is my favorite hour. The end of my day, the beginning of many others ... and with it a certain feeling of isolation that comes with living on opposite time. The total lack of distraction allows for elevated focus on tweaking minimal elements... this piece materialized and immediately captured the vaguely optimistic, satisfied-but-on-a-long-trajectory sort of feeling that comes with the isolation intrinsic in working long hours in the studio. It's melancholic without being dissatisfied. All that from about seven total notes.


As noted, endless tweaking went into this patch. When you read guides on building a eurorack setup, they usually drone on endlessly about having enough attenuators and vcas, and a patch like this is precisely why. By keeping the melody minimal (I pretty much had the drone in my head before I started) I was able to focus on very carefully defining the ranges of each modulation ... an hour of tweaking later and I found myself deep in negative modulation territory. In the eurorack modular synth format, everything is represented by 0-5 volts. Everything. The melody from the sequencer ... 5 volt scale. The LFO slowly sweeping the filter (or in this case the sample rate on the bitcrusher which found itself still inline in from the patch before) .... all of these things play by the same rules and once you get your head around that, there ceases to be rules. Sequences driving melodies can absolutely modulate the reverb time, bend the pitch or send your wavefolder into outer space. As such, there is nothing stopping you from taking a cool sounding modulation and flipping it from -5 to 0 volts. By doing this, I'm able to set the filter wide open and attenuate a waveform into it ... subtracting from the envelope if you will. This is precisely how I got the "reverse tape" effect on the main melody and is a concept I look forward to taking to some way out there places in sound design.
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sometimes I use cable organizers. this was not one of those times.


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Fucking awesome dude it's great to see you doing some ambient. And I love that 4 AM hour too it makes me feel like a little kid staying up late.

This was very nice to listen to while browsing steemit <3

Thanks Julia! You rule.

Beautifully done! It's like a summer sunrise over the sea. I like the atmospheres and textures.

Sounds like 4 am... Some unconsciously wonder in dreamland, others still half asleep put a coffee machine on.

Espresso Rules Everything Around Me

I can sleep even after Espresso...

same!

Negative volts turned into positive vibes. Masterful control of frequencies.

Thank you my friend!

Enjoyed this one once again. I like the depth you give to talking about creation on here. My favorite time to produce is immediately after getting back from a great party. House is asleep and I'm brimming with the ideas that come from hearing things in a full on setting. There are times where this means working on music for 30 minutes before driving home on the laptop or that precious hour of taking the ferry back home. It's a hard state to get in but it looks like you capitalize on yours pretty well.

great ambience and original stuff

Nice I like this song

Damn you added soul to the music... that's spellbinding!!

mellow goods how did you record this ?

Nice

Great beat. Lets play the drum togethers

By great beat, I’m guessing you are complimenting my astute decision not to put any beat whatsoever in this song.

Thank you for appreciating my commitment to minimalism.

I showed your video to my friends they were like WTF :D They didn't know that modular equipment even exist :D Nice music