Audio 21279294068:
Aleph Null - Rocket 303 to Cosmos 808
In lieu of anyone more qualified stepping forward, it fell to me to contribute this April’s pattern to the SoundCloud monthly acid group. (A high-resolution transcription of the pattern can be seen here for better legibility and easier programming.)
My version has - at least to my ears - an early 90s spaced-out techno-trance vibe to it; the blame for which I place on finding my folder of miscellaneous astronaut transmission recordings. Also, I’m pretty sure Pete Namlook is partially responsible somehow.
I’m really looking forward to hearing how other folks in the group interpret the pattern. DyLABs has already taken it to a very cool and crazy place.
Photo 20975836457:
movementcast:
Aleph Null - 2012-04-08 - Between Q&T: Homage to R&S Records
lowbroweye: ”A nostalgic retreat to my ravey roots. The dusty and scratched vinyl, skipping tonearm, inevitable needle fluff interference, sloppy beatmatching, panic at unexpectedly early endings, botched transitions, lack of prepared track flow, and dodgy volume balance are all a deliberate part of the homage. Yup, 100% intentional and planned. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
DOWNLOAD
WHOOAAAA THIS RULES
Hey, this seems familiar somehow.
I may have to do a couple of follow-ups. It’s not like there’s a lack of awesome and classic R&S tracks.
(Heh, serves me right for being slow on the self-blogging.)
Audio 20724448587:
So here’s my interpretation of Le Prolifique’s track I Love You, Oh So Much, to be released as part of their remix LP in your nearest high street iTunes Music Store around the middle of June.
It’s a little bit different from my usual stuff but then, eh, maybe not (oh) so much. You know how you’re not supposed to put large amounts of reverb on kick drums? Well, um, ah, yeah, about that…
It’s also another one of my dabblings where there is no clear consensus on the genre to which it belongs. Suggestions so far encompass house, progressive house, tech-house, ambient and IDM (people still use that term?). Not that it really matters, but feel free to weigh in with your own opinion - I seriously haven’t got the foggiest any more.
Audio 20711151454:
Unearthed this old live recording yesterday when rummaging around the dustier corners of my hard drives for other stuff.
Correlating my memories of the recording location (Hove, actually) and the gear used —
- Roland TR808 & MC202 & Casio CZ-1000 synced and sequenced by a Roland MSQ700*
- Moog Moogerfooger MF-101 low-pass filter pedal
- Spirit Folio Rac Pac mixer
- Overly heavy handed usage of a crappy Behringer compressor
- Lexicon Vortex and three (!) Zoom 1201 effects units in a mutual feedback configuration
— indicates that this was sometime back in the dark ages of 1998, shortly before I went on an year-long brain-breaking bender of making painfully unpalatable, semi-modular experimental noise nonsense.
1998 isn’t that long ago, is it?
Oh.
* A pretty damn retro setup even in 1998; ridiculously quaint now. Which reminds me that I need to liberate the CZ; it’s been on loan for over a decade and I miss it.
Audio 20448056852:
Couldn’t sleep so fiddled around in the studio and recorded a live jam.
No relation to the Yellow Magic Orchestra song of the same name, except for a possible common appreciation for the concept of idealised technologically advanced cities.
Audio 18448416083:
Recorded this two weeks ago as part of the SoundCloud monthly acid pattern.
I’ve got to admit that I enjoy hanging out with the oscilloscope worms: underground, dirty, messy, wilfully unpredictable, surviving on scraps and detritus, just doing your own thing trying to ignore the continual heavy pressure from above.
Surviving without claps is a bit tough, though. Worms have no hands, y’see.
Post 16559488689:
One of the problems with trying to record stuff live at 2:30 AM is that if the first take is a messy disaster - and it frequently is - I often then fail to find the energy or motivation to make a second attempt.
Ho-hum, more fodder for the recording recycling robot.
Audio 16457293964:
My stab at the January acid pattern recorded live last night.
Rust Creep’s original pattern is a cool smooth 4 bar thing but I got tired after inputting the first 13 notes and then absent-mindedly left the door open for some weird mutants to creep in, confuse me massively with their monkeying around, and introduce stacks of hard-to-control layered distortion.
Eh, it happens.
Audio 16174138314:
I had trouble sleeping last night so I pulled the laptop and headphones into bed and constructed this little experiment.
The gimmick here is that all the sounds are sourced from a single Roland TR-808 cowbell sample. Well, 2 samples if you consider the reversed version separately. Obviously and predictably, massive amounts of processing was involved.
Due to the context, I didn’t employ any outboard synths, mixers, controllers, or effects. Nor, for once, did I employ any third party plug-ins or other special sauce - just (a lot of) what’s natively built into Ableton Live 8.
Thus the project is easy to share (and not very big) so give me a shout if you’d like to have a play with it.
