Song writing is hard. I wrote three different songs: one fit within the confines of the school of song assignment, one that tried to fit, but the assigned refrain made no sense. We had to make 10 verses and use an assigned refrain, I used 'the gulf between us' and  the first song was a fine song. But I was bored by it.

I wanted to do something different. Like a spooky song, or a sea shanty. So I wrote this one about last voyage of the demeter from the prespective of the captian, assuming the the main motivation to keep going on voyage and not dump the cargo was money. Because we've all been there....  The Demeter is the ship that carries Dracula to London. I'll re-visit this ship because a ship with people trapped with a monster is a damn good horror story for a very short less than chapter in the book. (No I haven't seen the movie yet)

I am learning about chord progressons for piano, but I am not skilled enough for that yet. So Just my voice a little humming.

› Lyrics‹ LyricsA cargo of dirt

They've already paid

there's something I need to know

but the money's too good to let go

the crew are fearful

they gave me an earful

there's something I don't wanna know

the money's too good to let go

one disappears

another chokes tears

something that lurks down below

but the money's too good to let go

as the storm starts to surge

the crew sing a dirge

but the money's too good to let go

the money's too good to let go

the light starts to fade

no one comes to my aid

the darkness has me I know

the money's too good to let go

and there's something I don't wanna know

'cause the money's too good to let go

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This isn't very good, but I have had fun with it after a lovely mountain hike on Saturday. What a marvelous day.

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Managed to squeeze in a few hours for a weekly beat!

This week is the Hapax sequencing my ALM Tourismo eurorack system (drums are Linn Drums) and my MS20M. Was able to record 4 stems out, and ran them through some outboard gear + Infected Mushroom plugins (Manipulator, Gatekeeper).

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I had friends Turtwig and RayjKayj encourage to use horrifying tuplet numbers and sequences. I made this fun abomination of a beat, that appeals to my aggressive lack of attention span. I hope you guys have fun with crazy beat that goes a bit everywhere!

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Nocal Stockton Sacramento type beat

Used Two samples from the same splice sample pack (Piano and strings). Just laid the beat on top. Then added an effect on the piano in and out of the verses to switch it up and done.

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It's really weird that my default mode when I have zero idea what to do, no concept, no real plan, and no prior thought put into the project is to crank out a cute ditty. Oh well here it is. This morning the mix was a mess; now it's less of a mess but I still have some small tweaks to get done. Of course, a couple days ago none of it existed, so this is what we call progress!

The breathy drone is one of the new Hypersynth waveforms introduced in the M8's new 6.6 beta firmware.

Dialogue is from the 1945 animated short "MagicaLulu" featuring Marjorie Henderson Buell's "Little Lulu" character. It's actually a cute little cartoon with some good gags that have since been ripped off by bigger names.

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Elektron Syntakt

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Moving on is always hard to do. As my studio is in disarray and I await the forensic audit to qualify for my next place, I purchased Logic Pro to go with my newish laptop (about 6 months old now) and decided to switch from Ableton on Windows to Logic on a Mac (call me crazy, why not Ableton on the Mac you say. It's more a shock to the brain, a reset. So many things in my life are getting reset, I might as well add one more thing to the mix. I am somewhat excited learning something new, at the same time very frustrating as I have to learn a completely new set of shortcuts and nothing works the same.

I felt naked, where are my plug-ins, I didn't have my normal metering and everything felt foreign. I tried to watch a few tutorials and didn't like any of them so started with a bass line using the Crunch Vintage bass preset and had enough to struggle through. I laughed, I shouted, I muffled screamed my way through the production. My first track using the new DAW is complete. No guitar this week as all my guitar rig stuff is torn down and in boxes now and I just couldn't deal with getting a recording setup. My normal box is a 15 year old window's 10 box running Ableton and all my plugins, that at one point in time was a beast, now its just a huge heavy machine running Ableton begging me to upgrade.

In Lak'ech

_mzunguko

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