Decided to focus on tweaking the sound of each voice throughout the song instead of just re-using the same voice throughout a track without modifying it. Basically I used the FX lanes on the m8 more. I also experimented a lot with the FM synth on the m8. I recreated some patches I found for Dexed.

I picked up an rk006 and have been having a blast connecting the m8 to all my little desktop synths. There is one external synth on this track, but it's mostly m8 instruments. Super excited to try sampling external synths next week!

The title is because my cat batted me in the face. She was really pissed that I was ignoring her while I was writing this.

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I called this Eroding Sting because it started with an Ableton M4L device called Sting 2 which is a good little sequencer that is easily modulated to keep generating different patterns - Added the recently updated Erosion effect within Ableton (Beta) to provide some noise.

Tools:

XO for drums

Sting for midi sequence

Vital for Bass

Absynth 6 for Pad

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Let's do some orchestral, it’s been a long time.

I was deciding where to go after last week and was still in a rock frame of mind. I had been thinking about doing some manner of symphonic metal, so I laid down some harmonized guitar lines and orchestral parts to go with it. That first theme was something I hummed as I was going down to my studio. Was also adding synths, drums, etc. When I was listening to my first day's work, it left me thinking...the guitars aren't bringing anything to the table...so delete them! I decided to go all the way and also remove all synths and drums as well.  I think I sometimes lean on noise a little much, so going purely melodic and clean again felt like a big switch :) It's probably been a solid ten years since I've written a purely orchestral piece. Maybe I'll revisit electronic/orchestra (Orchestralectro!) later on this year.

The title came from separate comments from my wife and stepkid, who both thought it sounded like adventure/boss fight game music. Sure, why not! Let's lean into it - it's The Game. For the cover art, I wanted to capture the idea of grand sweeping RPG landscapes…where danger is around the corner. I didn’t write the piece with those concepts in mind, but it fits well.

Production notes: All sounds are from EastWest Symphonic Orchestra except for one shaker that is from Ra, and ended up with around 35 tracks. I learned that I need to stop using their Play sample player - nothing like opening up your project after the first day's work and getting "a plugin has become unstable. Recover or quit?"….and Recover just loops back to the same dialog box. Managed to fix it by importing to a new project and not closing it again until I finished. Turns out Play is legacy software, and isn't actually supported on Apple silicon. Oops. Been using Play for 15+ years, but I better start using Opus. (I figured out how to switch over the plugins with a minimum of pain at the end of the week. Which is good, I have a lot of old projects I’d like to revisit.)

Source image for the cover art is by liuzishan on Freepik

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Another weird one this week

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It's not a keygen, I swear! The 90's just called! They want their raves back!

Anyway, did a cool thing inspired by Streets of Rage and old 90s club mix CDs I found at Value Village over a decade ago.

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Sorry I missed out on a couple of weeks, I was busy. Anyways here's a mix of my first tune I posted!

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Playing with a recently acquired Casio MT-220 (round 2 on owning one of these puppies!) and was struck by a desire to make something Caretaker-esque. Mournful, a little haunting, at times optimistic - I think there's more to explore here.

A little departure from the usual.

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got this one done quite early this week. i tried to record vocals but it just didn't work very well.

the opening tape loop is from a sample pack my friend Robinson's Village made (check it out here

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This sequencer/synth is really coming along. I'll call it "feature complete" now, but there will definitely be some tweaks. It's sounding a lot more punchy now. I'm also pretty happy with how dreamy the ambient wash at the end of this recording sounds. It is absurdly fun to jam with.

Maybe I'll do something different next week :D

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