Up to number 5 at the moment. I appreciate that's a lot of music to just wade through, it's mostly kinda chilled and quite "pop" instrumental stuff, with influences from hip-hop rhythm-wise. Heaps of VSTis (including MIDI sequencing ones), but, still, it is all inside Mulch.
I'll post some techniques that might be of interest.
Shifting tempos while making some elements appear to be the same speed - 'Six Moths In A Leaky Boat',first track on 'Lucked Out'.
The first sound you hear is an Arpeggiator shaped by a SouthPole. I decided I wanted to keep this Arpeggiator part running through the track, but change the tempo of the other sounds against it. So while it's just doing 8th beats at the start, about 2/3rds of the way into the track I automated a tempo change, and at the same time automated a preset change to the SouthPole so the pattern that gates the Arpeggiator speeds up to faster units against the new tempo. The envelope is also a bit tighter so it sounds the same length as before. Hope that makes sense. It felt right to have a couple of extra beats in there at the transition too, so there's also a bar of 2 4 in there before the tempo changes, which required a whole lot more mucking about with presets for pretty much every single contraption.
Using tempo automation in the shape of a triangle wave to create swing - 'Midnight', first track on 'Sounds'.
The purpose of this trick was to allow me to sequence a whole lot of straight 16th beat patterns (which is nice and easy and the default behaviour in Mulch), but have the rhythms pushed or swung.
So in this track, beats 1 and 3 of each bar are about 75 bpm, and beats 2 and 4 are about 90bpm. I just automated the tempo, drew in a triangle shape I thought made sense and then copied and pasted it out for the duration of the track. The result is that the beats are evenly spaced apart, so it feels likes a very normal, consistewnt tempo, but anything that falls between beats won't sound like it's on a normal 16th beat grid because the tempo shifts are moving it earlier or later relative to the perceived tempo of the main 4 beats.
An unforeseen complication - LoopPlayers really don't like tempo changes. The vocal parts are loaded into Drums contraptions, since these are one off triggers. I could've done it with File Players too, I guess. Most of the other instrumentation is from VSTs, apart from another gated Arpeggiator later in the track, and the bass which is two Basslines playing the same thing (one square, one saw).
Echoes of constantly shifting speeds - 'Will Fight' (and 'Will Shred') off 'Shreds'
The first sound in the track is yet another Arpeggiator through a SouthPole, then into an SDelay. This is probably stupidly simple, but throughout the track the delay length keeps changing. I did this by setting up presets on an SDelay with different delay times and then sequencing out some automation of the presets in a pretty irregular fashion. Once I'd got a bit of variety happening I just copied the automation I'd drawn in, making sure it wasn't an even bar length, and pasted it out out for the duration of the track. The benefit of copying and pasting out automation that's some arbitrary length is that the changes occur in different places against the the master tempo of the track.
'Will Fight' is also a song - I ended up using Loop Players with the mute automated to turn them on and off at the right time. This allowed me to skip half way into the track and here what it sounded like from that bar, unlike if I'd chosen a File Player.
Not sure there's anything else particularly of interest, but really happy to share any technique if anyone has questions.
Absolutely rampant use of SouthPole contraptions to gate and shape sounds, chances are on every single track. Quite a few tracks have chord progressions built around layering 3 or 4 Arpeggiators.
I love sending an Arpeggiator into a SouthPole and then triggering note changes in the pattern at points where the sound can't be heard. This helps to stop the progression from being tooooo step-wise.
Wow, very inspiring! Listening to Single Digit High right now, really enjoying the spacious feel and immense bass tones.
If you want post some techniques used in your albums in the patch area just to show what AM can do. Not necessarily your patches from your work but just some general techniques (like the delay one for example).
Ah yep, good idea. I posted one on the weekend, happy to do some more.
Woah, very impressive! The tracks I listened to were great and, as Winstontaneous says, very inspiring too. Thanks for making these available.
I'll be checking out your technique posts for sure.
dl
lot's of great music! thanks for the info too. nice to get that along w/the patch ideas.
Here's lucky last for the year, 'Five Production Mistakes Even Professionals Keep Making (They're Not What You Think)' (my tribute to clickbait titles, I suppose)
http://jetjag.bandcamp.com/album/five-production-mistakes-even-professionals-keep-making-theyre-not-what-you-think
Clickbait, indeed...you sneaky little bugger, you!
Enjoying the sounds and off-kilter grooves.
Congratulations on setting yourself an ambitious goal and completing it!