Critical Weekend Work LP - Liner Notes

Notes for the Critical Weekend Work LP on Bandcamp. These are mostly tech jottings so I remember what I did. Any thoughts, questions, etc on the music itself are welcome at the email address on this about page.

1. Grove Street 01:05

A basic melody done with the modular synth (specifically the Doepfer A-111-5 mini-synth) is augmented with a field recording from, er, public transit, drums from Steinberg's "Groove Agent" (yeah baby yeah), and some overtracking to make the harmony at the very end.

2. Skiffle Capacity 02:16

A variant of the "Grove Street" melody, with added parts played on various synth and/or sampler modules (Doepfer mini-synth, WMD Gamma Wave Source, SID Guts, Doepfer A-112) using the Elektron Octatrack as a MIDI controller. For all that, this wasn't working for me until I added the bassline, dubbed in with NI's Massive softsynth. The middle section is the Octatrack arpeggiator ringing changes on the basic synth lines. This sounds fairly spontaneous and hyperactive but was assembled a few pain-in-the-a** bars at a time. There is a second bassline done with Linplug's Element P percussion synth that peeks out at the ending.

3. The Persistence of Marimba 02:50

Yet another variant of the "Grove Street"/"Skiffle Capacity" tunes. Some of the same instrumentation as "Skiffle Capacity," with added percussion from the Household Kit samples (see previous LP) with heavy chorus and delay. The "marimba" is NI Massive.

4. Kitchen Drone 03:04

Shameless banging around on the Household Kit samples (finger snaps, pan lid, rice shaker, chair thump) using the Octatrack sequencer's MIDI out, converted to CV/gate and triggering the samples in the Qu-Bit Nebulae granular sampler module. The heavy "rave" chords at the end are NI Massive.

5. Cloud Tenders 01:40

An assortment of beats made with the Octatrack as a MIDI controller and two sampler modules (ADDAC wav player and Doepfer A-112) playing Household kit sounds. The sampler outputs were recorded straight (as simultaneously recorded mono files) and then a second group was created running those same beats through Steinberg's Step Filter effect (the "wah" sound at the beginning). After quite a bit of moving all these beats around in Cubase, pads and bass were added from Absynth (the very pretty "Nausicaa" patch) and NI Massive. Lastly, drums: patterns I wrote for the "vinyl kit" in Battery.

6. Grave Wobble 01:56

A tune from three years ago, reworked and tightened up, with some added parts. The wobbly bass patch is a softsynth called the MiniTera that was a freebie with some gear I bought, even longer back. The drums are a "synthesized kit" playing in Linplug's RMV software beatbox. The ascending whine during the "drum break" is the Qu-Bit Nebulae run through a hardware filter module, with a long LFO sweep.

7. Cloud Tenders 2 01:52

Similar process to Cloud Tenders, different pads (mostly NI Massive), with increasing amount of MIDI echo and arpeggiation effects within Cubase.

8. Stabs and Slabs 01:50

This was all done in the Octatrack, first laying down Household Kit beats, then adding piano and synth samples. The "rave-y" melodies are done note by note, adjusting the pitch and/or sample rate of each keyboard "stab."

9. Baby Boom/Critical Weekend Work 00:55

A three channel sound art piece, made with vocal samples loaded into the Qu-Bit Nebulae and messed with (speed, grain, start time, grain size, etc.) The middle channel is the same LFO-swept recording used in "Grave Wobble." The vocals in that channel are inaudible, it's just stuttering of a very small chunk of the words "baby boom."

10. Skiffle Capacity Reprise 01:09

The final appearance of the "Grove Street"/"Skiffle Capacity"/"Persistence of Marimba" tracks. The ethereal-sounding intro is NI Massive played with Steinberg MIDI echo and/or arpeggiation effects.