The Studio Log - What Did You Do In The Studio

[Bombadil]

Messing with my new Surfybear Metal spring reverb into Tonex.
This is the sound I've been missing.

[foosnark]

I had a semi-dumb idea kicking around in my brain, so I finally let it happen: using the phrase "beep boop" to guide the entire track.

I figured, raw electronic sounds that are gated (or at least have fast attack/release). "Beep" is higher frequency than "boop". Each voice in the composition would just be a simple sequence: beep, rest, boop, longer rest. But the sequences wouldn't necessarily be synced, or might go at different rates and different gate lengths. I'd build up from a single voice to several with more complex timbres and some harmonization, then back out to the simplest possible beep boop.

It went OK at first. A little boring -- I probably should have allowed for some key changes, and/or a manually played part -- but not awful. It kind of reminded me of being in the office during a power outage with a bunch of UPSs beeping their own individual warnings.

Then it crashed and burned when I introduced a non-gated voice with too complex and brash a timbre, from Interstellar Radio, just modulating its frequency CV with a gate. Like a shark attack during a wedding. I really should have done another take where I just left that out, then kept the whole thing to about 2 minutes as an intro to something else.

I had some nice timbres in there though, stretching the definition of "beep" a bit Rings > Beads > Velvet Machine > a gate with a high threshold. Also I thought to use Plogue Chipsounds as the obvious choice for beep boops, but really, Harmonic Shift Oscillator is the king of boops.

[justin3am]

That's a neat idea. I used to do a whole slew of modular/sound design exercises and prompts like that which helped me stay in a creative zone. I'd like to spend more time in the studio just playing with ideas like that but work has been keeping me busy. Maybe next year.

[donkey tugger]

Seem to have come to the end of the acoustic dirge period now, entering into, err, bombastic sinthesiser and strings with faux Bonham beat pop thingy in the modern stylee.

[WatchTheGuitar]

I'm into the acoustic dirge period, just got new strings for my Martin. Played on it tonight for hours and now my fingertips are gone.

[Constructed Identity]

After reading the manual again I imported a couple free Serum wavetables into the 3rd Wave from Sparkpackers.com and it worked
https://soundcloud.com/constructed-id/t ... al_sharing
I also improved a couple of the factory patches with more modulation sources.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Staring at too much gear, trying to figure out how to eliminate half of it.

Sell it? Donate it? Set fire to it in the parking lot? Ugh.

I need room for a video edit machine or a rack of computers, either one.

Double ugh. Saw the new Behringer UB-Xa, too bad it's a keyboard and not a module. Triple ugh.

Maybe I just need coffee and a huge bag of weed...

[vurt]

works for me.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

works for me.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Well it looks like tonight’s fun will be updating my Rytm firmware.
v 1.70 has some cool stuff added. Listed below are just the additions since the last firmware version.

Improvements
Added five new machines: SY CHIP, SY RAW, BD ACOUSTIC, SD ACOUSTIC, and HH LAB.

Added an Euclidean mode for the sequencer.

You can now save a Sound from a specific trig on the sequencer, complete with its sound- and parameter locks applied.

Added the possibility to set a specific number of sequencer steps as record length in the sampler, resulting in loops with the exact length.

Added pad scales and fold functionality for when playing the PADS in CHROMATIC mode.

Implemented functionality that makes it possible to loop selected pattern pages.

Added the square waveform as a parameter value for the WAV parameter in the BD SHARP machine.

The BT CLASSIC machine now has a new PITCH ENVELOPE parameter.

Added two new PULSE WIDTH parameters for the CB CLASSIC and CB METALLIC machines.

Added slew functionality to the RND waveform for the LFOs. When RND is selected for the WAV parameter, the SPH parameter now sets the amount of slew.

[MKII] Added an LED brightness setting parameter in GLOBAL SETTINGS > SYSTEM.

It is now possible to see which PARAMETER PAGES contain parameters with parameter locks. When pressing and holding specific trig in STEP RECORDING mode, the [PARAMETER] keys that contain parameters with locks light up.

Improved oscillator tuning by adding new calibration functionality.

Implemented the possibility of generating a random name from the naming screen when naming a Sound or a pattern.

The NOTE parameter on the TRIG page now shows the note value and the number of semitones in the screen UI.

Improved the naming of the DUAL VCO, IMPULSE, and NOISE GEN machines by adding machine type group naming. The new names are SY DUAL VCO, UT IMPULSE, and UT NOISE.

The sample STA and END parameters are now high resolution. It is also now possible to snap to integers for the STA and END parameters. This, together with now showing true integrers in the display, makes it easier to find the exact start and end points in samples, especially in longer samples such as sample chains.

Added the functionality that when selecting an empty sample slot and then pressing [YES], now opens the +DRIVE sample list.

Improved the screen UI and navigation for the machine selection list and the Sound Manager.

Several analog machines are now scaled in semitones and with high resolution.

It is now possible to also click DATA ENTRY KNOB D to assign a sample from the sample list that is opened when accessing the SMP parameter on the SAMPLE page.

[MKII] Implemented a new LED boot sequence.

Implemented minor improvements of the LED color scheme to better harmonize between different devices of the product line.

[WatchTheGuitar]

The Rytm upgrade to 1.70 took seconds. Now I'm running the recalibration it offered and it says it will take 2.5 hours

For some reason the fact it's going to take hours makes me think it's more worthwhile than if it said it would take a few minutes.

[elxsound]

The Rytm upgrade to 1.70 took seconds. Now I'm running the recalibration it offered and it says it will take 2.5 hours

For some reason the fact it's going to take hours makes me think it's more worthwhile than if it said it would take a few minutes.

Congrats to you, Cryophonik and I think Dr. Gonzo and Justin3am?

Looks like a killer update.

I’m guessing Syntakt will get some of that Elektron update love possibly next year?

[WatchTheGuitar]

They don’t seem to forget any of their products. Even Machinedrum got an update fairly recently.

[Constructed Identity]

Been messing with hardware so long forgot about software. Yesterday bought MagicVerb because black Friday sale and now I just went through my old (ancient) plugin list to get rid of ones I don't use anymore. Deleted Camel crusher after 20 years or so on one computer or another. It's not that I am a hoarder, but hard drive space is cheap.
Will upgrade Shaperbox and I'm looking for a new DAW that will allow me to insert measures with a different time signature, I play naturally changing time signatures, but I have a huge disconnect with my DAW, FL Studio, that is forever stuck in 4/4 or something divisible by it. All dance music is made in 4/4, but the final ingredient is the DJ who adds breaks, time changes, and mixing so it doesn't bore.

[donkey tugger]

Managed to record some singing, monitored through my Rode NT1, but actually recorded using the shite internal computer mic by some stunning feat of ineptitude.

Well, I've only been doing this bollocks a few decades.