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skarabee
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Joined: 05/15/2012 - 07:52
randomness in a song

Caustic Song file (optional): 

Been a while since I posted a project.

This one is about random sounds. I used arpeggiator to trigger some randomness inside beatbox and other machines. I didn't put this track on souncloud, because the purpose is to let it roll and it will never sound the same...

Trick 1: the tempo is very low (30 bpm), in order to let changes not appear too fast.

Trick 2: The beatbox: it has a vey basic pattern (first beat for the BD, afterbeat for the snares. The others elements are triggered from 3 Modsynths: 1 for the main variations, 1 for the HH, 1 for the breaks. (no programmed breaks, they are all played by the random arpeggiator)

Trick 3: A builderz style PCM pushes some ambient sounds, driven by a slow arpeggiated modsynth

​Trick 4: Same thing for the bass, but I restricted the notes to 1 octave, and added some dummy notes for the silences.

Trick 5: the KSS synth plays a sequence, and his Modsynth uses random LFOs to control pan and volume

Trick 6: Same thing for the Padsynth, with filter and volume driven by random LFOs

Trick 7: The djembe pattern is randomized with a S&H module.

The whole beast (14 tracks) may not play well on tiny phones, so you can delete some pairs of machines tolet the CPU breeze...

It could be played in pattern mode or in song mode. In song mode, some different patterns are programmed, this add some predictability to the result,  but the song won't still play the same twice. As Baudelaire said: "ni tout à fait la même, ni tout à fait une autre"

Hope you enjoy it and play with these ideas.

Britt
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Joined: 02/06/2014 - 15:57
OMG!!!!!!!!! This is awesome

OMG!!!!!!!!! This is awesome (so far), I feel a light bulb taking shape somewhere not so far from my head!
Thanks for sharing this! cheeky

Jason
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Joined: 03/23/2012 - 21:32
Skarabee, that is cool.  Even

Skarabee, that is cool.  Even just letting it sit in Pattern mode, it flows in free-style and doesn't sound all that repetitive.

Nice trick there man....

 

 

FISH
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Joined: 12/18/2013 - 20:47
Yes, very cool indeed.

Yes, very cool indeed.

drb
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Joined: 07/23/2012 - 09:06
I had a go at playing with

I had a go at playing with something like this on a track a while back, it was mainly pads and delay type sounds. I am going to have to play with the drums now, didn't realize you could do it like this. I used to play with a violinist in an electro accoustic free jazz duo (yes we had beards wore silly polo necks and said 'groovy' every 3rd word) where I had a micro modular that would supply some really cool random grooves.

Kilyjay
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Joined: 02/19/2014 - 18:16
Holy crap! Really cool Skara.

Holy crap! Really cool Skara... now I only have study the Caustic file to try and work out how you've done this (on top of what you explained above!) - this could take me a while ...LOL! Nice work man..and thanks for sharing.

Kilyjay

​"sometimes it snows in April..."

stePH
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Joined: 04/01/2014 - 13:15
I can't check this out until

I can't check this out until I get home, but if it does what it says it does, it will come in handy to replicate a "wind chime" effect that I'll be wanting for a particular track.