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AndyZamoron
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Joined: 05/22/2014 - 12:54
My first completed song of 2017 is a doozy. Mike, Techno1 L

Been working on this since the day I bought Mike's incredibly good beatbox kits. Which was on December 21st. This was definitely one of my more tricky songs to make. I'm getting good at adding subtleties, like the beatbox tamborines. Several times, throughout the song, their decay is automated from nil to max. Lots of other slow changes too. Six beatboxes, four pcm's, one subsynth, and one pad synth. The beatboxes get change ups. But, in most of my music, I'll use one pattern for each synthesizer. Then, I let the machines do the work.

Mike's beatbox presets are worth more than two dollars. Get them!

Enjoy my weirdness.

LifeUp
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Joined: 09/18/2014 - 09:30
Very dark techno elements!

Very dark techno elements!
I'm into the main beat so much;)
Buenisima!

♬​ Lu!G

AndyZamoron
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Thanks!

Thanks!

Techno that is not dark is usually called house music. They really wouldn't, nor couldn't, exist without each other. Two sides of a coin. Tech-house would be like the zinc center of American coins. But, it's different from the both others.

Yeah, that beat is only one measure long. But, to change with the song, I automate the hell out of their decay & tune. Along with that channel's reverb & delay. The title was going to be "Click-clack." Too close to Christmas to do that. I might scare the shit out of someone, like my brother, who listents to that year round.

AndyZamoron
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That trickery is much easier

That trickery is much easier to hear, in this version.

mike
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Joined: 12/18/2011 - 15:53
That's very nice Andy.

That's very nice Andy.

You know I have to agree with this that House and Techno are inseparable. Really good TechHouse embodies both flavors perfectly and I love it. It's dark techno with the house syncopated roll.

In fact, once you start writing it, the rhythms, you can prove it most definitely. TechHouse is one of my favorite styles to make. Using the FMSynth basslines is so satisfying. :)

oe
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Very nice track indeed! I

Very nice track indeed! I have lots to learn about the subtle stuff, it's really what makes things interesting.

One has tons of unsorted samples, kits are way better. Brushcat is still my favourite though, if not for techno maybe.

AndyZamoron
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There are a few beatbox kits

There are a few beatbox kits that sound like brushes when the decay & punch are turned all the way down, and they're tuned all the way up. I'll start a song like that, with reverb & delay, and gradually bring everything together.

Such as in the attatched file.

Caustic Song file (optional): 

AndyZamoron
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And, thank you. I'm glad you

And, thank you. I'm glad you like it.

I know my style isn't for everyone. Too many years of listening to music that's not necessarily dancefloor driven. Which is my preference. I listen, whilst working, quite deeply to music without words. FSOL, Orbital, Juno Reactor, Luke Vibert, Omni Trio, Josh Wink, and LTJ Bukem are my go-to's. That should help understand, maybe, my methodology of making these mental excursions that everyone else calls songs.

James
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I still think of your sound

I still think of your sound as 'Electronica' rather than Techno - I guess to me Techno is still dance music whereas your vibe is normally pretty far removed from the dance floor.

But in the early 90's when FSOL and others started moving beyond the dance floor it took a while for people to stop categorising it as techno and to invent new terms.

But screw genres and semantics, it's an awesome sound you make, you're just so prolific that I struggle to keep up! 

AndyZamoron
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Thank you James. Honestly, I

Thank you James. Honestly, I don't know what kind of music I make. Step 1, set bpm. Step 2, make a song. Step 3, don't forget to eat & sleep. Serendipity is the muse which navigates me through, sans foresight, to completion. If it sounds good enough to catch my attention, it stays. Otherwise, I keep walking.

Yesterday, I could not stop thinking about the track I had been working on...as I was moving my framed illustrations in my trunk, which I was taking to a gallery, in order to get jars of salsa & jelly, I realized exactly how much joy others get from my mind. Then she had to get more money to give me. One half-pint jar of medium heat grilled salsa verde & one of grilled pepper jelly turned into (including the doubling of those): one jar of mango-peach-pineapple jelly with muted heat habanero peppers, one half-pint jar of habanero sriracha, and one pint each of medium & hot salsa verde. That's happening more & more. I traded jars of salsa & jelly for enough of two, out of the three, medications I need. Which is buying me more time to get the money to pay for an office visit & medicines. The person who procured & bartered blood pressure med liked my grilled pepper jelly so much that they bought five more jars! Whatever I make is, and always has been, a game changer. It feels nice to finally get included.

AndyZamoron
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And, my sister & brother-in

And, my sister & brother-in-law wanted to move to the country. So, they bought a 30 acre farm that has been one of the few pick-your-own places with peaches, strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and pecans. (It's pronounced puh-kon. A pee-can is what truckers use.) They know nothing, other than watering them, about plants. Water is scarce around here. But, they have a small well, and want to install greenhouses to help pay for the place steadily. The heat & drought killed the entire peach orchard. Why be dependent on the shitty weather here when they have me? I'm a dammned one man marching band! I'll set it up to be all but autonomous. A self-cleaning hydroponic system with a fast growing crop would be ideal. By self-cleaning, I mean to have algae eating fish that are big enough to eat & sell living amongst the plant roots. Having that set up as walls to aid central greenhouses' ability to be more climate controlled. My thought process envelopes boxes. Quite nicely, at that.

oe
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Joined: 11/16/2015 - 14:50
Sounds like you're an artist

Sounds like you're an artist in every aspect of your life. I want to move in that direction. I love making music, but always feel like I'm behind and the reason is maybe I just don't give it enough time. Which is why I made this new year's resolution to finish a track every week instead of just making five new stubs. Hopefully I'll feel more confident in crafting my ideas by the end of the year.

Sadly I cannot open the example file. Is it 3.2? I don't have that (got the feeling last beta was outdated? but I'll look into it). Have done a lot of automation of levels and panning, but morphing the sounds more by twiddling the units must be a more musical way.

Really enjoy your pieces on soundcloud! That music for everyone generally feels impersonal to me.

AndyZamoron
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My bad. I keep forgetting

My bad. I keep forgetting that Beta testing is still in effect.

Being like this, as an artist, is not easy. It's a labor of love, sometimes. More often than not, for me, it holds me back from any & every thing which needs to be done. I get so engrossed with creating something different before finishing what I'm already working on that only when out of supplies or money is when I realize the time, day, date, and that I haven't sold shit. I was ADHD before having neurological damage. It was like turning on a light switch, and it got stuck "on." My best advice for you, and any aspiring artist, would be going to school. If anything, school will get one the necessary contacts for selling art. Harness your talent and refine yourself. Focus on, and lose not sight of, what you see in your mind. When you're tired, rest before you fuck it up. Criticism should be taken, and implemented, constructively. Never be ashamed & never be too proud of what you've made. Simplicity is always best, and also the most difficult. So work confidently... but, it's just art. Flawlessness reeks. Try to view your work from different emotional standpoints. The ones I try to develop are: empa, sympa, apa, and/or just plain pathetic. Use not a voice to speak in a manner that someone of another tongue can understand. Giving up is fine. Just don't quit. And most of all, fuck what anyone else thinks. You're the only critic that matters. If it's great, it's great. If it's shit....well, shit happens more than great happens. Get used to it.

Glad you enjoy my weird ass music. It comes from the heart.

AndyZamoron
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Took three of my

Took three of my illustrations to a gallery today. Hopefully they'll sell.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10208241293374922&id=1380383319

AndyZamoron
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Um....yeah. So, I just

Um....yeah. So, I just realized that the version I uploaded was the wrong one. It has been changed, and for much the better! It's a lot more clear. Since the delay was taken off a beatbox, and another beatbox was taken down a notch or ten to make it a little more melodic.

Sorry. I do shit like that nonstop.

oe
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Joined: 11/16/2015 - 14:50
Thanks for sharing your views

Thanks for sharing your views, Andy, means a lot to me. Tried to work a song somewhat in the manner you're describing. Using pretty much the same patterns throughout the whole track, using the automation for the same sound sources to slowly evolve into other timbres. I guess I always tried to add and remove in the classical rock pop way when arranging music. This is what I came up with:

https://soundcloud.com/djlunarmonk/snareroute

The flanged snare felt almost like stealing from my favourite Autechre album (Amber) at first, but all of it moved in another direction and it kind of settled. Can't compare to your stuff and the detail you've put into it, but it was very good to try another M.O.

 

I will probably not quit my day job any year soon, but I'll do my best to put my heart and mind into whatever I'm doing. Be it music or woodworking or home gardening/house decorating. I guess I have low self-esteem, been thinking my artistic output is always mediocre and it sometimes brings me down but now I feel more like I have a chance at becoming more satisfied as I'm beginning to actually put in the time learning the "trade". Twisting knobs and listening to the results, that is. And trying to be proud, but not too proud. How do you master your tracks?

AndyZamoron
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Joined: 05/22/2014 - 12:54
They're all made with &

They're all made with & exported from Caustic before uploading. Nothing more.

Make what you love & love what you make

AndyZamoron
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That's a dope track man! You

That's a dope track man! You're concentrating intensely while learning. I can taste it. Because, this song of mine is when the world first started dissolving. It's also, during the making & experimenting, when I first ran the KS & bitcrusher together. And, I still use that snazzy sounding lil "glitch."

oe
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Joined: 11/16/2015 - 14:50
Glad you like it! I might

Glad you like it! I might work it over some more compression to get the levels up a little, but for now I've decided to move on to the next song. Your comment was the first thing I read on my phone at breakfast (Sweden is UTC+1), made my morning!

Nice sounds there. Mostly been using the KS for plucked strings so far, but I realize it has great percussion potential. Also the organ has those key noices which can make cool rhythms with a little melody to it.

AndyZamoron
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Sweden? I've been meeting so

Sweden? I've been meeting so many Swedes lately. More than usual, I suppose. There's a NATO Air Force training base here. We just had a family from Stockholm vacationing in the rent house next door to us. I sent them home with one of the illustrations I had readied to sell in a small gallery. That's how nice they are. They also could not believe that I'm born & raised in this über conservative boot-scootin dusty ass town full of rattlesnakes, and looked bewildered when I said tak. At one point, I could say thank you in forty-eight languages. Because I figured that's the only thing one needs to know when communicating with someone of another tongue. American sign language, high and low German, Macedonian, Albanian, swahili, Yoruba, Lakota, Dakota, Apache, Comanche, Laotian, Cambodian, Inuet, Czech, and more. Because I talk to strangers, I learned them all in this place called the armpit of Texas.

Keep doing your thing. There are like minds that appreciate it. Find them.