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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

#26,964
Piper Bob said:
I love her videos. From the preview slide I thought this was going to be about Eurorack modules. Those look really cool; I bet there are a ton of things you can do with them without even patching anything else to them.
Click to expand...

Game Changer has been in my radar but not enough to get my money. These are cleaver and useful enough that I might cave. The patching that can receive from its own pitch and envelope tracking probably means you can use them to feed CV into modular synths. I’m assuming it is running on the same 5v protocol. I also like that the automations/tracking can be turned on/off while the effect is on.

I looked on their website and it looks like there’s some additional routing of in/out depending on if you use TS or TRS cables. I didn’t quite follow it but I’ll definitely check it again. It also looks like they can be USB C powered.
 
#26,966
Stupid Reaktor!!!!
I had a track I was working on based on a Reaktor ensemble. Because of how the software saves and recalls snapshots (presets) when nested as a vst, I must’ve missed a step and the Live set opened back up and loaded a different snapshot.
Ugh. I love Reaktor for many reasons, but this isn’t one.
 
#26,968
No news on the ambient bass playing front for me, I've been playing mostly meat&potatoes stuff for the past ~8-12 months, where the only thing between my bass and the amp is a cable.

But I did just dig my old MIDI rig out of the (virtual) mothballs it had been stored in for the previous 10+ years (!) over the weekend, and fired it up enough to confirm that almost everything works. So maybe I'll start making some more synth-heavy music going forward.
Nothing drool-worthy like modular or analog, just a decked-out Kurzweil K2Vx, a couple of Emu Proteus ROMplers (#1 and #2), and an Alesis DM5 drum module. State-of-the-art ...if this was 1999!
 
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#26,969
Bob_Ross said:
No news on the ambient bass playing front for me, I've been playing mostly meat&potatoes stuff for the past ~8-12 months, where the only thing between my bass and the amp is a cable.

But I did just dig my old MIDI rig out of the (virtual) mothballs it had been stored in for the previous 10+ years (!) over the weekend, and fired it up enough to confirm that almost everything works. So maybe I'll start making some more synth-heavy music going forward.
Nothing drool-worthy like modular or analog, just a decked-out Kurzweil K2Vx, a couple of Emu Proteus ROMplers (#1 and #2), and an Alesis DM5 drum module. State-of-the-art ...if this was 1999!
Click to expand...
Same
Just bass in the last year or so.
But I have an itch to get some creative “sounds” solo work back on track.

I feel an intense need to create but inspiration and direction is lacking

Man than sounds “pinky out” art snob when read out loud
 
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#26,970
Here's one I just recorded. The first thing you hear is a Solar 42 sequence.

The second instrument is bass guitar played through the wave folder in Moog Mavis. I have S&H (random) into the LFO rate, and the LFO running the envelope which controls the filter cutoff. The bass guitar "part" is just open E for 4 beats of 5/4 played 5 times. Mavis responds to how hard I play and how much bass I feed it, which is pretty fun. If I'm reading the signal flow diagram correctly, the folded audio feeds the S&H.

I was thinking the wave folder might be a cool effect on it's own, but it basically just sounds like distortion.

 
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#26,972
I hate to say it, but…
I was at Perfect Circuit and wanted to test out a mixer, and needed a sound source. The first device they provided was a small Roland sampler, but the battery died and there were no power cables. They then presented me with a Teenage Engineering OP XY :oops:
I want to hate on the TE stuff as gimmicky and niche and overpriced. But wow.
 
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#26,973
Meris going to be announcing something new on the 17th. People are speculating an X version of the Enzo but idk, that caption about taking risks makes me think it'll be something else. Making a big boy Enzo seems too obvious. Maybe it isn't a pedal at all?



Speaking of the Enzo and adding a contribution to this thread, I've been messing with it a lot since it's Jamuary and really really wanted to recreate this smooth pad from one of my favorite games of all time - 1080. I think I did ok.

Original



Cover



The pad is my Ibanez S7420 into the Enzo,
808 style bass is Ric 4003 into the Enzo,
Drums are the 'Hotpants' break sampled onto my PO-33 sampler into my Rusty Box for compression and EQ.
 
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#26,974
hey, in between doom-scrolling about the fires about 10 miles from here, i figured i'd say something about artist's block.

recently i was reminded of something that helps me (and which i'd forgotten until a friend asked me to do something for her):

if i'm waiting for inspiration or what-not, i give myself an assignment: "i'm going to use xxx to make a sound" or "i want to work on a piece that does xxx" or "i'm going to make a piece using this instrument."
 
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#26,975
steubig said:
hey, in between doom-scrolling about the fires about 10 miles from here, i figured i'd say something about artist's block.

recently i was reminded of something that helps me (and which i'd forgotten until a friend asked me to do something for her):

if i'm waiting for inspiration or what-not, i give myself an assignment: "i'm going to use xxx to make a sound" or "i want to work on a piece that does xxx" or "i'm going to make a piece using this instrument."
Click to expand...

It's an exciting day here for sure.

I'm working on a new non-ambient track and finding a few creativity/productivity tools. I'm trying to be mindful of time allotment and goals. For example - Today I will spend an hour on this synth track. I would like to be done by this date, so this is how many days I have, which implies how many hours I have.

I found working without a deadline just turns into a sprawling partially finished pile of goo. I'm reducing my expectations on what I can accomplish down to more realistic timeframes, and limiting my sound design options. On my latest track, I wanted to finish the drums, but needed a few fills. I grabbed a book of break beats I have and just lifted a few parts that fit. No time to invent from scratch. My vocoder vocal takes started becoming an issue, so got everything close and just printed the audio; now it is done and I can move on. I find it refreshing that finishing a segment as "good enough" is satisfying and leads to more forward momentum.
 
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#26,976
steubig said:
hey, in between doom-scrolling about the fires about 10 miles from here, i figured i'd say something about artist's block.

recently i was reminded of something that helps me (and which i'd forgotten until a friend asked me to do something for her):

if i'm waiting for inspiration or what-not, i give myself an assignment: "i'm going to use xxx to make a sound" or "i want to work on a piece that does xxx" or "i'm going to make a piece using this instrument."
Click to expand...
Good exercices.
Noted for sure and will put into action ASAP

Damn, fires in Cali?
News here is only about someone wanting Canada to become something something politically banned from this forum
 
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#26,978
Hope everyone is ok, seems a lot going on for a few people!

I’ve tried to carve time out to work on my solo bits… have income issues at the moment which curbs my GAS which is good in some ways I guess… trying to get a “dawless” setup so anything I can do can be replicated live, but then I’d need a mixer to feed my synth, old alesis sr16, zoom h4 as a mic and then my bass with board into my amp…
Thought ok I’ll pull out the laptop and see if I can at least do a demo of what I want to do. Spent 2 hours just getting it all ready and messing around with interfaces and cables and reaper… looks like another nights worth! But at least I know it’s there after moving house…
Utopia how people run backing tracks live… do you use a drum machine? Or do you just provide a backing track and feed that to the desk somehow (copy on usb or something?)
Have visions of doing it live as a solo artist but unsure how to do a “make a demo that can be played exactly the same live” versus just recording everything with vsts and drum samples into reaper and just forgo messing with programming and hardware…the alesis is very archaic hah
 
#26,979
theunknowndude said:
Hope everyone is ok, seems a lot going on for a few people!

I’ve tried to carve time out to work on my solo bits… have income issues at the moment which curbs my GAS which is good in some ways I guess… trying to get a “dawless” setup so anything I can do can be replicated live, but then I’d need a mixer to feed my synth, old alesis sr16, zoom h4 as a mic and then my bass with board into my amp…
Thought ok I’ll pull out the laptop and see if I can at least do a demo of what I want to do. Spent 2 hours just getting it all ready and messing around with interfaces and cables and reaper… looks like another nights worth! But at least I know it’s there after moving house…
Utopia how people run backing tracks live… do you use a drum machine? Or do you just provide a backing track and feed that to the desk somehow (copy on usb or something?)
Have visions of doing it live as a solo artist but unsure how to do a “make a demo that can be played exactly the same live” versus just recording everything with vsts and drum samples into reaper and just forgo messing with programming and hardware…the alesis is very archaic hah
Click to expand...
Godflesh still use the Alesis to this day.

It’s not the gear its the tunes and the work.
 
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#26,980
ugly_bassplayer said:
Godflesh still use the Alesis to this day.

It’s not the gear its the tunes and the work.
Click to expand...
Yeah they are one of my influences on the stuff I’m doing…
Simple drum parts into using my fretless / mini synth as a noise device for low and high parts. Just thinking how I could pull off using the alesis live… just table next to me and tap to the next song I guess!?
 

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