Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[ugly_bassplayer]

Okay, something new from the duo. I'm actually kinda psyched to share this one... took me a while to mix it.
The gear rundown... starts with the Wavestate arpy thing, then the Iridium comes in with the glitchy pad-like thing. Bass Station II and Sledge in there (my duo counterpart), then evolves into a classic Berlin School vibe, with the Iridium playing the arp, and also the Mellotron sounds (I made some good Tron banks as soon as I got it). Virus is doing all of the white noise wind sounds.

Interesting mixing note... been listening to a lot of early-mid 70's TD and Klaus Schulze, and what I find interesting is how it's mixed. Often, the solos sound like they are far away, it's part of that classic Berlin School thing, I guess. They're not out front like they were with prog and such. I also think the soloing in those older ones are a bit less chops-oriented than the prog counterparts, but I also think that's part of the awesome vibe. So I did that when mixing... there's a sense of space to it, and Rick Wakeman does not appear on this recording, in any way, shape, or form.

It's an 8 minute piece, I'm interested in what y'all think.

Very cool patches and sounds. I really like the ARP sound going on through out the song, very tasteful.
I was very surprised when drums came in. Good job. Is that your drum machine??
You would have never done that a few months ago, very happy to hear an evolution.
If R. Wakeman man wasn’t there, I sure hope you guys had some capes on!!!!

 

[lordradish]

Very cool patches and sounds. I really like the ARP sound going on through out the song, very tasteful.
I was very surprised when drums came in. Good job. Is that your drum machine??
You would have never done that a few months ago, very happy to hear an evolution.
If R. Wakeman man wasn’t there, I sure hope you guys had some capes on!!!!

Thanks. The drums on the first half are some loops, the minimalist stuff in the second half is the programmed.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Thanks. The drums on the first half are some loops, the minimalist stuff in the second half is the programmed.

Atta boy!!!!!!!
Go digging for some breaks. Imo they have a very different vibe and feel that loops found in sample packs etc....
Much more "human". Even a sloppy chopped break can add a very cool texture when it skips a little bit out if time.

Way back you had to retrigger the break every bar so it wouldnt go complety off time with the rest of the arrangement But now you can make a solid loop brace in Ableton with warp markers that is 4 bars and still have the off beat thing going on.

Or if you don't want to use breaks, try playing the drum parts on pads or keys with the quantize off (it should always be off.... ....)
You can build the beats layer by layer.
Don't forget to stack multiple kicks and snares!!!!

Keep those tunes coming my friend.


My 2 cents.

 

[JES]

Okay, something new from the duo. I'm actually kinda psyched to share this one... took me a while to mix it.
The gear rundown... starts with the Wavestate arpy thing, then the Iridium comes in with the glitchy pad-like thing. Bass Station II and Sledge in there (my duo counterpart), then evolves into a classic Berlin School vibe, with the Iridium playing the arp, and also the Mellotron sounds (I made some good Tron banks as soon as I got it). Virus is doing all of the white noise wind sounds.

Interesting mixing note... been listening to a lot of early-mid 70's TD and Klaus Schulze, and what I find interesting is how it's mixed. Often, the solos sound like they are far away, it's part of that classic Berlin School thing, I guess. They're not out front like they were with prog and such. I also think the soloing in those older ones are a bit less chops-oriented than the prog counterparts, but I also think that's part of the awesome vibe. So I did that when mixing... there's a sense of space to it, and Rick Wakeman does not appear on this recording, in any way, shape, or form.

It's an 8 minute piece, I'm interested in what y'all think.

I especially like the back half of this. Also like the "solo at lower volume or in more reverb" trick. Worked well for Prince (different genre, but still).

On breaks, it will give you a totally different vibe. If you want to keep this vibe, one thing I've experimented with is adding variability to even programmed drum tracks. If you're ok with using software, Numerology's DrumSeq is great for this.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I especially like the back half of this. Also like the "solo at lower volume or in more reverb" trick. Worked well for Prince (different genre, but still).

On breaks, it will give you a totally different vibe. If you want to keep this vibe, one thing I've experimented with is adding variability to even programmed drum tracks. If you're ok with using software, Numerology's DrumSeq is great for this.

 

[lordradish]

Atta boy!!!!!!!
Go digging for some breaks. Imo they have a very different vibe and feel that loops found in sample packs etc....
Much more "human". Even a sloppy chopped break can add a very cool texture when it skips a little bit out if time.

Way back you had to retrigger the break every bar so it wouldnt go complety off time with the rest of the arrangement But now you can make a solid loop brace in Ableton with warp markers that is 4 bars and still have the off beat thing going on.

Or if you don't want to use breaks, try playing the drum parts on pads or keys with the quantize off (it should always be off.... ....)
You can build the beats layer by layer.
Don't forget to stack multiple kicks and snares!!!!

Keep those tunes coming my friend.


My 2 cents.

I like the way the minimalist part came out. The percussion stuff on a lot of the Berlin School, especially if it's not a real drummer, can be barely there... often, it's just some sort of minimal hat.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I like the way the minimalist part came out. The percussion stuff on a lot of the Berlin School, especially if it's not a real drummer, can be barely there... often, it's just some sort of minimal hat.

Use whatever works best for you. If you found a dope workflow.....go with it.
Keeping it simple and minimalist is quite the challenge.

 

[Spectrum]

I like the way the minimalist part came out. The percussion stuff on a lot of the Berlin School, especially if it's not a real drummer, can be barely there... often, it's just some sort of minimal hat.

I've really ben paying attention to that lately. Been listening to a lot of old Tangerine Dream, as well as current stuff like RMI, Jeffrey Koeper, Chuck Van Zyle, etc. That percussion sound is often half buried in the sequences but it adds a sort of bite to the sound.

 

[JES]

Finally starting to work with my setup. There was a brief moment yesterday when I was like "yeah, I'll just run this into my Eurorock as well" but it multiplies the complexity too much.

So it's back to the simpler setup. Here is a snippet from this morning. The plan is to make a bunch of these, and then do some more processing in the computer, etc.

The main thing right now is persuading my PCM D-50 that it's really a mono file coming in, not stereo....

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Ok. This has me interested.

 

[steubig]

Okay, something new from the duo. I'm actually kinda psyched to share this one... took me a while to mix it.
The gear rundown... starts with the Wavestate arpy thing, then the Iridium comes in with the glitchy pad-like thing. Bass Station II and Sledge in there (my duo counterpart), then evolves into a classic Berlin School vibe, with the Iridium playing the arp, and also the Mellotron sounds (I made some good Tron banks as soon as I got it). Virus is doing all of the white noise wind sounds.

Interesting mixing note... been listening to a lot of early-mid 70's TD and Klaus Schulze, and what I find interesting is how it's mixed. Often, the solos sound like they are far away, it's part of that classic Berlin School thing, I guess. They're not out front like they were with prog and such. I also think the soloing in those older ones are a bit less chops-oriented than the prog counterparts, but I also think that's part of the awesome vibe. So I did that when mixing... there's a sense of space to it, and Rick Wakeman does not appear on this recording, in any way, shape, or form.

It's an 8 minute piece, I'm interested in what y'all think.

well done. really nice, quality sounds.

i'm interested in the process—how you guys arrived at this.

 

[steubig]

hey all, i really dig some of the samples/tracks folks put up here, and a ton of good info. i humbly post last nights take on one of my new ones. still learning obviously, but i wish i could try out all this stuff you guys post about! anyways...

hi!

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

hey all, i really dig some of the samples/tracks folks put up here, and a ton of good info. i humbly post last nights take on one of my new ones. still learning obviously, but i wish i could try out all this stuff you guys post about! anyways...

Wazzup.
Welcome to the weirdos.

 

[monsterthompson]

Loopop is working on a video for the new Maschine stand-alone.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Loopop is working on a video for the new Maschine stand-alone.

Fingers crossed for coffee espresso sample pack.

 

[lordradish]

well done. really nice, quality sounds.

i'm interested in the process—how you guys arrived at this.

Basically, what we do is sometimes someone brings a very basic idea and we just use it as a starting point, but mostly, before each jam we just pick a bunch of sounds and decide that's our palette for the jam with no set idea other maybe a basic vibe. On this particular one I just decided to assemble some Berlin School sounds and some strange stuff for the beginning (that rhythmic thing with the Wavestate and the Irdium glitchy thing), and just went with it. The funny thing is, my partner hasn't really listened to nearly as much of the Berlin stuff as I have, at least not to the point where he knows the genre conventions, yet all of his sounds fit really well into it.

We had such a good session, that day, I probably have about 3 good hours to mix. Thanks for listening.

 

[Spectrum]

Among my other ongoing efforts I decided to do something about my need for a small pedalboard for simple rock band stuff, mainly just a tuner and overdrive, plus the odd extras. For the first time I decided to buy a manufactured board and put a power supply on it. Up to now my pedalboards are at least partially homemade.

I think this came out well, though the "high current" output on this power block could stand to be a bit higher, and I am also once again reminded why I hate relying on velcro. This board has material on each rail, for example, but the Darkglass pedal has little rubber feet on its corners, making it stand too high for velcro to grip, so I put a piece of wood under it and strapped it to the board with a zip tie. I may later decide to drill holes along each rail for zip tying stuff.

Have to say it looks a hell of a lot neater than my usual boards, and it'll be easy to take to gigs. I'm glad the power supply AC power input jack lined right up with one of the holes on the board.

So now when I do a bigger board for ambient stuff I'll have a starting point.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Just got Bordelands Granular.
Someone kick me for not getting this earlier.

Any suggestions for a tutorial or any source that indicates what All the functions are???
No RTFM!!!!!!! They don’t even make one......

I think @steubig has been using this one for a while???

Good news is that I found a new use for my old apogee jam.

 

[steubig]

Just got Bordelands Granular.
Someone kick me for not getting this earlier.

Any suggestions for a tutorial or any source that indicates what All the functions are???
No RTFM!!!!!!! They don’t even make one......

I think @steubig has been using this one for a while???

hahahaha. what took you so long?

i haven’t even dealt with some of the new stuff.

one of the great things is that you can record through the onboard mic. i have one preset that allows me to record stuff and live and then mess with it.

the developer on that is serious. rumor has it that he made it when he was gettinng an advanced degree (stanford?), so it languished for a while. now he’s been updating pretty regularly.

i thought there’s a help menu in the upper right of the screen?

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

hahahaha. what took you so long?

i haven’t even dealt with some of the new stuff.

one of the great things is that you can record through the onboard mic. i have one preset that allows me to record stuff and live and then mess with it.

the developer on that is serious. rumor has it that he made it when he was gettinng an advanced degree (stanford?), so it languished for a while. now he’s been updating pretty regularly.

i thought there’s a help menu in the upper right of the screen?

The help menu says basically.
Here you record....here is the menu...have fun.....

Nothing about any functions.

Re: not getting it earlier.
Didn't think it was so easy as plug and play to import samples. With my appogee jam I can plug in anything and press record.
No file managing transfer from cloud and Wi-Fi etc......even if it can also do that extremely well

I really need to dig this one deep. Brainstorming a SP granular app combo to bounce samples back and forth. The potential is nuts.l
(Evil scientist laugh)
Just spent over and hour on it and instantly felt I could create something cool with this tool. Also maybe have a seizure from all the sped up atomated clouds .