peace jam

[forestandgarden]

sorry, it's not fully xrun free, but that's hardly noticeable. Couldn't have finished the jam otherwise, old netbook was at the edge.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7bcdejwp15cbd ... m.mp3?dl=0

[folderol]

Getting a dropbox error when I try to look at this

[forestandgarden]

Getting a dropbox error when I try to look at this

The link is fine, but if you're copy- & pasting, or parsing it instead of following the hyperlink, one or two things could go wrong: a) the forum software doesn't show the full link text for long links, and b) anything on the way could convert the %20 between 'peace' and 'jam' in the URL back into a literal space.

Here's the literal URL, as text: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7bcdejwp15cbd1x/peace%20jam.mp3?dl=0

[jeanette_c]

This is an interesting piece. I've never heard that combination of genres, though it might already exist. I get soft Goa vibes from it, mixed with rocky elements and perhaps even a touch of 80s synth music. It's a fun combination and I didn't notice the xruns.

[Basslint]

I like how the stuff you post always pulls you right into the groove. Really liked it, I think I've seen videos of you (maybe I am mistaken) but I can't wrap my head around how you do it. Peace, sisters and brothers, peace.

[forestandgarden]

I think I've seen videos of you (maybe I am mistaken) but I can't wrap my head around how you do it. Peace, sisters and brothers, peace.

I've shared (via temporal storage) a video where I'm 'unboxing' my latest gifts, an old samsung N130 netbook and a new small akai LPK25 midi keyboard, but you're just seeing me improvise a melody on top of a quick looped ardour project there. Videos of me jamming with my gear exist, but again, you're just seeing a guy going happy on his guitar, with a screen in the background that isn't telling much about what's actually happening on the computer. So here, I have attached a patchbay view of the Carla rack that I'm using for this jam, output was recorded live from system playback with jack_capture, no DAW or multitracking involved at all, just quickly trimmed, normalized and fades added post hoc with Audacity, exported to mp3, and uploaded & shared still warm.

For the MIDI keyboard part, first, there is a step sequencer that I can key a short, 4 bar, 4 notes per bar sequence into, this is becoming the bassline via one arp, another line is converting the base note into chords (transpose plugins are bypassing chord plugin for an unaltered 5th and 9th indpendently of chosen scale), from there it goes into another arp, then the accompainment synth. There's also a line straight into a solo synth, and into hydrogen - which of these connections will be used, depends on the midi channel the keyboard is sending on.

The guitar sound is mainly made with GxAmplifierX, whether the sound will be clean or overdrive, depends on the volume from the guitar. A bunch of sidechained compressors are taking care of letting the clean, low input sound be more direct, the overdrive one, taken back and getting spatialized by the stereo delay I'm constructing with 2 delay instances. Another line is taking the compressed guitar amp output, without spatializing delays, and feeding it into a block of 4 chained delays, together with a mixer for feedback, these are constituting a 4 bar looping sound on sound delay. Another sidechained compressor takes care that less loud playing will mainly feed the loopy background, energetic playing will become soloing. All delays are host BPM synced, as are sequencer, arps and hydrogen, so the Jack transport section of the Carla plugin host effectively controls the tempo of all the semi-automatic playback machinery.

So this live jamming combined guitar & midi rack is responsive in many ways, and if I want, I can also change the chord progression on the fly, courtesy of QMidiArp Seq, but I haven't recorded any jam where I'm showcasing this, I'm too happy improvising, on guitar, and now also synth, as soon as I'm having the drums, bass & background chord synths doing something coherent.

[milo]

Cool jam! I like the mixture of synth and guitar voices.

If only world peace were as simple as making an awesome music jam ... [sigh]