Cover photo: two public domain (cc0) photographs layered in Paint Shop Pro 2020 Ultimate. One is a closeup of a rusting, corroded metal surface; the other is zoomed in on two rusty metal gas canisters in a scrapyard.
Hardware is in bold and software is in italics. Basic utilities and effects and simple modulation sources are omitted.
For controllers, I use MN 0-Ctrl, Roli Seaboard Block, Tesseract Sweet Sixteen mk2, Bela Gliss, and Intellijel Planar 2.
For mastering: CraveDSP CraveEQ, Wavesfactory Equalizer, DDMF MagicDeathEye, RJ Studios SideMinder (Max or ZL), Voxengo Elephant & OVC-128 with metering from Voxengo Span Plus & Correlometer and YuLean Loudness Meter.
BW = Bitwig
IME = Industrial Music Electronics (aka The Harvestman)
MA = Minimal Audio
MI = Mutable Instruments
MN = Make Noise
NE = Noise Engineering
NI = Native Instruments
NL = Neutral Labs
RYK = RYK
TE = Teenage Engineering
WR = Whimsical Raps
01 Intro
- Drone and melody: NL Elmyra 2, NE Electus Versio
- Pads: Madrona Labs Sumu, Brainworx bx_Aura
To keep the drone sound from being too unrelenting, the mix was processed with:
- MA Ripple Phaser inside of a ZPlane Peel band
- Klevgrand Brusfri treating the low drone as a noise reduction target, with modulated mix level.
02 Not An Answer
(Inspired loosely by Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question.”)
- Melody and drone: Madrona Aalto, Audiothing Moon Echo
- Melody and drone: Dawesome Myth, Dreadbox Hypnosis, Sugar Bytes WOW2 (overdubbed)
- Metallic percussion: RYK Algo, Xaoc Tallin, one-shot sequences from MN 0-Ctrl. Mid/side split with mid through Djupviks Bunker Archeology reverb, side through its “static” section and BW Vowel Filter.
03 Discretization
- Noise: is MI Rings sequenced by 0-Ctrl, with the frequency tuned way down, recorded and looped, through MA Ripple Phaser.
- Drone/pulse: Madrona Aalto, BW Sculpt
- Drone: BW Grid [2x Bite oscs & white noise into 3x parallel Sallen-Key bandpass filtesr and a Fizz filter], Valhalla Room, Fabfilter Saturn 2
- Drone/pulse: MN Strega, Rossum Morpheus, Djupviks Bunker Archeology (clocked from BW Grid)
- Drone/pulse: Arturia Minibrute, BW Grid [2x Sallen-Key lowpass & modulated allpass in parallel], Sinevibes Integer
- Drone: MØffenzeef Shtick, AtovProject cDVCA, NE Imitor
- Drone: RYK Algo, BW LD lowpass
- Drone/noise: Aodyo Anyma V, NE Ruina, Valhalla Vintage Verb, MA Ripple Phaser, Phonolyth Velvet Machine (restricted to 1-2kHz range by ZPlane Peel), XLN Audio RC-20
04 Bloom Out
- Buzzy chord drone: MI Rings excited by the negative output of MN Function, BW Heat shaper, Velvet Machine.
- Lush rattling chords: 4 different samples of Aodyo Anyma V sequenced by Mario Nieto’s Harmony Bloom, with different transposition settings for the resonator; Processed by Phonolyth Velvet Machine and XLN RC-20. Looped and crossfaded in BW Grid by an LFO with a stereo phase offset. Combined voice through Valhalla Room.
- “Sub thump”: IME Kermit, AtovProject cDVCA controlled my MN Function which is clocked by 510k Seqund via NE Univer Inter. The full mix was preprocessed with ZPlane Peel, Fabfilter Saturn 2, and BW Peak Limiter to remove all but subtle traces of this sound, but it was used for sidechain compression of the chord and crackle voices.
- Drone: BW Grid [2x triangle oscs through multiple filters and Mod Delays]
- Crackle: MN Function EOR output through Djupviks Bunker Archeology and Phonolyth Velvet Machine
- Melodic sequence: MN Mimeophon through Valhalla Delay.
- Melodic sequence: Mimeophon through MN Spectraphon, BW Grid [2x Sallen-Key bandpass filters in parallel], Valhalla Delay
- Quasi-percussive sequence: Plogue Chipspeech, Freakshow Industries Mishby, NE Imitor
05 Neutral Buoyancy
- Sequence: MI Marbles, RYK Algo, Rabid Elephant Natural Gate, NE Electus Versio, Ujam UFX Reverb
- Sequence: three WR Just Friends outputs through MI Blades and AtovProject cDVCA
- Melody: Dawesome MYTH, Sound Radix SurferEQ, Audio Damage Ratshack Reverb, NE Librae. (Pitch is from Marbles, converted to MIDI CC by Tesseract Sweet Sixteen and reinterpreted in Btiwig Grid, with an LFO crossfading between the raw signal and a requantized value; level/timbre controlled by pressure on the Roli Seaboard).
- Drone/pulse: MI Beads (using internal wavetable oscillator)
06 S-Drive
(The “S” doesn’t stand for anything in particular, it just sounded like a science fictional concept. The pitch and all timbre parameters were fixed except the mix level and decay time on Lair; pitched “pings” are entirely Lair’s own algorithm.)
- pulse: BW Grid [sine osc gated by square LFO], Izotope RX De-Click
- pulse and soundscape: MI Rings (clocked by the same LFO), Aberrant DSP Lair, MA Ripple Phaser.
07 Problem Space
- Melody: Maurizio Uber Basses Miezo, JamOrigin Midi Bass (just for its amp sim), BW Loud Split [Valhalla Delay on the loud bins, Brainworx bx_Aura on medium, quiet bins turned down]. In post-processing, added a reversed note and Valhalla Supermassive at the beginning, as well as blending out some transients in places using Phonolyth Velvet Machine.
- Drone/melody: Neutral Labs Elmyra 2, Aberrant DSP Lair
08 Metric
- pulse: BW Grid [two swarm oscillators, one triggering and S&H with the other as input, through a VCA controlled by an envelope follower using the ending of Problem Space on a loop; XP filter], Moogerfooger MF-104S delay.
- (originally percussion): TE EP-133 KO II, MI Beads, MI Blades, Audiority Electric Matter processing the distorted cymbal.
- modulated drone: RYK Algo, crossfade between MN Spectraphon and MN Mimeophon, Valhalla Delay.
- drone: EP-133, through Djupviks Bunker Archeology & NE Lacrima Versio as a stereo pair.
- Soundiron Drumcorps marching snares.
Entire mix through Phonolyth Velvet Machine smearing it all together. - A bit of lucky rattling that was an artifact of processing, filtered for its transients and with a bit of Valhalla Supermassive and Valhalla Room added.
09 The Claws That Catch
- main: MN Strega controlled by 0-Ctrl, Wavesfactory Spectre, NI Raum
- added sub drone: VCV Rack [Warp Core, CF100]
- drone and additional sound: BW Grid [2x pulse oscillators, SVF filters, several slow LFOs modulating various parameters, feedback path with delay] through Meng Qi Wingie 2, BW Pitch Shifter, NI Desmodus
- soft background noise: a recording of crumpling paper, slowed and treated with Valhalla Room and Phonolyth Velvet Machine.
- very quiet bells: Patchpool Kontakt Lamp Mallets, Valhalla Room
- “shakers”: two instances of a BW Grid patch [LFO exciting a noise-modulated comb filter, with envelope and bandpass filter, ringmodded with a triangle osc], BW Transient Control, Phonolyth Velvet Machine, Aberrant DSP Lair and Audiority Xenoverb; envelope trigger rates controlled by separate expression pedals.
- ending noise: “audio postcard” of the Maple Fire at Yellowstone National Park, manipulated with reversed Izotope RX De-click and EQ.
10 Rust Song
(Named partially in honor of people who insist that you can’t call music a “song” if it doesn’t have lyrics, despite precedent set by both Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Holst. And as always, a big hello to people who think Rings always sounds the same…)
- drone/chord/melody: MI Rings (in 4x polyphony, Karplusverb mode) sequenced very rapidly by 0-Ctrl, Moogerfooger MF-101S filter, NE Desmodus, Valhalla Delay. Different pitches are dialed in (unquantized) to change the chord and play the melody.
- pulse: Auza Wave Packets, NE Electus Versio, NE Lacrima Versio, MA Ripple Phaser. A second CV output from 0-Ctrl rapidly modulates the waveshape.
- pulse/clank (follows Wave Packets clock output): Xaoc Odessa, Audiority Doomagorgon, BW Grid [envelope, Mod Delay modulated by a pulse counter]. Odessa’s Harmonic Factor is modulated by NE Clep Diaz.