Mare Imbrium

If you’ve read past entries covering some of my ambient tracks and how I go about producing them, you’ve learned some of my tricks. Things like drawing in periodic oscillations for moving faders and filters, or copying and pasting tracks between different instruments and finding fun ways to make them interact. And all of that was my plan for the evening, especially after I found the primary sound that would anchor this track. I quickly … Continue reading

I Can See What’s Coming

Almost immediately after posting Laika, I started a new project and got to work. My intent was to try an instrument or plugin that I hadn’t used yet. After scanning through the options, I decided that it sounded fun to do a chiptune track, and fired up Plogue Chipsounds. This plug models a bunch of sound chips from older computers and video games systems like the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, and Nintendo Entertainment System. After … Continue reading

Laika

It’s easy for Song-A-Day to become an all-consuming thing for me, especially now that I don’t have a normal work-week gig. Working a day ahead has definitely paid off in terms of stress, but now that I’m accustomed to the schedule, I find that I’m leaving things to “finalize” the next morning, but actually end up doing a lot more than intended. With this piece, I was determined to break that cycle so that I … Continue reading

Across the Plains

We arrive at the month’s first dodged bullet. My time management over the weekend, complicated by impromptu hang outs with our neighbors in the evenings, led to me getting a late start. It’s hard to go to bed at a decent hour when you don’t go into the studio before midnight, but I was generally happy with both Continental Transit and Mare Vaporum, so I had no reason to think this one would be any … Continue reading

Mare Vaporum

Once again, going into the studio having already decided to do something instrumental took some of the pressure off. I loaded up a piano and a pad sound and started playing to figure out where I wanted to go. And then, I immediately went there. The piano part you hear is pretty much the first thing I played. Except that I wasn’t recording. Luckily, my recording software added a feature a version or two ago … Continue reading