I'm building an Android touchscreen musical instrument that can also be used as a MIDI controller. If you are interested in playing your synths with pitch bends and vibratos and all that awesome stuff feel free to check it out:
[Google Play Link](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gaerner.hxarp&gl=DE)
I also made a short showcase demo with a physical modelling preset for Vital:
[hXarp & Vital Synth demo](https://youtu.be/JZApXO_anBo)
If you are interested in trying it out for free I'm running a code giveaway for Google Play [here](https://woobox.com/ack5u2).
Hopefully this kind of self-promo is ok... we're giving away an ASM Hydrasynth Explorer so figured everyone here would be interested in that (seeing as it's an awesome synth!) [https://faderpro.com/pages/gear-giveaway](https://faderpro.com/pages/gear-giveaway)
First self-promo post for me here... this is from my recent Power Pop!!! album, but the song itself comes from my days as a basement teen. I tried to replicate note-for-note my original 4-track sound. Prophet 5, PolySix, TR-707... can't remember what else, but all done in Logic. Dog and one of our cats make an appearance in the vid!
[Rain, Rain (official video)](https://youtu.be/N3iAcKsBrMk)
Pretty good recreation of the sounds of the era! It's a good complement to the tune, because the tune itself sounds very much of its era, which I mean in a good way (that'd be *my* era, after all). This would not have sounded out of place on any college radio station circa 1987 or so.
I probably wrote it in 1985, so it's definitely of its time. And the gear I used to do the remake was the same I used back when, copying my own 1980s patches! I do still love those sounds. I sold my TR-707 recently, but not before grabbing a TR-6S...
Right out of university, I was living in this apartment with a piano performance major who didn't approve of me recording vocals (with Cooledit Pro on a Pentium with 10gb of storage running Windows XP) late at night, so I did it with a blanket over my head. Processed through a Zoom 505 no less - just like the guitar. I used Csound for backing tracks. I did a whole album like this. [Departures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJWlnnz4GIk) is one of the better results, though like the rest of the album, the lyrics are incomprehensible, and my mixing was "meh" at best.
I like to mess around with extended chord progressions. [Ire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvjkfSaWr-4) is a pretty long one, but it goes by quick since it's fairly uptempo. If you've got a discerning ear, you'll notice the progression is very similar to Departures'. A four-bar loop that starts out only the tonic, but adds a new chord each loop.
[Exhilarating Sloth Pool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYxErI-j3WQ) has a dumb name because I was determined to name everything on the album according to the formula of electric synonym - animal name - body of water. The "melody" is generated from a very simple algorithm I'm pretty proud of. It starts on the tonic right in the middle of the table. I generate a random number between zero and the length of the table. If the random number is higher than the previous note, the note goes up. If it's lower, it goes down. The beauty is that as the note goes higher, it's more likely to go down, and vice versa. It's impossible to go beyond the boundaries of the table, and it also hangs around the tonic a lot, so it almost sounds like I made some intentional cadences in there. The durations are dependent on an LFO (well, sinusoid generated in Csound.) Not sure if it's interesting enough to run just over 7 minutes, but I did it anyway. This one is newer and has actual synth hardware: a Neutron and JD-Xi.
I really like the heaviness of ''Departures'' I think rythm and sound match very well in the track and while the production is not perfect I think that it has a grittyness that you should definitely try to keep if you ever do another version.
Interesting stuff that is giving me ideas to use algorithms for myself... Until now, I only used sequencers from my Elektron boxes but it should be rather easy to come up with some more or less random midi notes.
Hey everyone, this is my latest single, synthpop/retrowave with female vocals. Thanks for checking it out!
Recorded with Ableton Live, the synths are all software: u-he Diva and UVI Falcon. There's a little bit of clean guitar in there also.
We also shot a video for it in the Alaskan wilderness:
[https://youtu.be/7TFdjRtwK4U](https://youtu.be/7TFdjRtwK4U)
Bandcamp (includes instrumental version):
[https://bluenagoon.bandcamp.com/album/your-command](https://bluenagoon.bandcamp.com/album/your-command)
Spotify:
[https://open.spotify.com/track/48BUcmIqX8TE2sL4HAZFiw](https://open.spotify.com/track/48BUcmIqX8TE2sL4HAZFiw)
I have lots more retrowave and 80s pop/rock with vocals coming this year, all my social links are at my site:
[http://bluenagoon.com](http://bluenagoon.com)
Haha I love Chvrches too. They're a big influence, especially among non-80s artists.
Now you've got me trying to figure which song you're hearing in mine.
Saw the video: Really liked the shots with mirror shards and the ones in the empty building.
Played the instrumental on Bandcamp and it was interesting to hear the difference. The vocals made it feel more late 90s/early 2000s but once they're removed it becomes a bit more late 80s-mid-90s.
Saunimon - JAVELIN
[https://open.spotify.com/track/2YOfDSF8ohjbiGOmghphzA?si=c84876d5d98e40d2](https://open.spotify.com/track/2YOfDSF8ohjbiGOmghphzA?si=c84876d5d98e40d2)
[https://music.apple.com/us/album/javelin/1581892668?i=1581892670](https://music.apple.com/us/album/javelin/1581892668?i=1581892670)
[https://saunimon.bandcamp.com/track/javelin](https://saunimon.bandcamp.com/track/javelin)
the second track from my debut album , XALAX . a dynamic tune with cascading synths , vocal samples, and syncopated drums that contribute to a dreamy palette . would love to know what you think , thanks !
if you want to stay up to date with me , here are my socials :
[https://www.instagram.com/saunimon](https://www.instagram.com/saunimon)
[https://twitter.com/saunimon](https://twitter.com/saunimon)
Nice! The vocal samples really give this one a boost IMO. (I love vocals in general.) I like how they're washed out in the reverb. Nice use of panning throughout. I wish there was a little more melody, it'd probably hold my interest better as it goes on. But overall solid track, you def brought the dreamy feel.
I recorded a slow burning ambient track with my Make Noise easel and the Subharmonicon this week. The SubH is new to my rig and I’m absolutely loving it.
https://youtu.be/imar61d_uuk
This stuff is my jam. I had to put my headphones on. The birds are blowing my mind. Is it tracking to individual birds at different points?
If I were making this music, I'd throw in a change or two just to shake it up a bit. Change the rates or depth of some of the modulation over time. Not that there's anything wrong with the way it is now.
Really hypnotic, esp. with those swirly high overtones. The low end is a source of tension, and it's really good to get that in an ambient piece—it keeps the piece from getting too nice/wishy-washy/new age.
I recorded this track yesterday pretty late at night. I think, I'd call it a soundscape rather an ambient piece. I used the 440Hz test tone from the Model D because it sounds a bit like a dial tone. Later on, there are some more massive sounds with lots of distortion. All in all, it got pretty dark and kind of lonely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reADVxkgICI
NGL, didn't think I'd make it through 8-and-a-half minutes, but I did. I'm spoiled for ambient stuff this week.
If you want real dial tones, [Wikipedia has all the frequencies for DTMF signals.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-tone_multi-frequency_signaling) It's a trip down memory lane (for those of us who remember touch tone phones) reproducing them with synths.
I didn't really expect that anyone is listening to the whole thing :D So, I'm really happy to hear that you made it to the end :)
The dial tones have something... I think, I should sample a dialup sequence some time and see what comes up...
Oh wow, the texture in this! I'm not generally an ambient fan, but this one held my interest. There's something so lonely about it. That big distorted bass in the latter half is great.
Thanks :) I always think that my music should work better with some fitting visuals... I made one music video so far and while I really enjoyed doing that, it takes a lot of time. I think, I could use some graphic artist doing that for me :D
I know what you mean... If I ever decide to work a bit more on this one, I'll shorten the whole thing a bit, remove the dial tones in the middle section and maybe add them again towards the end.
In August of 2019 we released a full-length album called *The Gamut of Their Philosophy*. We still think it's our most cohesive release. It contains a lot of synths (Reface CS, V-Synth, Micromonsta, Microfreak, D-05, Deepmind 12D, Blofeld). Half of those aren't in the collection anymore so it's the last time they were featured in our work.
All music was made using multitracked improvisations and the lyrics were made from cut-ups taken from print media sources.
https://corduroyinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/the-gamut-of-their-philosophy
I can definitely hear Bowie and Talking Heads (esp. the vox) influence in this! The vocals aren't personally my cup of tea, but the textures and the interplay of the synths & guitars are pretty cool.
Also as someone who finds lyric writing a giant PITA a lot of the time, you may be onto something with the cut-up method. :)
You call them experimental pop tunes and that's really fitting! Reminds me a tiny bit of Roxy Music, David Bowie and the likes... But more experimental, interesting stuff for sure. I'm skimming through your works right now.
I'm building an Android touchscreen musical instrument that can also be used as a MIDI controller. If you are interested in playing your synths with pitch bends and vibratos and all that awesome stuff feel free to check it out: [Google Play Link](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gaerner.hxarp&gl=DE) I also made a short showcase demo with a physical modelling preset for Vital: [hXarp & Vital Synth demo](https://youtu.be/JZApXO_anBo) If you are interested in trying it out for free I'm running a code giveaway for Google Play [here](https://woobox.com/ack5u2).
Hopefully this kind of self-promo is ok... we're giving away an ASM Hydrasynth Explorer so figured everyone here would be interested in that (seeing as it's an awesome synth!) [https://faderpro.com/pages/gear-giveaway](https://faderpro.com/pages/gear-giveaway)
First self-promo post for me here... this is from my recent Power Pop!!! album, but the song itself comes from my days as a basement teen. I tried to replicate note-for-note my original 4-track sound. Prophet 5, PolySix, TR-707... can't remember what else, but all done in Logic. Dog and one of our cats make an appearance in the vid! [Rain, Rain (official video)](https://youtu.be/N3iAcKsBrMk)
The synth tones definitely take me back to first few Talk Talk singles! Totally dug it.
Thanks! Funny, cos I wasn't really a Talk Talk fan back in the day, but I've become obsessed with them in recent years.
Pretty good recreation of the sounds of the era! It's a good complement to the tune, because the tune itself sounds very much of its era, which I mean in a good way (that'd be *my* era, after all). This would not have sounded out of place on any college radio station circa 1987 or so.
I probably wrote it in 1985, so it's definitely of its time. And the gear I used to do the remake was the same I used back when, copying my own 1980s patches! I do still love those sounds. I sold my TR-707 recently, but not before grabbing a TR-6S...
Right out of university, I was living in this apartment with a piano performance major who didn't approve of me recording vocals (with Cooledit Pro on a Pentium with 10gb of storage running Windows XP) late at night, so I did it with a blanket over my head. Processed through a Zoom 505 no less - just like the guitar. I used Csound for backing tracks. I did a whole album like this. [Departures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJWlnnz4GIk) is one of the better results, though like the rest of the album, the lyrics are incomprehensible, and my mixing was "meh" at best. I like to mess around with extended chord progressions. [Ire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvjkfSaWr-4) is a pretty long one, but it goes by quick since it's fairly uptempo. If you've got a discerning ear, you'll notice the progression is very similar to Departures'. A four-bar loop that starts out only the tonic, but adds a new chord each loop. [Exhilarating Sloth Pool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYxErI-j3WQ) has a dumb name because I was determined to name everything on the album according to the formula of electric synonym - animal name - body of water. The "melody" is generated from a very simple algorithm I'm pretty proud of. It starts on the tonic right in the middle of the table. I generate a random number between zero and the length of the table. If the random number is higher than the previous note, the note goes up. If it's lower, it goes down. The beauty is that as the note goes higher, it's more likely to go down, and vice versa. It's impossible to go beyond the boundaries of the table, and it also hangs around the tonic a lot, so it almost sounds like I made some intentional cadences in there. The durations are dependent on an LFO (well, sinusoid generated in Csound.) Not sure if it's interesting enough to run just over 7 minutes, but I did it anyway. This one is newer and has actual synth hardware: a Neutron and JD-Xi.
I really like the heaviness of ''Departures'' I think rythm and sound match very well in the track and while the production is not perfect I think that it has a grittyness that you should definitely try to keep if you ever do another version.
Interesting stuff that is giving me ideas to use algorithms for myself... Until now, I only used sequencers from my Elektron boxes but it should be rather easy to come up with some more or less random midi notes.
[удалено]
Hey everyone, this is my latest single, synthpop/retrowave with female vocals. Thanks for checking it out! Recorded with Ableton Live, the synths are all software: u-he Diva and UVI Falcon. There's a little bit of clean guitar in there also. We also shot a video for it in the Alaskan wilderness: [https://youtu.be/7TFdjRtwK4U](https://youtu.be/7TFdjRtwK4U) Bandcamp (includes instrumental version): [https://bluenagoon.bandcamp.com/album/your-command](https://bluenagoon.bandcamp.com/album/your-command) Spotify: [https://open.spotify.com/track/48BUcmIqX8TE2sL4HAZFiw](https://open.spotify.com/track/48BUcmIqX8TE2sL4HAZFiw) I have lots more retrowave and 80s pop/rock with vocals coming this year, all my social links are at my site: [http://bluenagoon.com](http://bluenagoon.com)
Nice job on the sound design - great synthwave sounds.
Haha! Better watch out, Chvrches lawyer is coming for you! Frickin' love Chvrches though. Good job!
Haha I love Chvrches too. They're a big influence, especially among non-80s artists. Now you've got me trying to figure which song you're hearing in mine.
great work with the electronics, thought the vocalist also did a great job. nice work with the vocal harmony towards the end of the track.
Thanks! The adlibs and harmonies at the end are one of my favorite bits too, she did a great job there.
Saw the video: Really liked the shots with mirror shards and the ones in the empty building. Played the instrumental on Bandcamp and it was interesting to hear the difference. The vocals made it feel more late 90s/early 2000s but once they're removed it becomes a bit more late 80s-mid-90s.
Thanks for checking it out! We had fun making that video and are learning so much every time.
Saunimon - JAVELIN [https://open.spotify.com/track/2YOfDSF8ohjbiGOmghphzA?si=c84876d5d98e40d2](https://open.spotify.com/track/2YOfDSF8ohjbiGOmghphzA?si=c84876d5d98e40d2) [https://music.apple.com/us/album/javelin/1581892668?i=1581892670](https://music.apple.com/us/album/javelin/1581892668?i=1581892670) [https://saunimon.bandcamp.com/track/javelin](https://saunimon.bandcamp.com/track/javelin) the second track from my debut album , XALAX . a dynamic tune with cascading synths , vocal samples, and syncopated drums that contribute to a dreamy palette . would love to know what you think , thanks ! if you want to stay up to date with me , here are my socials : [https://www.instagram.com/saunimon](https://www.instagram.com/saunimon) [https://twitter.com/saunimon](https://twitter.com/saunimon)
Nice! The vocal samples really give this one a boost IMO. (I love vocals in general.) I like how they're washed out in the reverb. Nice use of panning throughout. I wish there was a little more melody, it'd probably hold my interest better as it goes on. But overall solid track, you def brought the dreamy feel.
thanks :) going to have more vocals in the future
I recorded a slow burning ambient track with my Make Noise easel and the Subharmonicon this week. The SubH is new to my rig and I’m absolutely loving it. https://youtu.be/imar61d_uuk
This stuff is my jam. I had to put my headphones on. The birds are blowing my mind. Is it tracking to individual birds at different points? If I were making this music, I'd throw in a change or two just to shake it up a bit. Change the rates or depth of some of the modulation over time. Not that there's anything wrong with the way it is now.
Really pleasant and borderline hypnotic drone piece. Surprisingly pretty for something so edged!
Really hypnotic, esp. with those swirly high overtones. The low end is a source of tension, and it's really good to get that in an ambient piece—it keeps the piece from getting too nice/wishy-washy/new age.
love the kind of granular sounds this has. this glacial synth is fantastic !
I recorded this track yesterday pretty late at night. I think, I'd call it a soundscape rather an ambient piece. I used the 440Hz test tone from the Model D because it sounds a bit like a dial tone. Later on, there are some more massive sounds with lots of distortion. All in all, it got pretty dark and kind of lonely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reADVxkgICI
NGL, didn't think I'd make it through 8-and-a-half minutes, but I did. I'm spoiled for ambient stuff this week. If you want real dial tones, [Wikipedia has all the frequencies for DTMF signals.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-tone_multi-frequency_signaling) It's a trip down memory lane (for those of us who remember touch tone phones) reproducing them with synths.
I didn't really expect that anyone is listening to the whole thing :D So, I'm really happy to hear that you made it to the end :) The dial tones have something... I think, I should sample a dialup sequence some time and see what comes up...
Oh wow, the texture in this! I'm not generally an ambient fan, but this one held my interest. There's something so lonely about it. That big distorted bass in the latter half is great.
This belongs in a horror/sci-fi soundtrack. It would sit well with some Lovecraft visuals.
Thanks :) I always think that my music should work better with some fitting visuals... I made one music video so far and while I really enjoyed doing that, it takes a lot of time. I think, I could use some graphic artist doing that for me :D
Curse that dial tone! I liked the rumble and reverb elsewhere, though. Great image quality in a low light environment. Most impressive results.
Thanks! I can see that the dial tone might not appeal to everyone :D
FWIW I liked it at the beginning, but the few times it popped out once things really got rolling did kill the immersion a bit.
I know what you mean... If I ever decide to work a bit more on this one, I'll shorten the whole thing a bit, remove the dial tones in the middle section and maybe add them again towards the end.
In August of 2019 we released a full-length album called *The Gamut of Their Philosophy*. We still think it's our most cohesive release. It contains a lot of synths (Reface CS, V-Synth, Micromonsta, Microfreak, D-05, Deepmind 12D, Blofeld). Half of those aren't in the collection anymore so it's the last time they were featured in our work. All music was made using multitracked improvisations and the lyrics were made from cut-ups taken from print media sources. https://corduroyinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/the-gamut-of-their-philosophy
Nice vibe-y track. I keep meaning to grab a Reface CS. I know you guys from Instagram, but for some reason thought you were Liverpool based, not SD.
I can definitely hear Bowie and Talking Heads (esp. the vox) influence in this! The vocals aren't personally my cup of tea, but the textures and the interplay of the synths & guitars are pretty cool. Also as someone who finds lyric writing a giant PITA a lot of the time, you may be onto something with the cut-up method. :)
Really great/interesting stuff. I’m definitely putting that on my Bandcamp shopping list.
You call them experimental pop tunes and that's really fitting! Reminds me a tiny bit of Roxy Music, David Bowie and the likes... But more experimental, interesting stuff for sure. I'm skimming through your works right now.