Thanks! Yes, I’m happy with how the tracks turned out and the DT update with its extra filtering and extreme pitch shifting really helps turn the SubH oscillators into rhythmical elements. Glad you like Post Fader too. The drone that consumes everything at the end was an accident/glitch with my DT project after stopping the sequencer. It carried on playing normally for a little bit, then seemed to get overloaded and created this infinite loop of a tiny bit of the ‘snare’-like sound.
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Right, I found some more time to document the process for those who are interested…
I like challenges and self-imposed limitations and doing everything in Digitakt with a single sound source is certainly a challenge due to only having 8 mono tracks and a maximum of 33 seconds of sampling time. Luckily, the Subharmonicon can produce chords easily enough, so I tended to sample those separately, and then pitch them down in Digitakt to extend their duration when required. To get the more rhythmical elements going, I fed oscillators into one another on the SubH and played them back at their lowest frequency with a lot of resonant filtering to get the sweet spots. Once inside Digitakt, bitcrushing, distortion and more filtering brought out the beating of the oscillator samples just right. Then it was a matter of looping certain sections so that there was some order to the chaos. The more melodic drone sounds in the second track are super short loops in Digitakt, with long envelope settings to drift the notes in and out – also some conditional triggers were used to create some randomness.
I stemmed out everything via Overbridge into Bitwig to get a bit more surgical and to create arrangements from what were just single patterns – all three of the endings were created by stopping the Digitakt’s sequencer and letting the loops fall out of sync. Because Overbridge doesn’t allow panning or FX on the individual stems, I manually recreated the panning with very slow LFOs in Bitwig, and used the excellent Valhalla freebie Supermassive quite liberally. I don’t tend to use delay, so that wasn’t an issue. Also, I wanted the whole thing to have a tape-like quality, so this was done with plenty of compression, more bitcrushing with the Bit-8 plug-in, then air was added with process.audio’s Sugar (I love that plug-in so much!)
Not really sure what else to say, but it was certainly fun working on around 8 or 10 tracks and then selecting the final 3 to release. If anyone has more specific questions, just let me know!
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This is a great write-up, thanks man.
The last bit you mentioned about choosing these 3 tracks from a wider pool of stuff you were working on — that’s something I always struggle with. I want to release my music as a cohesive collection of some kind (album, EP, whatever form it takes) but I have a hard time deciding when I’m working on album tracks vs. when I’m just jamming. It’s a continuous stream of music-making over here and I don’t know how to mark a beginning or end to define what could become an album or EP.
So did you go into those 8-10 tracks thinking “Alright, now I’m going to start working on some music that could become a release of mine” or were you maybe like 3-4 tracks in and realized “Hey I might be onto something that could be a release”? Similar question for how you decided to stop creating new stuff and just focus on finishing, did you wake up one day and think “Alright I need to stop making new stuff and start honing in what I have” or did the flow of ideas just stop more naturally?
Hope these questions make sense, I’m just always curious about how to bridge that jam --> album divide. And would be great to hear any of the cuts that didn’t make the EP!
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This is going to be a pretty idiosyncratic answer to some of your questions, sorry…
I had stemmed everything out of Digitakt when I sold it late last year. So I had something like 16 Subharmonicon tracks, (and around the same number of Ether tracks), so I’ve been meaning to do something with them for a while now. Then I got made unemployed suddenly and sold my last pieces of gear. Therefore (aside from pissing around in Bitwig) I couldn’t make any new music. And because I had nothing to do except for apply for jobs each morning, I spent the time working up the best 8-10 tracks, then gradually kept whittling them down because either they weren’t working, were too static or just didn’t fit with anything else. Great thing about Bitwig is that you can have multiple projects open in tabs, so I was able to change the order around several times when deciding what should go with what etc. Anyway, long story short my changing circumstances forced me to finish them 
And when it comes to jamming versus making a track, I don’t choose either option. Every night, I am always trying to make a track. It might not be any good or it might only be quite a short idea that doesn’t go anywhere but my aim is to at least do something worthy of the Current Sounds From Your Gear thread. I fucking love that thread so much and a fair few things I’ve heard there have influenced me, for sure!
Also, I move incredibly fast when working on something. That’s why Octatrack had to gtfo of my life. Too much faffing around. Plus Digitakt just sounds so much better quicker imo. Anyway back on topic. I’d say I have around four hours to get from sampling to at least a ‘finished’ track/idea. If I don’t finish it by then, I will never return to it. So patching a single instrument and sampling whatever I need takes no longer than 45 mins, if that. I either take 8 samples and put one on each track or I use just one 33 second sample of some bass drone or whatever and use that across all 8 tracks – you’ll hear this more on the Ether stuff, such as using three or four tracks to make a chord from a tiny loop but with each voice having different LFO settings etc. From there, whatever sound source goes away and it’s solely Digitakt for the next three hours til it’s time to record the stereo outs. Since selling Digitakt (and when I still had other gear), I was recording everything straight into Bitwig via my 4-input soundcard and using the DAW as I would use the Digitakt but the process of moving fast before inspiration drains away remains in place. So basically, I don’t do jams! I hope that helps in some way. As I say, it’s idiosyncratic to me and of course I’m not making complicated music with lots of moving parts or need for lots of overdubbing etc etc. That’s what I really like about only having one source, without midi if I can help it. I can’t stand setting things up and connecting this to that and working out why this is on the wrong midi channel and that’s not making any sound for some reason hahaha.
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This is awesome, very much appreciate all the insight into your process! I’m sorry to hear about the bumps in the road with your employment situation and how that impacted your music/gear, but you have that ability to thrive within the limitations so it’s awesome how it worked out for you anyway.
A lot of details in here resonate with me, especially working quickly. Though I think the best takeaway will be:
Because that is just a great rally cry for making the time and energy you put into music really count for something. I dig it.
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All is well again with employment and this time I’m being paid more and have a salary rather than pure seat-of-my-pants bits of freelance here, there and everywhere. Plus my debts (which were considerable) are coming down into the manageable phase. I should actually be debt free by the end of this year 
So now, I think I can reasonably afford a couple of bits of dream gear. First up, Pulsar. I’m also gonna try Lyra but everything I’ve heard from it sounds so samey – having said that so do Subharmonicon demos but I’ve made something that doesn’t sound like them, so who knows? Maybe a decent poly like Super 6 
Anyway, I’m glad I helped in some way!
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Really enjoyed the process outline. I recently changed the way I operate and found that If I shelve something after that initial idea is documented (a couple hours) and return after a week or so, it’s working far better for me than editing/arranging to death over a single session. It’s too hard for me to tell what something should be immediately after it comes out.
The distinction you make about jamming… what does a ‘jam’ mean? Fruitless? I similarly aim to always make a ‘track’ or something complete, but wonder what this means for you.
Anyway, really dig the EP and it’s a bit inspiring how much character and fit you were able to lock down with this constrained set of instruments. Chef’s kiss on the sound design! A lot of times when I listen to noise-leaning genres it’s exhausting to my ears. Not so here. Great work. Love the subtle, nuanced sort of harmonic voice on the last track.
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This makes a lot of sense to me. The initial ideas were done back in 2021, so then I’ve had many months to forget they even existed before approaching them afresh. I guess I’m saying push things as far as you can in one session. The ones that have a little je ne sais quoi will still appeal later on. And thank you for the compliments! Merci!
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Was listening to this again and just wanted to say how lovely it is. With all the grit and texture it’s surprising that the SubH was the only source… could have easily been the Lyra or Ether… with the occasional chordal tone being the only nod to how the SubH is typically used.
My only criticism is that I wish here were 3-to-7 more tracks
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Thank you very much! I’m actually thinking of trying Lyra next. And I have thought about getting another SubH just because it makes an awesome (unusual) chord generator and weird source of Just Intonation scales. And yeah, I have another six or seven tracks but I decided against them for one reason or another – either too similar to the others or too different. I wanted my debut to be quite tight
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I went through my Ether stuff and only really liked this one (I was trying to find my sound at the time), so I’ve released this one as a free bonus track. The track uses a single sample from the Soma Ether, with Digitakt doing a lot of heavy lifting to make it tonal, then I finished it off in Bitwig:
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This is mesmerising, love it, thanks for posting
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Wow, big praise. Thanks for listening. And commenting
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This is really
really
I mean it
really
good
stuff.
Thoroughly enjoying this.
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Love it! So good!
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Class recordings, very impressive. More of the same please👍
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Thanks @circuitghost, @brucegill and @Stumm42, I’m glad you like ‘em. I guess I should get on with writing some more stuff then
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No doubt. You got something here. Keep the tap open, I’ve left my card in the bar and won’t be leaving anytime soon
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Haha. You’re too kind. But thank you all the same 
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I was listening to this wonderful piece with the same interest as if I were listening to an Eluvium album. That means you got all my attention. Great Track @craig!
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