Fresh Project: First 5 minutes seasoning

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

After all my years fiddling very enjoyably with elektron boxes, it just occurred to me that despite my sense of disorder, I actually have a bit of a process … at least at the start. Whether OT, A4, MnM, AR, DT or now DN, it usually starts with

turn on
browse for a sound (very rarely percussion/drum, but instead a bass or a melodic/pad)
load sound
twiddle a few melodic bits on the buttons, trying to find a ‘motif’ or signature of the song
find something, dial back to 96 bpm ‘cos that’s where I roll’
hit live record, play it again
listen to slightly trig-quant’d version of what I played
tweak a little & listen (repeat a bit, delete, add, find a groove)
stretch it out over 4 pages of trigs
spend 30 minutes p’locking, messing with filters, adsr, reverb - making pages 1 to 4 a little different with some movement
now add a simple kick track, simply on trig 1, 5, 9 …
listen again and ‘rehear’ my riff against a kick beat - even a muffled thud (usually integrates totally differently to where I first thought I was going)
tweak the melodic bit a bit more
listen again together, add some hats (or subtle pfffs) and a little bit of something else
decide on melodic track 2 to fill an already pretty crowded sound plane … bass if not already track 1.
build along the lines above until I have what is going to be bar 8 or so of the piece
strip back the original track one, now that track 2 has some personality
experiment with a track 3 of rhythm or melodic bits
start stripping everything backwards to reverse engineer a multi-bar build into my original riff by removing or diluting pieces
stop
where do I now go? I’ve got an 8 bar progression, but need to go somewhere
listen
stop, listen
save
rarely come back to it.

I’m assuming everyone has a similar process, but I know I’m likely wrong… just thought I’d share my typical approach to get a bit of thought on how everyone else moves after they hit the ‘on’ button and climb the first hill!
I’ve found the DN such a breeze for this (and the A4) whereas OT, DT and MnM take quite a bit more work to get that signature started, but can take you a lot further when you persevere.

1 Like
#2

lol cool i love that bpm!

did you know it is possible to play two different units, one at 96bpm and the other at 120bpm and somehow they sound in time with each other, if Transport-linked.

24 goes into 120 five times, and into 96 four times, so it somehow sounds like a hybrid 5/4 timespan perhaps.

As regards “rarely come back to it”, i do relate to that :joy:
although fairly recently i’ve started recording 4 bar samples of everything in different stages of articulation, onto the Octatrack.

Did that for about 5 months and did not return to the previous tracks at all … but now, going back and searching for the gold, part recording loops that naturally sound easy and enjoyable. I think it’s possibly the way forwards to producing some tunes in their entirety.

#3

this is so close to my process its uncanny :open_mouth:

i have been spending more time with the OP1 as it gives me a very different workflow.

Make a track on OP1 using RedMeansRecording method.
(his method is to not overdub tracks but to move on after each section. so make a beat, add a bass, layer 2 more bass tracks to use all 4 tracks, move on but only copy one bass. now make new beat, add leads, move on to next section but only copy one or two elements)
Plug OP1 into compter and chop up all sections in DAW.
FX and mastering.
Layer VST synths and external gear and samples over tune.

Really loving this workflow!
Using DN as if it was a VST in DAW.

Much easier to build a tune as opposed to a loop. Have the advantage of audio transpose and chopping in DAW for fast alternative sections and build ups and breakdowns.

Jeremy is an amazing producer, here he is showing his workflow:

worth watching the original OP1 track too: