This time it’s the only digital kick in the Syntakt: BD Modern. This means we are back to eight tracks. The parameter setup is pretty straightforward, except there are two modulation paths: square wave, and triangle wave+feeedback. Both are governed by the same envelope. This could makes for some interesting harmonic developments using LFOs, among other things.
Gave myself about an hour… not that much time, so it’s the first jam that felt kinda OK-ish.
6 tracks
Kick, hat and bassline through FX-track with max drive.
Straight from Syntakt and still in ACID-mode
Impressed how you managed to make such a nice and complete «techno palette». That acid sound in particular. Any tips on how to get that acid sound? Did you max the drive both in the machine settings and in the FX track?
First attempt with BD Modern. Some kind of bunker techno with triplets and double kick drums. It was tempting to run this through a compressor, but I used the FX track for “pseudo compression” instead. Most of the mix goes through the FX track, with a couple of exceptions to make details stick out.
Two main patterns with a couple of sub-variations each, and song mode for automated pattern switching.
@elxsound Cool rumbly feel. The percussion sounds great and contrasts nicely to the bass.
@Oxenholme nicely optimistic and bouncy groove (despite your machine gun associations )
Here’s a sub-zero clicky dub thing. Sometimes when running a lot of stuff through the FX track, it’s a difficult balance between magic and a mess… I guess this ended up in the latter category The recording sounds quite low since the bass stole most of the energy. I’ve left it as is, but ideally this should have been tidied up with separate stems, eq and compression. Oh well
I had the same issue with my pattern. Wanted to put everything through the FX track for some grit and it just turned to mush So I just ended up doing the phasery melodies thing instead.
Thanks! That exercise actually started with eight melodically tuned instances of BD Modern. I wanted to see if it could work as a melodic sound source.
It’s fun using the top row digital machines as an 8-note keyboard, with “custom tuning” and individual sound variations, Vermona Perfourmer-style.
BD Modern doesn’t offer a ton of timbre variations, but there are some nice spots when combining the two modulation types. Next I’d like to play around with LFOs controlling the modulation levels, to inject a bit more life into the sounds.
Do you have any further ideas you want to try out?
I actually had an LFO controlling the square mod rhythmically on one sound (the ‘pad whistle’) in my first pattern. I found the results to be fairly subtle.
The triangle + feedback is probably where the most interesting sounds can be found.
This one’s been percolating a bit. I wanted to do some FM drums/percussion but it wasn’t quite interesting enough. Only when I added the melodic elements it made bit more sense. Still not a great arrangement or anything but I dig the sounds. 8 tracks of BD Modern.
I’ve been feeling a bit uninspired lately, as well as having little time for music. Didn’t quite get the mileage out of of BD Modern that I expected, but will give it another try before jumping to the next.
I expect to post the next lab in a day or two. In the next lab it’s SD FM & SD Hard on the plate.
)
The recording sounds quite low since the bass stole most of the energy. I’ve left it as is, but ideally this should have been tidied up with separate stems, eq and compression. Oh well 
