Wednesday, January 16, 2008

An update before the break

Not much has been going on here...just getting this sorted out before the trip down to NAMM.

I've been playing a lot more guitar lately and my guitar pedal fetish is starting to flouring. I want the new metasonix amp more than anything, but it's price point (though I'm sure well worth it) puts it out of my league for the time being. One day! In the meantime, I plan on building a bunch of BYOC kits as well as making an even more serious effort to obtain a TX-1 and TX-2.

The other reason for my increased guitar playing (other than it being fun and needing to work the rust out of my fingers) is that the modular is currently in shambles. Yes, shambles! I sold both of the Doepfer A-100P cases (thanks guys) but all the parts to put the custom case together have not arrived yet. They are estimated to arrive by next week, so I'll be getting started on that as soon as they arrive. It was actually kinda fun taking the modules out and getting a peek at their circuit boards, which I haven't seen since they were first put in the case. I had forgotten about some of the messages screened on the Livewire boards. :D

I'll also be without my laptop for an undetermined amount of time. I'm dropping it off tomorrow. I'll have my iPhone with me so I may be able to make some spurious posts from the NAMM show floor, but they might be rather brief so it might not be worth it. But I plan on taking plenty of pictures and will have a sizeable post when I return.

In the meantime, to tide you over, I present a composition originally done for a Xmas employee composition which, due to some serious hate from Logic, did not get finished. It's still not finished, but it's in a fairly progressed state and since it's the only real recording I've done in a while, I thought I'd share it. It's largely the MachineDrum and several tracks of the modular. There's a piano part in the break which is from one of Logic's sample sets. UAD Neve 88RS plugs were used to process each track and there's a little UAD Plate 140 and UAD RE-201 for ambience.

Comments welcome.



Enjoy.

PS. If anyone gets the reference made by the title, sound off in the comments. You'll win some nerd points. ;)

PPS. The first few seconds are only the sub-bass kick. If you don't hear anything, then yo speakers ain't big enough cuz!

6 comments:

J.w.M. said...

Rock on! Great composition. Realize I'm not familiar at all with Euro modules, but what was the module creating the ring modulation-style effects? I really enjoy the contrast between the piano break and the rest of the piece. Oh, and my speakers are big enough, cuz! I loved that sub bass opening.

Also, did you decide to use the Doepfer DIY kits? I didn't really follow the drama surrounding them, but they look like a good way to go for adding a small supplemental rack of euro modules to my synth. Any thoughts?

felix said...

Thanks!

The main "riff" (the faster one, which kinda sounds like a piano) is the plan B model 15 sine wave FM'd by one of the sine oscs on the Livewire Dalek Modulator. The two other ring-mod sounds are both from the Dalek Modulator.

I really like the piano break too...the main riff reminded me a bit of weird piano sound and I wondered what it would sound like with a real piano. I was worried because I never tuned anything at the beginning of working, so I thought it might not fit, but it turned out to be not so out of key. Happy accident!

I ended up going with the Vector "T-Struts" because they were bigger. The drama with the Doepfer DIY kits was that they do not have holes drilled every 1HP (unlike the regular Doepfer cases). This causes problems with Harvestman modules in particular since he likes to use "odd" sizes (eg. Malgorithm is 11HP and won't mount in the DIY rails). The Vector T-struts aren't a problem here as they have no mounting holes, but rather a channel where the mounting screws can slide through (so the panel size doesn't matter at all). This is also great if you might want to add Analogue Systems modules which have their drill holes spaced differently compared to Doepfer.

While I don't know for sure, I'm hoping it might also be possible to mount Frac modules on these rails too.

Faxed said...

Shambles!

Zerosum Inertia said...

Nice creepy warbleeeee melteeeee dripeeeee track.
Thanks for sharing!
Looking forward to seeing your new "modular house" setup.
:D

Adam John Rex said...

Hey Felix,

Just wondering if you could give me some advice here. I just got my DIY kit with vector rails on the weekend and am trying to figure out how big to make the internal height of the case. obviously it will need to be a tad higher than the old dimension of 129.5mm due to the small lip that the vector rails have. Any hints?

Jazzapple4200

felix said...

Hi Adam,
Unfortunately, my DIY case was an absolute failure.
http://felixinferious.blogspot.com/2008/06/modular-cabinet-update-epic-fail.html

All my modules mounted more or less flush to the top of the vector rail, although apparently the newer rails are a little different, so maybe you have those.

The best advice I can give you is measure like 3 times before you cut, and take into account the width of the saw blade in the size that you cut.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.