T T # Nex Ool

[Michael Elliott]

T T # Nex Ool

(read as tee tee hatch nex ool  )

https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/tt-nex-ool

(moved link to bandcamp from soundclick since it's a real song now)

placeholder cover

  

new cover

 

was previously started a couple days ago here New MIDI FX Available 

That core track, anchor to the rest, used an arp pattern I'd made for something else, stuck into a midi track and looped just to play with the CSHumanize settings to see what they did, feeding a random patch in Z3TA2+ with it's own arp turned off.  When I got something interesting, I dragged it out a bunch of measures then recorded it "live" with a MIDI loopback into another track (partly for the test, partly to see what it would do, etc).  After muting the original track, I turned the arp in the synth back on (a simple up/down 2-octave four note pattern) and the track got significantly more interesting, so I started editing it as if I was going to make a song...and so I began actually making one.

Percussion is two different kits (SI drums with the aggressive kit and SessionDrummer3 with my modified MisfitKit I like to use), both playing parts of the same clips (taken from the Aggressive Drums pattern in the SI drums selections, split to separate tracks / clips per drum sound, etc).   Eventually I'll build my own percussion tracks based around this that specifically fits each bit of the song, but it's just this for now.   I stuck a separate CSHumanize instance on each of the hats/cymbals/tamb parts (the tamb is copied and modified from the hats clips), mostly modifying the velocity but with a teeny bit of the note starts; the tamb only modifies the velocity, I think. )

Uses Perfectspace and one of the canyons modified as an audience/performance space (don't recall waht I did, was quite a while back; also used this for parts of Neotenous Chordata's bass fx track) to liven up the drums, along with a modified FlimsyKit in PX64Percussion.  The SI kit is bussed right to the "percbass" bus (where I compress both bass and perc so they play off each other and cause less pumping of the rest of the tracks) the other goes into the drum bus first then to percbass.   Each output bus of the SessionDrummer has it's own short fx chain, some pretty clean and some with reverbs, etc.  

 

The "sound effects" track has another perfectspace on it with a different large space and a multiband eq, which later on will be automated to narrow some parts down a lot to clarify the song itself there.

 

Anyway, I'm still working on it, it's hardly even really started yet, but it's already listenable, and it's fairly short (only around 3 minutes).  It will probably get longer as I build on sections, make breaks, etc.   The best part for now starts close to halfway thru; the previous part is buildup (and is what is being worked on at present). 

 

 

Edited September 25 by Amberwolf

[Michael Elliott]

Updated with new version (same link as before

https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14844484

 090624 000001 100104a --  TT Hatch Nex Ool

Added vocalizations, other edits.   Sample artists request not to be credited or named (which seems wierd to me, but whatever), but provide license for use in projects. 

This one is still a big experiment, and will probably become radically different over time. 

Edited September 23 by Amberwolf

[Michael Elliott]

Another version (100118b) uploaded

https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14844484

to edit the vocalizations and some of the synth parts, percussion, etc. , and adding some effects.    

The voices are processed thru a chain of two perfectspaces, one of them with the Sandstone Canyon "climbed up", impulse reversed (which does a different thing than just reversing the audio, and is more interesting).   Then I used Sonitus FX reverb with an embiggened Cathedral chained jlast after those and a VX Vocal Strip. Then there's a Bifilter2 with distortion and resonance, with the mix ratio automated to only be used in a few places (mostly at the end). 

There's a DSPFx Reverb on the kickdrum buss for the beginning of the perc track and a few other spots and the end, with the  bypass automated to turn it on only at those spots. 

[Michael Elliott]

New album art  better representative of the stories the title is from

 

[cakeboy]

Sounded very good

[Michael Elliott]

Thanks!

Still working on it; next step is to experiment with the EQs on various parts, see if I can bring out the bass and kicks (there are two separate drumsets playing different parts and sections).

 

[Michael Elliott]

New version

092524: 090624 000001 100134g

https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/tt-nex-ool

added some eqs to notch tracks for the drums/bass

made a subbass bus to send the bassline to and flter down to just the subs. 

made an fx bus to send the snare to, automated the send level in the snare track for just certain parts. 

added bifilter2 with a vox/reso/distortion on the "leads" track, automating the mix level to create a "lead guitar' (sort of) section out of one of the synths (the sound and part is the same for the synth afterward, the only difference is the effect and that I sliced all of the clean bounced audio up in both sections to changes which notes were played.  (the synth part was just a note held down letting the synth's arps and envelopes create the track as it was just going to be background "noise" originally). 

Edited September 25 by Amberwolf

[Old Joad]

Interesting artwork, I like the mix, the drums sound great👍🏼

[Michael Elliott]

14 hours ago, Old Joad said:

Interesting artwork, I like the mix, the drums sound great👍🏼

Thanks!   Still working on the mix; trying to find out where my bass went.  I have two "identical" vizio soundbars; one on my (self-custom-built) trike that I listen to sometimes while commuting to/from work,  

and one glued to the top of my computer monitor.   For all the other songs, they sound the same, allowing for the riding conditions drowning stuff out.  But on this song, it has virtually no bass on the trike while riding, while it sounds about right on the one at home.   

Not sure what is causing the difference....

 

The artwork process I described in one of these song threads.  I just posted this one over here with a bunch of variations I am trying to choose from to better represent the chaos of that song. 

 

 

[Michael Elliott]

New version 100624: 090624 000001 100179m up with a lot of little changes here and there. 

https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/tt-nex-ool

main ones are :

eq'ing holes in tracks to make room for each other, some with automation to close the holes when the other parts don't need to poke thru and/or when those tracks need the stuff that's in those holes. 

adding and heavily editing for timing some actual guitar bits low down for accents, continuity, and whatnot., particuarly for the last section. 

altering the intro "heartbeat" timing significantly to slow the intro and make it more of an actual intro. 

 

[equality]

I like the mood. The hectic percussion is somewhat contrasty against the female vocal. Sounds very cinematic to me. 

[Michael Elliott]

On 10/8/2024 at 6:02 AM, equality said:

I like the mood. The hectic percussion is somewhat contrasty against the female vocal. Sounds very cinematic to me. 

Thanks for listening and replying! 

 

The vocal part was added after the percussion (and almost all the rest of the song except the distortion guitar sounding bits) was created.  I didn't really have a specific intent other than to add the dreamy vocal sound to it, and to experiment with the new vocal samples I had gotten, and try some stuff with Perfectspace I hadn't done before...but it turned out to work with the rest of the music.

Sometimes my experimental additions don't work and I leave them out, or move them to an entirely new project and start out with *just* the new stuff, and begin adding things to *that* to make a new sonic sculpture.

 

Most of my stuff tends to be commented as something that would be the background of a movie scene or similar, so I call / tag them "MotionPictureScenes" most of the time.    

There's one on my bandcamp page called Patterns of Behavior with the subtitle "End Titles" because I was told it sounded like a track that would play during the end titles of a movie.  

[Michael Elliott]

New mix version; mainly altering the drum fx mix by using sends on the individual drum tracks to feed copies to a second bus with all same fx chain except different perfectspace impulse / setup, and using envelopes on the main drum bus and this second bus to fade from one to the other in a couple of places.  Also automation on the sends in some spots to alter the individual drum mix in certain spots.

This was to change the character of certain spots, making the drums more up-front here and more expansive there, darker in some spots and brighter in others. 

There's certainly better ways to bus and chain the fx, but didn't take the time to work it out and went the "easy' way, as the project isn't anywhere near the CPU limit.

 

Also poked the whole mix a bit hotter by pushing each bus that feeds the master bus up just a bit (1.5db), since this one was still a fair bit quieter than my other recent ones.   It's still quieter, but I'll have to work out how to push up the average volume (or power) without affecting the character.  Compressing the tracks or the master bus results in significant character change, so maybe I can eq out some better notches in the tracks for certain parts in various sections to leave more room....  Will take significant experimentation to find out, most likely.