Applying classical forms to new music

[Arpangel]

Tonight's proof of concept test went great! I was lost for quite a while with just the one voice, it sounds great. Next step will be to work it into the piece, it definitely adds some atmosphere!

Ingredients: super saw VCOs > Eudemonia filter > RV500 with 10s hall reverb and 2s delay and latching hold on the reverb tail. Stir in filter sweeps over drone. Let it sit for probably longer than it should. Serve digitally.

I need to hear this Ben, sounds cool.

[Ben Asaro]

It sounds very cool! The advantage that the RV-500 has over other “freeze” reverbs is that when you latch a section of the reverb tail it still applies reverb and delay to whatever you are playing on top of it. Since I set up the RV-500 to play two algorithms simultaneously, you ALSO get the other side’s reverb and delay if you wish. This can be used to create incredibly thick atmospheres if you wish with delays lasting over 2 minutes.

I may explore that type of thing in another piece but for this one I have the ambient/latching side of the RV-500 just for the long, sustained pedals, and the other one is applied to the general mix using a mid-side processor: the closer a sound is to the edges of the sound field, the more reverberant it is. Anything in the center is essentially dry. This allows me to have the kick or other elements unaffected without having to do any special patching through the Sound Stage mixer.

[Ben Asaro]

Had a lot of forward movement last night after a very bumpy takeoff, looking forward to recording what I have thus far over the weekend!

TL;DR: The first movement is probably about 1/3 complete now. The first Subject is at the 50% point, this morning’s commute will show whether I can add additional voices to what I have or leave it with just the four current melodies.

This piece is proving to be a multilevel challenge: part sound design, part composing, part hardware. My first big hurdle, after writing something that I actually liked, was sorting out the tuning, which I did last night. The tuning subtly shifts when you are tuning VCOs without any CV inputs vs when they have something plugged into them, even at 0V. So I made a ‘tuning patch’ that plays C at 0V and 1V. This way I can tune the entire modular, the Mother-32, and the Subharmonicon in about 10 minutes now.

I ended up repatching the Quadnic so that all 4 voices are following the same signal path (NerdSeq > Quadra > Quad VCA > Sound Stage) and as of now they all have the same waveform as well, though that may change.

I ended up putting the Pluck through the super long reverb/freeze side of the RV-500, it sounds much more ethereal than using a standard synth voice, which sounds rather congested when used this way. It took quite a bit of tweaking until I found settings that work for this piece: quite a short slice size, medium hall, short predelay, 10s tail, no delay. Since the Pluck will also hold notes indefinitely if the Decay is set long enough, I had to find the sweet spot where the notes eventually end but also create an overlap so that the latch doesn’t sound so abrupt.

I also added lyrics and a vocoder section to the beginning!

Overall, a very productive experience!

[Ben Asaro]

Very productive weekend thus far, have a good chunk of the second Subject complete. Once that’s done I will have to iron out the transition between them and then I can demo the completed section!

With so many parallel meters going on, I inserted a ‘pattern clear’ to get them back in sync. Otherwise some of the tracks will drift so far out of sync it’s possible to have patterns on multiple pages making it really difficult to know where I am within the piece as a whole.

[Martin Walker]

Looking forward to hearing more in due course Ben!

I understand exactly about the rhythmic reset - when I was writing 8-bit C64 music many years ago when every byte counted, I'd run several different length patterns alongside each other.

It could be a nightmare trying to keep tabs on when they all finished so I could start the next section with the channels in perfect sync again

Martin

[Ben Asaro]

Totally! You know, it's interesting that you mention that because I'm very much using the NerdSeq like 8 separate step sequencers as opposed to one master sequencer. I love using the tracker layout, I find it to be really intuitive and quick-moving.

Here's what I have thus far, have to get the transition and vocoder down, and the write a conclusion to the second Subject, but I'm digging it thus far!

https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... nd-subject

[Arpangel]

Totally! You know, it's interesting that you mention that because I'm very much using the NerdSeq like 8 separate step sequencers as opposed to one master sequencer. I love using the tracker layout, I find it to be really intuitive and quick-moving.

Here's what I have thus far, have to get the transition and vocoder down, and the write a conclusion to the second Subject, but I'm digging it thus far!

https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... nd-subject

Oh Ben, the attraction of classical form, it produces music that changes and actually "goes" somewhere.

[Ben Asaro]

LOL I can't tell if you're implying that my composition goes nowhere.

[Ben Asaro]

Another crazy work week, I’m hoping to work on the piece some more tomorrow night, I have a few ideas I want to test out.

I have another verse to write as well, I’m liking this idea of having vocals at the top of each section.

I also have two more synth voices to add to the arrangement! I think one of them will be a low pitched voice, the arrangement sounds a bit ‘light’ to my ears right now and having something low pitched will help add drama and dynamics to the party (I hope). Using the BeatStep Pro will be a big help here because I can sustain those notes if needed without having to worry about gate length.

There’s something about the second Subject that reminds me of Alan Parsons, I can’t quite put my finger on it, though!

[Ben Asaro]

.... aaand we're back! I took a hatchet to the arrangement and reworked just about every element to get something much different: more chill, but also more tense, more atmospheric, but also denser, and other contradictions!

And here are the first and second subjects!
https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... icon-jam-4

The first subject is a series of chord inversions around Dm/Em with a walking bass line of D-F-A-G. The second subject adds an ostinato over top of the chords and outlining them.

[Ben Asaro]

Some exciting developments on this piece over the past week! I've discarded some of my previous core conceits and approach, and have adopted some new ones.

At the end of the day, I guess I'm not a very good purely electronic composer lol. I think the biggest limitation I was facing was the fact that you can't easily change the gate length with modular and as a result it gets very same-y to my ears.

So, voice-wise, I went to my small MIDI setup and sync'd it up to the modular, which is easily done via the Erica Synths MIDI <-> CLK module. This now adds a second sequencer (MC-500) and palette of sustainable sounds.

Revisiting the first Subject, I kept the original key and tempo (Dm, 88 bpm) and started working on a new motive. I ended up on a solo cello patch on the JV Orchestral expansion card playing a sparse melody in D Pentatonic Minor. After it plays the motive the first time it's harmonized by a second cello line outlining the chords of Dm-C-Dm.



As you can see, the melody line has been stripped back to the most minimal I could make it whilst still keeping it moving forward. It sustains on each of the chord tones in Dm to reinforce Dm as the i chord.

And so far, so good! The build is slow I'm working really hard to make each additional voice really add something to the overall composition. How successful I will be remains to be seen!

[Ben Asaro]

Whew, okay ... one month later!

This endeavour took a serious detour since my last post! No need to rehash the minutae, it's all captured in another thread, but I took a month off from writing to concentrate solely on the sound-making portion of this project. It's been a fun and educational process and I feel like I've emerged with a much better grasp on how to actually get this thing done.

And now, without further ado: The Exposition.



Musically, it's a nice melody in C Mixolydian, it took a bit to get the notes exactly the way I wanted them, and this is just a guide post of sorts, but I like the sound of it.

As for the arrangement, it will probably end up being somewhere between the two extremes I outlined earlier on.

The hardest thing about this piece has been balancing my normal modus operandi with the nature of modular synths. The bottom line is, they don't really work well as a pile of subtractive voices and if you're going to go that route there are other more expedient ways to go about it. However, as an inorganic writing partner of sorts, the modular is truly wondrous; might sound weird, but I ended up developing something of a relationship with the instrument, each of us pushing towards a common goal. I feel like we have come to an understanding lol.

I'm very excited to begin working on the piece this weekend, many of the building blocks for the piece were prototyped during my 30-day examination of whether I could even pull this off.

[Ben Asaro]

Recorded the first Subject, yesterday -- was a lot of fun! I'll be working on the second Subject today, and miiight get to the the soloist's entry in the composition, but I'll have to see. It took about 6 hours to get the performance and arrangement to where I liked it.

The first Subject is based on this ostinato:



This ostinato plays over the bass notes of C, F, E, and G.

As for the number of voices, I used 5: 3 voices are used for the bass notes, one voice for the ostinato, and one voice for counter-melody.

Audio sample of the section: https://soundcloud.com/user-329043613-5 ... ject-clip1

[Ben Asaro]

The second subject is now complete. I wasn't a fan of the line starting on the b7, so I reversed it and it had a much better flow. I also doubled the length of the line and played it reversed, and then fowards. That gave it a nice, solid arc.

Here's a sneak peek of the second Statement: https://soundcloud.com/user-329043613-5 ... ject-clip1

[Ben Asaro]

Bulked up the second Subject today with some orchestral strings and horns, though they are rather buried, just adding some depth and textural smear to the already reverb-drenched synthesizers.

I also doubled up the Minibrute bass line with the Mother-32. Crazy amount of LF push right now which I'll sort out in mixing, but for now it's sounding great and I'm ready to push onto the solo!

[Ben Asaro]

First “movement” is now complete! About 23 minutes of music so far. I was a bit worried when it came time to record the ‘soloist’ as I’m a remedial keyboard player at best, but it actually turned out rather well using the Mother-32.

While the piece doesn’t sound like traditional classical music, using this structure as a framework has been very helpful! (Once I came to grips with the technical aspects)

Arrangement-wise, I have been using 4 synth voices thus far: the Moog Suhbarmonicon and Mother-32, Arturia MiniBrute, and Roland JV-1010. Adding string pads from the Orchestral expansion card has done wonders to glue the modular pads together, the resultant sound is otherworldly.

Next up: the Development!

[Ben Asaro]

I just finished recording the final few bits for the piece. It will be interesting to see how this is received, and perceived. Did following a classical structure make a difference? I think it did, it really got me out of thinking in terms of intro/verse/solo and more in terms of thematic movement ... but whether anyone listening to it will feel the same influence? I guess that's remaining to be seen.

This was definitely a fun experiment, though, and I feel that the final piece is pretty emotive ... it certainly took me on a journey very unlike the one I was expecting!

In retrospect, what would I have done different? For one, I would have really worked out the modular synth aspect FIRST ... decided on what voices I was going to use SECOND ... instead of trying to shoehorn a preconceived notion into the form. Other than that, I think the way the motives were then developed, simplified, and the chords spread across the various modular tracks works really well!

I probably bit off more than I could chew at first and I suppose I could have started this with a much smaller scope in mind than a full-blown concerto -- the finished piece is nearly 45 minutes long! -- but, all in all, it got done and I'll be happy when others can have the opportunity to hear it!

[Ben Asaro]

Album is now complete! More detail to be found here, https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... 36&t=76186