Because of the limitations of the composer, many compromises were necessary:
- Fifty notes maximum: lower notes in the arpeggio have been removed, halving its complexity. - Only three octaves available: low frequencies are missing, completely. - Tunes don't loop: recorded parts have been stitched together in post production. - I don't have ten of these phones: chords have been simplified to two notes, but trust me, it's better for your ears.
Because of the limitations of the composer, many compromises were necessary:
- Fifty notes maximum: lower notes in the arpeggio have been removed, halving its complexity. - Only three octaves available: low frequencies are missing, completely. - Tunes don't loop: recorded parts have been stitched together in post production. - I don't have ten of these phones: chords have been simplified to two notes, but trust me, it's better for your ears.
I was inspired by Macintosh Plus on Nokia 3410: youtube.com/watch?v=cNPjKtvH2HkINTERNET CLUB - VELOCITY bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-08-20 | ...Infinity Frequencies - Mass Production bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-08-13 | ...Windows96 - Wasted Winds bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-08-06 | ...New Dreams Ltd. - Timecop bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-07-30 | ...CVLTVRE - Taste of Paradise bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-07-23 | ...猫 シ Corp. - 割引 Internet Shopping bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-07-16 | ...FM Skyline - astral baths bass cover #vaporwave #bass #cover #tutorial #tabs #musicjoeSeggiola2024-07-09 | ...Vaporwave bass lines with tabs (part 4)joeSeggiola2024-07-02 | Seven bass lines from seven different vaporwave artists. Made in spring 2024. Tabs: s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/joeseggiola/Vaporwave%20bass%20lines%204%20-%20Tabs.txt
[ 0:00 ] FM Skyline - astral baths [ 1:40 ] 猫 シ Corp. - 割引 Internet Shopping (sample from Paul Hardcastle's Northern Lights, 1990) [ 3:20 ] CVLTVRE - Taste of Paradise (sample from Bounty TV advert, 1988) [ 5:21 ] New Dreams Ltd. - Timecop (sample from Kajagoogoo's Too Shy, 1983) [ 6:09 ] Windows96 - Wasted Winds [ 7:26 ] Infinity Frequencies - Mass Production (sample from David Arkenstone's Valley in the Clouds, 1987) [ 8:25 ] INTERNET CLUB - VELOCITY (sample from Dynabook TX advert)
Arpeggio is a looping sequence from Korg SQ-64 played with the Arturia MiniBrute 2 synthesis engine.
Bass notes are from a small Eurorack modular synthesizer, using Qu-Bit Chord v2 as a monophonic oscillator, WMD/SSF Pole-Zero, and Mutable Instruments Stages. The various sequences are triggered live on the SQ-64.
Piano-like sounds are modelled in Qu-Bit Surface and played live on the MiniBrute 2 keyboard, with velocity modulating decay.
Bass drones are played using an EBow, with Zoom MS-70CDR running an octaver, a chorus, and an amp simulator.Brownies - Drone/noise jam with Strega, Morphagene, Estey Field Organ Tone samplesjoeSeggiola2022-08-03 | Drone/noise music recorded live in July 2022 with Make Noise Strega and Morphagene processing samples from the Estey Field Organ Tone Archive. You can download the reel I used below.
Maths CH3 is patched to Morphagene PLAY gate, and is only used to start (0:00) and stop (11:54) playing the samples. Maths CH1 is a simple LFO modulating Morphagene SLIDE to scrub the loaded sample a little, just to make it less static. Maths CH2 is a manual control for triggering Maths CH4 EOG gate, which goes into Morphagene VARISPEED, so that sample playback speeds up an octave (3:39). Morphagene ORGANIZE knob is used to manually select two additional chord samples (5:51). The rest is just playing around with the Strega downstream...Home - Resonance - Modular synthesizer and SQ-64 coverjoeSeggiola2021-03-16 | From the album Odyssey (2014, Midwest Collective). Made in March 2021 with Eurorack modular synthesizer, Arturia MiniBrute 2 and Korg SQ-64, recorded live with no overdubs. Patch notes below.
Chords are from Chord v2 in unison poly mode, controlled with a DIY MIDI interface and filtered in Pole-Zero. The release time of the envelope is sequenced by the MOD lane of SQ-64.
Arpeggio is two detuned sawtooths from OSC-02 into Cinnamon. Filter cutoff is slightly modulated using a smoothed random LFO from MiniBrute 2.
Drums are synthesized using Modbox (sine oscillator and noise), Maths (envelopes) and LxD.
First lead is a square from OSC-02.
Second lead is synthesized and sequenced in MiniBrute 2. It's a basic double sawtooth patch, with the filter cutoff slightly modulated with another smoothed random LFO.
Stages provides almost all of the envelopes, while Veils is used as VCA and mixer. Ferry sends a partial mix through Obscura and Polara pedals for ambiance, while Pico DSP provides stereo echo for the leads.Windows 9.75 - Ambient music to relax/meditate/boot tojoeSeggiola2020-12-26 | One hour of randomly-generated ambient processing of the iconic six-seconds Windows 95 startup sound. Made in December 2020 with Make Noise Morphagene and Digitech Supernatural stereo reverb pedal.
PNG sky shots: joeseggiola.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Windows+9.75+Sky.zipStereolab - Les Yper-Sound - 100% MiniBrute 2 coverjoeSeggiola2020-10-21 | From the album Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996, Duophonic Records)
. Made in autumn 2020 with Arturia MiniBrute 2 as the only sound source.
The drums patch mixes the sine from OSC2, whose frequency is controlled with the AD envelope, with some tuned and metalized OSC1 and noise. The cutoff of band-pass filter follows the keyboard, so that the sound goes from kick-drum, to share, to hi-hat by going up the keyboard. A couple of additional percussive sounds are made using simpler metalizer patches, and used throughout the song (the first one should be the quick strums of the guitar in the original recording, if I'm not wrong).
The bass is a simple ultra-sawtooth OSC1 mixed with a sub-octave sine from OSC2. The ADSR envelope lightly modulates the resonant low-pass filter.
The chords have been simplified to a fixed perfect-fourth by tuning OSC1 and OSC2 accordingly. The band-pass filter is modulated with an inverted slow ADSR envelope. There's a very fast tremolo effect on the volume, achieved by mixing LFO1 with the AD envelope.
The main synth melody is played using the arpeggiator over two notes at a time. The highly-resonant low-pass filter is modulated with multiple sources in different quantities: the basic ADSR envelope, a fast stepped-random LFO1 triggered on every note, and a slow sawtooth LFO2 that cycles every 16 notes. The same patch is used for the fixed-note effect played later on, but with more modulation from LFO1 and none from LFO2.
The echo and reverse-echo effects in the ending of the original recording have been re-created at a later time, by sending the final mix into the Digitech Obscura delay pedal.Windows96 - Unakite - Bass cover (with tabs)joeSeggiola2020-06-02 | From the album Glass Prism (2020, 100% Electronica). Made in spring 2020. Tabs: s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/joeseggiola/Unakite+bass+tabs.txt
- A DIY MIDI interface (link above) allocates notes polyphonically from the keyboard into four channels of CV/gate. The additional top-most gate output is a combined OR. - CVs are sent to Chord v2 in Unison Poly Mode: each oscillator is controlled independently by its own 1V/oct input. - Gates are sent to Stages, which runs a custom firmware (link above) that generates five identical envelopes. - Veils uses four of these envelopes to drive one VCA for each of the four voices coming from Chord's individual outputs. - WMD SSF Pole-Zero filters the final mix from Veils; its cutoff is modulated using the fifth envelope from Stages, the one triggered by the OR-gate signal.
I'm not claiming this is the way to get polyphony in Eurorack, I'm just sharing the result of my latest DIY and coding projects.Terry Riley - In C - Modular synthesizer performance using a DIY modulejoeSeggiola2020-02-08 | Made in February 2020 with Eurorack modular synthesizer and Minibrute 2.
The system implements five separate synth voices (shortly described further down), plus the eighth note pulse. CV/gate for every voice is provided by a custom-made module powered by Arduino (link below), which is controlled using manual buttons to advance through the 53 melodic patterns of "In C".
Bass (1) is from Minibrute 2 double VCO, with both on-board VCF and VCA controlled by the on-board ADSR. Mild resonance and Brute Factor are used to shape the tone.
Mid-bass (2) is from MFB OSC-02 third VCO. It is filtered by WMD/SSF Pole Zero with an ADSR envelope from Stages, which is also used to open a VCA in Veils.
Mid (3) is from MFB OSC-02 second VCO. It is filtered by Bastl Cinnamon in band-pass mode, with slight distortion (drive plus character). The AD envelope from Pico MOD modulates the VCF and open the VCA in Veils.
Mid-high (4) is from MFB OSC-02 first VCO. Maths CH1 is used to open the first LPG in LxD, sometimes configured like a normal AD envelope, other times like a ramp LFO. The output signal is sent through Pico DSP for a tempo-synced echo effect.
High (5) is a looping stage from Stages used as a VCO. It is not filtered. The VCA in Veils is controlled by the spare AD envelope on the Minibrute 2. Notes are occasionally randomly skipped, by filtering gates with a Branches clone module. The output signal is sent through Pico DSP for a tempo-synced echo effect.
The eighth note pulse is ModBox Skew LFO used as a VCO, passing through the resonant LPG in LxD opened with Maths CH4 (which is also used as a master clock signal). The S&H from ModBox is scaled in Stages and used to randomly change the pulse volume in Veils.
The audio mix is sent through a couple pedals for reverb and optical compressor. A stereo-widener VST is used to process the mono signal.
COLA可樂巫術NECROMANCY - EASTWARD向東夢想DREAMS (2015) colanecromancy.bandcamp.com/album/eastward-dreamsTrent Reznor and Atticus Ross - In Motion - Modular synthesizer coverjoeSeggiola2019-03-03 | From The Social Network original soundtrack (2010, The Null Corporation).
I was trying to recreate the easiest parts of my favorite track from The Social Network's OST in my modular system. It soon became an exercise in using all the modules simultaneously. Recorded in February 2019.
Both drum sounds are created feeding signals from MFB OSC-3 into LxD vactrols, which are opened with Maths envelopes; the kick drum is a pitch-modulated triangle wave, the hat is from the white noise output. Intellijel Shifty is used like a gate sequencer to alternate kick/hat triggering. Two segments from Mutable Instruments Stages are used as faders for controlling drums' volume in Veils.
The bass sound is made with the Minibrute 2 using two saw oscillators one octave apart, with the LP filter controlled by an AD envelope from Stages. Pitch CV is manually triggered tapping buttons on the Korg SQ-1 in "step jump" mode; CV Out is sent to the SSF Modbox S&H for tempo quantization and to a slew-limiter made with Stages for slight portamento. The Minibrute mod-wheel is patched to increase the decay time of VCA and VCF envelopes, so it can be used to gradually control legato.
The 64-notes arpeggio is a square wave from MFB OSC-3, sequenced with the Minibrute (whose pitch CV is free to be used since does not control the on-board bass sound) and filtered with Bastl Cinnamon. A button on the second SQ-1 track is used to control Veils to un-mute the arpeggio at will. Digitech Obscura Altered Delay's mix and repeat controls are used to create the messy ending.
The piano-like long notes are pre-recorded in the Morphagene. A "distortion effect" is applied in real-time using the Minibrute's metalizer wavefolder, modulated by Morphagene's envelope follower. The sample doesn't loop, it's triggered using clock divisions.
Everything is mixed and sent through three guitar pedals: OBNE Dark Star for shim reverb, then a little room reverb and a compressor at the end.Saint Stephens Day - PO-20 arcade into modular synthesizerjoeSeggiola2018-12-26 | Yesterday I received a Pocket Operator "Arcade" for xmas. I find its chords feature amazing, and its effects very performance-oriented, so I made a simple jam syncing it with my modular system.
The SQ-1 sequencer is synced with the PO-20 click track, and it generates gates for the drums loop. The drum sound is made with noise into LxD, with an envelope from Maths which is randomly amplified each step to make it more unpredictable. All the other sounds are from a single PO-20 pattern with various FXs applied live. Its output goes into the Cinnamon low pass filter, which is softly swept with Maths. The chord progression is also from the PO-20. Everything passes through a bunch of guitar pedals for reverb (OBNE Dark Star), equalization and delay (Digitech Obscura).
Recorded on Wednesday the 26th, December 2018.Melvins - Shevil - Guitar cover (with tabs and backing track)joeSeggiola2018-05-17 | From the album Stoner Witch (1994, Atlantic Records). Recorded in spring 2016.
Gear used: Mooer ShimVerb, Mooer Pure Boost, MXR Distortion+, MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay, DigiTech JamMan Solo XT.Home - Resonance - Caustic app coverjoeSeggiola2017-12-05 | From the album Odyssey (2014, Midwest Collective). Made in summer 2017 with Caustic for Android.