The Good, the Bad and the Synth

A little sketch recorded for a Western animation video.

The project is still far in the future and the music will most probably change a lot, so I might as well post it here now...

I was asked to do a short atmospheric tune, in a very clichéd Western style.

As you can hear, this is too synth-ish, that's something that'll be toned down for sure in the final version.

Prophet 08 drone, Roland D-550 strings and Gforce M-tron for the nice cello at the end...

And bluesy slide guitar... I have to say I'm quite happy with the way it was recorded, I rarely record steel guitar that well, eheh.

Ashlands

Upcoming : "Uniforms of Snow" - instrumental LP

This is a project that's been sleeping in my drawer for some time now, and I'm dusting it off in order for the good people at bitkins.com to release it.

"Uniforms of Snow" is an all-instrumental album, inspired by HP Lovecraft's novel "At the mountains of madness" (which with luck should be made into movie by director Guillermo del Toro).

It's a musical hommage to 1970's electronic music, with primitive drum machines and totally vintage sounds. I tried to imagine what the soundtrack would sound like if the novel was adapted for film in 1975 with John Carpenter in charge.

So expect no Aphex Snares "high-end" mumbojumbo : it's gonna sound totally vintage and retro!

Since it's an old project already, the setup reflects a transitional time in my studio, and if memory serves me correctly, the synths used are mostly Moog Little Phatty, Microkorg, Gforce Virtual String Machine (and Roland Juno-1 on a track).

I'm polishing the final mix these days, so stay tuned for a release announcement.

Mice and Men

I usually don't sample other songs, but I thought I might experiment a bit with chopping, for a change...

If you can spot the source, kudos because it's rather obscure!

Otherwise, that track is all Roland Alpha Juno, which is the perfect instrument for darker, muddy, analogue textures.

Mice and Men

The Synth is Japanese

And so is the tune...

This time it's an original, and an alternate version of a song featured in my upcoming "Strawberry Blonde" album

Roland Juno-1 for the pads...

Origami no uta

Moog, Moog and Moog again

It's been quiet here these days, but I have a lot of things going on at the same time... and all unfinished...
There'll be an instrumental album release the following weeks on bitkins.com, and the funk/electro/pop "Strawberry Blonde" album on iTunes and such.

Meanwhile, a little demo.
Apart from the drums (and obviously guitars and piano), this is 100% Moog Little Phatty, including pads!

I'll probably add vocals and more varied instruments at some point, but here it is in demo form, and all its Moogy glory.

Four Voices (demo)

Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Guitar and Roland D-550.

As a distraction from my own music (working on the final digital release of my "Strawberry Blonde" full-blown album), a little cover from the Strawbs (now that's thematic), a somewhat obscure but good band (wiki)

Here Today Gone Tomorrow

And now, for some Moog patches

Let's Moogify this patch thing!
Two sysex files for the Moog Little Phatty.

Endgame
Hit a low key, hold it and put the mod wheel to maximum, for some apocalyptic and analogue crescendo.

Atari Forever
Switch the arpeggiator on (my apologies if you haven't got it!) and toy around with bizarre chords and the mod wheel... retro FX inside!

Return of the Prophet Patches

And three more for the 08...

Speedallish (Bank 1 - 25)
Electronic sequence, quite dynamic

DoublePad (Bank 1 - 35)
An experiment with the Prophet's dual layering : a low pad morphes into a higher one

4VoiceDreampad (Bank 1 - 36)
Another 4 voices analogue pad... use mod wheel to add some nice vibrato

Prophet 08 patch

The main patch for the "Place of Dead Roads" track...
It's a complex, ambient-rhythm pad. Use the mod wheel to change the tone.
As indicated in the file, it loads on 15, Bank 1, so back up your own sound in that slot beforehand if you don't want to lose it.

Strange Wind (sysex)

Place of Dead Roads

WS Burroughs is my favorite writer with Lovecraft and Cioran, and here's a short instrumental using recitation from his "weird western" book, "The Place of Dead Roads".

All Prophet 08!

Place of Dead Roads