Analog Synth Experimentation, Creative Input, more Live Tracking and Mixing - Posted on 2017-04-12 by Paul Mitchel

Worked last week with Ty Hall again. We were live tracking some acoustic hits and doing more slicing and dicing to get some interesting Cuban-inspired grooves; this guy has a really chill, mellow voice with added punch - can't wait to see his band live.

I put a lot of time into the final assignment for M2 (as I did for M1) and really gave it a good go, but this time with more attention to structure. I am accustomed to using a fair bit of artistic license with my own works as well as these assignments, so I toned it down a bit; a good contrast to help me move forward. So many ideas and so little time - it feels good to commit to an idea and bring it to life, even if the results are not what were initially envisioned.

Speaking of artistic license, as a side assignment my mentor gave me a mixing assignment for a work that was incomplete. It is a mostly acoustic tune with rich female vocal lead and harmonies (4 part), some string pad and tabla-like hits. I plan to add some additional vocals and harmony instruments to 'electrify' the sound while not losing the intended flavour of the artist.

I've also borrowed a few analog synths from a friend (Korg Volcas) and have been tinkering with recording their audio output into Live; I find that these out-of-the-box tools are helping me redefine my workflow and allowing me to get my head out of the box as well. I've done some experimentation with a Monologue and Moog 37 as well - such cool machines. Nothing feels quite so satisfying as tweaking physical dials/knobs while in the flow, something that had been sorely missing in my workflow to-date.

More and more seems to be coming together.

Cheers,

Pau