Tuesday, 3 January 2023

Scales - Elektron favourites 1 - major & minor/ Ionian & Aeolian scales

The Elektron Syntrakt has some scale presets.
Its a good excuse to explore them and brush up on some music theory.
Unless otherwise stated, the root note is C

• CHROMATIC ... a logical place to start

A standard (chromatic) scale consist of twelve notes: C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B. 
Every scale is a selection from these twelve notes






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Major & Minor scales are really popular with EDM

• These are some popular IONIAN (MAJOR)  scales

C- Major
This is the most widely used scale in western music.

C major has a specific series of intervals:
tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.
T-T-ST-T-T-T-ST
 This is known as the Ionian mode.

The Chemical brothers - The Salmon Dance
                                                                                    The Presets - Promises
                                                                                    The Presets - Are You The One?



F major
Mylo - In my Arms
The Presets - My People







C# Major
T-T-ST-T-T-T-ST
Simian Mobile Disco - Hotdog
The Presets - A New Sky
The Presets - Ghosts
The Presets - I Go Hard, I Go Home
The Presets, Nils Frahm - Promises (Nils Frahm version)






D# Major

T-T-ST-T-T-T-ST








E Major

T-T-ST-T-T-T-ST

The Presets - Downtown Shutdown






A Major
Justice - Genesis
The Presets - Kicking and Screaming

B Major
Armand Van Helden - Hear my Name

Bb Major
Fisherspooner - Emerge

G Major
Progressive House


The above are some of my fav minor scales, but you can make any minor scale
by remembering the rule:
1. Pick your root note.
2. tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.
    T-T-ST-T-T-T-ST

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• AEOLIAN (MINOR) , AKA Natural Minor.

T-ST-T-T-ST-T-T
whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole



To the left is C-Minor
(root note is C)
This is a pretty common scale in Electronic music
Eg : Madonna - Into the Groove
       The Presets - RUFUS DU SOL 




To the left is A-minor.
It's the only minor scale that doesn't contain any sharps or flats.
It has the same notes of C major, but they don't sound the same 
due to their different root notes.
The order of the intervals is impt.

A-minor is pretty commonly used scale in EDM
examples: Giorgio Moroder | Chase
                  The Presets - If I Know You 




E-minor










D# Minor










F# Minor
The Presets - Talk Like That
The presets - Steamworks








Remember the rule:
T-ST-T-T-ST-T-T
whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole

Some other popular minor scales are:

B-minor
Miami Sound machine - Doctor pressure

Bb Minor
The Presets - This Boy's in Love

D Minor
Hans Zimmer - Interstellar

 A# minor 


 F minor 
Commonly used in Hardhouse & Bigroom.
The Presets - Goodbye Future
The Presets - Girl and The Sea

Fisherspooner - Mega C.

 G minor 
 G# minor



Sunday, 1 January 2023

Friday, 16 December 2022

Frolic - NLC build notes 2 - completion

 This is part 2 of my build notes for the frolic module.
It's a CV & gate sequencer and a sequential switch.

The stages can be controlled by CV or by gates and triggers or both.


Part1  is here:
  • Time to place headers

  • Jacks, LEDs and pots.

     
  • The pots are all 100k, linear taper
     
    Im using blue LEDs .. my fav colour.
  • RL= 4.7k

  •  

     


.....

The finished module

  •  the first test involves plugging in an LFO to see if the sequencer works.




Nice
(Both Slew & ofset seem to need to be set to zero for the sequencer to work or have a cable plugged into the input
select jack) 
for regular sequencer functions use the hold, reset and clock jacks 

The analogue (CV) input does need some setting up and there are 2 pots
for doing this. 


The one connected to the analogue input jack is an
attenuator. For a typical 5V range CV signal, you would probably set it
around the mid-point; the input is sensitive to lower amplitude signals
(such as some of the outputs from the Sloth modules). 

The 2nd pot is to give a positive offset to the incoming CV. 
Most LFO signals range over +/-5V, so this pot will adjust the signal to make it range from 0-10V,
and then you would wind back the attenuator to get a nice motion between
stages 1 and 8. 
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The Stage inputs are interesting.

If nothing is patched into the stage inputs, the outputs will be a
voltage for that stage, set by the corresponding pot. If you patch in a
signal, the corresponding pot becomes an attenuator for that signal.
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Wednesday, 14 December 2022

Overbridge - abelton live setup

Some notes for setting up overbridge in abelton for multitrack recording.
Im using the digitone keys.

Links

1. After you have downloaded and installed overbridge on your PC
    and made sure you have the latest firmware installed on your Elektron device 
    you will need to set up your hardware instrument.
   
A). first select the Gear / Settings icon
        (the settings button has "Save Proj" underneath it)


B). Go to system.



B). Enter into "USB Config".




C). Hit enter and scroll to overbridge
      Notice that the default is USB MIDI


D) activate "Overbridge".
    When you check Overbridge, USB mdi will be disabled.



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Note, that the digitone keys must have the latest OS to work with overbridge.
Needs OS 1.40


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2. Abelton Settings

A).  Choose plug-ins. You will see lots of Elektron VSTs


B) load the Digitone Vst.
     The VST loads into the first MIDI track
     (you don't need the other MIDI and audio tracks for now)
 
C) choose midi from Digitone keys

D) on the plug-in set sync to "no Sync" --- as ill do all the song/project creation
     on the Keys itself, I don't want Abelton's clock to take over.


E) if you now press PLAY, you should hear audio.


F) Set up a (audio) track for the main output. 
     This will be post effects





H) Now create individual track outputs
     Add 4 new audio channels
      

  Press Play and see if the individual channels 
    are behaving as they should.





Saturday, 10 December 2022

Serge Modular Paperface 2.0 - Official 50th Anniversary Edition

..

I can't believe its been 50 years already.

ACO - Australian Chamber Orchestra

I really like the ACO. 
I have been seeing them preform for decades, but this incorporation
of electronic inspired music looks really interesting.
Well worth supporting esp as the ACO also visits Wollongong along with the big cities
like Melbourne and Sydney.

Will Gregory of Goldfrapp
will be joining the ACO
and bringing some Moog Synths along for the ride.


I never knew that the Dr Who Theme was written by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire.

Ron Grainer was Australian.
His film credits include the scores for To Sir With Love (1967) and the Charlton Heston cult classic The Omega Man (1971).

Links














PROGRAM

Wendy Carlos / Johann Sebastian Bach Switched-On Bach: Selections
Olivier Messiaen Oraison
Franz Waxman Sinfonietta: I. Lento – Allegro

And selections from the soundtracks to:

Wendy Carlos Tron and A Clockwork Orange
Vangelis Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire
John Williams Images
Hans Zimmer Interstellar
Eduard Artemyev / Johann Sebastian Bach Solaris
Delia Derbyshire / Ron Grainer Doctor Who

You can buy tickets here:


I couldn't resist embedding this snippet of Delia @ the BBC.
The essence of Musique concrète .
She was actually creating pieces of music, and not just sound effects.