Thursday, 5 January 2023

Scales - Elektron favourites 2

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
It's good to focus on the root note and make it clear which scale you're working on.
Starting or finishing on the root note is useful (though not essential).

There are 7 different modes in music:
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian.
(I've discussed Ionian & Aeolian in a past post).


• DORIAN
(a less "sad" minor scale)
T S T T T S T
I think its really good for deep & progressive house.



C Dorian







E- Dorian 
(Doors" riders on the storm)

A- Dorian
Bassline of Around the world, Daft Punk

D Dorian
New Order - Blue Monday

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• PHRYGIAN 
S T T T S T T

C Phrygian










A# Phygian - - Favourite of Apex Twin





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• LYDIAN
T T T S T T S











• MIXOLYDIAN
T T S T T S T












• LOCRIAN
S T T S T T T


Probably the least often used of the 7 modes.

Björk's "Army of Me" 

It is the darkest and most minor mode due to so many of its notes being flattened.





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The Major & Minor Pentatonic scales are very popular for writing melodies.
These both just consist of 5 notes that I think sound good together.


• PENTATONIC MINOR
C- Minor Pentatonic








A Minor Pentatonic = A, C, D, E, G

• PENTATONIC MAJOR
C- Major Pentatonic
 C, D, E, G, A







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• HIRAJOSHI

This scale just sounds great.








The Aeolian pentatonic scale, also known as Hirajoshi scale.
has 5 tones


tonic (1), second (2) minor third (b3), fifth (5) and minor sixth (b6).
(This is a fav of my mate Mitch)

C, D, D#  ---- G, G# 

I like this variation:
C, D, D#  ---- F, G, G# - A#

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• MELODIC MINOR










• HARMONIC MINOR 
“Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics (key of C)
  C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, B

“Smooth” by Santana feat. Rob Thomas
“Gangstas Paradise” by Coolio







• WHOLE TONE










• BLUES










• COMBO MINOR










• PERSIAN











• IWATO










• IN-SEN














• PELOG










• PHRYGIAN DOMINANT









• WHOLE-HALF DIMINISHED










• HALF-WHOLE DIMINISHED










• SPANISH










• MAJOR LOCRIAN











• SUPER LOCRIAN










• DORIAN b2













• LYDIAN AUGMENTED









• LYDIAN DOMINANT










• DOUBLE HARMONIC MAJOR











• LYDIAN #2 #6











• ULTRAPHRYGIAN
• HUNGARIAN MINOR
• ORIENTAL
• IONIAN #2 #5
• LOCRIAN bb3 bb7

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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