August 20, 2022
Just moved back into the dorms and added some things to my VCV Rack template, so I figured I should make another album before classes start up. All of the song titles were provided by my friends; I then had to write a song with said title.
The new workflow stems from the realization that I have three devices I can use as MIDI controllers in VCV Rack: my piano keyboard, my computer keyboard, and my controller. The triggers on the controller make for an expressive way to control how things sound, and the computer keyboard is good for muting / unmuting tracks. It's a lot of fun, though it does give some compelling reasons most music hardware uses knobs rather than triggers for parameters. For one thing, knobs stay where you leave them.
My bestie's handwriting is on the cover for this album. Check out their cool Neocities page!
This patch kinda got away from me in the end, and the waveform's all lopsided for reasons I don't understand, and I flubbed a couple mute/unmutes and chord changes. Please enjoy.
This one features some FreeWaveSamples samples and a really bad kick drum I found on Tumblr. The generic house chords are performed live, which is why they're so jank.
Autobreak by Voxglitch is a lifesaver when it comes to generative breakcore-type things.
Given the title, I expected this to end up more aggressive. Instead I got something super peaceful and maybe a little melancholy?
It's a lot of fun setting up a patch you can't really make heads or tails of and then letting it go with minimal interference. The issue is that it can become difficult to figure out how to assemble it into a song. I ended up just mapping the probabilities of the notes to how far the triggers on the controller are pressed down, which allows me to kind of perform it.
(This is the song shown in the album cover, in case you were wondering.)
This is music for a lackadaisical evening hanging out with a sphinx after they skip work at the Vow Judging Factory.
Given the freaky title, I figured the song should be freaky and crackly, like a spine.
I had never heard the word quaquaversal before this. I figured the song should be polyrhythmic and/or polymetric, to represent a hydra's multiple heads. Please imagine a gallant hydra knight galloping into battle while you listen to this.
This wasn't initially intended to be a song title, but a friend said it while calling and I thought it would be a good one.