Battle 38 - Stereo Pancake

Next to Aphex Twin (thanks again @Metske for the last battle) there's another veteran of electronic music, who influenced me a lot: Uwe Schmidt, a.k.a. Atom™, Atom Heart, Lassigue Bendthaus, Senor Coconut... and countless other aliases. His music covers and combines so many styles: Ambient, Industrial, Techno, Acid, Clicks&Cuts, Funk, Jazz, Latin Music...

One of his strangest releases is "Pentatonic Surprise" under the alias The Roger Tubesound Ensemble, released in 1997, where he combined jazz and electronics and extreme stereo panorama settings. You can listen to it at BandCamp.

And this is what this battle is about...

The mission

Create a musical piece, where the left and right stereo channel are completely different, and even would work as separate pieces. But of course they should also work together. You may even experiment with different time signatures and scales. Be crazy. Have fun.

The rules

  • Every sound source is allowed (internal and external synths, sampling, resampling)
  • Hard left and right panning, no center tracks.
  • No identical sounds at the same time on both channels (but you may play the same notes with different sounds or use a delay.)
  • Recording, resampling, bouncing, mixdown and mastering on OP-1 only.
  • You may backup and restore tape tracks between OP-1 and your PC (helpful when mixing and bouncing tracks), but without external manipulation (editing in DAW, etc.).
  • Lots of bonus points for incorporating your own voice (singing, talking, shouting, beatboxing, whatever...).

Try to stick to these rules, however exceptions are allowed when you feel you have to break the rules for your artistic freedom.

The deadline

Well, Christmas and New Years Eve is coming, and this battle is a more complex one, let's finish on Jan, 7 2016.

Haha, brilliant brief!! I love stereo, so cannot wait to start work :slight_smile:


Thanks for putting it up so quickly :slight_smile:

Exciting! :slight_smile:

Having a listen to that “Pentatonic Surprise”… it’s totally bonkers, but I love it :slight_smile: It’s like an extreme panoramic cross between Like A Tim and Ken Nordine (Colours). It’s going to be lots of fun :slight_smile:

Super cool brief + Original idea !

+ thx for letting so much time :slight_smile:

exceptions are allowed when you feel you have to break the rules for your artistic freedom”
=> @monotone for President !!!

:smiley:


Hello @motone!


First of all, congratulations for winning the last battle. I was dedicated the last month to create a live with the Analog Rytm and didn´t have time to participate of the Battle 37 or even listen to the entries. Will do this right now.

Well, thanks a lot for the amazing idea for the Battle 38! Definitely a out of comfort zone stuff, which is what made those OP-1 battles so interesting. Didn´t knew about Uwe Schmidt, I´m trippin´ listening to his Bandcamp, impressive jazzy techno stuff.

However, I don´t want to be impertinent but I think that Jan 31 is a bit far away - it´s near three months of battle time, and although the Christmas and New Years Eve is a diffuse period, It also introduces in some countries a small holidays window in the between of December/January that makes a great time for beatmaking :slight_smile: With that in mind, I think that would be great to have another battle starting in mid-January 2016.

What do you think? Maybe we can designate a tighter schedule, like Jan 7th, 2016 for this battle?

:slight_smile:

Oh, I had read December 31st… Which was already far away…

Like @aeoner, I think that Jan. 7th is a good date.

@aeoner thanks!

Alright, deadline updated to Jan 7th. :wink:

Very good battle idea ! I’m gonna try to participate
And congrats for the last battle win @motone

Awesome battle idea @motone looking forward to getting stuck in with this one!

Top battle idea @motone, I can imagine many strange and wonderful results coming from this brief.


I haven’t listened to the Señor Coconut Kraftwerk covers album for years, thanks for the reminder. There was one summer where thats all I listened too, although I don’t think my neighbours were too happy about that.

Ah cool, I love the ‘Yellow Fever’ album with the YellowMagicOrchestra covers. Count me in!
My single-tip: Senor Coconut ‘Music Plans’, it’s the hit!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Looking forward to your submissions… :smiley:

Awesome rules. I’m definitely in!

Oh, a question: if I record acoustic instruments, is using an external mic/pre-amp allowed, as long as the recording’s done with the OP-1?

@vehka welcome onboard. Of course, you can use any external gear. But mixing and mastering should be done on OP-1 only.

Thanks @motone, I thought so, just wanted to be clear. =)

Ok, first battle I’ve felt ready for participate in, sick!

Lovely battle… Will dedicate more time to this one., :slight_smile:

This Pentatonic Surprise album is wonderful

Check out a remix of one of my favorite tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtGYX7jgov4

Love to collab with anyone! Give me a follow, shoot me a message.
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