I’m working on it!. I could rush and upload smth today but I want to do the best out of this one. I’m happy and surprised about what I achieved this time!
Had a lot of fun with this - it’s my first “full” composition completed on the OP1 since I got it in December. It was a real challenge setting up a workflow with the lift/drop and overdubbing to not accidentally delete anything (which still managed to happen a few times). I’m a hip hop producer, and I was going for a dirty, noisy, “obviously sampled” sound.
All the sounds were created using my voice thru the built in mic of the OP1. The drums were made using standard drum synthesis techniques on the samples I recorded - mainly the nitro filter - and resampled using the master EQ to shape them a little more. Really happy with the snare sound, which I lost when I accidentally saved over the synth patch before I’d made a snapshot :,-(((
Lesson learnt there! The kick is a little woofy and probably could have been processed to make it more snappy - it was made by tapping my finger on the microphone. The drums ended up sounding really dirty as I resampled them over the top of each other a few times, which reeeeeally cranks up the noisefloor in an interesting way. Made it a pain in the ass to balance out in the mixer though, next time I’ll leave re-sampling til the very end. All other sounds (basses, flute-y sound, hats, cymbals) was from me humming, making clicking noises, etc. and then messing with them.
Loops that play in their entirety are the “oh ee ahh haa” main vocal loop that I triple-tracked, and the spoken word quote (which is what the title is based on).
Once the composition was all lined up I performed it to the album, using some Steeezo-esque techniques (stutter fx on M1/M2), live track mutes and some manual auto-panning. Took a few takes to get one I liked. There’s some clicks and pops here and there when I solo’d tracks a bit out of time, but I’m OK with it.
Also, please ignore the tiny little fragment of a previous album save at the very very end - there’s a few millisecs of something there, but I figured it would go against the “all within the OP1” rule if I dropped that into Ableton to chop it out
@millbastard - that’s awesome!! Great write-up too, always nice to hear about processes. You’d have had no idea that some of those drum sounds came from body noises if you just listened to it fresh - good sculpting
Btw, there’s a trailing http:// at the end of your link - perhaps you could remove them in your link, else it’s broken for others.
thanks for the feedback @yoof and @LyingDalai! Also props on the extra http, must’ve slipped up on the copypasta.
Hey @LyingDalai I can’t seem to find that setting? I haven’t used SC in a while, bit rusty…
Funny seeing as Cuckoo was mentioned here, this piece actually started as a Jamuary piece on my instagram, and then my memory triggered on this battle. Hi, Cuckoo! Big fan.
Looking forward to the rest of the submissions, while I try and work out if I can fit the OP1 into a new live rig… hmmmmmm…
You guys are putting up great stuff. I just spent two - three hours obessively creating a drum kit from terrible samples I made over 5 coffees. The funnest part so far is. “clap” from slapping my wet hair against my own back after a shower. My hair is very long, haha.
Hoping to put something up. Even if it’s not as good as I’d like… Which it never is anyway, haha.
Feeling frustrated as hell at the slow work flow. Can anyone offer workflow tips for resampling?
In order to sculpt the sound, I’ve been bouncing from tape to sampler (drum or melodic depending on needs), then playing with envelooes, effects, then bouncing to tape, filtering with EQ, layering to multi track, of setting timings, etc. Then bouncing multi track hits back together in tape mode… Lift/drop drumkit to tape add in new samples after metadata… It’s all taking a long time, and shizz gets messy and a bit confusing… I guess workflow tips would go a long way to cut down time & mess.
Hey man, I found it easier to build my kit by doing all the individual sounds in Synth Sampler, rather than Drum, and then I played each of the “drums” one by one onto the tape, very close together. Then I opened a fresh drum sampler, sample via the Ear (resampling), and hit play on the tape. Then just chopped/tightened as normal on the drum sampler to clean up start/end points.
One thing that took me a while to learn was to leave a decent gap after recording the sample into the synth, as the automatic loop spoilt a few samples. So, record your “click”, wait a few secs, then let go of the key.
Resampling was interesting, as it definitely beefed/crunched up some sounds, but also noticeably increased the noisefloor in the samples, and also made it hard to balance out in the mixer (Track 1 was at 99, track 4 was at 14!). I did a few resamples with the Master EQ, by adjusting the EQ to “lofi”, recording it to Album, then resampling it back onto a blank piece of tape. The hardest part then was scrolling through to find accurate in/out points on the tape, as you have to be old-school and use your ears. The blue encoder was good here for finding the start of transients.
Process-wise it looks like you’re doing similar to what i was doing (envelopes, FX, record to tape, lift back into sampler if needed, etc). Oh yeah, and I had long hair for 14 years so I know the clap sound well!
@Servando digging that track man, particularly liked the phase/flange sound at around 1:54 - was that the CWO? Also the slowdown at the end was dope
@millbastard thanks so much for that detailed reply… How often do you use lift/drop from tape to sampler vs record from tape? I wish you could drop from tape into a different place in the sampler, ie. Not at the start.
@millbastard thanks so much for that detailed reply... How often do you use lift/drop from tape to sampler vs record from tape? I wish you could drop from tape into a different place in the sampler, ie. Not at the start.
No worries man - it’s definitely an interesting beastie to tame… I definitely do much more of just recording straight into the sampler, as I can cue up the right point on the tape, switch to sampler, hold a key and hit play at the same time. That’s worked for me so far with everything, I think I’ve maybe used the lift/drop into sampler only a few times here and there? Horses for courses though, whatever works!
To build drumkits I use the Tape.
4 layers is good.
I set the tempo and Tape speed to max, gives a mark every 2 beats, it’s easier to see where I am in the sample chain.
So the first 12 sec of the Tape is my drumkit, the rest is for resampling and slowly building each hit.