My Music
These days I’ve gone largely electronic, making drones and doing stuff with them mostly. For this I use the Korg EA-1 (analogue modelling synthesiser) running through the Kaoss pad (effects/sampling unit with touch pad rather than buttons etc). I’ve got a stack of various dodgy 80s sample/delay/modulation units, which are great for drones, but I appear to have abused them all to destruction.
I don’t use any pre-set patterns or anything and generally just hold one note for the drone and then mess with it. Sometimes I’ll play basslines or simple melodies. When playing live I also like to use the Kaoss pad to get the initial sample (eg someone else that’s playing an instrument) and then do stuff with it. It’s amazing to hear for instance a guy on the clarinet interacting with himself being cut up, stretched, bent backwards and otherwise deformed!
Either machine on its own could provide a lifetime of sound opportunity, but put the two together and it becomes exponential to the extreme. I also have an ER-1 (rhythm synth) but haven’t really got my head round it yet.
For amplification I use the Peavey Escort 2000. It has four inputs of different kinds (lines, mics, phono) and kicks out 150 watts. Great for travelling as it all fits together and you can drag it along on wheels like a suitcase. Most of the time I keep the mixer out of the molded case though, as otherwise it’s too big for my little studio. It’s really handy for recording, as you can just run a phono line out straight into the computer. Since I do a lot of experimental/sound stuff, it’s great to have the option to record everyone at once.
I’ve just bought an old Sharp MD-MS200 minidisc player/recorder on eBay. It’s great for running my rig directly into when I’m messing around, in case I come up with anything worth saving. I’ve got a mini condenser microphone for it too (the MS200 has a plug-in-power mic jack), to record jams when I’m playing away from home, and for recording various sounds outside. So far I’m incredibly impressed with it. You can alter the recording level whilst recording, and the sound quality is fantastic.
Yerg is a mix of live bass guitar run through a Kaoss pad and some backwards voice and a backwards slowed down cymbal.
Multi Armed Form is a combination of drones created with the EA-1 and Kaoss pad, with a stack of stereo tape echo. It features the quote from Robert Oppenheimer (creator of the nuclear bomb during WW2) talking about Vishnu in his multi-armed form.
Plastic Flowers is a combination of drones created with the EA-1 and Kaoss pad. There’s an industrial throbbing and then various gentler drones and even a “tune”!
Intergalactic Spider Master - three drones - a background universe machine hum, a ring modulated wind noise with extreme portamento, and a regular whistle like preset sound (Heaven 13) that provides the tune, such as it is. Kaoss pad provided extreme reverb and stereo tape echo (just for a change lol).
Get off my biscuit is about a monster that wants someone or something to get off its biscuit. A combination of various drones, with the monster saying “Get off my biscuit” (backwards of course!). This is quite a scary track, and if I were whatever is being told to get off the biscuit, I would definitely get off the biscuit. As usual, EA-1 and Kaoss pad.
Ph3ll features stuff made with Synfactory, a virtual synthesiser that you can build from bits, putting together exactly what you want. There’s also the quote from Bladerunner “fiery the angels fell …” in there somewhere, plus vocals and some other stuff.
I appear to have gone off all the other music I’ve done. Many would say that’s not surprising.