Earlier this week I had a delivery from Noisebug in Pamona, California. My new  Midi/CV module had arrived. It is Moon Modular's model 551.

I had bought a third rack frame some time ago when I ordered a DotCom Q117 S/H module for the Atomic Synthesis System. When that order arrived I had simply pulled the Q124 multiple out and put the Q117 in it's place. Two rack frames were full and I moved on.

After working a side job at the beginning of July it was time to add some new modules and bring that third rack frame in to play. It was at this point that the law of unintended consequences decided to visit the Command Center. Anywhere that I could mount the third frame, in the rack that housed the first two, was going to be too far for the power leads to reach. Mounting it in the rack next door would bring another set of problems with routing to and from the mixer.

So in the end I decided to move the entire modular system down to the third rack. This was a straightforward swapping of some items. Of course it wasn't all that simple. Once I had moved the modular I realized that one of the reasons it was mounted it in the original position was because that cabinet had a floor. It was a secure place for the power supply.

Fortunately the back of the rack had threaded screw holes every few feet and one set happened to line up exactly with the best location for the power supply. I already had some very sturdy shelves that came with two of the rack units.

Once the shelf was mounted it only took a few minutes to rearrange the modules and hook them up to the power supply.  

I was asked by Mr. Tony Scharf (aka Noise Theorum), via FaceBook, about my process. How do I make something like this? 

The simple and most direct answer Is that I don't really know. So his question started me thinking. How does this work? At some level it is just making sounds and then manipulating them and recording the results. There is more to it than that and I can attest from the last video, it doesn't always go smoothly. When I recorded "Unobstructed Time" last month I was well over 5 takes before I had the one that sounded Right. It is painfully obvious when it is Wrong. I can tell one from the other right away. But how and why? 

I began playing a brass instrument in band at school.  I learned how to read music along with basic theory and composition. Later on in life I switched to drums, playing in almost every type of band that you could imagine. There were rock groups, small jazz combos, high school big band, country... hell I even played in a polka group once. I was young. I needed the money.

So I suspect that when I record these performances my musical background becomes the process on a subconscious level. I begin a project like this by plugging things in to other things and making an interesting sound. Generally there are about four basic sounds in a composition. There is usually some sort of rhythmic element. In this case it is the beeping that comes in early in the piece. This repetitive part was the idea that I had to anchor the piece. At the beginning  I "tune in" the signal from the Muse, and then let the inspiration take me where it will.

There are two schools of thought about inspiration. One is that you are channeling your deepest, inner most self through your music, painting or sculpture. The other holds that inspiration is broadcasting from the Universe at large and that the creative person is able to tap these signals and translate them in to a painting, song, or poem. For myself I believe it is some combination of the two. There are times when I have an overpowering urge to get in to the Command Center and explore. There is no way to explain where it comes from or what it is. There are other times when I can tell that trying to do anything will result in frustration. The inspiration is not there. The Muse has gone out for a drink with friends and I have nothing. 

I began this recording with 5 sounds. When I played back this take I was surprised at how it flowed with dynamics and evolving layers. There are no overdubs or post production edits. The only thing I did in mixing the audio was add a bit of reverb to one part and do a little level control to keep one part form drowning out the other parts.

The basic sounds are as follows. The beeping part comes from the EMW 200. Then there is a long loop of auto traffic noise on the SP-404 that was fed to the ring mod effect on the 404. An Eico solid state sine generator is being played through a guitar effect chain and amp simulation. A random sample/hold pattern in to a Moog ring modulator, then a tape delay effect. And finally, one patch on the Ensoniq SD-1. As I assemble the sounds for a composition I think that I am sort of EQ-ing as I go. The second sound I make has to work with the first and so on. I end up with all of these sounds running at the same time and I have to be sure that they all stand out in their own space, I try to get the panning and other effects all working before recording begins. Then I play with things for awhile. This is to get an idea of what might happen if I make any radical changes to any of the control settings and how such changes might be used in the performance.

I recorded three stereo tracks. One for the Ensoniq, one for the Eico, and one from a sub mixer that had everything else routed through it. This video performance was take two. In some ways I liked take one very much, but the level of one of the parts was out of hand and there was no way to fix it in post since it was in the sub mixed group.

Once the sounds and audio levels are sorted out I set up the camera, put on the lab coat and hit record. There is a lot going on at the same time and it does take some concentration to keep it from getting out of control. But I am playing this live. Improvising. I once received a very nice letter from a composer in Canada who congratulated me on the "organic quality" of the programming on Creatures from Beyond. He wanted to  know how I achieved it. I wrote back and thanked him and explained that it sounded organic because it was me just "playing" the sounds in real time. My process is pretty much the same when I am recording a track for an album or a video. 

I have always had a struggle with not taking myself seriously enough. There are so many electronic music composers who write lengthy essays about their Work using lots of words like didactic, metaphysical, and angst. This always comes across to me as pretentious, pseudo intellectual breast beating. As a result I have a hard time using words like art in relation to what I do. I know that it is art on some level, but I don't want to sound like a self important twat. So I can explain in general terms how to set up a project for recording, but once I hit record it becomes a bit more mysterious. Is there something in my head that needs to get out? Is there a feeling or idea in the vast Universe that has to be routed through my imagination as raw sound? Am I just making noise?  

I don't have the answer. But in a way, isn't that the point?

Here is the video from last month that was mentioned above.

Well I have finally begun the serious work of building a Mobile Command Center. Some equipment that will enable me to bring yesterday's world of tomorrow to a venue near you. I have done a great deal of speculation and planning, trying to figure out how best to do this. Here is what I have come up with so far.

First of all there has to be a sine wave generator or two. The Eico unit in the photo was secured for this very propose. I have it and another small-ish solid state generator that could work. I also have a really old tube driven RCA that sounds beautiful, but I would worry about how robust it might be if I racked it up. Make no mistake. This stuff will be in a rack when all is said and done.

So I will have the EMW 200/300 combo in place of my large format modular.

I toyed with the idea of using one of the reel to reel machines, but I found this Akai cassette machine in perfect working order and it can be racked up. Since processed field recordings are a big part of the Atomic Shadow sound I had to figure a way to bring those sounds to the picnic. I had an Electron Octatrack that I bought for the purpose, but found all of it's promised powers were locked behind an impenetrable user interface. Every time I turned it on and opened the manual I ended up feeling suicidal. So off it went to Chicago where my pal Tony Scharf (Noise Theorem) is getting along with it just fine. In it's place I have a Roland SP-404sx. The 404 is a simple loop player with some decent effects that can mangle a sound in real time.

The system will be rounded out with a POD effects unit on the floor that will be the dedicated processor for one of the sine wave machines. There will also be a Moog ring modulator, Strymon El Capistan, and a couple of other secret effects and generators. I figure a couple of plug strips and possibly a patch bay and I'm done.

I plan to house it all in a couple of metal rack units that I got from one of my sources. They are about 14U tall and I will bolt them together. There is a table with wheels that will hold the finished system and it will allow me to roll it around the Command Center and cross patch it with the big system.

I have finally landed Mrs. Shadow's SD-1 in the Command Center to stay (I think).

This instrument has gigged and rehearsed and never malfunctioned once in 20 years. I bought her a new Korg Krome to go with her Gen 1 Motif. She was against having to learn a new keyboard, but The Krome's superior piano sounds won her over.

The Ensoniq SD-1 was the next to last wavetable synth before the ill fated Fizmo. It was part of a line that began with the ESQ-1 and continued through the SQ-80, VFX, SD, and finally the Fizmo. This is the later 32 voice model that we bought new in 1993 and it is in full working order.

I am the drummer in the photo above. The SD-1 was only keyboard until I convinced her to get the Motif in 2002. At that time I thought I would have the SD-1 for myself, but she thwarted my fiendish scheme by deciding on a two board rig. The Shakuhachi sound on the Ensoniq was exactly like the one on Sledgehammer and she wouldn't give it up. Dammit! We still cover Sledgehammer as a trio...

Each patch on the SD-1 can use up to six oscillators, combining sounds from the 168 waveform, 35MB internal sample ROM. 
There are three 11 stage envelopes, LFO, a multi mode digital filter and a 24 bit effects engine with chorus, delay, flange and reverb. If that isn't enough there are 15 modulations sources and a two very useful patch buttons that can be assigned to mute or solo oscillators or control other parameters. Like most keyboards of this era there are far too many DX-ish piano, bass and string sounds for my taste. But now that I have unsupervised access to this instrument I will be correcting that problem and I hope to make a demo video showing some of the presets. 

All of the building blocks are there for sounds that move and morph over time. All I need is the time to learn it.

My long range plan is to team this up with my E-MU Morpheus module for some interesting layered sounds. These are two synths from the same relative time period with some interesting features. I know that I will be learning new things to do with them well in to the next twenty years.

I had hoped that E-MU might revisit Transwave synthesis since they ended up owning Ensoniq at the very end. An updated, knobby, wavetable synth would be a great compliment to all of the modern analog synths out there in the world today.

I am planning to keep and use this unique instrument for the rest of my life. If you want unique results you need to start with unique tools.