Move With The Music
2024 05 27
This week I have traveled back to Michigan for Movement, and brought some instruments and a recorder with me to "make use of the juice." The setup is simply a drum machine and two synthesizers through a passive mixer and directly into a handheld recorder. Heavy use of effects pedals as well. The whole rig runs off a couple of USB battery bricks and this is my first trip with this equipment.
The first real recording turned out to prove that this rig is really a terrific instrument, as I had a lot of fun jamming for hours before deciding to capture a take. I recorded in the evening, deciding to use three different TR-8S patterns and a handful of TD-3 patterns for the session.
Using the TR-8S as the master mixer turned out to really open up the performance capabilities without relying on the usual cohort of external recording gear. My home studio approach is to use a separate FX chain inside of REAPER, after the hardware mixer, that I can use for musical filtering of the buss signals. However most of that was handled by the master FX section on the TR, and I didn't feel nearly as unfamiliar with a different ergonomic environment.
- Title: Tree Town Lunar Acid
- Drums: TR-8S, 2 full custom kits and an 808-909 frankenkit with some custom percussion samples, synths routed through the external input for master effects and side chain compression.
- Rumbles & Toms & Zaps: Edge -> MS-60B for bass amp saturation and delay -> TR-8S
- Acid: TD-03 -> MS-70CDR for flanging and pitching effects -> Polymoon for superdelays -> TR-8S
Starting with a fumbling tom groove, and quickly introducing acid squelches deharmonized into another plane, the first of the three sections focuses on establishing a compelling rhythmic tradeoff between zappy toms, claps, and acid accents. The 303 line wanders into the distance allowing the drums to straighten and the Edge to take the spotlight. The second section arrives with a new set of pattern variations and drums on the TR. 808 and 909 sounds star here, along with a shimmering synth lead in 5/16 from the TD-3. The 808 bass drum voice is processed using a Walrus Audio Badwater bass preamp pedal, and enables a range of different kick tones to fill out the song. Coming into the final section the Edge begins reinforce the kick with a slamming downbeat riff, inspired by the heavy machinery of the industrial midwest which gave birth to techno music. The TD-3 evolves a flutey characteristic and a tottering bass phrase from the TR comes in to keep the kicks bouncing. All of this recorded from the TR main outs to a 2-channel Tascam recorder.
- Title: Untitled
- Drums: TR-8S (Kick -> Badwater -> TR-8S Master FX)
- Bass Drums: Edge -> MS-60B -> TR-8S Master FX
- Phaser Acid Riff TD-3 -> MS-70CDR -> Polymoon -> TR-8S Master FX