For this month’s #SaveShenmueHD tweetathon I decided to make a remix of the Shenmue I Slot House music using Mega Drive FM synth sounds. Mega Drive / Genesis geek for sure.
Well, I didn’t use an actual Mega Drive, but I did use FMDrive which sounds as perfect as I can tell. It’s easy to fall in love with that Yamaha YM2616 sound.
A few months back I remixed of the Fields of Time music from Chrono Cross, so if you are a Chrono fan you should check that out too:
A lot of people who are familiar with my work will also be familiar with Dolores Catherino’s hugely inspiring music. She uses the Tonal Plexus keyboard controller to make very spacey electronic music with an 106 note per octave scale. (Yes, that’s the very in-tune 53-EDO multiplied by 2, just cos).
Check out her TEDx talk from January this year for her perspective on microtonality. She also has lots of music on her dolomuse YouTube channel. Crucial stuff.
Sevish has released his new EP titled MK-SUPERDUPER and you can get it now from bandcamp. MK-SUPERDUPER has 3 tracks of lush, liquid, atmospheric drum’n’bass using microtonal tunings.
The download includes a PDF liner notes booklet – check it out to discover how MK-SUPERDUPER got its name. Enjoy the new sounds!
Here’s the thing. I don’t actually like the definition of the word “microtonal.” Well, I’m sure I’m not the only one.
It’s always tricky having a word which is defined by which it is not. And microtonal means any music that uses intervals smaller (or larger) than a Western equal-tempered semitone. Essentially, we can take microtonal to mean any music or scale that isn’t 12-tone equal temperament. This just elevates 12-tet to something much bigger than it really is.
Many microtonalists I talk to these days see the tuning space as containing an infinite number of tunings; 12-tone equal temperament being just another one of them. But the word we use to describe this tuning space really only includes all of those tunings but one (12-edo). Why the disconnect between the definition and the reality?
“Xenharmonic” suffers the same problem. This word means any music that sounds different to 12-tone equal temperament. (Let’s just put aside the slippery problem of what sounds different today becomes familiar tomorrow).
I would prefer xenharmonic to mean: music that sounds different to ANY traditional music (not just Western music). For example, I wouldn’t class maqam music as xenharmonic, because it’s a traditional music. This seems a more useful distinction to make and it removes the cultural bias currently present in the term.
I know that others will disagree, and that’s just fine. Languages and cultures shift all the time.
Microtonal music watch!
Some great music coming from David Fiuczynski this month. I cannot get over the amazing combo of Dilla-esque beats, bird calls and David’s microtonal guitar playing. Looking forward to getting the whole album, but for now this video is a perfect teaser…
You can buy a limited edition yellow LP, CD, or download it from RareNoiseRecords.
Sevish’s new EP MK-SUPERDUPER will be released on April 1st. MK-SUPERDUPER is all about liquid dnb and experimental bass music with xenharmonic scales. I just made a short video on YouTube for the preview.
I had a lot of fun writing these tunes so check them out next Friday!
“Springtime so fine…”
The opening line from Redrick Sultan’s new album ‘Fly as a Kite.’ Around this time of year when the weather gets warmer my appreciation of music increases tenfold.
Redrick Sultan are an acoustic rock band from Vancouver, with a very melodic vocal style underpinned by microtonal guitars to offer just a slight experimental twist. It works perfectly to my ears. Definitely worth checking out.
My personal fave track: jest us
This is not just a “theory”. Sevish produced 3 liquid drum and bass tracks to honor the secret microtonal bass society – the MK-SUPERDUPER conspiracy will be exposed on April 1st.
You can download the first track now if you pre-order MK-SUPERDUPER on my bandcamp page.
Newly released on the split-notes label, a 9-track record of beautifully sculpted xenharmonic electronic music by composer and poet müesk: Eventual
Eventual is full of these atmospheric and evocative pieces which often defy normal expectations of structure, rhythm and tonality in delightful ways. The download also includes a short collection of poems.
This is my answer to the question “Sevish, how do you make your music?”
I won’t discuss my creative process but I’ll explain my workflow and the tools used to get music made. What I like about my workflow is that it works superbly for me.
I use Ableton Live to write, record, and mix my music. Within Live, I load VST instruments that have built-in microtonal scale support. I use Scala to produce the tuning files necessary to retune those VSTis. I play the VSTis using my MIDI keyboard, C-Thru AXiS-49, QWERTY keyboard and through mouse input. I also sample recordings that I have made using my Zoom H4n portable recorder.
Ableton Live is a DAW (digital audio workstation) that has an effective workflow for electronic music. For my drum’n’bass, breakbeat electronic, it works just fine. Live has no built-in microtonal scale support, and the piano roll is always locked to a 12-note Halberstadt layout, which can be tricky.
It’s possible to make microtonal music in Ableton Live by using VST instruments or Max 4 Live instruments with microtuning support built in. As far as Ableton knows, MIDI data goes into these instruments and audio comes out. It’s up to the instruments themselves to provide the new tunings and scales that I use in my music.
I use a couple of Max 4 Live instruments that I made myself, plus several VSTi: Xen-Arts FMTS2, IVOR, XenFont, TAL-Sampler, u-he ACE and Garritan Personal Orchestra 4. All of these plugins have full keyboard tuning support, which is why I choose to use them. To tune up, they each require you to import a tuning file. I’ll elaborate on that later.
Before writing a piece, it works well to have an idea already of the tuning you want to use. Scala can be used to invent musical tunings or specify an old one. I have written about how to invent your own scales with Scala, described other superbly expressive tunings that already exist, and hand-selected some interesting scales to download.
Once I have a scale in Scala that bends my ear in just the right way, it must be exported as a tuning file for it to be usable in those VST instruments. The common formats are:
I wrote a guide to exporting .tun files, and the process is much the same for producing MIDI tuning dumps and .txt tuning files.
(If you’re a Max/MSP or Max 4 Live user, I also wrote a guide to microtuning your patches with the coll object, and microtuning using expr).
After I have some tuning files to work with I’ll load them up in one of my synths, and jam away until I play something I really like. I don’t go too deep in to the theory of it all; I leave that up to others. Using your ear and finding sounds you like is a good way to go.
I like to record sounds on location with my H4n portable recorder. After recording I keep the audio in my personal sound library until I’m ready to use them in a project.
I almost never use the preset sounds on my synths. It’s best to patch in your own sound designs because that becomes a recognisable part of your craft. It’s well worth practicing this skill for yourself. Some days I do nothing but come up with new sound designs with my fave synths. That way I can save them in my personal library and use them only when inspiration strikes.
The AXiS-49 is a hexagonal keyboard controller, and it’s best suited to exploring microtonal scales because it makes fingering really easy. Imagine trying to play a 15-note scale on a standard keyboard where the pattern repeats after every 12 notes… The fingering gets totally perplexing and that gets in the way of creativity. With the AXiS that’s no problem at all. The AXiS also greatly increases my reach, so I can play large chords easily.
The difficulty I find with the AXiS is that I use so many different tunings that it’s difficult to build up a muscle memory for any of them. And the buttons are so close together that I make mistakes quite easily.
It comes in handy to have a standard keyboard at times. I was given a 2 octave MIDI controller with some knobs on it which I can map to various functions in my DAW. Using this to recording automation in real-time is one way to breathe some life into a static synthesised part.
I mix and master in Ableton Live, then publish on my Bandcamp, YouTube and Soundcloud pages. Which you should definitely check out.