Share your Groovebox / Electronic Creations

monquixote

Another bit of Elektronauts hiphop challenge fun

monquixote

My latest creation. First proper track created in Bitwig.

hubobulous

I got some vocal samples and came up with a few new songs. Its an odd way of creating music in that the words aren't your own and the melody is provided so you have to work the whole song around that. But I really enjoy it and its refreshing to hear songs that I've created with words in seeing as everything else up to this point has been instrumental only.

monquixote

hubobulous said:

I got some vocal samples and came up with a few new songs. Its an odd way of creating music in that the words aren't your own and the melody is provided so you have to work the whole song around that. But I really enjoy it and its refreshing to hear songs that I've created with words in seeing as everything else up to this point has been instrumental only.

Very cool. 

Where did you get the vocal samples from?

hubobulous

I got them from Ghosthack. There are some other songs out there with these samples in, so its interesting to see how others have interpreted them and used a different style.

monquixote

That would be a really nice challenge to see what a few people came up with using the same acapella. 

personalnadir

Had a bit of fun last month trying to make a simple track using only a single synth (add effects)

horse

This isn't groovebox, but might qualify as.electronic maybe - ambient type track played live with a single patch I made on my rev2 a few years back (eg nothing added / tracked in one pass). I find it quite relaxing:

monquixote

This was my attempt to make something outside of 4/4 

It's in 10/8 or 5/4 depending on how you want to count it inspired by Radiohead using four 8th notes and then four dotted 8th notes.



Ut;s all done in Bitwig using Arturia V Collection Synth plugins.

dindude

monquixote said:

This was my attempt to make something outside of 4/4 

It's in 10/8 or 5/4 depending on how you want to count it inspired by Radiohead using four 8th notes and then four dotted 8th notes.



Ut;s all done in Bitwig using Arturia V Collection Synth plugins.

I like that a lot. Sounds super clean and punchy too. Interesting that you’ve done it all “in the box”, have you turned away from hardware groovebox approach?

Interestingly I’m experimenting with Korg Gadget on the iPad. I’m liking having more options and visibility even though I do like my Circuit Tracks. 

monquixote

dindude said:

monquixote said:

This was my attempt to make something outside of 4/4 

It's in 10/8 or 5/4 depending on how you want to count it inspired by Radiohead using four 8th notes and then four dotted 8th notes.



Ut;s all done in Bitwig using Arturia V Collection Synth plugins.

I like that a lot. Sounds super clean and punchy too. Interesting that you’ve done it all “in the box”, have you turned away from hardware groovebox approach?

Interestingly I’m experimenting with Korg Gadget on the iPad. I’m liking having more options and visibility even though I do like my Circuit Tracks. 

I'm doing a lot more straight into Bitwig these days, but that might just be a phase, who knows.

I've bought a Launchpad which gives you some of the experience of working with a Groovebox on the laptop.

I'm still using the Polyend Tracker quite a bit which is a really nice idea generation box. 

Bitwig feels a bit more creative and like an instrument compared to most DAWs so that might be part of it.

personalnadir

playing around with using the Medusa and it’s strange Grid through the Syntakt

Cranky

Killer thread.  Inspiring me to get to work.

Some of these pieces have trip-hop feels, some low key envelope-filtered guitar riffs sprinkled in could be cool.

monquixote

personalnadir said:

https://soundcloud.com/personalnadir/duvet-day

playing around with using the Medusa and it’s strange Grid through the Syntakt

That's very cool. 

I struggle with the more free form ambient stuff.

Here are a couple of sample based things I've done from challenges one from a Debbie Gibson record and one from some old Russian funk record. 

personalnadir

Duplicate

personalnadir

monquixote said:

personalnadir said:

https://soundcloud.com/personalnadir/duvet-day

playing around with using the Medusa and it’s strange Grid through the Syntakt

That's very cool. 

I struggle with the more free form ambient stuff.

Here are a couple of sample based things I've done from challenges one from a Debbie Gibson record and one from some old Russian funk record. 

Thanks, very kind of you to say so. I've been super impressed with the stuff you've shared. All sounds great!

I think I benefit from working with the Elektron gear as that workflow makes putting a basic loop together very easy, however I'm struggling to break out of that initial loop and add more development to the music. Any tips or things to check out appreciated!

Has anyone tried Koala Sampler? I've enjoyed just sampling stuff like my guitar immediately to hand and working from there

monquixote

personalnadir said:

Thanks, very kind of you to say so. I've been super impressed with the stuff you've shared. All sounds great!

I think I benefit from working with the Elektron gear as that workflow makes putting a basic loop together very easy, however I'm struggling to break out of that initial loop and add more development to the music. Any tips or things to check out appreciated!

Has anyone tried Koala Sampler? I've enjoyed just sampling stuff like my guitar immediately to hand and working from there

Thanks chap, much appreciated. 

It's been a bit of a journey over the last year, but I think I've been steadily learning.

I found the Elektron boxes tricky from that point of view. I briefly had a Syntakt and sold it because I couldn't get anything more than a loop that didn't go anywhere. This has probably changed now with song mode.

I'm not an expert at getting to bigger arrangements as I currently struggle to make anything that's much over 2 minutes however what I have learned is that the parts don't need to change that much, it's not like a song where you need to have verse and chorus ,but something always needs to be changing.

You ideally want to have an idea of a bit of an "energy timeline" for the track where you are building up tension or intensity and then dropping it out (or something).

At the most basic that's bringing elements in and out, but also break apart patterns. For example copy your drum loop or synth part and take out some of the notes to make it more sparse or add extra components.

Essentially you always need something moving and changing.
A great tool for this is putting loads of LFOs on everything so all the components are slowly panning, or have changing filters or waveforms which move around over time. On a DAW you can do this even more with automation. 

There are a few great videos on YT where people breakdown and analyse tracks by people like Bicep and though it looks like it's just a simple beat and a couple of synths for 6 minutes, once you get right into it things are constantly subtly evolving in all sorts of clever ways.

monquixote

Regarding Koala I really like it for playing with my kids. 

Getting them to make sounds, bang on things etc and then make it into a track is really fun.

dindude

Something I’m working on at the moment using for the first time Korg Gadget on the iPad, it’s a fantastic app and really is the best workflow I’ve found so far for mixing Electronic with audio. So this one mixes trad guitar and bass with electronic influences. A bit rough at the mo, will re-record the guitars next week and play around with structure a bit.

https://on.soundcloud.com/2bCChyvoB5MZxLZT6

monquixote

dindude said:

Something I’m working on at the moment using for the first time Korg Gadget on the iPad, it’s a fantastic app and really is the best workflow I’ve found so far for mixing Electronic with audio. So this one mixes trad guitar and bass with electronic influences. A bit rough at the mo, will re-record the guitars next week and play around with structure a bit.

https://on.soundcloud.com/2bCChyvoB5MZxLZT6

Nice work, I didn't realise you could record audio on gadget.