Moog Fantasy
/So here's the first thing: this week was a little rough. While creating the video for last week's post I thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned a lot of tiny-but-useful lessons that will make later animations less difficult and more polished. That said, I spent about five hours with my left elbow resting on a desk I'm now certain is made of the wannabe-animator equivalent of kryptonite. The end result: I cannot adequately use two of the fingers on my left hand because of (I think) a pinched bundle of nerves. Feeling has been creeping back into my decrepit claw thanks to a combination of hot and cold. I had been planning on recording some music this week and, after realizing my left hand was only temporarily disabled, finally sat down and got to work. First I had to decide what I wanted to experiment with. A new iOS app named "Model 15" slid within range of my radar while I was reminiscing about the soundtrack to The Shining and I was off to the races.
The app (which costs a hefty 30 bones by the by) emulates an old-school synthesizer; complete with patch cables and ribbon controls.
I won't bore you with the details of my Moog-infused travails, suffice to say it took me hours to gain even a modicum of proficiency with this program. While familiarizing myself with the numerous virtual knobs, keyboard configurations, and settings I came across some options regarding Bluetooth LE. Did you know that was a thing? I sure as hell didn't.
This fascinating, azure tech remains largely a mystery; but I do know my computer doesn't support it, so the joy I felt when I thought I might be able to transmit notes from a physical keyboard directly to my iPad warped itself into a bizarre amalgam of desire and grief that lead me to an incredible discovery: you can send MIDI data through a simple, private WiFi network.
Once I figured out how to make that digital wizardry bend every musical whim to my will I set about creating a basic framework for the demo loop I would record. There's an instrument preset in Model 15 called "Eerie Choir" in the "Keys" folder that seemed laden with potential, so I set to work playing whatever I could think of using various MIDI controllers, the onscreen keyboard, and arpeggiated loops. Experimentation and fumbling tweaks fueled by my excited flailing somehow landed me in the key of A minor. I decided on a basic bass line and played it into Pro Tools.
The next four hours were spent wrestling with network settings, MIDI cables, and virtual knobs; but I created a brief sketch I think sounds interesting. It definitely doesn't sound like anything from a Kubrick film soundtrack, but the odd synthesized notes that resemble ghostly voices were absolutely Shining-inspired. I've posted the track below as well as some of the MIDI output notated through Finale. Hopefully it makes you think about stuff.
