The music journey – Making an album (week 7)

Week 7 is done, en another week with adaptions to my plan. Still some trouble with my brain damage so no music making activities this week. Mostly been reading about music theory and some manuals. Especially the book Electronic music and sound design volume one .

An absolute recommendation, It’s based around theory on the subjects sound design and Electronic music. Based around Max MSP patches to make it hands on. Every chapter starts with some theory on a subject and right after that you start working with that subject in Max and learning how to apply the concepts and theory within Max. At the start of each chapter there is an overview of the learning goals. Very handy indeed.

You can use the book to learn about specific subjects within sound design , syntheses and ways to edit sound. You don’t need to get into the Max parts to make good use of the book. The book is very convenient as a reference as well.

It’s very well written and all explanation is very clear. The book has a nice layout as well. I just started at the beginning and I am working my way through the book, learning Max MSP at the same time as learning about synthesis and sound design.

Another week without adhering too my original planning but still working on music, which is starting to become a habit , a routine. That’s very nice.

Onto next week.

The music journey – Making an album (week 1)

Starting a new project , making an album. And as with many bigger goals in my life in the last few years , I got some expert help guiding me along the way. The idea behind this is I can get up to speed a bit faster and avoid some common pitfalls along the way.

It’s also a shift from making music pure as a hobby to something more serious. Going after a goal I have had in the back of my mind for ages. Whether I have the guts of actually releasing it remains a question. But that’s the idea.

I will try and write a weekly update on the process , for the first week it’s mainly about writing the concept of the album down on paper and making a rough planning. That alone gives me a focus and energy in going forward.

Max MSP project – The idea , a looper

In order to learn Max/MSP and give the proces more focus , I have opted for a simple idea. Making a Looper. Think the hardware loopers like the Boss RC-505 and more on the experimental side, the Soma Cosmos.

It’s a looper aimed at live use and jam sessions, with the Eurorack as the input. The sound source.

The Looper needs to take care of recording loops from the modular. In order to have more control about the end result and what you heard in a live set. Adding loops , editing then and adding effects to it.

The interface between the Eurorack and the computer is an Expert Sleepers ES-9. Which is an audio interface for Eurorack. It has 8 audio inputs. So the looper will be one with 8 channels. The looper will be a buffer between the Eurorack and the music coming out of the speakers.

I am starting with a basic patch and will expand on it as I learn more. I will divide the project into little steps so I can keep control. And don’t get list and get finished results.

I have found a number of YouTube video’s on making a looper, first order of business will be simply building these. And later on changing them and building the functionality I want in them. And then I will release the first version.

The first version will be the basis for all future additions and built out on this.

video list :

Dearjohnreed – Four track looper part one
Dearjohnreed – Four track looper part two
Dearjohnreed – Four track looper part three

Soria box – Loop pedal from Scratch

I will share it on my Github when I have my first version. This can be found here :

Cornerman – Github Max/MSP