In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
June 30, 2008 with no comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Defiance
Date: June 30, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 9:24 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- My chord progression was Gm7, Eb6/9, Fm7, C7. It contributed interesting consonance and beautiful dissonances.
- I limited my use of too much processing.
- Note diversity is good, with plenty of lows balanced by some highs and the overtones.
- I love the drifting aftertouch effect of this instrument.
- The distortion is gone without the piece being too quiet.
What I Don’t Like About It
- Some of the transitions at the beginning are not smooth enough.
- I should have used the modulation effect. The overtone series it creates would have complemented this piece well.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
June 20, 2008 with no comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Callisto
Date: June 20, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:36 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- I used a I vi ii V Rhythm changes progression in E (EM7, C#m7, F#m7, B7), which lent a gorgeous ethereal quality.
- After a couple of false starts with other pads, this one grabbed me. I’ve used it in other pieces.
- I toned down my use of the Microphaser and the GoldReverb.
- Midranges don’t have much distortion and none of the transitions are overwhelming.
- The floating feel of this piece—the airy highs and the bottomless bass—makes this fade into the background, unless you want to pay attention to it.
What I Don’t Like About It
- Maybe -4.1 on the channel mixer was a little much. This particular bounce is a little too quiet. It’s hard to hear it unless the volume is cranked.
- There’s still some distortion in the low end on my iPod headphones.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
June 18, 2008 with no comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Bitterroot
Date: June 18, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 7:54 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- The structure of the harmony is descending minor seventh chords until the dominant seventh chord (Bm7, Am7, G#m7, F#7). It lends some very interesting harmonic textures.
- The instrument is beautiful and I’ve used it a few times before.
- The Microphaser I use throughout gives a strange floating back and forth like a snow flurry in the mountains of Northern Idaho.
- I successfully equalized the distortion out, mellowed the sound out a little bit, and gave it a little more reverb.
- The modulation effect on this instrument is very evocative.
- The diversity of notes is good, especially on the low end. The big bass notes give a feeling of vast scale.
What I Don’t Like About It
- This drifts aimlessly with no real sense of direction or form.
- Some of the consonant chords hold a little too long.
- The Microphase had too fast a cycle time.
- The modulation effect wasn’t used in a very interesting way and its appearance was too sporadic.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
June 12, 2008 with no comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Antares
Date: June 12, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:12 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- The structure of the harmony is the first four bars of Rhythm changes in D minor (thus: Dm7, Bm7b5, Em7, A7).
- The instrument is pretty and I’ve used it before. I really like it.
- The transitions flow pretty well from one chord to the next.
- There are plenty of color tones and altered color tones in this, but it stays in the same scale the whole time.
What I Don’t Like About It
- I should someday do one of these with some kind of form.
- There’s still some phase distortion in the lower mid-ranges. My EQ-fu is soft.
- Note diversity is pretty low. Most of the notes are in the same octave.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
May 11, 2008 with no comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Subaqueous
Date: May 11, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:00 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- Staying in the Eb Melodic minor scale allowed me to use harmonies that moved from consonance to dissonance easily.
- The mod wheel effect on this patch is exotic and mysterious. Since I played this on my Oxygen 8, I could easily reach the mod wheel.
- This piece feels like it has more structure than some of the others, although it’s also improvised.
- The transitions are smooth and not jarring.
- There are a few gorgeous openings where a simple triad or dominant seventh chord comes out of the cluster of dissonance.
What I Don’t Like About It
- Many parts of the piece feel out of phase and wobble a little too much for my taste.
- I tried to equalize the distortion fuzz out, but I don’t think I got it all.
- I may have been a little heavy-handed on the compressors.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
May 2, 2008 with 1 comment
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Title: Apollo Lee – Driftwood
Date: May 02, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 7:42 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- The harmony lends itself to haunting dissonances and beautiful consonant soundscapes (Cm7, Ebm7, Gm7, Bbm7).
- The instrument I’m using here sounds like a space organ. At first, I was going to use another patch, but now I’m glad I picked this one.
- The music moves, but not too fast.
- While the harmony shifts around, the piece still feels anchored as though it’s primarily one or two chords.
- I’ve applied enough compression and processing to keep it nice and mellow.
What I Don’t Like About It
- There’s no structure. This track just noodles slowly. I really need to compose something, rather than just playing by touch at random.
- Some of the chords have too many notes and some others feel too naked.
- I could have taken advantage of the mod wheel effect, but I didn’t. More’s the pity.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
April 17, 2008 with no comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Corona
Date: April 17, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 7:24 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- The harmony is really simple and I used major chords for a change (CM7, GM7, DM7, AM7).
- This instrument is really lovely and I love how the fundamental of the instrument enters after the harmonic overtones.
- This was my first improvisation in about three weeks. It felt good to finish something again.
- I think I’m getting better at mixing tracks down on my desktop multimedia speakers and the meters in Logic.
What I Don’t Like About It
- Some parts still feel too loud.
- An improvisation isn’t really a composition in the traditional sense of the word. I’d like to get better at crafting things in my head, rather than always just going with the flow.
- The bass is not deep enough.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, Music on
April 1, 2008 with no comments
In the third month of my 52 Tracks in 52 Weeks project, I crafted only five tracks. All, except for one (“Blue Diamond”), were ambient improvisations. I think it’s time to move on from the ambient stuff and back to house music.
As of March 31, 2008, the total number of tracks I’ve written this year stands at twenty-two. Despite the unambitious month, I’m still averaging more than 1½ per week.
Here are the songs I created in March 2008:
- 03 Mar 2008 — Belmont
- 10 Mar 2008 — Corners
- 18 Mar 2008 — Palouse
- 22 Mar 2008 — Blue Diamond
- 28 Mar 2008 — Payette
In 52 Tracks, Ambient, Music on
March 28, 2008 with 3 comments
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Title: Apollo Lee – Payette
Date: March 28, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:12 @ 40 bpm
What I Like About It
- The harmony is pretty simple and lends itself to some interesting dissonances and consonances.
- The mod wheel effect is very evocative.
- I got to demonstrate my technique with improvising on the PadKontrol to my friend, Jay Def.
- After searching for a nice cadence to close on, moving around a few other suspended chords and ending on an Eb6 was an interesting surprise.
What I Don’t Like About It
- I should have used the mod wheel effect more. It’s beautifully mysterious and could have added so much more to this piece.
- The mixdown could have been much better. I didn’t use enough compression on the main outputs. This probably sounds really terrible on iPod headphones.
- The note diversity was somewhat low. This needs more high notes.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.
In 52 Tracks, House, Music on
March 22, 2008 with 1 comment
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Title: Apollo Lee – Blue Diamond (Alpha Edit)
Date: March 22, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8 + Reason 4 (ReWire)
Genre: House
Timing: 4:02 @ 128 bpm
What I Like About It
- I successfully slaved Reason 4 to Logic Pro 8 for the first time. Special thanks to SFLogicNinja for his tutorial video that finally led to my succeeding at this.
- The twerky lead synth (Arp 1971) is really funky and I accidentally plinked out that line. After some quantization and fixing screwy notes, it’s actually cool.
- The bass line is adapted from a randomized Matrix pattern sequence, but since Logic doesn’t have a “randomize pattern” function, I drew the notes in by hand. The bass itself is Thor’s “Fat Boy”, dirty, evil, and vicious—processed to the breaking point with a series of processors that include a phaser and your mother’s cute cousin.
- The drum pattern is pretty straight four-on-the-floor without too much variation, but there are a few funky nifties.
What I Don’t Like About It
- It’s really lazy. Each loop plays five times and drops out for 8 bars, then resumes until the end.
- The second chord in the splash chords is wrong. I’d better fix that. It’s so obviously wrong, I’m probably going to fix it tomorrow morning.
- The ending is abrupt and so are the loop drop outs.
- There are no breakdowns, buildups, or sections. It’s just a repeating eight bar pattern of yawns.
Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.