Improvisation LXIII: Crescendi

Published on Apr 9, 2016 Sacred Synthesis

"I often use YouTube as a sort of musical notebook, a place to keep musical ideas that I intend to develop later into actual compositions. This improvisation is a typical example. By no means do I consider it a polished composition, but only a rough sketch with plenty of blotches.

The primary purpose of this piece was to practice crescendi (or crescendos) using one soft patch on the Poly Evolver that builds and another on the Prophet '08 that meets it at its high point. Pardon the audio annoyances for the first minute or so, but the piece begins with the soft patch using a pedalpoint or long sustained bass note. This patch uses an LFO to very slowly modulate the filter cut off frequency. If you play it somewhat quickly, the LFO doesn't have a chance to open the filter, so that it remains dreamy and dark. If you sustain a note for more than a second, the filter begins to open. So, the crescendo is built into the patch and is controlled by the keyboard playing technique; no wheels, pedals, or tweaking are necessary. In order to create a dramatic crescendo, I simply sustain a chord on the first synthesizer, with the other synthesizer ready with the next chord progression; it's at that point that I switch from the PEK to the P '08, which has a PWM brass patch on the lower end of the manual and a sawtooth solo on the higher. A second Prophet '08 contributes an additional soft pad that I use together with the PEK.

This improvisation uses a combination of sounds that is very uplifting to play. I must confess, this late night session was among the most enjoyable I've ever had.

Instrumentation:
DSI Poly Evolver Keyboard
DSI Poly Evolver Rack
DSI Prophet '08 Keyboard (2)
DSI Prophet '08 Module
DSI Evolver Desktop
Hammond XPK 200L Pedalboard

Effects:
Lexicon MX300 for reverb
Alesis Nanoverb 2 for delay

Performed and recorded live directly to CD

All music property of Sacred Synthesis"