Ambient cassette w/ Moog Matriarch drone mode, Octatrack, Marantz PMD430, Eventide Space

Published on May 7, 2020 Jay Hosking

"A live, semi-improvised performance, all on hardware, and inspired by the drone mode on the Moog Matriarch. Here I recorded the drone to cassette tape via the Marantz PMD430, along with some mangled samples on the Octatrack. The sound of cassette tape is embedded in my psyche.

While I usually only play the Matriarch in drone mode when I'm looking to relax/decompress, I thought I'd record the results here. It's my first track of this sort, and in retrospect there are things I'd do differently, but as an exploration, I'm happy with this initial foray into droning ambient.

Thanks to friend Matt Campbell for lending me the Marantz.

Moog Matriarch + Eventide Space — drone synth
Elektron Octatrack MkII — samples, performance mixing (via its scenes)
Marantz PMD430 — recording and cassette sound

Written and performed within a 12-hour period, and uploaded as is, with only a little compression/limiting on the master."