The Midnight Sun - An Ambient Jam Session (Blofeld, Specular Tempus, Launchpad Pro)

Lanthan O'Ide

"It's been a while since I last recorded something with my Launchpad, hasn't it?
Well, here's a new ambient track. Enjoy! ^^
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For those playing along at home:
The tempo is at 65 BPM, and the key is C major.

As the LP's note layout is the same for all keys I didn't have a reason to pick a fancy one.
So I just went for one that's easy to jam along to. ;-)
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For those interested in the setup:

Here's a flowchart:
(Expression Pedal) ⇒ DIY MIDI Controller ⇒ Launchpad ⇒ (PC) ⇒ Blofeld ⇒ Specular Tempus
(Devices in parenthesis are off-screen)

Firstoff, that little siver box with the amber lights turns the input from an expression pedal into MIDI pitchbend commands. Its output gets routed to the Lanuchpad.

Now, I've got a custom firmware running on the Launchpad Pro.
It's called Subsequencely and allows me to use the LP as a standalone MIDI controller.

Thanks to some software magic, the notes I play are triggering two different patches on the Blofeld: The higher notes play those little bells, and the lower ones are expanded into full chords for the pads.

To turn single notes into full chords I'm actually using a homebrew VST plugin, nicknamed "Arclight". You can grab that from my website if you'd like to try that out for yourself. ;-)

Ok, but back to the hardware setup.
The Blofeld is running in multi-mode, so it's playing both the melody and the pads.
Then the Specular Tempus slaps a whole lot of reverb on it, and the result get's recorded.
And that's it!"

Website: https://lanthanoide.jimdofree.com/