Sonicware Liven 8Bit Warps XFM Volca Modular Nord Lead - Downtempo New Age Jam

video upload by ChrisLody

"This jam started off as quite an experimental affair and ended up landing in ambient electronica/downtempo/chilled out/new age music territory. Perhaps because I'm feeling a little nostalgic today. As I've mentioned before on the channel I used to be a carpenter and joiner, I did that for a living for 20 years in fact. To cut a long story short I've decided to go back into the trade after a break of a few years and I'm quite excited but a bit apprehensive, though I've already been out to look at some work and it's only been 3 days since I set up my new Facebook page so that can't be bad 😁 Anyway, my point is this sounds a bit 90s to me which is the decade I was learning the trade. Probably not a coincidence, but it's not even a genre of music I listen to much 🤷‍♂️

So in this jam the Volca Modular has a radio\cassette player plugged into the CV input which is being routed through like it were an oscillator. This enables me to gate the incoming signal. There was some sort of radio play on which gave me plenty of vocal material to work with. I also had to get it done fast though as I wasn't sure when it would finish which is why the video is a bit wonky and blurry on this one, sorry about that.

The radio\cassette in question is a cheap Matsui model that no longer plays tapes but the radio output is impressively loud making it a good fit for playing radio and noise into the Volca Modular

The Sonicware Liven XFM is providing the drums here using a kit that spreads across all 4 track. It's fast becoming my go to drum machine on top of everything else it's good at, more on that in a future video

The Liven 8Bit warps is producing a pad sound using it's lovely lofi FM engine, most of what I'm playing here is improvised. Again I had to work fast so the first good take was the one to use

The Nord Lead is obviously playing the lead sound. Again largely improvised. I learned how to trill on piano recently, maybe a bit too much of that in this to be honest 😄

Effects are provided by the Danelectro Fab Echo on the Nord Lead and the Zoom Studio 1201 routed into my Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 audio interface"