Door #8: The Little Drummer Boy - Synthmas '21

video upload by Synthfluencer

"Ho-Ho-Ho! This is Synthmas '21, the virtual calendar presenting a Christmas carol played by synthesizers - every day from 1st to 24th of December.

The song:
The American Christmas carol was composed by Katherine K. Davis in 1941 titled 'The Carol of the Drum'. It might trace to a czech carol 'Hajej, nynjej'. Countless cover versions were done by famous artists, including Ray Charles, Neil Diamond, Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez. The song tells the story of a poor boy giving his drum play as a gift to the new born Jesus.

The gear:
The song is played by the Electron Model:Samples. Groove box might be the best description for this sample-based instrument. Samples can be arranged in 6 tracks. The pattern based sequencer can contain up to 4.096 steps (per "project" or song). I divided the songs into 10 different patterns that I switch by hand. Bass drum is a factory sample, snare drum is a sample from a 909. For the bass and lead voice/s I used factory samples of square and sawtooth waves with some filter modulation. On Model:Samples there are some neat sound manipulation features: the drum roll is created with a retrig function. The pitch of a sample can variate trig (= step) -wise, thus melodies can be formed on one and the same track.

Trailer material: Pexels.com (image @seurafrancis99, video @cottonbro)"