Roland SH101-SH32 loop jam, analogue vs digital synthesisers in the forest. A hedgehop video remix

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Dragged out the SH32 again, this time I looped it to make use of different sounds and it's drum samples. Got a bit stuck in a groove in the windy hollow and after a failed attempt at recording a live overdub, I decided to layer the drums and bass to beef up the sound a bit.
The video overdub is from the Draca Caves in Mallorca 17th July 2023.

Roland SH101 analogue synth into Boss DD6 delay pedal
Roland SH32 into Boss RV5 reverb pedal into Boss RC500 loop pedal
Midronome clock
Tascam DR40 audio recorder
Roland Street Cube Ex amplifier

composed and performed by Keith Sutton
Brandyhole Copse, Chichester, 26th June 2023"

Sunset on the Centurion Way. Outdoor jam as the sun sets with just an MC101

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Wrote my newest track as a personal one-hour challenge before cycling off to meet an old mate on the Centurion Way, a cycle path using the old Chichester to Midhurst railway line.
Just MC101 this time, no looper. Really loving the long reverbs :)

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton
21st May 2023"

Ambient drone jam across the South Downs via modulated light beam with SH101 Crave MC101 birdsong

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Original drone jam in Brandy Hole woods with SH101 and Crave. The Crave was triggered using the 101's internal sequencer and this was the recording with all the birdsong.

The audio from this session was then transmitted the following day, via light, from Butser Hill to the Trundle, 12 miles away. The audio modulates the intensity of a bright red LED and a lens is used to form a beam. The white flashing light on the Trundle is the locator for the LED transmitter, once the LED is pointing towards the white light, the scope is used to align the receiver's photo diode. The output from the photo diode is then converted to audio and played through the Cube. This was recorded live with additional sounds from the MC101.

Future plan is to build a couple of two-way transmitters/receivers, so that light-speed communication can be established between the hilltops. Greater distances are being tested too.

Roland SH101 synth
Behringer Crave synth
Roland MC101 synth/samples
Boss DD6 delay
Roland Street Cube Ex amplifier
Tascam DR40 field recorder

Music composed and performed by Keith Sutton
10th and 11th May 2023"

ambient drone in the forest with acoustic guitar through 8 FX pedals and analog/digital synth loops

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Finally got round to jamming with Pete Ferguson who was the drone-master with Across the Sea.

He grabs sounds from his guitar with his freeze pedals and then layers them into immense drones. His set up:

ESP LTD A300 Electro-acoustic Guitar - EHX Freeze - Jim Dunlop Cry-baby Wah - EHX Nano Pog - Dr Tone Analogue Chorus - MXR Phase 90 - Dr Tone Analogue Delay - EHX Freeze - EHX Oceans 11 Reverb
and an EBow.

I'm using the 101 for a mono drone and looping bits from the micro korg through a reverb pedal and then playing them backwards.

Roland SH-101 - Boss DD6
Korg Microkorg XL - Boss RV6 - Boss RC500

Goodwood 22nd April 2023"

A Blue Forest - analogue/digital hedge-hopping amongst the bluebells, looping sequences from SH-101

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Jamming in the woods with my new master clock - a Midronome. I can now easily sync my analogue synths with my sequencer, which in the woods means the battery-powered Roland Sh101. Here, I am writing random sequences and then looping them so they can be layered and reversed.

Roland SH101 synth
Roland MC101 sequencer
Boss RC500 looper
Boss DD6 delay
Midronome master clock
Roland Cube Street Ex ampflifier
Tascam DR40 audio recorder

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton
30th April 2023"

Hedge-hopping at dusk as the rain starts to fall | Roland MC101 through Boss RC500 stereo looper :)

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"I took my Crave up to my forest studio to play a track I'm currently working on but I forgot it's power supply. And it started to rain. Rather than pack up and return to civilisation, I decided to have a jam with just the MC101 and the looper to see what I could come up with, whilst deflecting raindrops with my telekinetic powers.

'Glowingly Foolish' is a joint composition with myself and the Ukranian music artist Dmitry Postovalov. Dmitry wrote and recorded the Kalimba samples and we are working on a collaborative e.p. together. His channel here is:

/ @bayunthecat4042

Roland MC-101 - sequencer/synth module
Boss RC500 - looper pedal
Tascam DR40 - audio recorder
Roland Cube Street Ex - amplifier

Composed by Keith Sutton and Dmitry Postovalov
Performed by Keith Sutton
Goodwood 16th February 2023"

ambient one-synth drone jam with SH-32 in an early 12th century Norman church at dusk - creepy vibe!

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"After setting up in my forest studio to jam some ambient synth loops, it started to rain pretty hard so I had to pack up with haste. I decided to try a new spot that I had in mind - a 900 year old church in a field in a tiny village called Upwaltham, situated in the South Downs national park.

I had an old synth with me that I've only just realised I could run on battery power, however, I forgot both my lithium batteries having put them on charge earlier! So I had to run it off of 6AA batteries I had with me for the looper and with the synth drawing a whole 1A, it only lasted for about 20 mins before powering off.

Roland SH-32
Boss RV6
Roland Cube Street Ex
Tascam DR40

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton 19th December 2022"

Tales From the Hedge No.3 - acid hedge-hop in the forest with no snow! Synths outside: MC101 TD3

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Thought I'd try to get a video with some snow falling but whilst the rest of the country received a dusting, here on the South Downs it just rained. It was so warm that I could play without gloves on!
This was my rehearsal take but as you can hear at the end, it had started to rain and so this is what I got before packing up :)

I'm running the 101 through the looper so that I can record parts into it, freeing up tracks on the 101 for other parts, whilst also getting to use the reverse feature.

Oh and nearly forgot...the small mound at the end of the video is a tumulus - a small barrow probably linked to the iron-age hill fort on the Trundle close by.

Roland MC101
Behringer TD3
Boss RC500
Boss DD6


Composed and performed by Keith Sutton
Goodwood 11th December 2022"

Under The Winter Sun - slow ambient one synth jam in the forest | Microkorg XL, Boss RV6 RC500 + DD7

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"First video of this track that I wrote last winter (original composition: https://soundcloud.com/keith-sutton/u...)
Had fun recording this one with the looper set to play the first loop in reverse.
Goodwood 19th Nov 2022

Korg Microkorg XL synth
Boss RV6 reverb
Boss RC500 looper
Boss DD6 delay
Roland Cube Street Ex amp
DR-40 audio recorder

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton"

drone-in-the-woods live performance for Ambient Leeds with DAW-less setup Juno6 Poly800 MC101 MFC42

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Back in the spring I had the amazing experience of playing a solo set in the Wharf Chambers in Leeds to an attentive seated audience. It's taken a few months for me to be able to listen to it but some very kind words out of the blue have motivated me to fix the audio and put some FX on the video.

Ambient Leeds
Wharf Chambers
20th April 2022

CHAPTERS
00:00 – Under the Winter Sun
11:19 – Sunset*
23:00 – Beyond The Horizon
34:55 – From The Spring
44:44 – Squirrel Song

Roland Juno 6 analogue synth into Boss RC500 looper
Korg Poly 800 analogue synth into Akai MFC42 analogue filter
Roland MC-101 sequencer
Boss SE-50 reverb

all tracks composed and performed by Keith Sutton 200422"

ambient folly - looping improvisation at Racton Ruin on the South Downs with Microkorg XL and RC500

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"My first attempt at producing an ambient track by only looping my newly acquired Korg Microkorg XL. I'm still discovering cool sounds and digging deeper into editing but am already confident I've made the right switch from the Gaia.
The bass sound I used in this track is just mahoosively subby and something in the chain was distorting here and there but I've left those bits in to retain the live one-take feel of the video. Some of the arpeggio timing is a bit wobbly too, but I've since discovered key sync and switched it on :)
I'm surprised to find no hold function on the Microkorg and the lack of a MIDI THRU is pretty frustrating. Nonetheless it is a fantastically feature-rich and incredibly portable instrument.

Korg Microkorg XL
Boss RC500
Boss DD7
Roland Cube Street Ex
Tascam DR40

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton
Racton Ruin 2nd September 2022"

The Monument 101-101 | forest-jamming analogue synth loops with Roland SH101 + MC101 & Boss RC500

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Having decided to finally ditch the Gaia and whilst patiently waiting for a Microkorg to turn up at the right price, I've been using less synths recently but using the MIDI synced looper to create additional layers. Portability is key and I can fit all this into one case.

Planning on recording a 'studio' version of this track soon with Nigel on Gyil.

Roland SH101
Roland MC101
Boss RC500
Boss DD6
Roland Street Cube Ex
Tascam DR40

The Monument performed 27th July 2022
Composed by Keith Sutton"

Tales from the Hedge no.3 | ambient-chill amongst the bluebells with vintage SH101 synced with MC101

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Recorded in springtime back in the copse where drone-in-the-woods started out.
The looper pedal is stereo with one side syncing the sh101 and the other side looping it later in the piece.

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton
29th April 2022

Roland SH101
Roland MC101
Boss RC500
Boss DD6
Roland Cube Street Ex
Tascam DR4"

Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush) | outdoor daw-less acid-synth jam at dusk in a field of daisies

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Preparations underway for the next drone-in-the-woods public performance at Glastonbury Festival.
Chill-time slot on the Mandala Stage in the Green Futures Field on Sunday at 4:30pm.

Roland MC101
Behringer Crave
Behringer TD3

Chichester 10th June 2022"

drone-in-the-woods | Sunset* - ambient mix with Poly800 through Akai MFC42 analog filter Juno6 MC101

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

drone-in-the-woods | Beyond The Horizon - ambient space-trance workout in the woods SH101 MC101 TD3

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"The second track from my analogue synthesiser session up Goodwood in the cold of winter. It was really getting dark so I've had to increase the brightness of the video massively. I've also applied some home-made analogue effects as an experiment.

Vocal samples of Swati Mohan in the NASA control room for the landing of Perseverance on Mars 2021.

Original track was composed for Aural Films' Mars Perseverance compilation album which was released on the day of the landing: https://auralfilms.bandcamp.com/track...

Roland SH101
Roland MC101
Behringer Td3

Composed and performed by Keith Sutton 25th Feb 2022

Ambient origin mix: https://soundcloud.com/keith-sutton/d..."

Il s'appelle George | acid-in-the-woods jam with one sequencer and 2 analogue synths SH101 MC101 TD3

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"A track I wrote for my cat 3 years ago but I've only just sorted out for live.

His name is George"

The Monument - live ambient music in the woods with Nigel Rippon on gyil (West African xylophone)

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

Half an hour before this session it was pouring with rain, but it was the last day of the storms down South and we sheltered from the receding winds on the side of the hill.
This was the first of three tracks recorded during that session, and you can see and hear the wind in the trees above us whilst Nigel improvises flowing patterns on his gyil overtop of the track that I started writing in my last video.

Nigel Rippon - Gyil
Keith Sutton - Roland SH101 Roland MC101 Roland Gaia Sh01

Goodwood 22nd February 2022"

An Analogue Winter - synthesiser jam in the woods with Roland SH-101 and Korg Poly-800 on batteries

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Analogue synth jam in the woods with SH101 through Ibanez SS-10 distortion/chorus pedal.
SH101 and Poly800 looped with Boss RC30 through Boss DD6 delay pedal.

Audio/video recorded in Goodwood on December 3rd 2021 with additional footage from Field of Blooms at Chichester Cathedral taken the same day.

Composed and produced by Keith Sutton."

Nite Nite Pheasants - autumnal colours and ambient synths in the woods with MC-101 and Gaia Sh-01

video upload by drone-in-the-woods

"Live performance up Goodwood with just enough warmth to play without gloves on! I had tried to get this one right at a couple of different spots for a weeks or so but I knew when heading up the hill this time that I was going to get a first take :) After grabbing all the footage I went on to the Pillbox in Graffham woods to just dodge the rain and record my next one."