"Sommerfreuden" (Joys of Summer) contains music played exclusively on a Moog Grandmother, recorded on a Tascam DP-24 Multitrack recorder and a TC Electronic M100 Effects processor.
The theme is the happiness and peacefulness of summer, and the melancholy of summer's end.
About Moognase: The project Moognase was created in early 2000 and has been my main electronic project ever since. It is centered around Moog synthesizers of many kinds, for example the Rogue, Prodigy, Micromoog, Voyager, Minitaur, Sub Phatty and, most recently, Grandmother. I focus on one synth only when I'm recording and do not use any DAW.
I hope the album will bring happiness to my listeners.
"(Rapture @ c. 2:19) I thought I'd upload the final work from my set of Oberheim Etudes, a piece which brings the set to a very calm conclusion. I'm considering giving a performance of the set: important to me when writing music for live performance is the mood the audience leaves with. I essentially retired from public performance in 2011 (these days I spend my time helping others with tracks (songwriting/instrumental parts/recording & production etc), plus writing my own music), but I'd maybe crawl out of the woodwork for this set. ;) This piece is more 'requiem' than 'fireworks & bombast'.
Section 1 is the dirt of the earth; the swelling mass of humanity. There's a darkness in the music. Then we have the skyward ascent. If there ever were a rapture - and it were to have a sound - it should be an inverted Db add9 chord :) I wouldn't be shot skyward, but if I were and the sound wasn't an inverted Db add9, I'd have to have words with whoever was in charge :))
On a less flippant note: the add9, being in inverted form (rooted on the 5th), is what creates the sense of 'floating'. If the chord were root position, the music would feel too resolved.
RE the actual sound: this patch took considerable time to program. But it was a worthwhile investment.
"Made sounds on Reaktor synthesizer instrument Razor and modified sounds on Carbon 2 and Kontakt. I added Guitar Rig and Driver effects.
I love that the Razor synthesizer runs the whole gamut of components in its engine, from oscillators, through filters and even reverbs and compressors exclusively through its additive model. Yes! Even the reverbs are created by manipulating individual partials. What blows my mind is that you have different oscillator, filter and effects models that you can drop in to your hearts content. The fact that all this is happening within Reaktor is incredible. Razor is to additive synthesis what Diva by uHe is to virtual analog synthesis.
The sound that I made with Razor is done completely from scratch. This is was super fun to program and I was happy with the sound design results I got.
I was able to add some expressiveness, even without a dedicated control surface, by assigning some vowel parameters from the formant oscillator (a big reason why I got this) to aftertouch. Some other settings were also set to velocity, modwheel and pitchbend.
It can be a bit of a drag on CPU for older computers but well worth it for its left-field sounds and ease of use for sound design and production.
Carbon 2 is also a Reaktor instrument but a little bit older. I got through a Reaktor player bundle of some sort. I picked a preset that sounded rather good, modified it a bit and added saturation which worked well with the off-kilter quality of the sound.
Finally, the weakest of the bunch is Kontakt player library sound which I spruced up a little with Guitar Rig to add some heat to what was otherwise some lackluster sampled instrument.
We hope you enjoy this. Random shots of cats and plants occasionally cut through the screen capture of Ableton Live 9, my DAW of choice.
