composing in horrible conditions

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:03 am

I'm in Tokyo right now, where I used to live, for summer vacation. My composing tools are all in Miami. All that I have right now is my powerbook 15" 1gig RAM with Tracktion 2, Kontakt 2, a bunch of free vsti and vst effects, and a bunch of sound fonts. (and triton as controller)

I get an e-mail from a friend in shanghai, and the person wants me to write a demo song, and to make a long story short, I'm stuck with whatever I have right now to write a tune.

here's my setup in my living room:

Mixing under fatal conditions:

With a little help from this little buddy (shure e3c):

The living has another set of big speakers, powered with this vintage gear:

What does the song sound like? I didn't post this in the songs forum because it's not a scope composition at all. Anyway, the piece has a very strange groove that's very loosely quantized and out of time in a funky way.. It's done in hiphop all the time but not much with house. (I don't think) But it definitely has a new sounding groove to it. Pretty much repeats itself. We'll see if the vocals can juice it up a bit.

http://www.iface.ne.jp/~ken/mypictures/sonjatrack2.mp3

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2005-07-13 07:09 ]</font>

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:29 am

Ambient lounge funk ? Perky

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:12 am

Man! We have GOT to do something together!

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:06 pm

Sounds rather nice.. funky broken beats kinda stuff. Do you know UK stuff like Atjazz, DKD, Mark de Clive Lowe, Kaidi Taitham, Bugs in the Attic etc.. I think you'd really get into the kind of production those guys do.

I can't imagine how you'd mix on that ghettoblaster tho..

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:28 pm

cool, didn't know there were that many people doing this kinda stuff. Small world.

Also, I've raved about the e3c before, but I can't stress enough it's value in this production. I'd imagine the e4c or the e5c (the even better models) take us yet another step closer to a mobile mixing environment. Although I'm still skeptical of earphone only mixing, I'm surprised it was workable at all. New era of mixing? Portable monitors?

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:03 pm

Everything is relative. Ten years ago this would have been a dream setup. I'm working more with the laptop. Particularly I like Reason, Absynth and SIR.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: braincell on 2005-07-13 19:04 ]</font>

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:38 pm

Super cool sound Ken! Love it!

Very musical.

That makes me think that we sometimes overdue things, becuase we have so many plugins at hand, particularly free VST effects and synths.

The Rhodes sound is SUPERB!

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:41 pm

ATW: It sounds very much like the early Vanelli times... Ken, do you know Gino Vanelli work? If you don't, you should as it is very much in your style. Have a go, particularly with Brother to Brother, it's great! Cheers.