New Directions

New Directions

This is the continuation of this and this post after yet another year of practice.

All tracks are real-time compositions (i.e. musical improvisation) played in 2024 at my home studio. It’s just me, and all you hear is played live with no overdups (here is a video where you can see how this works; note that I play the drums with my feet and the bass with my left hand).

I directly record all MIDI inputs using MidiSink (see the source code on Github) which permanently runs in the background; so I don’t have to explicitly start the recording and even forget that there is one, and the result is about 200k per hour. The MIDI files can later be imported into Logic Pro together with the patch of my MainStage live setup for identical reproduction.

The following files were created with this new concept. I loaded iZotope Ozone directly into the master bus, eliminating the need for a separate mastering step. Otherwise, I just rendered the parts of the session that seemed interesting directly to MP3.

In this recording I introduce new guitar and bass sounds. You won’t hear a single piano, but a lot of guitar voicings and solos on different guitar models.

Here is the music (License: Creative Commons by-nc-sa):

Upright bass + piano, jazz drum set, acoustic guitar + pad:

2024-02-08/6 2024-02-08/5

Upright bass, jazz drum set, jazz guitar + pad:

2024-02-11/2 2024-02-11/1

2024-02-18/1 2024-02-18/4 2024-02-18/5 2024-02-18/7 2024-02-18/9 2024-02-18/10

Slap bass, funk drum set, jazz guitar + pad:

2024-03-22/2 2024-03-30/5 2024-03-30/7

Fingered bass, studio drum set, jazz guitar + pad:

2024-04-10/7 2024-04-10/8

Slap bass, studio drum set, jazz + acoustic guitar + pad:

2024-04-29/2 2024-04-29/3 2024-04-29/4 2024-04-29/7 2024-04-29/8 2024-04-29/9

Slap bass, pop drum set, studio horns + B3 + pad:

2024-05-11/3 2024-05-11/7 2024-05-11/9

Fretless bass, yamaha drum set, acoustic guitar + pad:

2024-07-03/6 2024-07-03/5 2024-07-03/8 2024-07-03/7
2024-07-03/9 2024-07-03/10 2024-07-03/11

The acoustic guitar is the Amplesound Alhambra Luthier plugin, which I already have since 2022. The jazz guitar is the Amplesound Gibson ES 335 plugin which I bought in February. The upright bass is a modified Weathered from the Spectrasonics Trilian plugin. The slap bass is the Ample Bass J which I have since March. The fretless bass is the Ample Bass JF which I have since late June (with custom compressor and amp settings). The drum kit is the EZDrummer Jazz plugin. The horn secion and Hammond B3 are the built-in plugins of the Apple MainStage application. It all runs on a Mac mini (M1, 16 GB, SSD). I use the 73 key keyboard from the Yamaha Motif and the Studiologic MP-117 pedalboard.