Nocturnal Transmission: Writing/Production

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Geekery, Livestream, Music, Nocturnal Transmission, Reason

I fully intend to do a live-stream at some point (which I may include below if I remember!) specifically detailing some of the production decisions behind Nocturnal Transmission, but I thought in the meantime I’d take this opportunity to write a bit about how I ended up writing & producing it.I mentioned in my previous blog post that I got into a bit of a musical flow-state when writing tracks for this release, so I figured I’d expand a little on what that actually entailed.

One of the best things I find about writing music in general is that, for me, it’s primarily an autotelic process – that there is a newly created piece of music at the other end is one hell of a result but, when it’s something I truly enjoy writing, the process itself is its own reward. This was very much the case for the entirety of Nocturnal Transmission – expanding on some of the necessary restrictions enforced during my live-stream music making sessions, I ended up committing to sound choices very quickly (I’ll get to more on that in a bit). In a way, this in itself would go on to inform the direction of a track – by not spending hours and hours obsessing over individual elements I was able to get ideas down quickly and work with those initial impressions before “unravelling” them accordingly.

There was more of a reliance on established processes with this particular album than pretty much anything else I’ve worked on, which really helped to overcome any creative obstacles that might have cropped up otherwise. It also had the added benefit of totally removing any notion of worrying about how to get ideas down – the first track, Silhouette, worked as a bit of a template in this regard, and one which would form the backbone of things to come.

My Virus Snow Ti – used frequently on Nocturnal Transmission

For most of the tracks I initially focussed on getting a good 16 bar chunk of audio to use as a backbone for the entire track. This typically involved starting with either a synth or sample of some sort, which would invariably end up getting sliced up and re-purposed into something different. Around this I would add drums from a particular palette (in this instance, mostly sourced from Wave Alchemy’s excellent Drumvolution), additional synth flourishes/arps courtesy of an Access Virus Snow Ti or Spire, some synth chord stabs courtesy of Massive, and then I’d just kind of run with whatever worked from there. It was a nice system, and one which helped me get a solid 16 bar frame-work down quite quickly.

From this point I would start to unravel the track from this 16 bar block – again, this is something I tend to do a lot during my streams, so it felt very natural to arrange these tunes in a non-linear fashion here. I’d start with the barest elements from my pre-existing block to use as an intro and work toward the point I had already established, varying elements and letting things take their time just enough to give it a bit of a hypnotic groove – hopefully without getting to boring or repetitive! Along the way I’d inevitably end up adding more parts, but all of the time I was very conscious not to go overboard with the track-count – I’m happy to admit that a lot of my releases rely a lot on creating dense textures though lots of instrumentation, but that was totally not what I wanted to go for with these tracks. This gave me plenty of space to play with really long delays, reverb washes, and so on.

Another one of the key things that differentiated my approach to Nocturnal Transmission as opposed to a lot of my other releases is that I really wasn’t worried about repeating techniques and sounds across tracks. A part of that came about as a result of not really planning on releasing it initially, but also I figured it would help the tunes sit together better as a collection if there were shared elements in there. Despite starting with essentially a blank slate with every single tune, I never felt as though I was re-inventing the wheel for the sake of it.

All of these factors came together in forming what I hesitate to call an almost methodical approach to production – an approach that, given the appropriate mind-set, meant that I could focus on exercising both compositional and arrangement creative muscles sequentially, never exhausting one before moving onto the other. This is essentially what I mean when I talk about being in a musical flow-state – that perfect balance between expression and creativity where you’re not tiring yourself out, but challenged just enough to make it incredibly fun and rewarding to work on. And it was great!

I’ve mentioned that some of these techniques may seem familiar to anyone who’s watched my recent live-stream music making sessions, but what was particularly interesting to me is that I varied my approach just enough that I would consider the resulting music to sound very much distinct from the music produced during those streams. I would imagine that having a general vibe in mind and working intensely over an incredibly tight time-frame played a large part in that – my live-stream tunes tend to go a bit all over the place stylistically, whereas this was very much a more focussed look at a very particular mood.

The “continuous mix” version of the album sort of came about after I’d finished writing the second track, In Motion. I hadn’t planned it, but I was curious as to how these first two tracks would work mixed together so I fired up a separate session to simply mix the two tracks together. It worked really nicely, and as I continued writing tracks I just kept adding them to my “continuous mix” session to see if they would work. My initial plan was to re-order the tracks to help sit better in this mix, but by the time I was finished I figured it already worked as a continuous listen… I didn’t want to overcomplicate things (again, very much the order of the day with this entire album really!), and I really liked that the tracks were just ordered chronologically in the order in which they were written. Gives it a bit more of a sense of directness, if that makes any sense.

Nocturnal Transmission is available NOW through Bandcamp. You can listen to it in its entirety and download it from my Bandcamp page. Bandcamp subscribers and Patreon supporters also get access to an exclusive audiophile master. It’s also available to stream & download from a wide variety of digital distribution outlets.

Nocturnal Transmission

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Livestream, Music, Nocturnal Transmission, October Sessions

Nocturnal Transmission is an album written during October 2020. It’s a bit of a love-letter to late 90s/early 00s ambient techno/breaks with a distinctly late-night/early-morning feel, and includes a 1 hour DJ-style mix for continuous listening (which is how it was intended to be heard). You can download it from Bandcamp in the format of your choice, or alternatively it’s on most major streaming platforms right now.

I thought I’d take this as a little opportunity to talk about how the album came about and how it ended up getting the release it did. Every year-or-so I have a bit of a tradition of writing as much music as I possibly can during October – it’s always been a fun creative exercise, and sometimes acts as a much needed creative binge between other projects. This year I figured I’d give it a miss as I figured I had that particular creative outlet covered with my live-stream music-making sessions.

Nocturnal Transmission cover art

Around November last year I had gone on a bit of an ambient techno/d&b binge, listening to tons of music by the likes of The 7th Plain, Nail, and Baraka (I also listened to a lot of music by Sasha but that’s pretty much a steady constant these days!). As we approached a similar seasonal feel this year I thought it’d be fun to try writing something in that style – it’s actually something I’ve long wanted to try out, but it’s a vibe I’ve never really been able to fully nail down. I ended up writing the first of what would turn out to be many tracks, Silhouette, using a lot of techniques familiar to anyone who has watched my live-streams but with a sonic palette more appropriate to the era in which I was referencing. It felt so good to work towards a somewhat familiar sound while putting my own spin on it, and I quickly fell into a bit of what I’ll refer to as a creative flow-state.

Over the course of the month I decided to keep revisiting that feeling with no expectations or end goal in mind. Urged on by friends who seemed to “get” what I was going for, I started playing around with mixing the tracks into one continuous mix as I went along. The entire process of creation was a purely self-indulgent exercise – I was enjoying the process, and I was really looking forward to giving it a proper spin when it was “finished” in November! It’s a rare thing to hit such a readily-flowing creative vein so intensely like that, so I really wanted to make the most of it. Lots of lengthy production sessions ensued in which I just kept working on tracks with no real concern about how I was putting it together – I just wanted it to match that November mood I had already established in my head.

Once I’d completed the 12th track (Lucidity) I decided to call it a day and move on. I felt like I needed a break from this particular excursion, and I wanted to quit while I was still enjoying the process. At this point I decided to put together a master and look at sorting out some cover art – even at this point I didn’t really have any real intention to give it a “proper” release, I just thought it’d be cool to have a cover to go with it! I figured I’d leave it for a bit, then decide what exactly to do with in terms of releasing it should I decide to do so – there was no rush, it was just a fun thing that I’d worked on during October.

After a short amount of time listening back to the album I realised that I did in fact want to release it. There was something about the overall feel of it that I just really wanted to share, regardless of my initial intentions or how it would be received. I already mentioned that the entire project was purely self-indulgent, but I think there’s a kind of playfulness to that which I wanted to strike while it still felt fresh in my mind. As such, I released it immediately to my Patreon supporters and Bandcamp subscribers while working out a release through Spotify et al.

And that’s the story of how I ended up accidentally writing an album in October. In recent years I’ve very much become a fan of seizing spontaneity and making the most of prior experience, and given the swift production and release cycle the whole thing still feels incredibly new to me. It has a sort of directness that I’m not accustomed to experiencing with my releases, and the short turnaround made any sort of concerted promotional effort kind of redundant on my part. It is what it is, and it feels great to be sharing such a recent expression of myself with you in this way. I’d love to talk more about how the album was put together from a more technical perspective, but for now I just hope some of you enjoy it.

Nocturnal Transmission is available NOW through Bandcamp. You can listen to it in its entirety and download it from my Bandcamp page. Bandcamp subscribers and Patreon supporters also get access to an exclusive audiophile master. It’s also available to stream & download from a wide variety of digital distribution outlets.

October Sessions: Out Now

Posted Leave a commentPosted in General, Livestream, Music, October Sessions, Subscribers

October Sessions is my latest Bandcamp exclusive release. If you’re already a subscriber, you can download it immediately in the format of your choice. If you’re not, then I’d say with three albums, one single, and a ton of other exclusive goodies in the bag that now is a pretty damn good time to check it out! (this reminds me, I really ought to upgrade that crappy video at some point)

October Sessions is an album consisting of previously unreleased tunes written and produced entirely during October 2014.

I’m really happy with how this particular release turned out, though between PiecesObscurer, and The Broken Divide all coming out between 2014 – 2016, I never really felt like I had an opportune moment to release it… until now!

As with Traces, I’ve also put together a preview mix for non-subscribers if you want to get a feel for the album in general.

On a related note, I may or may not be continuing my October Sessions tradition this October due to some pretty big circumstantial variables (i.e. “I might be moving house & studio”), but it’s something I’d really love to re-visit again and see what pops out. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds 🙂

I’ve been focussing on writing a lot of production music this year, which has seen me trying out some heavier styles than I guess you’d typically associate with me – it’s been a ton of fun to work on those, and I’m looking forward to seeing where those tunes end up.

I’ve also had a few people asking me about my lack of live streaming lately – I haven’t given up entirely on those, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to give the usual “I’ve been quite busy” excuse with regards to why I haven’t done any for a while now. It’s definitely something I’d love to get back into – right now I feel like I should at least do one final live stream from my current studio before I move, but I’d like to get moved and re-settled before I really get back into those.

Live-streaming and trailer placements, ahoy!

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Livestream, Production music, Reason, Tutorials

So – about that live-stream I mentioned last time? Well… I had a blast! Thanks so much to everyone who turned up, and for those of you who missed it… here’s a link to the archived version on Youtube.

Unfortunately, due to some encoding issues on my end (at least, I’m presuming that’s the case), the video gets pretty garbled at points during the second half. The audio remains fine throughout, but I hope to have this problem sorted for next time.

(For anyone interested: I was streaming to Twitch using OBS – I decided to try using the Apple Hardware x264 encoder (because hardware encoding = better, right? RIGHT?!), only to realise that hardware encoding with an integrated video processor was a really dumb choice. I’ve since switched to the “vanilla” x264 encoder and set the profile to “veryfast”, and tested it under a similar CPU load which performed without any hitches… so hopefully that’ll do the trick)

For anyone who just wants to check out the result of this two hour music making session – look no further!

Also – I was careful during the creation process not to use a huge amount of external samples or protected sounds, outside of some lovely free drums from Samplephonics and a patch from Tom Pritchard’s Vast Refill (which is an outright STEAL for $9.99, in my honest opinion). I got in touch with both guys to double-check that I’d be ok to post the project file, and they both gave me the go ahead so… if you’re a Reason 8 user, here’s the project file! Please note that it uses a few Rack Extensions, so you’re likely to end up with at least a few RE placeholders in there.

I fully intend to make live-streaming a regular thing, and I’ve got a few ideas in mind for what I’d like to do next. I won’t be writing a new song live every week (because, yeah, realistically that might be a bit much), but I’d love to dive into some old songs to examine techniques, talk about sound design, and generally open the floor up to discussing stuff while I’m in my studio. I’m tentatively slating the same time next Wednesday (24th Feb, 7pm GMT) for a “dissection” session (where I’ll examine one or more old tunes, open to requests), so we’ll see how it goes! I’ll post a confirmation once I’ve had some time to think about it.

If you want to join me for the next session, head over to my Twitch channel and be sure to subscribe!

SO. While I was busy waffling on and insulting my audience during my live-stream (still not entirely sure what possessed me to insinuate that part of my audience may have been dicks but, hey, there we go), I got a rather interesting e-mail confirming that one of my trailer cues from last year had been placed in a trailer for a film called Identicals. You can check out the trailer below – my music starts right around the studio logo at 0:24, and continues throughout.

So… yeah, you know. No big deal.

*shakes uncontrollably*