Just me, my didj and a big space. 2005-11-07

After finishing the last track, which was very structured, here's a guitar improvisation. Just a Strat, an EBow and a big, reverberant space. 2005-11-06

I added a couple more guitar tracks for variety and really worked on the mix. It's done, at least for the moment. It's been an interesting experience, building this piece in public. It's also been interesting for me to go back to a method that I haven't used in a long time. I've learned a lot about working with Cubase as well. I never cease to be amazed at the options that are now available for a relatively small amount of money these days.2005-11-05

Beginning to wrap things up. I changed a number of sounds, thinned out the arrangement and adjusted lots of levels. We're getting near the end here. 2005-11-04

I added a guitar track and did a lot more tweaking. Now the middle section doesn't sound so much like The Orb anymore. I think most of the parts are there, so now it's time to really start cutting away at it and give it some form and space. 2005-11-03

I've messed around a bit more with structure, tweaked a few tracks and added a new one. I've also started playing around with mix automation which I haven't done in many years. This is also a MIDI-heavy track, and that's kind of fun. Every since direct to disk recording became easy to do, MIDI has taken a bit of a back seat for me, so it's nice to flex some old muscles. 2005-11-02

A preliminary pass at adding a second section. The sounds and effects are still sketches. It feels as if we've left 70's New York for 90's London. 2005-11-01

Did some tweaking and added something on the low end. 2005-10-31

Next step in the development. I've added another track and made a lot of modifications as far as the routing sounds to the delays go. Just trying to thin it out a bit to give the echoes more room to breathe. 2005-10-30

No big change, I just added another instrument doing something slightly different. 2005-10-29

I've carved it up a bit and let the delays take more of a role. We'll see where this leads us. 2005-10-28

All these delay pieces have inspired me to go back to a way I worked a long time ago - slowly building up layers to create a soundscape and then cutting away sections to form a structure. Over the next few days I'll be doing that with this track. 2005-10-27

I've brought back the EBow. This is using the harmonized delays and the four loopers. Other than that, no tricks, just a guitar improvisation. 2005-10-26

I was pleased with the way this setup worked with traditional backing, so I tried it with non-traditional accompaniment. I had the feedback machine play along with the track from the 23rd. 2005-10-25

After listening to yesterday's track a couple of times, I thought it might go well with other instruments. I took all the delays and synced them to a tempo and added a fairly traditional rhythm section to it, playing a slow groove. 2005-10-24

Still exploring what can be done with a guitar and multiple delays. This one has four harmonized multitap delays going into four cycling loops with different lengths. Once again, most of the effects used are free: Harm-Z, Delayifier and Looplex. 2005-10-23

I used the same setup as yesterday, but this time, I played with my EBow and, finally, a new scale. I also dug out another old piece of gear - my SansAmp. I have the very first model, from when they were being built in the back room of Rogue Music on 30th St. in NYC. I used it to thicken the guitar sound a bit. 2005-10-22

This one is made of lots of looping and multitap delays put into a beautiful acoustic space. Still guitar-based, and still the same scale I've playing around with for days. Almost all of the effects I'm using are freeware - some of them are quite amazing. The C3 multiband compressor from Slim Slow Slider and ApluSoft is a must-have. I'm using it for both limiting and maximizing on this track. I'm also using the mda Looplex and ExSIMultitap - both freeware as well. One impo

Upon review, I found that the tracks from the 16th through the 20th had some problems related to encoding them as MP3s, so I've remixed them so they work better in that format. By the way, if you use iTunes, I strongly recommend that you go into "Preferences" and under the "Playback" settings, turn the effect called "Soundcheck" off. It will balance out the volume levels, but it does not work well for dense classical music and lots of ambient tracks like these. 2005-10-16200

I'm using yesterday's setup with the MIDI guitar, but I've changed the synth patch to something a bit more simple. I also had to tweak the harmonizers a bit to get them better in tune with what I'm playing. This setup is fun to play with - I feel like I've got a new toy. 2005-10-20