Metronomica.blog
jamuary 20, 2025
Drums! Today is drums. For the first time this month.
I’ve had Patterning 3 for a few weeks now, but haven’t been able to commit to using it in a Jamuary track. The drums always felt like a distraction — if I add a beat to a formless soundscape, it puts a lot of pressure on the drums to be interesting. And because of some combination of the time I had, my knowledge of Patterning 3, and my talent, the drums were never really interesting enough.
I’m not convinced that they’re interesting enough today. I think the groove is interesting, but I didn’t have a chance to program any patterns besides the first, and the one fill I have is basically just a mute. The odd extra hits here and there are live-programmed into the existing pattern.
But! This soundscape feels less formless, so there’s less pressure on these drums. The glockenspiel — a new free pickup for Decent Sampler — bounces away in a rhythmic fashion that pulls some of the heavy lifting away from the percussion, and the filtered choir (another new free Decent Sampler instrument) blankets the stereo space with a calming sort of ambience.
Then, the chord organ provides something akin to a melody (though every instrument here besides Patterning 3 runs through a single instance of Fugue Machine, with three playheads going simultaneously), and we almost have a fully fleshed out sketch. Not too bad. Naturally, I’m most interested in the end, when I get rid of the drums, flip the direction of the Weeping Wall plugin on the glockenspiel to reverse, and let that atmosphere lead the track to the finish line.
I’m pretty happy about that from a performance perspective — taking a plugin that was subtly doing its thing the whole song and pushing it to the front of the mix, forcing the issue.
Also, there are drums!
// tags: making music jamuary