AndreasKrebsBlog

First piece of music this year. This is a rather “old-fashioned” one, I hope you will enjoy it!

Instruments used: Doepfer A-100, GForce M-Tron.

I’m starting with a little sequence: three A-110 VCOs (two triangle waves and a sawtooth) through an A-108 Ladder Filter (24 dB lowpass mode), an A-188-1x BBD and then an A-132-3 VCA. Filter and VCA are controlled by an A-140 ADSR, VCO frequency is controlled by an A-155/154/156 Sequencer with Quantizer. (The A-154 is triggered by a master clock.) At around 3:02, the sequence sounds quite unharmonic. This is due to some “spicing up” via heavy BBD frequency modulation… (listen closely and you will recognize the slight delay)

Straight from the beginning, we hear a percussive voice: this is made with several kinds of noise (A-117 / A-118) sent through an A-182-1 (flanger/delay mode) or an A-188-2 Tapped BBD, respectivly and then switched rhythmically with a combination of an A-182-1 Switched Multiple (manual pre-selection) and an A-152 Addressed Switch (driven by a master clock). Then we go into an A-124 Wasp Filter and an A-132-3 VCA. Filter and VCA are controlled by an A-140 ADSR.

The M-Tron (starting ca. 0:30) is used for melody / chord stuff, I like those cheesy flutes (and others) quite a lot… Played directly via keyboard (LMK2+ in split mode).

The percussive voice is soon (ca. 1:57) accompanied by a bassdrum-alike sound: white noise (from an A-118) through an A-105 SSM VCF and an A-132-3 VCA. To create some atomatic bvariations on drum length / tone, the Filter and VCA are controlled by an A-142 VC Decay (with a random variation on decay length via A-149-1 Stored Random Voltages).

Starting at ca. 4:05, reappearing ca. 8:28, there’s a solo (doodle) voice: two A-111 VCOs, one being processed by an A-137-1, the other by an A-137-2 and then mixed with some sub-octaves from an A-115 and finally filtered with an A-106-6 XP VCF (24dB lowpass mode). VCA is another A-132-3, VCA and VCF controlled by an A-140 ADSR. After this, an A-127 Triple Resonance Filter is used in conjunction with an A-138m Matrix Mixer: the three individual outputs of the A-127 are spread in stereo via two output channels of the matrix mixer. This voice is played directly via keyboard (LMK2+ in split mode).

Finally - after ca. 5 minutes - you will hear a sequenced bass line: another three A-110 VCOs (pulse width modulated square waves) through an A-101-3 Phaser and then then an A-108 Ladder Filter (24 dB lowpass mode) and an A-132-3 VCA. VCF and VCA are controlled by an A-140 ADSR, VCO frequency is controlled by another A-155/154 Sequencer.

Both seqencers are transposed manually via keyboard (LMK2+ in split mode, connected through a Kenton Midi interface). Recorded and mixed with Ableton Live, Mastered with Steinberg Cubase 6.

Here we go:

http://www.andreaskrebs.de/asets/media/improvisation-20110131a.mp3

Track length: 12:03.

Have fun,

Andreas

Here’s a new one:

http://www.andreaskrebs.de/assets/media/improvisation-20101206a.mp3

Track length: 27:34.

This is something about messing around with rhythm. You will have to wait for more than 12 minutes before you can hear the first melody.

We have four “drum” voices:

a) Digital noise from an A-117 is processed by an A-105 SSM lowpass filter.

b) White noise from an A-118 is processed by an A-189 Bit Modifier and then by an A-106-6 XPander Filter (4 pole bandpass used).

c) An “808″ sound (6 oscillators) from an A-117 are processed by an A-188-1 BBD and then by an A-101-1 Vactrol filter (bandpass used).

d) Colored noise from an A-118 is processed by two A-106-1 Xtreme filters (serial connection), first one as a lowpass filter, second one as a highpass. There is an A-199 Spring Reverb in the feedback path of the first A-106-1 and an A-126 Frequency Shifter in the feedback path of the second one.

All four voices are mixed and sent through an A-101-2 Lowpass Gate, an A-188-2 Tapped BBD and then into an A-101-3 Phase Shifter. The trigger signals for the four voices are created with an A-113 Subharmonic Generator (misused once again for dividing a clock signal instead of audio). Each voice has its own A-140 ADSR, used for both VCA (some A-132-3’s) and filters. The LPG mode is switched by gate signals from two A-155/154 Sequencers, both running most of the time in random mode.

Then we have an additional percussion voice: Digital noise from the same A-117 is sent into an A-132-1 VCA and then into an A-121 filter (bandpass used) and an A-134-1 VC Panner. It uses the same trigger as the (a) percussion voice mentioned above. This is quite useful to keep the rhythm going when the main rhythm voices operate with an almost closed LPG filter.

There are two melodic voices used here, each one is built from three A-110 VCOs sent through an A-108 ladder filter (one uses the bandpass out, the other one the 24dB lowpass). Tonal control is done with one of the A-155 Sequencers and an A-156 Quantizer and with an random voltage output from an A-118 sent through an A-148 Sample & Hold, an A-172 Max/Min (with a static voltage from an A-183-2 and the “Min” out used to reduce tonal range) and said A-156 Quantizer. Both voices are transposed by manual keyboard action (via Kenton interface). As always, the interface to the VCOs are two A-185-2 Precision Adders.

String sounds are taken from a GForce M-Tron, an additional synthesizer sound from NI Massive. Everything has been played directly (keyboard split) and without any overdubs. Recorded in Ableton Life, some (well, kind of) mastering with Steinberg Cubase.

Have fun,

Andreas

Here we go, one video in full length:

Andreas Krebs: Improvisation XXIII - L’Origine du Monde from Andreas Krebs on Vimeo.

Have fun,
Andreas

Here’s a new work:

http://www.andreaskrebs.de/assets/media/improvisation-20101120a.mp3

Track length is 21:55. 

No overdubs, everything is done on a Doepfer A-100, recorded with Ableton Live and mastered with Steinberg Cubase. We have six voices here, in pairs of two:

1 + 2) At the beginning, you hear a simple melody (taken from my “work in progress for years” second symphony), unisono on two solo voices, slightly panned left and right. First one is an A-111 VCO (saw out) sent through a modulated A-137-1 Wave Multiplier I and then into an A-106-5 SEM VCF (LP/HP out) and an A-132-3 VCA. The second one is another A-111 VCO (also saw out) sent into a modulated A-137-2 Wave Multiplier II and an A-124 Wasp VCF and an A-132-3 VCA.

3 + 4) These are sequencer / bass lines we hear somewhat later. First one (panned slightly to the left) is made of thee A-110 VCOs (triangle and saw out) mixed and sent into an A-121 VCF (HP out used) and then into an A-132-3 VCA. VCA output is then processed by an A-188-2 Tapped BBD, two A-108 VCFs (one for each BBD mix out) and an A-101-3 Vactrol Phaser. The other sequencer line (panned slightly to the right) is also built from three A-110 VCOs (triangle and pulse outputs used), mixed (with some white noise) and sent into an A-101-1 Vactrol VCF and an A-131 VCA. After this, we go into an A-199 Spring reverb (with an A-188-1 BBD inserted into its feedback path) and an A-126 VC Frequency Shifter, controlled by an A-143-9 Quadrature LFO.

5 + 6) The last two are kind of percussion voices: Some A-117 Digital Noise is put into an A-101-2 Lowpass Gate and then into an A-132-3 VCA. The other one uses some colored noise from an A-118 sent into an A-106-6 Xpander VCF. Four of its outputs (4B, 2H1L, 4L and 2L) are then sent separately into an A-151 Sequential Switch. The 2H1L is sent into an A-189-1 VC Bit Modifier, the 2L into an A-115 Audio Divider before switching.

That’s it, basically. There are 6 A-140 ADSRs in use, some controlling via joystick and ribbon controller, as well as usage of master clock and midi recording of the main melody from Ableton Live (via Kenton interface). Rhythmical complexity is derived from two A-155/154 Sequencers (only using prime tone and octave), as well as some trigger twisting via A-160/A-161/A-186-1/A-162/A-165 and an A-113: the 113 being mis-used here as a programmable and automatically switchable clock divider for triggering the sequencers. Switching between stored divisions of the master clock is done as wel manually as automated via the two sequencers.

The two videos were filmed after recording of the track (well, obviously..) and show some of the nice blinkenlights of the patch used here.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Have fun,

Andreas