I’ll be performing a set tonight (Thursday, May 24th) at the Beat Cypher event in Boulder. As the format is rapid-fire 10 minute sets and I’ll be improvising using only an Elektron Digitakt and using small a set of custom beat sketches as a starting point. My set is inspired by the Star Trek: The Original Series episode #21 “The Return of the Archons” – ha!

Time: 7:30 0 10:00 PM
Location: Madelife, 2000 21st Street, Boulder, CO 80302 | Map

[Update 5/25/2018]

“Not of the Body” 5/24/2018

Here is a recording of the song I performed. I forgot to hit record during that live session – so this is a recording I made during a session in the studio earlier that day. The song was inspired by the ST:TOS episode “Return of the Archons”. It was performed live on an Elektron Digitakt and recorded straight to 2-track without edits.

More About Beat Cypher

Madelife, a creative accelerator in Boulder and frequent host venue for the Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meetup, started hosting a very cool electronic music concert series late in 2017 called Beat Cypher. Each performer gets a 10-minute slot and signs up first come first serve. It’s Rapid-fire fun for performers and listeners!

Video from My Last Performance Using Only Elektron Analog Four

Here is a video of my performance from madelife Beat Cypher #2.Audio is from GoPro.

I challenged myself to do my set with just an Elektron Analog Four. The Analog Four has 4 analog synths, is only 4 note polyphonic in total and has chorus, delay and reverb on the master chain.

The performance is a combination of original presets, tweaked factory presets, live playing using the onboard chromatic keyboard, real-time sound design, use of some pre-defined original sequences with live arrangement and live sequencing. I’m using 4 kits” throughout (which you can switch to with no load-time or hickups). So all synthesis, no samples, no audio playback.

00:00 Real-time synthesis with original preset
00:34 Live arrangement with grooves, live-sound design, live play on chromatic keyboard
4:00 Back to real-time synthesis using chromatic keyboard
05:00 Things get pretty Logan’s Run bleepy and modular-like
06:25 Freeze with the amazing on-board reverb