Last month I participated in #jamuary and created 7 new songs which I’ve posted as videos to this YouTube playlist. . It was really inspiring and freeing to just go for it and finish these short musical themes.

Via @truecuckoo … “The idea with Jamuary is to get going with what you have, and to help get comfortable sharing and performing little jams, and to get to know each other and appreciate what everyone is doing in the electronic music independent scene. Post a little music snippet every day of jamuary, or for as many of the days that you have the energy to. Browse the hashtag and get inspired. Get to know musicians you had never heard about, and perhaps even make some friends along the way.”

Below are the individual vids below (click on the pics of vids if you are reading this via email). The are numbered based on the day in January in which they were released.

Let me know if you have a favorite in the comments.

Day 04 Featuring the iPad and Resolume

I created the song from scratch in Korg Gadget. I’m still amazed at how fantastic these virtual Korg synths sound!

In this piece I used Korg’s emulations of the Arp Odyssey (Arp ODYESEi aka Lexington) and Korg Mono/Poly (MonoPoly aka Montpellier) for the leads. The bells from the gadget synth Helsinki which are bit-crushed. Drums are from various drum gadgets. The earth shaking smooth bass is from an emulation of the Korg MS20 (iMS-20 aka Memphis). I performed, arranged and mixed the piece in Gadget then rendered it out to AudioShare.

From there I normalized the audio and then exported to dropbox. To create the video I took a screen recording of the audio running in the AudioShare player on the iPad. I then trimmed that and used it as a source for Resolume. I then performed real-time synthesis using that video as a source.

Day 05 Featuring the iPad and Edradour 10 Year Single Malt Scotch

My #jamurary2020 Day 05 is improvised piano with Frippertonics looping with additional live sampling powered by Edradour 10 Year single malt scotch 🥃 😋.

I’m using a gorgeous virtual grand piano from the Korg Module app. I’m feeding that into the fantastic Audio Damage Enzo looper to do Frippertronics looping. Once I get some music rolling I live sample the looper plus live playing into the Samplr app. All this is being run through the gorgeous Eventide Blackhole reverb.

To learn more about Edradour visit there web site www.edradour.com. Here is a review of Edradour 10 Year youtu.be/pzSRKJlSMcE?t=336.

Day 06 on iPad and Launchpad Under the Watchful Eye of Gort

My #jamurary2020 Day 06 – under the watchful eye of Gort – is once again made all on one @Apple iPad Air with no external synths or audio processing. #aum is the host and the musical bed is a string part improvised with lovely @sugarbytesofficial Factory synth into an instance of the most amazing @audio.damage Enzo looper and a beat I created with most groovy @olympianoiseco Patterning 2.

I improvise a lead on @cmepro Xkey Air keys over the bed with the killer @korgofficial iMono/Poly synth and start fading in parts with the LaunchpadX. My lead and the musical bed start to fill up effects buffers in @sugarbytesofficial Turnado and I then improvize and control slicing in real-time with Launchpad X. The @Eventideaudio Blackhole appears throughout the signal flow to give the piece some sense of space.

Day 07 Performed on iPad at a Local Coffee Shop

I recorded my Jamuary2020 Day 07 synth improv video from Bittersweet Cafe in n Louisville, CO while enjoying a cappuccino ☺. One again this is on an @Apple iPad Air with no external synths or audio processing. #AUM is the host.

I started off by improvising a loop with a bell pad sound using @sugarbytesofficial Factory synth performed with GeoShred Pro as a MIDI controller using @audio.damage Enzo looper. I then used @audio.damage granular synth Quantum to make a textural bed underneath. The source is from an original field recording I made New Years Eve 2018 in a tube station in London. It’s about 200 people singing the same song as they jam into a tight tunnel to access tracks below ground. I build a loop using @audio.damage Enzo. The @Eventideaudio Blackhole appears throughout the signal flow to give the piece some sense of space.

I then live programmed the drums and bass elements using @olympianoiseco Patterning 2 with the circular grid and with real-time recording with pads on the glass. I finish off with a little distorted lead using GeoShred Pro with Factory synth.

A tech note – this was all battery-powered and also wireless as I used AirPod Pros to monitor the iPad and used AUM to record digitally record the session. GoPro Hero 7 was used for the video. It all fit into a small sling bag 😎.

Jamuary 2020 Day 13 – Nord Lead 4 Morph Mania

For my #jamuary2020 Day 13 I’m using only my trusty @nordkeyboards Nord Lead 4 with 3 custom presets from “init” arranged into a “performance” with a split.

For those not familiar with the Nord Lead 4, it has 4 complete synthesizers each with their own FX each. Presets called “programs” can be placed into one of four “slots”. Slots can be combined into “performances” where you can perform with all four slots in concert.

For EACH synth instance you create both impulse and continuous morphs which allow you to save states for pretty much any parameter in for the preset in a slot without changing presets 😮. You can save and trigger 7 impulse morphs per slot with impulse morph buttons on the left next to the wooden pitch stick. Morph buttons are momentary switches but you can latch them as I do 26 second mark. Continuous morphs are mapped to the groovy pumice mod wheel (or map this to an expression pedal).

I used this custom set of presets and “performance” when I performed as a special guest for the Boulder Laptop Orchestra (BLOrK) at the @cu_atlas Atlas Black Box at @cuboulder back in 2017. For this performance I used only the Nord Lead 4 with 14 programs each with a large number of morph states. Video here https://youtu.be/ScpItttfGlY.

In a somewhat related note I’m a @uccs_alumni so it was real treat to perform within the CU system 😀. #jamuary #improv #synth #blork #sounddesign

Day 22 – Nord Lead 4 Krell Plus Cat

Nord + Cat. That is all.

Day 29

My Day 29 #Jamuary is a #MusiqueConcrète piece I improvised using ONLY samples I recorded at my favorite barber shop @rockbarbers (http://www.rockbarbers.com/). A big thanks to Rock Barbers for allowing me bring my @zoomsoundlab H1n recorder to do a field recording session at their place 😀.

I made this using a @microsoft Surface Laptop 3 on Windows 10 with @Ableton Live, #Push 2, Wavetable, one drum rack and 3 instances of @audio.damage Quanta. This play-by-play below applies to the long version which is on YouTube here.

I start off playing an instance of Ableton Wavetable. I made a custom preset by importing the sound of a barber shaving cream hot lather dispenser to make a custom wavetable. The right waveform is barber shears. Further #SoundDesign from there to make it all an instrument. I play this on an Ableton #Push2 controller and record the notes I’m playing on-the-fly to create a MIDI loop. A bit of Echo and Reverb on this.

Once I get that going I move on the 2nd track which uses the most amazing @audio.damage Quanta granular synthesizer where I use a sample of barber shears. I improvise and record notes into a loop. I sweeten this using the Amazing Noises Outer Spaces @c74connect Max for Live reverb.

I move on to a 3rd track. Again I’m using Quanta. This time I’m doing granular synthesis using a field recording of the cash register drawer opening. The ding bell sound played across the keyboard and stretched with granular synthesis sounds a bit like chimes. Once again I use Outer Spaces as my reverb.

I move on to the 4th track, use Quanta yet again and this time the sample is the sound of a comb being banged inside a barber comb jar with Ableton Echo for effects.

I move on to the 5th track and bring things to a crescendo using an Ableton Drum rack loaded with samples of the footrest being dropped on an old barber chair, the sound of the razor strap on that old chair being jiggled, the din of the shop, shears, an electric clipper, the comb banging on the jar, and a blow dryer. I then start to fade dial back the energy and eventually return back where I started at Ableton Wavetable with a bit of barber shears.