New Gear And A New Song

On Thursday the M-Audio Axiom 49 MIDI keyboard I ordered arrived. With 49 keys, 8 touch pads, 9 sliders, 8 dials and loads more buttons, it's feature laden controller that will do much more than I'll ever learn.

My goal is to augment my arrangements with synthesizers, keyboards and organs either in a droning fashion, a way to create different layers or perhaps add melodic element to the composition. Having no formal music training and not a clue how to really play a piano, I'll be using very simple patterns.

Two of the plugins that came with ProTools, Reason Adapted and Analog Factory, have some great presets and allow for lots of tweaking so I'm hoping to create some interesting sounds. Eventually I'd like to get GForce's MiniMonsta and M-Tron going for Minimoog and Mellotron emulation but they are not compatible with ProTools at the moment (or at least the ProTools version I have).

There's a new track on the R³ myspace page that utilizes my new microphone and one of the sequenced synth settings in Analog Factory. The song is called 'Orbiting Planet'. I tried experimenting with some different techniques. There's a track of mostly feedback with some slides and random notes played. Another track has recording my 5-string bass acoustically. There's a track with just me blowing into the mic and a track with a simple cymbal pattern. Lastly there is the synth track. I wasn't too happy with the final master as I couldn't quite get the synth mixed into the rest of the track properly.