Wrist by Josh
These are the first recordings I made using a demo of Reason 1.0 back in 2000/2001. I messed around with Reason while bored at work. I had no keyboard so I made extensive use of Matrix modules (and the "random pattern" feature) along with pitch wheels on the Subtractor synth. There was no way to save or bounce a mix with the demo so I used Windows Recorder to record while I dickied about live. Oh and what made it even more fun; everything had to be done in 15 minutes because after that Reason would shut down and you'd have to start over again.
The sad thing is, 8 years on and I wouldn't be surprised if people thought these were my best efforts lol
The chances are, you the reader will at most only listen to five seconds of one (if any at all) so I'm putting number five first as the best one on show. Its a bubbly trippy trancey ambienty thing (stick on enough genres and people might end up agreeing with something).
This is second best (best being a loose musical term).
Love that syncopated ReDrum programming lol
Always reminded me of a priest giving a sermon at a rave.
Ironically, I started off using Reason in a completely live setting. Everything was triggered and manipulated in real time. The thought of doing anything live like that now doesn't exist in my mind. Ableton Live scares the pants off me!
[edit] Hmmm... not sure what I actually meant there. I guess by "live", I mean recording audio without recording the associated midi instructions i.e. "all or nothing" takes.
6 comments:
5th link needs repairing.
The first track is definitely the best alright, for some reason it reminds me of the scene in Trainspotting were Ewan McGregor was coming off the smack.
Probably not very good hangover music either.
Agreed, link 5 needs a http://.
In example 3 you used waaay too much reverb, which is what I used to do too. Then I got scared of ye olde verb and made a habit of making sounds too dry. :@
Also, I remember the demo of 1.0... You could use software to activate inactive menus, which would allow you to copy stuff and save the copied data with clipbrd.exe. With the same mwthod you could also save exported songs, thus unlocking them... These were the days...
Here are two of my first tracks: Futuredome and Fine Day. Later I reused that acappella in Swine vs Pearls.
I believe those are made Reason 2.0 though. I could try to find some of my 1.0 stuff.
I forgot to add... I can also feel the same (?) thing as you in that I've sort of lost that initial creativity and drive that I had when I first discovered music creation.
Youre getting way too critical with this stuff. Too much reverb!? these were just for the lulz! :)
When I started composing music in the late 90's I had no interest in electronic music (composing at least). I had a belief that if the notes weren't strictly written down in midi then they weren't to be there. It even got to a stage where "if I couldnt play it live, I didn't put it in". Slowly, programming became part of scene, then loops etc. but I still don't feel totally comfortable with lobbing bits of prerecorded audio into mixes. I was was always a man of musical integrity and honor lol
Even the stuff you've linked too in your comment, I feel totally out of my dept. I couldn't do it, it's just not me. I still get a small bit of "right, lets make this one sound as real as possible, like it was an actual live band" when I load up Reason. I'm kind of stuck in the middle, and I think I always come out with mediocre stuff because of that.
Anyway, the link is repaired now. The last train the Smackville is leaving.
You ought to watch this video by Tim Exile. When you've seen it, you'll never again question that looped based music can go together with "playing live" and "musical integrity and honor". What he's doing is one of my goals, although I doubt I'll get to his level.
Sorry for the reverb criticism. I just said that to point out my own flaw. ;)
No no, criticise as much as you like, its just that I knew these crappy little experiments would get the most amount of attention for some reason :)
Great video! Its amazing to think though that before the software was developed, the likes of Squarepusher started off with just hardware.
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