New record y'all. SLAMMIN' 12.29.23
About SLAMMIN'
Making human music in the future...
It's the end of 2023. I've been sitting on 20 finished tracks- such as they are- for some months now, not really sure what to do with them.
I'm a human making reductive independent electronic music for fun. I think it's pretty cool (mostly), but I don't expect anyone else to care about it. The sheer amount of music out there is staggering and there's world class performers melting the social media front pages of anyone who cares; I'm just a dude making instrumental beats with a few synths and a computer, that I hope are good enough for a chuckle and a head bob.
I kinda loathe self promotion, consumerism, and the relentless world of advertising we live in. I don't want to try to sell you my record. But I guess I will.
The tracks all started innocently enough in a big master project in Ableton Live full of idea generator toys: just little sketches, chords, melodies, and beats scattered around. I'd revisit them at random and develop them a bit and loosely organize them into related groups. A lot of times a whole track will just happen in the moment, but there were these 20-40 pieces that were sort of the least developed, and maybe not as interesting to me at first, kinda throw-aways. But some of them kept me coming back.
One weekend I set up all the synths and spent a couple days tracking (and re-tracking) a ton of parts. It was a blast. Jacob Spanjar also tracked some acoustic guitar- plugged straight in and drenched with effects.
At this point I had over 20 demos that sort of had 'a sound;' but I still wasn't super invested in them, so I was using them for practice, experimenting a lot with the arrangements, mixing, mastering- just trying stuff cuz why not?
So we're watching The Great North and there's an episode where Judy (and co.) rap a closing credits song called SLAMMIN, and I thought of these tracks... they're not exactly 90s hip hop, but something about them felt very slamming to me, very slamming indeed.
I worked on the track order and kept trimming the arrangements shorter and shorter. I asked my brother Drea Mihalakeas for some AI generated art prompts and picked the most SLAMMIN' one.
After weeks of spending way too long moving eq knobs back and forth 1db that no one else will ever know I moved (it was good practice fr), I stopped overthinking it and just went with my gut and ears, and mixed/mastered these in a simple way that I felt was transparent and had a good energy and vibe, with clarity but no sterility, and it translated well in my ride- which is the most important thing.
And hey, I think it's a good package, and I hope you'll listen to it.
Streaming everywhere Friday, Dec. 29th. CD available on bandcamp. Limited T-shirt and Sweatshirt coming soon cuz I want one.
Now I'll nerd a little on the gear used...
The Yamaha DX-7 is a legend not only for its FM synth sounds, but I'm pretty sure that's the one Trent Reznor smashed on stage every night.
I don't have one of those, but I do have a Korg Volca FM and the DEXED virtual instrument that both play DX-7 patches. You can enjoy its digital clean sheen on every track across this record. I like it for electric pianos, basses, marimbas, bells, DOOM sounds.
On the analog side, the Korg Volca Keys and MS-20 Mini also feature prominently on most tracks.
Drums are a mix of classic samples and some chopped up breaks (oh jeez how does copyright work? I got them off the internet, I thought they came with Ableton, I didn't know). I'm a fan of the old Casio drum sounds, esp the MT and PT stuff.
I used a pure and simple sine based sub bass on most of the tracks and put it real hot in the mix cuz I liked that bass energy in my Prius.
Ableton Live is my main brain for audio, midi, and song arrangement. I use the Arturia Audio Fuse interface (the original). And the MIDI Fighter Twister is indispensable to me; 16 knobs and 4 banks is a lot of control.
I like a lot of the Ableton instruments and effects and use plug-ins from Arturia, Valhalla, AudioThing, Korg, XLN, and whatever else really.
Meditation Station: Organelle M "Arpeggio Synth" patch in Ableton Live
Meditation Station: Organelle M "Cinematic Piano" patch in Ableton Live
Live Ambient Loop Music with Korg SQ-1 and MS-20 mini, Organelle M, Able...
How Did I Do That?
How Did I Do That?
Dark atmospheric cymbal swells and tabla beats meet on the dance floor.Available Here!