My attempt at synthtober


⇠ back | date: 2021-10-05 | tags: music, october | duration: 02:19 minutes

It's October! This year was weird, maybe even more so than 2020. The year felt very short, and very long at the same time to me; more so than I usually feel around this time of year.

As the dark season comes around it's good to remind yourself to focus on the things you really care about. Make sure you get plenty of light, maybe change those 2700K bulbs for something 4000K+. Colour temperature can make a real difference whet it comes to SAD...

Anyway, it's October, the month where everybody draws or hacks or drinks themselves to happiness. A friend mentioned last weekend that she was going to try to do synth-tober: creating a small song or jam or whatever every day. I haven't published a song on my bandcamp in almost (or over?) a year so it's high time I get out of my rut.

This blog post will be updated repeatedly throughout the month. I doubt that I will manage to make a song every day, but I want to manage at least two a week.

Some uploads will be very unpolished songs, others might just be me fucking around with interesting sound design. We'll see :)

Happy October!

Entry 1: Uneasy

A picture of the Arturia Drumbrute Impact and Novation Circuit on my desk

Technically this started as a jam but then I saved the patterns and went to work so that technically makes it a song, right? I have been playing around with my Octatrack a lot recently so I wanted to get back to basics. I grabbed my analogue drum machine and the Circuit and used it for drums and synths. The result is...eh, listen for yourself!

Entry 2: forest

A screenshot of my DAW with an audio recording at the top, several layers of effects automations, and an effects chain at the bottom

I haven't picked up my guitar in months. In fact, a thick layer of dust had collected on it. Now... my guitar is old and kinda broken. It only has 5 strings (like all the pros recommend), and it's internal wiring seems a bit shoddy with the top pick-up periodically no longer picking-up.

What I put together here is an effects chain in bitwig, which I fiddled with a bit while and after playing some random chords and riffs. The layers of effects almost hide the fact that I am extremely out of practice at playing the guitar ;) Hope you enjoy!