Plan Jam and the Evolution of Process
Last year I put up a track named Plan Jam that was a fun little electro ditty. I have since done 3 additional reworks of the original. I will be discussing those, in comparison to the original, today. The impact of these works will have future ramifications to my Live Takes series, more on that at the end of the post.
Plan Jam 04/07/2021
The work starts with a strong pumping side-chained bass and kick that sets a pulse. These are curtesy of the Arturia epic duo of the original MiniBrute and DrumBrute. Around the 23 second mark, hits the offbeat major Korg Minilogue XD chord line. It is very uneasy at first, but syncs into itself. More space filling beeps of the Minilogue are added to round things out. The chord line has the attack value brought up, so that it takes longer for them to play fully, adding a more syncopated feeling. More drum parts are added and removed for textural variation. The texturally built up part of the 2 minute brings in the Korg WaveState. The holy radiance of the spacey organ sounds is there to add an emotive line at the peak. The drums reflect this peak by giving the hi-hats a stronger velocity and more repetitious part. The middle section has a different chord line, which becomes the more complex portion of the song. The main longer lines of the WaveState provide the concrete backing needed to sustain this strangely timed section. The 4 minute 55 second mark just drops back to the drum and bass briefly before celebrating the various layers of the work. The motif at the end is used to round out the piece and provide closure. The mixture of strangely timed layers with a real primal pulse, gives this track a powerful groove. The one major form of experimentation to the norm, is the use of off grid rhythms. The tonality of the song makes it very positive and happy. The simplicity of the repeating layers makes the nearly 7 minute length, seem a lot shorter and less iindulgent. The process of performance in this work is done through the addition and removal of layers in the Squarp Pyramid. This variation to the layers keeps interesting, for such a simple song. Being a fun track that doesn’t overstay its welcome, I knew I had to do more with it.
Plan Jam Hits Back 30/01/2022
In the new studio, I covered the original Plan Jam. It starts with a long melody from the WaveState, with some DrumBrute kick and hi-hat that sit in a different frequency space from the bassline from the MiniBrute. This gives the bassline more prominence. An open hi-hat is added for variance. The filled in repetitious “beeping” layer of the original are used as the replacement to the chords, on the Minilogue. The timbre of this is different to the original, as it serves a different purpose. It is the basis of the whole second portion of the track. Still being very positive is the core of this track. Covering it using the different focus points didn’t change this fact (though we will see later that other process change might change this fact). Using the same lines, but with a much slower tempo, and in a different order; gave this track an entirely different feel. You can hear the parts in comparison to the original, where different timbres play the same parts in a different sequence. The removal of the main chordal motif of the original, is a big difference here. It is much shorter (just under 4 minutes) and so requires less variation to sustain interest. The outcome of this is the use of less layers. It allows more focus on the background elements, originally in the back of the mix. Nothing about the performative process has changed in this song. It is the reason for the cover, as the Squarp Pyramid makes it so easy to use the save midi lines and apply them to new synth timbres.
Plan Jam Hits Back SLOW 06/02/2022
This track takes the cover of Plan Jam (Plan Jam Hits Back) and slows the entire of the work from being 3 minutes 46 seconds, to 13 minutes 20 seconds. The drums are spiritually changed. You can hear the kick drum having a tribal and ritualistic feel. There is a lo-fi hip-hop style to the degradation of the electronic hi-hats. The open hi-hats are like large over distorted pieces of metal banging against each other in a train yard, set to a groove. The tones of the various synth lines are much longer and slower. They are more considered. You can hear each element of every portion of the ADSR envelope, which gives more meaning and power to them in the audience’s ears. Every passing note that was off scale, seems considered and with purpose. The bass lines are crunching textures that give the work an industrial quality, (most enjoyed through a subwoofer). Each addition to the overall piece, comes in later and so every piece of variation is more of a payoff for by the audience. There is still a groove to this work, which amazes me when I re-listen to it. Tones that were high pitched have now become overlapping basslines. Listening to the industrial sounds interplay at the 9 minute mark, is thought provoking and somewhat tension building. This work could be considered low effort, but I think of it to a personal evolution of process. I have meta-covered this song, by re-mixing a cover of the original work. This song only changed one musical element of its predecessors, which in turn, completely changed the whole song. The piece is still “major”, but I could not consider it happy in feeling. It is contemplative and inward. While a lot of music has the most effort into the live performance of it, this work is different. The most work into the design of post-performance production processing and mixing. This is interesting to me, as I make a lot of generative work that has most of its effort placed in the pre-performance algorithm generation.
Plan Jam ReTread 13/02/2022
This week I remixed the original Plan Jam. By speeding up the entire work by 800%, I had a shorter portion of audio to then remix for aesthetic meaning. The work takes portions of this processing and loops, cuts and reworks them into an ambient glitch piece. The DrumBrute and MiniBrute now sound like pops and clicks, replicating static and white noise. Some producers use fancy filters to get the crackle of vinyl, who knew I could achieve that texture through such a brute-forced approach. The piece begins through looping this static, with the first small portion of sped up melodic audio. This creates a haunting circus-themed texture. The sort that a villainous child might have as their motif in a horror film. What a feeling. There is then a longer portion of this melodic squill, that is bookended by the original loop. The end portion loops a section where, when heard over and over, creates a fantom bird noise in the background, (probably coming from the WaveState). The glitch-hop work is the most post-performance production/processing I have done for a Live Takes. This effort has changed the piece entirely. This is when taken in context of last week’s re-work of the cover, and the difference between it and the original. There is a noise feel to this piece that makes me feel uneasy, but still contemplative (less introspective, and more cerebral). The length of this piece suits the highly strung calamity of the outcome.
The exploration of process and the generation of new ideas were the main purposes of doing the Live Takes series. The Live Takes series will include more processing of previous works. There has been changes in the past to my Live Takes formats (often not announced). The change is needed to continue to challenge my creative spirit and journey into process analysis and experimentation. The justification that it is a “live” recording as I process and upload the work in one go. I am just using pre-existing material, instead of using new material. As usual, I will be Keeping up the Work, and getting on with it, for the purpose of the archive, experimentation, and education.
