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The Assignment: Make your own drum machine sounds, do something with them, and share them.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, August 13, 2018, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on. It was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 9, 2018.
Step 1: Today is August 9th, meaning yesterday was August 8th, or as it has come to be widely named: 808 Day, celebrating the Roland TR-808. In slightly belated celebration of that day and that device, we’ll be devising our own drum machines.
Step 2: Think about making your own drum machine. What basic set of sounds would it come with? (If you would benefit from additional structure, consider one for each of these categories: Accent, Bass Drum, Snare Drum, Low Tom/Conga, Mid Tom/Conga, Hi Tom/Conga, Clave/Rim, Maracas/Clap, Cowbell, Cymbal, Open Hat, Closed Hat.)
Step 3: Based on your thinking from Step 2, create those dozen or so sounds that are the basis for your imaginary drum machine.
Step 4: Record a piece of music using your new drum machine. At the start of the track, before the music begins, put the full sequence of sounds you created in Step 3, one after another, with a little silent space before and after each. (For next week’s project, people will be making music with your imaginary drum machine.)
I started by playing with the modular to make a bunch of electro/dubby things, but once I added electric piano, it sounded like really bad late 90s chillout, so I erased all the other samples, modified a bunch of the rhodes sounds to make a melody and synthesized a cloudy kick with some rings percussion.
- Genre
- Ambient