My Music

Here is a small collection of my homemade music. I will add new pieces regularly, so make sure to check the News section  from time to time.

Autumn (3:15 min, 3.7 MB)

Just experimented with some Kontakt2 drum kits, added improvisations to it and suddenly... there was music. Things like that can happen on autumn evenings, I guess.

Human Factor (4:48 min, 5.5 MB) 

This piece was inspired by a discussion on the NI Reaktor forum about the ambivalence of randomness and control in electronic music. The first part is done in a sequencer (Krypt + Limelite), the second part is an improvisation - that is the human factor. The discussions among scholars about the ups and downs of both approaches are ongoing... ;)

reaktions.com - Compilations

These pieces are contributions to compilations on the reaktions.com website. You will find some nice Reaktor-centric music on that site.

Every compilation has a motto or theme that determines the resources, e.g. audio material, instrument choice, etc.

Yakitori (3:00 min, 5.5 MB)

My contribution to the Yakety Yak compilation. Here, only two audio samples were allowed as material for the song. One of the samples opens the song and is then mangled heavily with Vectory, an ensemble that is used throughout the whole piece. I used the effect section from Limelite to generate some unusual sounds for the middle part, for example the gurgling in the background (freeze effect). Check out my Limelite tutorial for more info about this ensemble. :-)

The last part of the song adds some vocal parts from the second sample and fuses all elements into a hypnotic rhythm.

Winter (3:46 min, 6.9 MB)

My contribution to the Free Gruuve compilation. Songs with unconventional beats and rhythms were requested. Well, for that I recorded roughly 15 minutes of live keyboard improvisation as MIDI and cut a 3-minute-best-of from this. The instrument is Steampipe from the Reaktor 4 factory library. I love its expressive sound.

To add beats and rhythm, I made two copies of the MIDI file and shifted them a few beats back and forth in time. These shifted MIDI files are then used to trigger the beat machines Beatslicer and Memory Drum. I fed Beatslicer with a drumloop that was generated with Aerobic and Vectory.

The solo parts are not quantized, the parts with drum sound are quantized to 16th, so that everything fits together magically. If you do not believe that this is an unconventional rhythm, try to count the beats while listening. ;-)

Hasengrippe (3:04 min, 5.6 MB)

My contribution to the zoBelia compilation. Only ensembles created by Dieter Zobel were allowed. These instruments have a very specific sound and character. Furthermore, randomization plays a big role in his works.

The granular mangling of the female(!) voice in the beginning is done with Formantoria. Several of Dieter Zobel's synthesizers and sound generators are then used in the remaining song. The guitar-like instrument in the last part actually plays a randomly generated melody. Not bad for an algorithm...

Prince of Whales (5:22 min, 6.2 MB)

My contribution to the Glossolalia compilation. Only the composers voice was allowed as audio material for this compilation. Here, I mainly used Krypt and Limelite with custom made voice sample maps. Manipulating both ensembles while recording turned out to be a source of outlandish sounds. The middle part reminds me of whales singing in the ocean and the sounds of bursting steel seconds before the submarine implodes :). I did not know my voice is that flexible...

Experiments

Learning to use new ensembles (that is what instruments are called in Reaktor) is more fun if it's combined with composing short pieces of music, sound, rhythm -- well, that's just my personal approach. These experiments are not polished or perfectly mastered but sometimes quite interesting... for me, at least. :-)

Anaerobic (2:30 min, 4.6 MB)

My first encounter with Aerobic, the groove machine from the Reaktor 5 factory library. I combined it with Vectory, L3 and some effects (homemade and from the R5 users library) to generate very thick and smacking beats. No space left for breathing.. hence the name of the piece.

VoiceGuitarFlute (4:28 min, 6.1 MB)

Some fun with Travelizer. I recorded short snippets of my voice, guitar and flute, loaded them into Travelizer and started live granular mangling. Now I know how the sound effects for Captain Future were created in the first place...

Glitch (1:56 min, 2.2 MB)

A short trip into glitch sound with Reaktor. All based on a single loop I made with Massive (the groovebox from the Reaktor library, not the new NI synth). Added some sequenced glitchyness with glitchomat and repexter from the Reaktor users library and had some live mangling fun with FastFX. It took me just few hours to turn into Squarepusher clone #2.120.387. ;-)

Work in progress

This is the place for pieces I am still working on.

The Limelite demo song is now at the end of the tutorial, chapter 4.