A 20m mix of recent work, including electronic drones and noise, field recordings and granular textures. Free to download or stream:

1. granular guitar
2. old cassette, granular reworking
3. synthpond, granular reworking
4. dust motes and clock, recording
5. generative bells
6. granular bamboo and drone machine
7. unknown field recording

From the Unwind Autumn Equinox party, bidding goodbye to Summer and welcome to Autumn. Free to download or stream.

A 20m mixtape, featuring excerpts from my recent collection of weird tales:

1. calma voces v.01
2. fallos v.01
3. la hechicera v.02
4. pequeña maquina v.01
5. dispersion vectores v.03
6. ruidos extraños v.01
7. transmigracion planetaria v.02

Unwind, the popular weekly event for ambient, downtempo electronic and nuJazz music, will bid goodbye to Summer and welcome Autumn with a special party on Friday, September 23, 2011, the Autumnal Equinox.

Join residents Adejai (aka Josh Helton), Josh Elias, Nofi (aka Jeffrey Melton) and other special guests as we celebrate a summer of wonderful nights and look forward to another season. The event starts at 8 p.m. until later on the patio at CS3: Calhoun Street Soups, Salads, and Spirits.

All ages are welcome on the patio until 10pm; 21 and over with proper ID in the bar and after 10pm on the patio. There is NO cover charge.

Calhoun Street Soups, Salads, and Spirits is located at 1915 South Calhoun Street Fort Wayne, IN 46802-5261. Call 260.456.7005 for more information.

View the event on Facebook and RSVP.

View a list of my live sessions from Unwind.

A 20m mix of recent freeform work, including electronic drones and noise, field recordings and granular textures. Free to download or stream:

1. morning birdsong, grand marais, MI
2. testing old instruments
3. star sailing, excerpt
4. front porch, fort wayne, IN
5. sinister, excerpt
6. core breach, excerpt
7. lake superior waves on rock beach, grand marais, MI
8. granular cloud, flute
9. granular cloud, tabalas
10. water wheel, fort wayne, IN
11. granular stretch, orchestral

Hot-on-the-heels of sharing my melton.drone Reaktor ensembles, it occurred to me I could create something similar with Ableton’s native devices in an instrument rack. So, I’ve uploaded melton.drone.03.adg (zip archive, requires Ableton and the Operator synth instrument). I assigned the main controls for the oscillators as macros in the first instrument rack—but be sure to utilize the volume controls for each oscillator in Operator as well—and grouped controls for the filters and saturator as macros in the effects rack. I added a compressor and limiter on the end for better dynamics control.

For melton.drone.03, the signal path is Operator Oscillators 1-4  > Filter 1 (default Lowpass, but switchable) > Saturator > Filter 2 (usually Highpass, but switchable) > Filter 3 (usually Highpass, but switchable) > Compressor > Limiter

I find it helpful to create a clip with a latched note to trigger the rack (one that loops continuously inside of its start and end markers). Follow these instructions to make one:

1. Make a note that starts at 1.0.0, set the note end at 4.0.0
2. Set the clip start marker at 1.0.0
3. Set the loop braces to – start: 2.0.0 , – end 3.0.0

This is still a work-in-progress, so please share your presets and any feedback with me. Here’s the CC license:

melton.drone.03.adg by Jeffrey Melton, aka nofi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.nofi.org.

I’ve been working on some new drone/noise patches (show above) with NI Reaktor in preparation for an upcoming public radio performance. They are the continuation of some ensembles I created several years ago, this time inspired in part by the Drone Lab hardware schematics from Casper Electronics (though clearly not exact copies). I was trying to work with my trusty Nord Micro Modular but find Reaktor more stable, powerful and easier to patch.

After some requests I’ve decided to share them, free to download and play with 2011-09-melton.drone.ens (zip archive, requires Reaktor to play).

For melton.drone.01, the signal path is Oscillators 1-4 > Mixer > Filter 1 (usually Lowpass, but switchable) > Saturator > Filter 2 (usually Highpass, but switchable) > Filter 3 (usually Highpass, but switchable) > Amp.

For melton.drone.02, the signal path is Oscillators 1-4 (Osc 1 can FM Osc 2, Osc 3 can FM Osc4) > Mixer > Filter 1 (usually Lowpass, but switchable) > Wrapper > Filter 2 (usually Highpass, but switchable) > Filter 3 (usually Highpass, but switchable) > Amp.

Play with the included snapshots to preview some of my upcoming work. It’s a good idea to put a limiter behind these, since certain settings can create extreme noise and volume. Add some reverb, grain delay or your favorite effects as needed. NOTE: the controls on the waveform displays only control the view and do not alter the sounds.

These are still works-in-progress, so please share your snapshots and any feedback with me. Here’s the CC license:

melton.drone ensembles by Jeffrey Melton aka nofi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.nofi.org.

My final weekly live set of the summer: Original ambient, downtempo, dub and minimal electronic music; free to download or stream. NOTE: the last 15 minutes weren’t recorded, because my Macbook Pro was having issues with the summer heat.

Today is the official release date of my album, summer sequences, volume one; $8 = 1h16m of ambient, downtempo, minimal music + a 12m bonus track, The Suite Science v.6. If you don’t wish to make a purchase but like what you hear, consider clicking the Facebook button (on the right) or sharing on Twitter (below the description) and spreading the word.

Unwind, a weekly event for ambient, downtempo, experimental electronic and nujazz music, returns to the patio at CS3 for the summer, starting with a kick-off party on Friday, June 3, 2011.

Join me and fellow residents Adejai (aka Josh Helton) and Josh Elias along with occasional special guests every Friday this summer from 8 p.m. until later on the patio at CS3: Calhoun Street Soups, Salads, and Spirits.

Sponsored by Fort Wayne Electronic Music (FTWEM). Find Unwind and FTWEM on Facebook.

In preparation, I have posted 2011-05-31 Unwind practice live session for FREE download. It’s much more beat-oriented than I intend to play, but I was trying out different configs for my Ableton setup.

UPDATE: I moved the 2011-05-31 Unwind practice live session (1hr00m27s, 72.6 MB MP3) from my Soundcloud to here for posterity.

A collection of downtempo electronic and sequenced minimal compositions. Digital download via Bandcamp and limited edition cassette coming in June, 2011.

1. Workflow One involves using Ableton Suite in a somewhat traditional way—probably the way most people use their preferred DAW. I sketch out beats, synth patterns and basslines with clips in the session view to record an arrangement before editing, mixing, mastering and rendering to produce a finished track. This may be done all-at-once or over multiple sittings. More recently with Max for Live I’ve been able to add step sequencers, generative devices and random/ probabilistic elements for added variety, but it’s still a pretty straightforward approach. Many of the pieces in my Sequenced set on Soundcloud are the result of this workflow.
2. Workflow Two also involves working in Ableton Suite but geared towards live performance and improvisation. This method centers around various monome-enabled instruments for writing and mixing on-the-fly: obo, polygome64 and press cafe from Stretta‘s monome suite as well as raptor, bound, Flinn, and mm4lr factor heavily in this method for my live performances. Since M4L devices don’t always generate and/or save automation data, I tend to record an audio mix of these live sessions. My Unwind and live sessions from last year are the result of this workflow. UPDATE: I thought to add that while I do use numerous clips of beats and synth patterns, mostly from work I’ve already composed (aka stems), they’re more for backup, and the focus of this mode is on creating new material on-the-fly. By design, every live session is different.
3. Workflow Three departs from the above and centers around using the Density granular synthesizer and Pulsaret instruments to explore sound particles and drones, non-sequenced rhythms and the diversity of organic and synthetic timbres. With this approach, I appropriate tone colors from anywhere—strings; flute; toy piano, bells and cymbals; vinyl records— as well as basic sound waveforms to build up microsound-scapes, which I then take into Ableton to edit, arrange and build compositions. I usually add processing effects such as resonant filters, grain delay, reverb and EQ to help the mix gel. My recent microsound releases and side-project, The Silent Stars, are the result of this workflow.

Each workflow has its strengths, and they all depend on what the situation calls for. Of all the DAWs I’ve tried, Ableton has the best mental model for how I like to work. I feel I could make some improvements to Workflow Two, but it is still very rewarding and leads to some fun live sessions.

1. Penumbra v.01, an ambient granular/microsound soundscape.
2. While We Sleep v.02, an updated and extended version of a listener favorite from 2009′s Departure Lounge.

Happy listening, musicmaking, and cheers for new projects, pursuits and people in year ahead.

Unwind went very well this summer, and I’m grateful to my partners-in-crime, Adejai aka Doc and Josh Elias, for making it a top-notch chill-out experience. I found it invaluable to be able to experiment, improvise and jam on a regular basis as well as mingle with like-minded DJs and producers.

I’ve posted a number of recent live sessions to my Soundcloud page to stream or download, including last night’s set at the Dash-In. IIRC, it was fifteen years ago that I played one of my first live/DJ sets at the Dash-in, and there’s been lots of great experiences and growth since then.

As a reminder, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates and exclusive content and preview and purchase releases on Bandcamp, iTunes and Amazon.

Going forward, I’m going to start sifting through loads of compositions and works-in-progress to determine the direction of my next recordings. Stay tuned, keep in touch, and “keep reaching for the stars…”.

My next from-the-vault podcast is a live practice set from April, 1997 (53min:36sec, 97.4 MB MP3). I don’t recall what event this was in preparation for or have a tracklist, so I’ll just offer it without specifics.

NOTES: My gear for the set consisted of an Akai MPC-2000 sampler/sequencer, Alesis SR-16 drum machine, Novation BassStation analog monosynth, Korg Prophecy digital monosynth, Yamaha TG-33 digital synth, Tascam Porta 07 4-track/mixer, Alesis Microverb III multi-effects, Digitech RDS-4000 flanger/chorus/delay, DOD distortion and flanger pedals. I added EQ, multiband dynamics, stereo widening and loudness maximizing to clean up the mix and remaster for 2010.

Buy my new EP: $3 for 4 tracks/44 minutes of abstract, ambient, chilled-out, laid-back, minimal techno, space lounge greatness:

Vernal (44min total time) — available for purchase on Bandcamp, featuring a remix of Horizontal, two new tracks, and Sunsets, a mashup of ambient pieces from Elsewhere.

For a limited time, purchase Elsewhere and receive a code via email for a free download of Vernal.

Immediate download of 4-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

Elsewhere (1:16:39 total time) — available for purchase on Bandcamp.

Immediate download of 6-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.