Tag Archives: electronic

Unwind: Autumn Equinox

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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.

melton.drone.mixtape, 2011.09.18

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melton.drone.mix-2011.09.18 by nofi

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
 

melton.drone.03 Ableton instrument rack

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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:

Creative Commons 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.

melton.drone Reaktor ensembles

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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:

Creative Commons 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.

Live session at Unwind, 2011-09-02

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Unwind live session, 2011-09-02 (136 MB MP3), 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.