We have now officially made it past the halfway point, which in my book is a pretty big deal; generally following through on things is a skill I've been trying to master for many years. And more importantly (yet perhaps more distractingly), summer is now here for REAL. But no matter: the music must go on.


This week brought one of my favorite bands, The Notwist, through Portland and they gave us a hell of a show. Didn't I just reference them last month for week 24? Why yes, I most definitely did. Their mix of indie rock and unique electronic production has always compelled me, and their live performance did not disappoint. My approach to this week's song doesn't necessarily take much from their influence, but the gesture-controlled evolving percussion found here could certainly be compared to the Wii-controller-mapped processing that Martin Gretschmann cleverly triggers live. Very nerdy, very cool.


In my case, the drum effects come from Native Instruments' The Finger, using the 'Muddy Matt' preset, and live-triggered MIDI notes from my keyboard. While I can sometimes get away with a looped MIDI clip for these duties, in this case the effects never repeat throughout the song. Fresh glitchy weirdness at every new measure! Other than this technique the only new trick I played with here involves processing the synth bass with a multi-band delay effect, such that only the higher frequencies get passed through the delay lines. To emphasize this effect, I automated the filter cutoff of the Retrologue synth throughout the verse, bringing out said delayed frequencies at key moments.


Key equipment/software used for production:

- Novation V-Station synth plug-in
- Steinberg Retrologue synth plug-in
- Audio Damage Phosphor synth plug-in
- iZotope BreakTweaker drum plug-in
- Native Instruments Maschine Studio
- Native Instruments The Finger Reaktor effect
- ValhallaDSP ValhallaRoom effect plug-in

Key: D Major
BPM: 115
Time Signature: 4/4