OP-1 cook book and new album

Hi everyone. I’ve owned an OP-1 for about a year and a half now, and it has completely changed how I compose and record music. I feel like it has really pulled me out of a musical rut, and I wanted to share a project i’ve been working on that has the OP-1 at the core of its creation.



For the past year I’ve been releasing a 30 second clip of music each sunday on my instagram page. The music was created using the OP-1 patch randomizer, and a planning sheet I made. The planning sheet was filled in using chance processes, and was used to determine what type of patches I would use, and which parameters of each patch I could manipulate. Four patches were used to build each 30 second clip. I stitched the 30 second clips into longer chunks of songs as they accumulated, and slowly completed each song over the course of the year based on a couple of rules and limitations that I set for myself. This has resulted in an album of music that is quite kaleidoscopic in nature! I have the whole thing up on my bandcamp now, and would love it if you checked it out!



I’m planning on doing the whole thing again this upcoming year, following the same set of rules that I did with this album. I put together a recipe book of the whole process which you can find here. It is also included in the album download on my bandcamp page. If anyone is interested in trying it for themselves in 2018 please let me know. Working on this album for the past year has been a very valuable experience for me. It has forced me to create within a set of restrictions, and make decisions that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise made. Hopefully some of this is of use to you in your own musical endeavours! Please get in touch if this looks interesting to you, it would be fun to have a group of other people taking part for the upcoming year!

Hey there, just listened to a few tracks while waiting in a bus station. Really like it so far. I’m going to save the rest until I have better headphones back at home after my holiday.
Really cool and interesting idea, also the cross stitch album cover was a nice touch!

Actually I have my op1 with me and a 10hour bus ride ahead! I might start making some 30sec loops :smiley:

Cool, well let me know if anything comes of it, sounds like the perfect activity to kill a couple hours!

Hey dude… I took a lil listen, and skimmed the cook-book… So far so good… Love it! Will revisit soon, and debrief <3

Love dat https://porchlighttrails.bandcamp.com/track/the-cures-the-song-thats-gonna-kiss-me-when-i-walk-through-your-window song

Currently traveling with my OP-1 and on dodgy connection so I’ll have to return like ludicrouSpeed and debrief later but came here to say I’m looking forward to joining you on the journey in 2018!

@porchlighttrails are you studying at all? This would make a great post-grad research project!

@millbastard no not studying, just trying to overcome writer’s block, and create a new way to approach how I record music. It started as a whim this time last year, but I’m really excited to keep running with it for 2018!

@arturojreal that would be a lot of fun if you take part, get in touch if there is anything in the cookbook that is unclear. It all makes sense to me, but I’ve been living this project for the past year, so there may be some things that I left out! :relaxed:

@ludicrouspeed thanks very much, “the cure” was one of my favs too, things came together in a very nice way for that one :relaxed:.