I love seeing the cool little videos you guys make for your PO tracks but I can’t see myself spending the time needed to make something nice and I don’t want to post two minutes of just my POs blinking.
So if you don’t have any videomaking equipment or skills or if you are just a lazy fuck like me post here the tracks you want to share just in audio form.
I’ll start with the last quick beat I made on my K.O. sampling some stuff found here (Neural Audio Synthesis sounded too cool to not give it a try) and a drunk Sterling Archer singing Habanera from Georges Bizet’s Carmen in a bathtub. Also a beer can opening, ice cubes in a glass and some Tyler The Creator drums.
I listened to it when I was deciding whether to buy one or not and it definitely convinced me that they were more than toys. I’m listening to it again and it’s beautiful!
I read in the Bandcamp notes
Processed with Oto Biscuit, Boss SP-303 and Ableton Live 9 for effects only, no editions.
Could you please elaborate a bit more on this? I’m trying to add some eq and effects on what I record from my POs but I’m super ignorant about audio mastering and such…
Anyway yesterday I realized I had never tried making some drum and bass despite being an huge fan (especially of the older and darker stuff) so I made a quick try:
Anyway yesterday I realized I had never tried making some drum and bass despite being an huge fan (especially of the older and darker stuff) so I made a quick try:
I listened to it when I was deciding whether to buy one or not and it definitely convinced me that they were more than toys. I’m listening to it again and it’s beautiful!
I read in the Bandcamp notes
Processed with Oto Biscuit, Boss SP-303 and Ableton Live 9 for effects only, no editions.
Could you please elaborate a bit more on this? I’m trying to add some eq and effects on what I record from my POs but I’m super ignorant about audio mastering and such…
Anyway yesterday I realized I had never tried making some drum and bass despite being an huge fan (especially of the older and darker stuff) so I made a quick try:
Good to know that the beat tape helped you to get into the Pocket Operators. I definitely think that they aren´t just toys. Indeed, I believe that TE put sincere efforts to create the most powerful electronic music instruments that you can have with less than 100 USD and in a extremely portable format. It´s a meticulous work there - in some ways, more delicate and deep than the OP-1. It´s fascinating and it´s becoming even more interesting with the metal series, which opens the POs to a deeper universe of synthesis and sampling.
Yes, I def can elaborate more about the PO’s processing. If it´s interesting to the community, I can also go deeper in a specific topic about my experience of playing live with them, explaining my techniques and the ways to avoid some pitfalls. Coming back to the process:
In this beat tape I used basically the Tonic and Arcade (frankly, I´m not sure if one of the beats was also made with the Robot - used it for the lives in Japan - specialy for transitions - but don´t remember if one of those beats was made with it). Tonic standard kit is very good in the low end and can do nice noise textures. The Arcade is beautiful, with a prominent high end that I tamed with the Ableton Live EQ (the simpler/DJ three band one);
The way that the PO use effects is so elegant. As explained in the Microtonic videos (and I´m pretty sure that the same logic was used in the other PO´s), the effects aren´t DSP but clever ways of modulating/playing/bending/repeating the sounds. It´s easier to understand if you used more primitive trackers like LSDJ, where, for example, you can even do “chords” based on fast repetitions of tracks. Because of this, although there are some delay-like effects (the Arcade for example have some “openess” on it that´s very interesting), it´s very hard to simulate reverbs. Because the POs can sound a little dry - and even an small amount of reverb can make them shine so much! - I used also a little bit of Ableton reverb;
My favorite reaction of people hearing the POs playing for the first time: it sounds MASSIVE. The kicks are huge, the chords are powerful. But it sounds digitally clean (a side note: the K.O and Speak are noisier/warmer), so I like using the Oto Biscuit, with a little drive and noise, for added crunchiness and distorting them a little (with the EQ after)’;
Finally, the SP-303 have a very unique and interesting algorithm called Vinyl Sim, which is a compressor (a gentle one) with “vinyl hiss”. I like the way that I glues the sound, so used it too. I´ve also used the SP-303 filter (which works as a kind of isolator) and, If I´m not wrong, the Oto Biscuit filter too (an analog multimode filter that If I used it, was in the lowpass mode).
PO-35 Speak fed with samples from “Don’t Fight It, Feel It” by Primal Scream, plus the Microtonic drum channel. Live recording of a 64 bar pattern chain with on the fly mutes/fx, bpm set to Tencho. A little drive, reverb and limiting added after recording. Hope you like it…
I just recorded this from my K.O.
It’s a bit longer than what I usually like to make with my POs but it didn’t sound too repetitive, at least to me.
I hope you like it!
@oliodnb said:
I just recorded this from my K.O.
It’s a bit longer than what I usually like to make with my POs but it didn’t sound too repetitive, at least to me.
I hope you like it!
That bumped along real nice!! Cool work, great ad for the KO and what it can do on its own…
I really should have made a video of this, but it was a super quick jam. I picked up the PO-35 and just built something really wonky and Autechre/Gescom-ish on the spot, no edits.
