Truth be told, I have struggled a lot to keep a consistent output of music. I know I have made it harder on myself to only use open-source tools, and only make projects in a way where every sound and notes can be explored and learned from. I have struggled with relatively low growth on social media, and the thoughts that most creators suffer from – what is the point if it feels like no one is listening?
But my dream has always been to find sustainable ways of creating using this open-source stack: if I can do it and share it, then others can see how it is possible. And one of the ways that keeps my going is to treat each new track as a new experiment – for each day to be a new day in the workshop.
This is why I started the second new_day_in_the_workshop album. The heart of the concept captures my creative workflow in its purest essence, and I want that to be clearly represented.
This track explored a new way of wiring tools I was already loving individually – OpenMPT for composition, and then passing MIDI messages to Bespoke Synth for plugin hosting and mixing. It ended up working very well for this track, but it is not a setup I would recommend. I have always had issues with note timing when it comes to MIDI between softwares, and have never found a solid way to fix it. Perhaps you might?
It is also worth mentioning that the cover art of this album is partly inspired by the CD-glitching aesthetic of Oval’s music – an music design style I also wanted to channel.
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_software: OpenMPT, Bespoke Synth, RipplerX, SurgeXT, Cardinal
_download: 00-MidiLink-Slowdown.wav
_project: 00-MidiLink-Slowdown-SOURCE.zip
_license: public-domain / cc0