Apollo Lee 52 Tracks in 52 Weeks

Subaqueous

Title: Apollo Lee – Subaqueous
Date: May 11, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:00 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. Staying in the Eb Melodic minor scale allowed me to use harmonies that moved from consonance to dissonance easily.
  2. The mod wheel effect on this patch is exotic and mysterious. Since I played this on my Oxygen 8, I could easily reach the mod wheel.
  3. This piece feels like it has more structure than some of the others, although it’s also improvised.
  4. The transitions are smooth and not jarring.
  5. There are a few gorgeous openings where a simple triad or dominant seventh chord comes out of the cluster of dissonance.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. Many parts of the piece feel out of phase and wobble a little too much for my taste.
  2. I tried to equalize the distortion fuzz out, but I don’t think I got it all.
  3. I may have been a little heavy-handed on the compressors.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

Driftwood

Title: Apollo Lee – Driftwood
Date: May 02, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 7:42 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. The harmony lends itself to haunting dissonances and beautiful consonant soundscapes (Cm7, Ebm7, Gm7, Bbm7).
  2. The instrument I’m using here sounds like a space organ. At first, I was going to use another patch, but now I’m glad I picked this one.
  3. The music moves, but not too fast.
  4. While the harmony shifts around, the piece still feels anchored as though it’s primarily one or two chords.
  5. I’ve applied enough compression and processing to keep it nice and mellow.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. There’s no structure. This track just noodles slowly. I really need to compose something, rather than just playing by touch at random.
  2. Some of the chords have too many notes and some others feel too naked.
  3. I could have taken advantage of the mod wheel effect, but I didn’t. More’s the pity.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

Corona

Title: Apollo Lee – Corona
Date: April 17, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 7:24 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. The harmony is really simple and I used major chords for a change (CM7, GM7, DM7, AM7).
  2. This instrument is really lovely and I love how the fundamental of the instrument enters after the harmonic overtones.
  3. This was my first improvisation in about three weeks. It felt good to finish something again.
  4. I think I’m getting better at mixing tracks down on my desktop multimedia speakers and the meters in Logic.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. Some parts still feel too loud.
  2. An improvisation isn’t really a composition in the traditional sense of the word. I’d like to get better at crafting things in my head, rather than always just going with the flow.
  3. The bass is not deep enough.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

March Roundup

In the third month of my “52 Tracks in 52 Weeks”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/01/04/52-tracks-in-52-weeks/ project, I crafted only *five* tracks. All, except for one (“Blue Diamond”), were ambient improvisations. I think it’s time to move on from the ambient stuff and back to house music.

As of March 31, 2008, the total number of tracks I’ve written this year stands at *twenty-two*. Despite the unambitious month, I’m still averaging more than 1½ per week.

Here are the songs I created in March 2008:

# 03 Mar 2008 — “Belmont”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/03/03/belmont/
# 10 Mar 2008 — “Corners”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/03/10/corners/
# 18 Mar 2008 — “Palouse”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/03/18/palouse/
# 22 Mar 2008 — “Blue Diamond”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/03/22/blue-diamond/
# 28 Mar 2008 — “Payette”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/03/28/payette/

Payette

Title: Apollo Lee – Payette
Date: March 28, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:12 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. The harmony is pretty simple and lends itself to some interesting dissonances and consonances.
  2. The mod wheel effect is very evocative.
  3. I got to demonstrate my technique with improvising on the PadKontrol to my friend, Jay Def.
  4. After searching for a nice cadence to close on, moving around a few other suspended chords and ending on an Eb6 was an interesting surprise.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. I should have used the mod wheel effect more. It’s beautifully mysterious and could have added so much more to this piece.
  2. The mixdown could have been much better. I didn’t use enough compression on the main outputs. This probably sounds really terrible on iPod headphones.
  3. The note diversity was somewhat low. This needs more high notes.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

Blue Diamond

Title: Apollo Lee – Blue Diamond (Alpha Edit)
Date: March 22, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8 + Reason 4 (ReWire)
Genre: House
Timing: 4:02 @ 128 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. I successfully slaved Reason 4 to Logic Pro 8 for the first time. Special thanks to SFLogicNinja for his tutorial video that finally led to my succeeding at this.
  2. The twerky lead synth (Arp 1971) is really funky and I accidentally plinked out that line. After some quantization and fixing screwy notes, it’s actually cool.
  3. The bass line is adapted from a randomized Matrix pattern sequence, but since Logic doesn’t have a “randomize pattern” function, I drew the notes in by hand. The bass itself is Thor’s “Fat Boy”, dirty, evil, and vicious—processed to the breaking point with a series of processors that include a phaser and your mother’s cute cousin.
  4. The drum pattern is pretty straight four-on-the-floor without too much variation, but there are a few funky nifties.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. It’s really lazy. Each loop plays five times and drops out for 8 bars, then resumes until the end.
  2. The second chord in the splash chords is wrong. I’d better fix that. It’s so obviously wrong, I’m probably going to fix it tomorrow morning.
  3. The ending is abrupt and so are the loop drop outs.
  4. There are no breakdowns, buildups, or sections. It’s just a repeating eight bar pattern of yawns.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

Palouse

Title: Apollo Lee – Palouse
Date: March 18, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 8:06 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. I really like the instrument with the resonance sweep.
  2. The harmony is relatively simple (Em7 C#m13 F#m7 B7) and based on Minor Rhythm Changes.
  3. The music is not completely overbearing and didn’t require much adjustment on the mixdown.
  4. Chords flow well and the harmony has moments of consonance and dissonance.
  5. There are plenty of lows that give the piece some awe-inspiring depth.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. There are some phase wobble issues around 4:30. I need to read up and figure out how to correct these.
  2. This is the eighteenth ambient improvisation in a row. I think future ambient tracks will have to have some preconceived plan, direction, tension and resolution.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

Corners

Title: Apollo Lee – Corners
Date: March 10, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 6:18 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. The pad instrument is quite evocative.
  2. The harmony is complex and somewhat strange. I used a Korg padKontrol, so I had 16 notes. The corners spell Cm7. The outside columns on the center two rows spell Em7/13. The middle two columns in the top and bottom row spell out Abm7. The center four squares spell FM7. Interesting. So much potential.
  3. There’s plenty of dissonance and consonance in this one, as well as a concerted effort not to double any notes on the controller.
  4. I was able to close my eyes and sink into the music. This style of music lends itself well to slow improvisation that allows a dissonant chord to lock in and achieve its effect.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. I landed on some of the notes too hard and they stick out too much.
  2. Like the sixteen ambient tracks that proceed this one, I had no plan, structure, or direction in mind. I landed on the keys wherever I decided to go.
  3. It really sounds terrible on iPod headphones. It doesn’t sound too bad on nice headphones, but I could probably have mixed it down better.
  4. I should have used the mod wheel, which has an interesting effect on this instrument.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

February Roundup

In the second month of my “52 Tracks in 52 Weeks”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/01/04/52-tracks-in-52-weeks/ project, I crafted *eight* tracks. All of them were ambient improvisations and a vast majority of them were created on “Caltrain”:http://www.caltrain.com during the commute to and from work in San Francisco.

As of February 29, 2008, the total number of tracks I’ve written so far this year stands at *seventeen*. I’m averaging nearly two per week. I’m ahead of schedule.

Here are the songs I created in February 2008:

# 02 Feb 2008 — “Nematic”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/02/nematic/
# 05 Feb 2008 — “Smectic”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/05/smectic/
# 08 Feb 2008 — “Chirality”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/08/chirality/
# 11 Feb 2008 — “Thermatropic”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/11/thermatropic/
# 18 Feb 2008 — “Synchrotron”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/18/synchrotron/
# 22 Feb 2008 — “Quiescence”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/22/quiescence/
# 25 Feb 2008 — “Cerulean”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/25/cerulean/
# 27 Feb 2008 — “Iridesce”:http://www.apollolee.com/2008/02/27/iridesce/

Belmont

Title: Apollo Lee – Belmont
Date: March 3, 2008
Software: Logic Pro 8
Genre: Ambient
Timing: 6:30 @ 40 bpm

What I Like About It

  1. The pad instrument (Blue Carpet) is beautiful and has lots of interesting potential.
  2. The harmony is simple (Cm7 Fm7 Bbm7 Ebm7) and lends itself to lots of possibilities for different chord types, even with the 16 notes I’m using on the padKontrol.
  3. There’s a decent amount of note diversity with a big profound low C.

What I Don’t Like About It

  1. Midranges are fuzzy and distorted and this piece sounds terrible on iPod headphones.
  2. The harmony is too consonant to get really rich dissonant tensions.
  3. I mixed this down on the train, where I had to strain to hear past the noise of my surroundings.
  4. I should have used the mod wheel with that strange effect more than for a split second at the end.

Note: These are rough drafts. Constructive criticism is welcomed, of course.

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