Project 7 [more synth]

So far Ive put together a drum loop. This is much slower than I usually have. I definitely like it, but I might have to change it since I havent even considered making the synth parts yet. The drums so far consist of a snare drum, a slight cymbal hit, a hat, and a kick drum with the high end sound cut off a bit to make it more apparent. I was having trouble distinguishing the kick drum from the snare. The drums kind of progress slowly, changing slightly every 16 beats. Again, I like it but it was probably a bad idea to make a drum loop without any real direction or idea for the song.
I have two synths in the making. One I just left with the default sound for now and sent it through the riff machine. Its a long progression thats generally some very high notes and very low notes. The other synth is a simple square wave. I set the panning to move from the right ear, sustain at center, and then continue down to the left. The pitch also is set to quickly rise, lower, rise, sustain, then lower. It sounds pretty cool, but it definately restricts possibilities. I have copied the lower notes from the other riff and this synth will play those. The lower notes on the default sound were so apparent and boring that I knew they must be accompanied. Ive changed the default synth to a triangle wave and played with the shape slider to get basically the same sound just sharper and more apparent at the higher pitch. I also put a delay effect on it and played with those sliders but all I can remember is it is on the ping-pong setting. So far it sounds pretty cool, very industrial which I Love, but I havent a clue as to how to continue. Sounds fine on repeat, but that wont get a very good grade, will it? Im editing the A Pattern by taking the initial progression teh riff machine ised and chopping that a different way to get something new. Its working nicely so far but it isnt finished and i dont know how the two patterns will fit together.
Today i finished the vocoder project so I didnt get much done on this one. Odd coincidence, Mr. Rabuse decided to show us this thing to do with harmonics and multiple tones being played at once that we could use to get a much nicer sound with our synths. The funny thing is that I was just playing around with that very thing the other night on the demo version at my house. Except I was attempting to make the most obnoxious noise I could make, not the warmest or richest sound. He told us to make a downward slope in the OSC in one of the operators (this made a trumpet like sound), so I made an upward slope on the other end of the OSC and got a noise that reminds me of a computer issuing alerts or something. So I have this playing a high pitched quick riff, I have no idea if Ill actually use it but it might be a cool intro or outro. Or maybe I could just turn the noise all the way up and make static (pathetic cheap way out but fun).
Ive basically been stuff all period. Ive been looking for where to go with this project. Ive tried two things, not sure which im going ot stick with. Ive used slayer and the grand piano preset in sytrus. I did nothing yet to the grad piano but im sure I will if I stick with it. With the slayer I moved the pickup all the way to the neck, put on the tube amp and dry cabinet settings with no effects. I used the dampening knob to make it more of a palm muted sound. I figure im either doing a fast piano melody or a deep guitar background sort of thing. No idea which yet. I ran both through the riff machine a million times to try to get ideas. Im thinking about having an AAB(C?)pattern for the song. Ive got mostly silence for the C part, and the B part is undecided yet (guitar or piano).
Right off the bat today I made a simple piano part. This part continues right where the original piano part left of, but it only plays the second time through. Its a very simple part, but its sounds very nice where it is. This is going to be that "C" part on the second run through of the pattern. Ive taken the same piano part and edited it slightly and have it running as the first part "C", but through the guitar (slayer as mentioned earlier). I put an automtaion for the slayers volume on just to fade in and out (it over lays the surrounding parts a bit). Ive added two sustained notes at the very end (from slayer) to play with the drums. The feedback kicks in a little and then the song cuts. I added the fruity chorus effect to the slayer (in all occurrences). I like the sound, its like a mix between a synthesizer and guitar, and I like that (yes, I know a synthesizer is supposed to sound like other instruments, for the most part). Im just doing minor changes now, done with this for the most part. Ive played with the volume on everything alot so everything can be heard better throughout the entire song.
Today I just did more minor changes. I got nicer headphones, so it doesnt sound as nice (just different). Im done with it though. Hopefully its not as bad as I hear it being right now.