With all the things going on in the world today, I did not have the energy to plan more than one piece of gear’s worth of music, or mess around with samples. So, I went with one of my favorite grooveboxes in my arsenal, the Elektron Model:Cycles.
I started off with my MIDI keyboard plugged in (Arturia Keystep) and played around in Bb Mixolydian. I don’t know why, but that has been one of my favorite keys forever. I laid out simple note progressions on each track, but added a little complexity in varied time signatures.
The kick drum on Track 1 is just one bar of 4/4. Track 2 is the snare and percussion in 7/8. Track 3 is in 15/8. Track 4 is two bars of 4/4. Track 5 is 3 bars of 4/4. Track 6 is also two bars of 4/4.
The pattern feels pretty “normal” still (not jarringly cycling), but there is enough variation of the notes going around each other to hopefully be a little interesting. I wrapped it up by doing a control all to lower the decay on all the tracks, and then adding delay and reverb until everything was pretty washed out. And then let the long tail end it.
