For the next few videos, I have to film at my day job desk in my house instead of in my studio space (also in my house). Long story, but it involves partial quarantining. Stupid covid scares.
The MC-101 and the OP-Z are in a similar category of not-cheap, but not too expensive, grooveboxes. The OP-Z has more quirk with its step components (so cool) and limited sequencer resolution (so uncool, come on). After having both for a while, I think I like the MC-101 a bit better. It’s more conventional. But it sounds great out of the box. The presets are amazing. And the drum sequencer is so much more intuitive.
For this jam, I decided to take drums from the OP-Z out of the equation and just use the synth engines. It was a struggle to find sounds that I liked. I don’t know what it is, but they just don’t edit as well as you would expect given all the pages of parameters. On the other hand, the TB-303 style presets on the MC-101 are great and it took seconds to find one that I liked.
No scatter or performance effects tonight, just bringing sounds in and out again.
A note on how I finish tracks. Generally I just toss the wave files into Ableton and do a little insta-mastering using Ozone Elements. Tonight, since I recorded the OP-Z to a separate stereo track, I added a pinch of chorus from the Supermassive plugin to the Z’s sounds. It turned out alright in the end.
Song Imagery from Miss BC
The visual is in black and white and is kinda old timey NYC. You see people hurriedly walking through the streets on their way to work. As the camera pans across the crowds, people begin to stop in their tracks, gawking at the sky and excitedly pointing. One person gasps. Another cheers. One woman nearly faints. The camera looks up and you sees a man wearing a striped leotard stepping over the ledge of one skyscraper and attempting to tight rope across. He looks straight ahead, and never down at the crowd that has gathered which include firetrucks and swarms of police. He has a determined look on his face as he pretends not to hear the raucous sounds from below and to focus on the quiet melody in his head…every step is measured and calculated as he inches closer and closer to his dream.
