Free Motion Machine

Module text

Impulse Tracker 2.14 · Impulse Tracker 2.14p3

Message

= [ f r e e m o t i o n m a c h i n e ] =

by jmph (Jay Hoeberechts) - 6/6/2014 - auckland

I just started playing around with some loops, and this came out of
nowhere. Finished in about a week and a half after I realized Flashback
2014 was coming up and they were accepting remote entries. I can't make
the party but this is the next best thing! Fun fact: this will be my first
proper party compo entry since Coma3 in 2001.

Written mostly (probably 80%) with REAL Impulse Tracker under REAL DOS on
REAL HARDWARE. No virtual machines or emulators! Fun fact number 2: the
909-like kick drum was made on a Roland MC-202. WTF! That's not any kind
of drum machine, how the hell did I do that?! The *other* kick drum was a
sample from an actual drum machine. From the Soviet Union.

This tune is the -compo version- which means I had a 2MB limit on size to
deal with! The 303 patterns alone came to like 10MB when I recorded them!
That means I had to reduce the quality rather drastically and shorten the
whole song a bit to fit everything in. Still manages to sound pretty good
though! I encourage you to grab the full quality verison off either of my
sites in the next little while:

http://soundcloud.com/jmph-1
http://buzztunes.org/music/jmph <-- IT file will be here

OR:

The MIDI notation for the x0xb0x is still there, on muted channel 19
(insts 25 & 26.) Grab any acid bass machine you like, set it to MIDI
channel 1, hit F5 and make the ACIEEEED yourself!

* WARNING: IF YOU PLAY THIS MODULE IN HARDWARE MIXING MODE ON AN AWE64 YOU
WILL GET SYNC PROBLEMS WITH THE 303 SAMPLES. *

During the composition I found a NASTY surprise as I was using an AWE64 in
hardware mode for simultaneous sample playback+MIDI out. I've done this on
other tunes, e.g. 'Under a Foreign Sky' and was always really impressed
with how solid IT's MIDI timing is. So I recorded the x0xb0x direct on my
Roland S760 sampler as one long sequence and then chopped it up into
patterns. But when I pulled the new sound files back into IT they went
totally out of sync! So I tweaked the sample rate of each individual
pattern until they were the proper duration (making changes of up to
+-50Hz!) but then they were out of sync on *every other player*, e.g.
XMPlay, Aqualung, Deadbeef...

What happened? Is ITs timing actually bad? Was my use of 'swing' tempo the
cause?

Well, no. IT is still rock solid. It's the AWE64's fault. It seems it
can't playback samples at truly arbitrary frequencies; they are somehow
quantized (probably to be integer fractions of the card's native rate) and
it hated my 12kHz (yuck) patterns. That took forever to figure out. The
sync problems totally go away in IT's software mixing mode, e.g. with the
SB16 driver. Annoying.
 
That's my theory anyway. If I'm totally off base with my thinking here
email me with the *real* reason. I'm curious to know.

The hardware Interwave driver doesn't exhibit this problem either, but the
GUS doesn't have resonant filters. Win some, lose some...

Tools used in the creation of this tune:

Impulse Tracker 2.14 patch 5 (DOS)
SOX 12.18.2 (DOS)
SamplEd 1.52 (DOS)
FreeDOS 1.1 (DOS)
Pentium 233MMX (DOS)
Soundblaster AWE64 w/16MB - THAT QUANTIZATION BUG
Roland S760 - creator of the samples
iomega zip drives - three of them, for fuck's sake
Roland MC-202 - kicks the drums & drops the bass
Reliable x0xb0x - brings out the ACIEEEED

Wavosaur (not DOS :( but totally bitching prog - under WINE)
Schism Tracker (on my laptop, while travelling)

"Advanced" Impulse Tracker tricks used:

[x] Tempo 'swing' (A05A07A05A07A...)
[x] NNAs & virtual channels
[x] Pitch, volume & panning envelopes
[x] MIDI instruments
[x] Resonant filters
[x] Volume column effects
[x] Volume column pans
[x] Fake side-chain compression
[x] Simultaneous MIDI & sample playback w/filters (AWE64 only!)

Try all that on Protracker 2.3D!

Samples from:

own synths (ACIEE... oh I've said that already.)
kb6.de
Saga Musix (*stellar* 909 clap)
Modarchive Waveworld
Bluedistortion
Beatluxe
Some "48KHz SAMPLES!!" pack, which I downsampled to 36KHz to be an ass
h0ffman (that one bass, yeah, I just couldn't make my own because yours
was *so perfect* for what I wanted... so thanks!)

** WARNING THIS IS ALMOST THE END OF THIS WALL OF TEXT **

If you would like to contact me with any feedback, questions, comments,
hate, love, or ambivilence about this tune or any of my other songs,
please don't hesitate to! Try

jaymph@gmail.com

Or leave me a message on Soundcloud (address above.)

This song is released under Creative Commons 3.0 by-nc. You are free to
share, use, play, chop, sample, remix, spin, process, convolve, mashup, or
ignore this song in any non-commercial, not for profit way you see fit.
Just give me proper credit and we're cool.

Sample ripping and remixing are encouraged! Send me what you make if you
do. :)

Hope you enjoyed it! - jmph.2014

Instruments

   t      ]  [      ^
   r      ]  [      4
   a  [==========]  1
   c  [ f r  e e ]  0
   k  [ mo ti on ]  2
   e  [ mach ine ]  k
   d  [==    ==     c
   m     ==    ==   a
   u  =    ==    =  b
   s   ==    ==     h
   i  [  ==    ==]  s
   c   [   by   ]   a
   c    [ jmph ]    l
   o                f
    mpo-remoteentry-

     ]            [
      ] == == == [
      ]          [
     ]    [==]    [
    ]    [    ]    [
    ]^^^^[    ]^^^^[

 ( Here be MIDI insts )
 (  303-type on ch.1  )
 (    303 w/glide     )

   check out my other
        tunes on:
  soundcloud.com/jmph-1
buzztunes.org/music/jmph

    shift+f9 for
    more rambling

   jmph.2014.auckland

Samples

MC-202 kick
LEL DR8 SOVIET KICK
Percussive loop

Hat loop - left
Hat loop - right
Yamaha snare
DR220A rimshot
Reverby 909 clap
Techno stabs - left
Techno stabs - right

(I suck at organizing
samples so there is
nothing here)

Earth-shattering sub


(mind the gap)


Waldorf filter sweep




Ravey bass

303 pattern 1 (HOLY SHIT
303 pattern 2 LOW QUALITY
303 pattern 3 RESAMPS!
303 pattern 4 Had to meet
303 pattern 5 the 2MB
303 pattern 6 compo limit
303 pattern 7 - sorry for
303 pattern 8 the grit!
303 pattern 9 Or maybe
303 pattern A it's good?)