New EP, papertiger - songs for shaky hands

Oh wow, this is great. Purchasing.
EDIT: I know it doesn’t matter at all but what did you mainly use to make this? Only asking because I know we use a lot of the same gear or have in the past (Tracker, OP-1, etc.).

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Right up my alley! Superb textures, perfect balance between clean and drive/distortion. Soothing, blissful and beautiful! Really nice release. Will purchase.

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Beautiful, don’t leave it for another 10years! Bought

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To those that were curious about what gear was used, here is an attempted list. I honestly don’t remember on some of them, probably because my set up fluctuated during 2022 before finally stabilizing midway through the year.

transmission (haze) – I think this song originated from running my modular through the Mood and sampling longish passages into an MPC Live II. I eventually moved from trying to use the MPC as my primary workstation to accepting using a laptop (which has been an excellent decision for me). While I was getting the MPC ready to list for sale, I was dumping all of those recordings into my sample library and found a lot of recordings that I liked. This song had its origins in one of those recordings. The reverb on the send is Fors’ Box (@Ess ), which I love. I layered one or two “takes” from the same recording.

a dream – The primary piano part in this track came from me playing an NI piano sound (probably Noire?) through the Mood and “playing” the Mood (turning loop side on and off, varying length, etc.) as I played. I don’t have the MIDI for the performance. :smile: (oops!) I took the result, layered and chopped it a bit, but most of it is improvised. Unfiltered Audio’s Sandman Pro (@trickyflemming), an amazing delay, makes an appearance on the send.

the city and the city (breach) – This song is where I cut my teeth (re)learning to use Maschine after probably 10-12 years away from the platform. It’s come a long way and holy moly it’s great, but really deep. In any case, the drums were done in Maschine; the synths were done using Komplete Kontrol; and I sampled myself running things through the Mood and then chopped and layered those recordings. Box again on the send. Other plugins used: Arturia Coldfire, Dist OpAmp, Comp FET-76 (I still hate compressors); Unfiltered Audio Lo-Fi-AF; Ableton EQ and String Quartet. I will never again NOT bounce all of the individual drum tracks in a pattern, even though I pretend to be ok with print and moving on. I know now my future self probably won’t be as chill. :smiley:

sevenfifteen (wipe the slate clean) – This song is one performance using U-he Diva, sampled and layered, pitched up and down, reversed, etc. I don’t even know where the MIDI is as it’s not in the current version of the project. :woman_facepalming: In any case, Valhalla Delay on one send, Fors Box on another. Ableton Glue Compressor on several of the layers because why not…

dirty tussin (the knack) – Another song I used Komplete and Maschine on extensively. Vocal sample came from Grantchester (lol) – I think I was testing sampling into Maschine and just needed source audio quickly! Fabfilter Saturn 2; Arturia EQ-Sitral-295 and Dust Tube Culture, Ableton EQ8, Unfiltered Audio BYOME, and other random NI effects make appearances (Bite, Driver, Raum). Another track learning to use Maschine.

Please note that I didn’t list all of the NI synths that I used on the tracks (e.g. FM8 is in there, Prism, etc.), but if you have a particular question about a sound I can try and track down where it came from. I’m flattered anyone is curious. :slight_smile: I also used Unfiltered Audio’s Lion a lot because it is NKS AND very quick to edit a preset. Finally, New Fangled Audio’s Saturate was an absolute godsend for this project. I was able to use it to get consistent volume across my tracks and a “louder” sound without having “sound” all over my songs (thank you very much, Bob Dylan).

Once again, thank you for all of your comments and support. Happy New Year!

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What I needed. Purchased. Happy new year :slight_smile:

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Great EP!

I’m smitten with songs 1 and 4.

Gave you a follow, hoping I’m still monitoring my bandcamp emails ten years from now…

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I haven’t, alas. The only other Miéville I’ve read is Embassytown.

Very nice indeed, don’t leave it so long next time! :wink:

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Well, now I’m diving down the Mieville rabbit hole. Thank you for that.

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The City and The City is a really impressive book. I reread it this fall and it stands up. No spoilers, but it starts out sounding like science fiction… but isn’t.

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Perfect soundtrack for my grey and foggy commute to work this AM. Just lovely.

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Whoa, love that pic! Thank you for the kind words! <3

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The City and The City is one of my favorite books of all time.

Kraken was a glorious mess and Embassytown was really interesting.

But The City and The City is amazing, from concept to execution. The fact that he was able to pull off the premise at all in narrative prose is pretty amazing to me.

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Congrats on the release! :slightly_smiling_face:

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Beautiful and inspiring!

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great atmosphere. Very calming. Really nice EP

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Bandcamp Friday… buuuuuump!

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can I ask what the rationale is behind the title?

something about “songs for shaky hands” really bothers me.

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It was too late before I realized that the title could be construed as referring to something uncomfortable, like drug addiction, etc. The title was just meant to suggest that some of it was soothing for those with shaky hands - whatever the origin of those shaky hands. For me, it was either shaky from stress or concern for others or fear or a myriad of negative emotions, but also excitement or enthusiasm (as anyone building legos with a 7 yo will understand).

I usually don’t like to talk too much about origins type stuff, but I wanted to clarify since it made you uncomfortable. Interesting that your mind went there, though… I usually try to leave things up to the listener.

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Dirty Tussin (The Knack) is an all-out knocker. I would’ve called it The Filthy Tussin. Ugh.