16 February 2022

I Nearly Understand - music by Used Soyuz

Another bit of VCV Rack 2 twiddling, with a simple rhythm track made in LMMS. I sliced up the twiddling in Audacity, and then dubbed in (non-singing) vocals and a melodica solo. There's not enough melodica in contemporary music - Augustus Pablo and Jon King, and that's about it.Royalty-free video from videezy.com.

29 December 2021

Not William Shatner - music by Used Soyuz

I rashly chose to christen my new pop filter with some dodgy singing and a clumsy song. Composed in LMMS, with vocal and mixing in Audacity. The music sample is from 'Shatner' by The Wedding Present, and the royalty-free video is from videezy.com.

06 December 2021

My tricky third album is on Bandcamp!

05 December 2021

Pleasing Myself Parts One and Two - music by Used Soyuz

More beeps and bleating, using the wonderful VCV Rack, the free modular soft synth that has proved a dreadful time-soak. It makes great noises, but music? I'll leave that for you to judge, dear listener. I imported a quick bit of sequencer knob twiddling (thanks Omri Cohen for the tutorials) into LMMS on my Linux Lenovo, added a rhythm track, and then put self-indulgent reverbed vocals onto this first part in Audacity (but no singing thankfully). Royalty-free video from videezy.com. This is Part One (with vocals):


And here is the instrumental only Part Two:

31 October 2021

Too Much Information - music by Used Soyuz

Here is another VCV twiddle, in two mixes. First I made this one, with three takes, edited together in Audacity:
 
Then I worried that it sounded a bit grim, so I thought I'd liven it up with a bunch of vocal samples, taken from two episodes of Gerry Anderson's Space 1999:  
I played this version to my family, whose response was, 'It's just a load of samples, with no music.'. I guess there's just no pleasing some people.

01 October 2021

As We Get Older And Stop Making Sense - music by Used Soyuz

My first bit of soft modular synthesis. I have been wanting to use VCV Rack for ages, but it didn't like my Linuxed Lenovo, so I put it on my Windows laptop instead. It worked first time. Here are my first two twiddlings, including my first ever use of a sequencer, edited together in Audacity. Free stock footage from videezy.com.

At first it reminded me of early Human League - 'The Dignity Of Labour' - only not as good. In fact I just read of the death of Richard H Kirk, one of the founders of Cabaret Voltaire. This is now a clumsy tribute to their early 'Methodology' period work. Only not as good.

29 August 2021

Whatever Next - music by Used Soyuz

A quick instrumental track, meant to be cathartic - ends up sounding like cheesy movie soundtrack. LMMS on my Linuxed Lenovo, video done with Kdenlive.