Tag Archives: remixes

Big Deal !!! Who Cares !!!

CeMeGo… It Alone (First Solo Album)

CeMeGo... It Alone

Well, here it is. This really isn’t a new album exactly. It’s more of a collection of things, doodles, and some seriously intentional music that I had made all by my little self. Most of this stuff is posted on this blog, but NOT ALL OF IT. This album compiles everything I’ve done on my own that I found worthy to put together in an album offering. The interesting part is some of this stuff dates back to 2013. I have acquired a lot more equipment, moved a lot, learned a lot, repaired a lot, failed a lot, but at least had fun along the way (with frequent backups).  I just bought another piece of equipment that may change everything a bit (Novation Launchpad) and I wanted to compile everything I did personally up to this point and put it in an album.

Credits? Well, ALL ME!!!! I PLAYED AND DID EVERYTHING HERE.

Song List and commentary (Also known as “liner notes” because I miss the day of vinyl record album sleeves):

  1. Charging Ahead, Blindly (1:56)  This was formerly named wowneewow project.  I have no idea why.
  2. Red Box Hotty (3:33)  I have always loved this track and it managed to slip off of all the CHOB and Hozpitality albums.  It’s a drum loop from the Kaossilator tortured lovingly through the Mini KP (red box) effects unit.  This is reminiscent of Brian Eno’s Over Fire Island track (in my opinion at least).
  3. Blinkin Asteroid (3:48) This was inspired by Brian Eno and Karl Hyde’s song The Satellites.
  4. Arpeggiate Your Ass Off 1 (3:30) Behold the power of the MicroKorg Arpeggiator.
  5. Rain Keys (2:49) Someone left the Harold Budd record in the oven and it melted.
  6. Funkola (4:33) Inspired by a million repeated listens to Kamasi Washington’s, “The Epic” album.
  7. Arpeggiate Your Ass Off 2 (4:09) Because one of these was simply not enough for me.  You get to decide which you like better (or not).
  8. I’m Keeping This (This One is Mine) (4:14) Selfish little robot voice.
  9. Out of Sync (5:25) Rhythm was never my strong suit but I try.
  10. The Stinky Finger Boogie (4:59) This was paired with an animated GIF of Donald Trump pointing his finger nearly rhythmically in time.  Inspired by the GIF not by the “man” himself.
  11. Out of Time (6:48) Companion piece to Out of Sync.  Pick a winner.
  12. Volca Waves (11:40) I feel that this is one of my best stabs at doing something melodic and “mellow”.  It is one of my favorite experiment results.  Love this.
  13. The One Measure Masturbatory Jam (3:38) This one barely made the cut.  It is a bunch of instruments piled on one 16 beat measure then subtly (or not) altered throughout its’ repetition.  Patience and a keen ear are required to understand its’ purpose and existence.
  14. Bruford Gives Up (0:43) A silly tribute to one of the best drummers in music, Bill Bruford, who was always really great with the tuned percussion.   This sounds like him just flailing about and saying “to hell with it”.  It makes me laugh.
  15. Fugue U (10:54) A fugue piled up like a mile high jenga tower.  Collapse eminent.
  16. Wooda Womp El Grande (9:27) This title came from the sound of this song.  Part march, part hat dance, part goose step.
  17. The Black Keys Thing (12:23) Played on all the black keys because, why not.
  18. Jamola Number Three (14:23) Obviously Jamola Number One and Two just weren’t worth it.
  19. Those Three Notes (9:26) An experiment built on three notes.
  20. Behringer Mixer’s Last Stand (So Long Sucker) (0:16)  This may be the very last recording done on my old Behringer mixer.  At this point it had become so caked with dust, it had to warm up a good 10 minutes after power up.  It became an investment of frustration and canned air.  The hiss and uncontrollable distortion were a disaster at the end.  New Audio Interface now in operation (THANK GOD!).

Here’s the 110 meg zip file of all the tracks and the cover!  Enjoy!

And as always, like Todd Rundgren said, “Yer gonna wanna get out yer headphones, cause they’re really gonna help ya on this one.”

UPDATED!!! Novation LaunchPad Pro + Ableton + Rush = High Mystic Water Rhythms

Rush Cartoon
So I bought a Novation Launchpad Pro for Christmas (From me to me). This is a controller for digital audio software (mostly Ableton). I have always complained about the learning curve in Ableton and how it does things differently. Well, seeing that it IS an industry standard in an industry I lovingly call my “hobby”, I decided to invest in the software and force myself to learn it. This device helps that learning and makes understanding of it a lot easier.

Novation LaunchPad Pro

I have started stealing drum sounds from Neil Peart (from Rush) and using them as my drum foundations on this project. These drum sounds and the riff are respectfully sampled from the song by Rush titled “High Water” (from the album “Hold Your Fire”). Admittedly, the groove/shuffle of the original drum pattern are lost a bit as I quantized it. It made it more robotic and less human which I think adds to it in an odd way. I called my version “High Water Pants” “High Mystic Water Rhythms”.

This is my first second stab at this, so be gentle. I am amazed at the simplicity and power of all of this technology and my mind has been blown multiple times in the past 48 hours. I’m in love with this stuff.

Check out my first  second shot at a LaunchPad Pro mix with Ableton. Not too shabby. Take special note of the groovy drum solo break in the middle. I’m so nifty! 🙂

UPDATED!!!

I have decided that one Rush song was not enough to destroy, so I also diced up Mystic Rhythms and added a whole new segment mixing the drums from this song along with the song mentioned above (High Water).

I’m sure Neil Peart will be completely pissed, but I am learning a lot and having fun!  Let’s face it.  The man’s drum sounds, sound awesome! I basically sampled each of his drum sounds separately (to a very short wav file), then assigned each drum (wav file) to a button, then wailed away on the pads and tried to make my own drum patterns out of HIS sounds. I  put another nifty drum solo type break near the end.  THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH POWWWWWERRRRR! I’m blowing myself away here!

CHOB III

chob3-cover

This is compiled from sessions recorded in 2016.  Bob and CeMeGo had things scattered all over the hard drives.  It has taken a while to compile all of this together.  Some you may recognize from this blog, others were created and never posted.

Track List

  1. Oh It’s a Harold Budd Start (2:36)
  2. Start The Reactor (3:11)
  3. The Surface (7:07)
  4. Overmodulated M F’er (3:45)
  5. The Big Test (0:52)
  6. A Serious Dialogue (Noise Your Dick Off at 300bpm) (4:24)
  7. Breakfast Project (1:56)
  8. Chob Gives Up (1:14)
  9. Our Own Girls (7:20)
  10. That Darn Delay Thing (4:42)
  11. It Builds to Something Special (3:44)
  12. Chobwahwah (3:57)
  13. Oh It’s a Harold Budd Ending (1:16)

Personnel

Bob & CeMeGo (and occasional Nguyen Chaney).

Tools

Ableton Live (The great learning curve)
Adobe Audition (too useful unfortunately!)
Korg Mini-KP
Korg Kaossilator Pro
Korg MicroKey
Korg MicroKorg
Sony Acid Pro 7
Korg Volca Bass
Korg Volca  Beats
Korg Volca  Keys
Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator PO-12

Click here to download the album in a zip file with cover art (46 megs).

We still don’t make money off of this crap. We do it for fun! The best compensation would be a comment or review right here on this blog again. Chob thanks YOU for your junk!

With or Without Doobies?

Douche
Bob and I took to MicroKorg and Monotron respectively, and improved the Doobie Brothers. The results are just incredible…. MY GOD we’re good.

Here we are WITH the Doobies…

Here we are WITHOUT the Doobies (SUBSTANTIALLY betterrrrr…)

Which is betterrrrrr?

View Results

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Hozpitality – EpiPen

EpiPen and Peanut at candle light dinner

Funky 70’s TV Bumper Music: Evening/PM Magazine Theme

Evening/PM magazine logo

If you are old enough you will remember this theme.  I mixed it together with really bad audio bits from youtube.  The opening theme is sewn up with the ending synthesizer funky theme.  As a “bonus” (I guess) it reprises the opening at the end.

I just heard this out of the blue and remembered how funky it was.  Crank dat shit (in the middle at least).

CHOB: A Serious Dialogue

serious dialogue


Still at it! You were warned!

It can’t get much better than this at this point. This was seriously considered as a viable song, then we just gave up and moved the BPM up to 300 just to see how it sounded. We went to IHOP for breakfast at 4pm and came back and finished this. I blame IHOP !!

Starring:

    1. North Korean news anchors
    1. A young Arnold Schwarzenegger
    1. Jim Bakker
    1. A Cattle Auctioneer
    1. And a guy teaching Algebra
  •       Anonymous Montgomery County Maryland Police Officer

CHOB: Our Own Girls !!

our own girls

Bob showed up in North Barfthesda and we educated and learn’t each other to make this thing.

Used:  Volcas, MicroKorg, Kaossilator Pro, MiniKP, Phone

We have made and are making more of the best you have ever heard.  You will have so much more you will ask for no more more. Believe me. Stay tuned.

Tired of This Yet? This is The Black Keys Thing 1

bk1

This is a song played on all black keys. I wanted to work a little harder on creating with the MicroKorg and Kaossilator alone.

There are still some minor time issues, but HOLY CRAP THE SOUNDS ON THE mICROkORG ARE AWESOME. So many presets and this is with little to no variation of these stock presets.  The quality and variety of the sounds are amazing.  I went through as many as I could.

Geek Notes:

  • Kaossilator holds the time (at 100  bpm) and handles the loops and some studio sounding drums.
  • MicroKorg plays the initial stomp beat, all the solo sounds, screw ups, arpeggios, and vocoder crap.  ALL ON THE BLACK KEYS of course.
  • MiniKP (red box) added some much needed reverb and absurd delay to anything the MicroKorg put out including loop source material.

Note:  This is terribly long (12 minutes and 23 seconds)…  bump it around if you get bored.  I think the last 2 or 3 minutes sound the best (thanks to a bent, reverb’d, and delayed string chord I liked and it notably ends in this).  There’s a really loud over-modulated bass bit in the middle thats hilarious and may destroy your speakers.

Once again, no sense of time or self control.  This is just too much fun to make!  I couldn’t stop myself. 🙂