This dense section from a live Ostracon recording contains several live looped layers of synth along with the drums. Thanks to multitrack live recordings made by Isaac Halvorson I have about fifteen pieces from three shows that I’m currently mixing with the idea of releasing a live album. Some of them won’t make the cut, but I’m hearing potential in many of the tracks so far.

Dense Ostracon Performance Excerpt

At the last Ostracon performance I decided to forgo the use of soft synths and attempt to strictly use the Roland MKS-80 as my sole sound source. Because I live loop during these shows I was able to layer a broad variety of tones and, using the Bitstream 3X, manipulate the tones in real-time. Here’s a plucky outro that illustrates this technique.

Plucky Outro

Tonight I had the opportunity to revisit some of the material recorded during the Ostracon release show on June 24, 2011. I created a rough mix and master to get an idea of the potential for the work. Here’s an outro from the second track of the evening.

Ostracon Release Show Segment 4

As long as I am calling these microtracks I may as well give them titles hence, I now present for your listening pleasure, Better Place.

Better Place

I quickly mixed this microtrack titled, Overflow, together from clips that were recorded during my live performance at Honey with Ostracon last Wednesday.

Overflow by Ostraka

Overflow by Ostraka

Here’s a mix of the four previous practice phrases combined. The GMS preset that I programmed and used to create the phrases reined them all into the same general tonal center (basically harmonic minor). Imagine something like this with expertly played live drums and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the Ostracon show sounded like last night.

GMS Practice Phrases Combined

Here’s another phrase from my practice session prior to Wednesday’s performance. This sound was made with a monophonic patch I programmed for leads. I routed the GMS to the MKS-80 and recorded a MIDI loop so that notes were purposefully overlapping. Next I let that record while adjusting various parameters on the synth.

GMS Practice Phrase 4

This ethereal segment from the Ostracon release show contains a combination of an evolving pad with a bouncy arpeggiated line that were both produced during the performance on the Roland MKS-80 driven by GMS.

Ostracon Release Show Segment 2

The debut Ostracon album, Unauthorized Modifications, that we release last week has been reviewed quite favorably on the popular music blog, Reviler.org. Click the link for details. Here’s another sample of music from our release show last Friday.

Ostracon Release Show Segment 1

In this segment from the Ostracon release show I have a watery portamento lead going while Graham is making some nice atemporal sounds with what he calls a “cow necklace” and other parts of his kit. The cow necklace is made made from cow hooves strung in a loop. I searched the web for a similar instrument but found nothing but disturbing images of animal parts. In any case it sounds great.

Watery Lead with Cow Necklace