Exospore by Andy Pickford

I can't refer to this album as a RadioSilence project. I'd Like to and it started off with that intention. I had a debate with myself over what does and doesn't constitute RSi. It kinda went like this:
Moog Subharmonicon double-tracked improvs. ie: chords & sequence - OK. 3rd track - Moog Sub bass also OK. Add drum loops, percussion - it has been done but it should be part of the live mixing. These loops have been edited and used to imply structure, so yeah nah yeah.. nah. Can't call it RadioSilence, so it's AP :-)
It is actually quite cleverly produced and warrants a detailed explanation from me as to how this was done. Now do bear in mind that I'm an internationally unacclaimed, multi-award-avoiding, white middle-aged male artist. I'm as appealing to woke media aficionados as a prolapsed badger's arsehole. So even if you think good things of my music, just remember it's not the same as that mediocre Youtube rammel made by market-prefered gender-diverse millennials who weren't alive when proper Electronic Music was being invented.
Well I was. So just sayin.
Yeah I'm old :-)

About the production process then.
The Sub has one mono audio output. Let's presume I start with some ambient pad type sound. There are many ways to "stereo" synths, the basic tool I use is just a stereo delay with a dry feed one side and, say, a 0.4ms delay on the other. If I want something funkier I'll add that instead. Anyway, all being well I'll improv my way though that and then be ready for the next line. In this case I want some bass and the way to do that is not to touch the Subharmonicon's rhythms, but just isolate the sub osc which makes the best bass line (perhaps add another tuned up an octave for fatness). Recording from bar 1 you'll have all the bass notes in the same peel order they were on the pad run. I use a filter gate plugin to put the rhythm into the bass notes.
Sequence line. You can reprogram the Sub from scratch if you like, although starting with your pad notes will probably get your there faster. I often add a panner to spread out the notes.
If you've got your 3 Sub runs done and lined up, you're good to add percussion loops.
Now, to fill that sound out I send some of the sequence and pad lines through a stereo delay of course. Also, it's sent into an FX strip consisting of: Eventide Quadravox, Eventide Shimmerverb (these add the high harmonics which sound like high string synth), some ensemble chorus, Eventide Blackhole and... as if that wasn't enough I often finish with phasing, flanging or some other modulation effect.
By mixing the fx in and out I get the full sound you hear. But there's still only those three Sub lines - pad. sequence and bass, with the percussion and fx added. There is nothing else and not one keyboard or midi sequence was ever used to make this album.
This was all before the Moog Sub v1.1.1 which allows for sequence transposition. So I'll have to see how that comes out next eh ;-)
BTW the only bit of track editing I did was on Syntropez and that was to add emphasis and reduce potential monotony.
P.S. The track Shagnastification (eh yeah) is in triplet time. The Sub doesn't do that so I had to get inventive. I had to record my sequence first at 80bpm, then shift it down to 53.3333 to record the pads, before completing the piece with perc loops at 106.6667. I'm not bad at quantum physics either.
P.P.S. The Moog Sub has an amazingly tight sync and thus sounds fantastic with rhythm. Getting it to sync dead on beat when you want it to however.... nah. That's trial and error... or some track realignment later ;-)

Synth music producer since 1979. Much of my work here is free to hear — because music should be heard. But serious fans know support matters. If you want to connect, ask, request, or just show real appreciation, pay what it’s worth.

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