Sunday, August 15, 2010

Korg DS-10 Track 52



This is "Track 52", another 100% pure Nintendo Korg DS-10 (the original) tune. This one is in D minor.

When writing a new song, I always start from scratch, that is, I don't re-use patches from previous sessions and that includes the drums. That doesn't mean I never load the (original) presets from the cart and tweak them. Oh no, I do that sometimes (always a good starting point especially when you have no idea what you're looking for). Also, when I need to have additional voices like in this case, I usually sacrifice the hi-hat (drum channel 3) and the tom (drum channel 4). Hard to get rid of the kick and the snare but if I feel particularly inspired, no problem ditching them for more synth voices and melodic motifs that battle each other. More often than not, I'll have two melodies going on (one leading the other) and will switch the lead back and forth between the two melodies as the patterns progress.

For this tune, I created all 16 patterns without really looking to see if they would fit with each other and then made the pattern arrangement until the flow felt somewhat natural (and the tune was long enough). When arranging, I always end up tweaking or completely re-doing some of the patterns. That's usually when frustration may creep in and it doesn't hurt to take a break before giving up or totally wasting your time.

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