the daily track

Feb. 13. to March 14. I did a little project/experiment of making one track every single day. Well, here is how much I managed to do (I notified arrivals of new tracks via twitter @timhoffmann as well).
the daily track

  1. 2-13 – day 1: turned out more guitar heavy than I expected
  2. 2-14 – day 2: O.K. I was at the movies that night :)
  3. 2-15 – day 3: well, got carried away a little bit – style wise… but it was fun to make.
  4. 2-16 – day 4:
  5. 2-17 – day 5: again more on the heavy/progessive side. I promise more electronic music in the coming days (since guitars are not train compatible…)
  6. 2-18 – day 6: todays track is already more electronic (although the train rides are still ahead)
  7. 2-19 – day 7: One week of daily tracks! Day 7 – so I figured I should do this track with the DX7 only (which happens to be the first synth I ever had). this was complicated though, since it broke my workflow: The goog old DX7 is monotimbral – meaning I had to arrange the different sound one by one…I am not completely happy with the result. With more time one could have done better I think.
  8. 2-20 – day 8: I was on the train most of the day. So this track lacks the help of some of my beloved gadgets. Some things don’t sound exactly like I wanted them to sound, but hey being able to produce on the go with noching but a laptop and head phones is something :)
  9. 2-21 – day 9: Like yesterday I was away from most of my gear. Sometimes computers are usefull :)
  10. 2-22 – day 10: Ten tracks already (and almost 34 minutes of music)! This is a train ride track again, so it is not very elaborate. Tomorrow I will ahve more options (we will see whether this is helpful though).
  11. 2-23 – day 11: No synthesizers this time (well some sampled drums of course, but besides that…) :) I had to celebrate, that I had access to guitar and bass again.
  12. 2-24 – day 12: And now to something COMPLETELY different… I reactivated my old horn and was quite pleased by the noise it made… the whole track is in danger of falling apart anytime though (I didn’t quantize anything here :) )
  13. 2-25 – day 13: This is the one to loose any credibility I might have left. Plus: to make it, I had to fight program crashes, transcoder bugs, and even a power outage…
  14. 2-26 day 14: Two weeks of daily tracks! I was tired, though :) Therefore this turned out to me on the more quiet side. The nature atmo is no sample, btw. I made that virtual analogue patch quite some years ago.
  15. 2-27 – day 15: If I really was to keep this up for one month as initially planned, I would be half way through now :). The sound of this one turned out to be not exactly as I intended it. Sometimes tracks have their own idea of how to sound and learning about this is part of the fun of this project.
  16. 2-28 – day 16: I was in a bad mood today (plus I did not like yesterday’s track too much, to be honest…). Anyway I had to make up for all that, I guess. Oh, and Trent Reznor won an oscar :)
  17. 3-1 – day 17: dailyshoot asked for a repeating pattern in its assignment today, so I thought it would be fun to go for a fugue/canon syle track.
  18. 3-2 – day 18: This took too long (at least longer than I hoped) and some other things had to be done too. But the result works, I think (might be better with some voice on it, but time, you know :) )
  19. 3-3 – day 19: I was a little unhappy with the fugue of day 17, so here is a canon for 4 voices plus an extra halftempo bass voice. I might try to record that with real instruments at some point as well…
  20. 3-4 – day 20: I should celebrate. Two thirds of a month (and more than an hour of music) and I think I am getting faster. All tracks are different, but some are more different…
    this time I tried some sort of beat boxing.
  21. 3-5 – day 21: This completes the third week of daily tracks. I am pretty happy about this. the track is in whole tone scale btw.
  22. 3-6 – day 22: Now my daily tracks will not fit on a regular 74min audio cd anymore. The time where I can record natural instruments will soon find an end: the birds outside the window start to make some ruckus.
  23. 3-7 – day 23: It was getting late – again. So I figured a nocturne was indicated. It is in Rondo form.
  24. 3-8 – day 24: Back to electronic music (house style or something like that I guess…)
  25. 3-9 – day 25: Unfortunately, with the given timeconstraints, one can not wait for the perfect take to happen. So this track is kint of “uncut”. Two guitars, bass, drums. That’s it.
  26. 3-10 – day 26: Once again, the track turned out quite different from what I intended originally. I guess, I need more practice. Anyway, I am happy with the guitar I used for this track.
  27. 3-11 – day 27: slightly distorted piano. This track very much mirrors my thoughts/mood of that sad day.
  28. 3-12 – day 28: not much to say here. I finished/uploaded this one late… but still it finishes four full weeks of daily tracks.
  29. 3-13 day 29: Late but here it is.
  30. 3-14 – day 30: Done! One full month of daily tracks!
    Some people like to call the 14th of March Pi day (3-14, you know…), so this track is made with sine oscillators only :).
    Now that I archived my goal of one month of tracks every day, I am not sure how to continue… we will see, but I might allow myself a day off, maybe.

Overall I am happy with the result. Such a project is exhausting thouth. At the moment I am thinking about doing a downscaled version of one track per week, but with the understanding that the track should still be done in one day…