So, this one was made using the exact same setup as Friends, but with a slightly different musical approach.
For one thing, I wanted to use something that was a bit less four-on-the-floor in the drums, but that still felt laid back. That was the first thing I dialed in.
Next was the harmony. This was inspired by a segment of a Mr. Bill video I ended up watching the other day where he uses samples from his Discord server to make a track. In particular, there was the section where he mentions “planing” a sample with harmonies in it (in his case it was a Rhodes chord), which is more or shifting the chord shape in the sample up and down.
Now, I do technically have a sampler, but I couldn’t help but feel like that would be too much work. So what I did instead was pull out my Launchkey Mini Mk3, and used Chord Mode on it to take a minor 7th chord (minus the 5th, since the Volca Keys is three-voice polyphonic and not four) and programmed a quick eight-bar sequence on it (because you can do 8-bar sequences now thanks to the sync-rate selection in the new firmware! Thanks, Korg! :D)
Programming the bass was hell, though. for one thing, unlike Friends, using anything that wasn’t a sine or triangle in the bass was overpoweringly loud and would drown out the Keys coming into the Mono Station. Second off, I just struggled to get it working. It took way too long to figure out a sensible bassline.
(But I did figure out a sensible bassline. So there is that.)
Programmed a lead, and then tried to film, and I tired to do the whole moody-lighting thing, but that just ended up…not working. So instead the video looks like it was filmed with a beetroot. But the sound’s fine, at least, and I’m still on track for a perfect Novembeat streak, which is nice, so I’ll take what victories I can!