Bittern

I started putting the track together the day I wrapped Pylon, I still had some music production energy and was riding the high of finishing the track. It started off as a fun experiment playing with two related acid basslines slowly crossfading between each other and panning to extreme left and right as that middle crossfade happens. I liked the effect and couldn’t help but build it out. The idea was to build to this transition, a breakdown during this stereo acid moment, then the track kicks back in for the second part and the track deconstructs from there.

I got some feedback about the track losing too much energy in the second half and it took me a little while to figure out what to do. I reworked the second acid bassline to better contrast the first. Additionally, I added a third voice to act as a third act in the track and added more evolving percussion to keep the energy higher while also letting it come down into a conclusion. The third voice is a Buchla FM voice that starts blippy until I open up the low pass gate and then it screams. I don’t have an actual Buchla Easel so this is using the Arturia Easel plugin. Sounds great imho.

The three lead voices are grouped and run through a lowpass filter where I play with the cutoff, resonance, and drive to add additional movement to the elements that most capture active listening and to help the voices feel more related. The two acid voices use opposite channel stereo delays so while they’re both on, they ping pong back and forth across each other.

The drums here are mostly 909 kit style synthesis. The open hats are a polyrhythm which I think adds a nice groove. I’m more of a clap guy but this track uses a number of snares, all 606 inspired drum synthesis. The perc sounds in the first half are 808 congas and in the second half, 808 rim shots. The crazy hats in act 3 are the DS HH Ableton device using pink noise with some stepped modulation on decay and using the Auto Filter effect to add stereo movement. I really like how these turned out, very light and very fun.

My favorite element of this track is the pad sound that signals a new element being added or removed in the track. It’s using the Ableton Wavetable device with a wavetable called Copper. The sub bass is Operator, nothing super interesting there just FYI.

Much like Pylon, I’m using Soothe3 on the master bus. Besides Soothe and the Arturia Buchla Easel plugin, everything else is an Ableton device.

The artwork for this track is a photo I took of the Gradierwerk Bad Dürkheim. It’s a structure that’s a large wall of piled up sticks that salt water pumped up from the ground trickles through. The wind can pass through the sticks and it makes Bad Dürkheim, the town that it resides in, smell like the sea is nearby even though it is very much landlocked and in German wine country. The salty air is thought to be good for your respiratory health and people use the town as a wellness retreat. Was I brought to this place because I am sickly? /shrug

Equipment:

• Ableton Live 12
• Soothe3
• Arturia Buchla Easel V

• Written and produced by Grant Goddard
• Artwork by Grant Goddard
• Special Thanks: Nate Grossman, Patrick George, Carla Boos <3