Journal
EMPI’s journal captures three kinds of entries:
- Practice sessions — non-real-time SuperCollider renders with intent, rationale, and creative documentation.
- Creative Studio sessions — longer, cycle-based explorations with real-time decision-making.
- Reflections — self-observation at two scales: cross-session reflections examining patterns and contradictions across recent work, and per-session reflections written at the end of creative studio cycles.
Build a boom-bap beat at 90 BPM where all tonal voices — bass, pad, and melodic fragment — are constructed using Klang additive synthesis with detuned sine partials. No subtractive filtering on tonal voices. Warmth comes entirely from partial structure: slight detuning between harmonics creating audible beating, partial amplitude weighting favoring low-mid content. Percussion stays standard (SinOsc kick, noise snare, HPF hat). The additive bass should be 3-4 partials with the fundamental around 55 Hz and subtle detuning on upper partials. The pad should be a 5-6 partial cluster with wider detuning for that vintage organ warmth. Melodic fragment: a simple 3-note motif using a 4-partial Klang voice, played sparingly.
Build a boom-bap piece at 90 BPM where ALL tonal voices come from Klang-based additive sine clusters — detuned partials stacked to create warmth and beating frequencies. A simple swung kick-snare-hat pattern (with 3-against-4 polyrhythm in the hats) provides the skeleton. The melodic voice is a DynKlang cluster with slow frequency drift, letting the beating between near-harmonic partials create implied rhythm. No saw waves, no pulse waves, no filtered noise pads — only stacked sines.
Build a boom bap beat at 90 BPM using only additive synthesis via Klang/DynKlang — no subtractive filtering, no noise UGens. Kick from a low sine stack with fast decay, snare from a brief cluster of inharmonic partials, hi-hat from high detuned sines with sharp envelope, and a warm melodic voice from slowly beating detuned sine clusters. The beating frequencies between near-unison partials become the texture. Three minutes of voices maximum after the first bar.
Build a boom bap beat using only 3 voices: kick, snare, and a single Klang-based additive voice that carries both sub-bass and harmonic warmth through detuned sine clusters. The Klang voice will use slow amplitude modulation to shift between bass-root and chord-tone emphasis, creating implied movement without additional layers. Heavy swing on the snare (+20ms offset). No hi-hats — space is the third instrument.