Jamuary Day 5 | Electribe 2 Sampler & PO-35 Speak | Thudly Goodness

My friend sent me a pocket operator for Christmas, a long time jam partner and someone whom has become family over the decades and in a cool way it’s like jamming with him every time I start messing around with the PO-35 Speak - I spent the majority of Day 4 of Jamuary cleaning and reorganizing essential parts of my life and living space and also marathoned some Lord of the Rings, all the while being able to lay down patterns and get to know the drum machine a bit more on the speak. Today, I took one of the patterns I made up set it down to 60 BPM and made a complimentary jam on the Electribe 2 Sampler at 120 BPM to some very sweet results (it’s Lofi house so why sync?) I like Lydian especially on the electribe because it lends way to that beautiful maj7 chord as tonic so started there. I’ve been getting more used to pattern chaining and the pros and cons to it, so with this jam I explored how it could be used to evolve the “rhythm section” of the electribe.

I like to look at the electribe as a minimalist gold mine because of the limitations. 4-note polyphony per pad plus, depending on how you use the thing you can either lose whole parts or have drop outs occur. So the top is reserved for harmony, melody, diddly-doos, and samples where the bottom 8 is all rhythm. My background in music is from ensembles, wind instruments, and rock bands. It’s a little easier to compartmentalize the electribe in that way so there’s a drummer, a bassist, harmony/texture, and a soloist.

The vinyl sim provided by the Boss SP-303 (off camera) helped out with some texture and the compression reminds me of some good old side-chaining. I always think back to the video Goodhertz made with Jack Stratton about the history of the Vulf Compressor and how he said now that he has the vulf comp his 303 now has taken residence in a shack or garage or whatever for me it’s the opposite, especially for when I’m making these quick one-offs and don’t want to drag and drop things around my computer. The vulf (and also the 303) is like that “special sauce” guitar pedal. You know, the one you always leave on- for me it’s my mxr micro chorus set real low; throwing on even just a splash of the vulf compressor to an instrument track or even the master really just adds a lot of character. My first turntable comes in the next couple of days I’m excited to get heavy into chopping on the 303- more videos and things to come!

Thank you for watching and also reading about through my ramblings :)