Serenity in F Major | Behringer Neutron, Roland SE-02 | Berglund NuRAD EWI Wind Synthesizer

I’m on vacation with my family in a cabin overlooking a beautiful river valley in Alabama. The weather is spectacular, the birds are singing their hearts out...since the family is fast asleep, I took some time to write a short sequence on the SE-02 and improvise with the birds.

I am recording and doing some light audio processing on on iPad in AUM (reverb, delay, compression). I took four samples of birdsong with Koala Sampler on iOS (amazing and fun app) the previous day, looped them, and mixed them together. I added a high pass filter to cut some ambient hum out of the recording.

The SE-02 is running a sequence in F major (chosen because it is supposedly a ‘pastoral’ key; is that because of Beethoven 6? Which came first?) on OSC 1, transposed up a 4th on OSC 2, and with a bass drone detached from keyboard control on OSC 3. I really like the onboard delay in the SE-02, so it is layered in before recording.

I am using the Berglund Instruments NuRAD wind controller to play my Behringer Neutron. I am running a beta firmware which has a harmonizer functionality built directly into the controller! The. Neutron is set in paraphonic mode, which gives it a nice two-note harmony. I improvised two melodies (one of which is based on a melody I have been fiddling with for a couple years trying to decide how I might actually turn it into a stand alone composition), and spent some indulgent time improvising freely.

I hope you enjoy. Please feel free to share any comments, critiques, or questions.

www.coltranius.com