Synthetember 2024 Wrap-Up
Now that the dust has had a chance to settle, not to mention my scattered brain cells having settled somewhat too, I'd like to reflect a little on my experience of Synthtember this year.
I'm quite happy to say that I managed to record a track every single day – I didn't succumb to weariness, as I thought I might, and even more fortunately I didn't succumb to any child-borne lurgies, which I fully expected to experience. The process started the evening of returning home from an expedition interstate to Brisbane – with a new synth under my arm, I should add (a Behringer MS-1 – a very satisfactory Roland SH-101 copy) – and left again for Brisbane the day following the 30th of Sept. It was a pretty epic experience.
The exercise of Synthtember for me is to attempt to record a track of some sort every day through the month of September. Mostly, something like 25 out of 30, it was live performance improvisations wherein I select a few synths, come up with an idea and record it all in a single take – ie no overdubs. A few of them were layered multitrack recordings, but mostly I was trying for the “first thought best thought” method of recording.
I think the exercise is useful for a number of reasons. One, that it encourages a disciplined recording regime – that of playing even if you don't necessarily feel the muse descend. I often found that some of the best tracks were ones that I went in thinking I had no mojo for recording that day, but pushed myself through. Not that it always worked out that way.
Secondly, having done this last year, I ended up using almost ninety percent of the tracks as the basis for more fully realised songs. Omnia Bene is the first release composed of er re-composed versions of last years tracks. The forthcoming Homeostasis album Enshittifination is also drawn from heavily reworked versions of some of this material.
In terms of quality, there's only one, maybe two, tracks that I'll most likely happily consign to the “artefacts never to be seen or heard again” folder. Everything else pretty much has at least the kernel of an idea that I'd like to revisit to see if it has any legs.
I intend to keep all posts with the full improvs up on this site, for the one deranged person out there who for some reason is interested in this kind of thing, and I'll keep the whole collection on Funkwhale at least until I start releasing mixed, composed & mastered versions of the material.
