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Anyone with more than a passing interest in electronic music and production, will probably have come across the unique Warp Records duo called Plaid. Apart from the ambiguous nature of their band name, that by definition has no correct pronunciation, Plaid are well known for their rich vein of production, exploiting beautiful tones and textures, with a very healthy engagement with polyrhythms.
Download the accompanying video and the MIDI/audio files at filesilo.co.uk/computermusic
We are going to draw inspiration from one of their most admired tracks called Clock, from the album The Digging Remedy. While it is conceivable that they could have approached the repeating synthetic/piano chord sound in a number of ways, we are going to concentrate on utilising the ZebraCM plugin, with heavy usage of the LFO section, and automation from within a DAW. Hopefully the resulting sound will act as a springboard to new ideas.
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Download the accompanying video and the MIDI/audio files at filesilo.co.uk/computermusic
It would also be relatively easy to remove the clocking component from the LFO, at which point we will have a very lush super-saw style pad, which could spawn inspiration for another direction. Either way, both instances of the patch are contemporary and ripe for deployment in a number of production settings, from the classic ’90s era onwards. If there is one thing that we know, it is that good sounds never go out of fashion. Let’s clock in!