Evan Allen - Csound 6 Hour Composition Challenge

This a piece based around the restraint of only using instruments from the Csound catalog, and the time limit of 6 hours. I wanted to create something that could show myself that I can compose and produce my own kind of music (progressive and electro house) with restraints such as this, and I think I achieved this.

Interestingly, one of the most challenging things for me was finding a good waveform to side chain compress off of. It took me quite a while and eventually I resorted to time stretching an existing kick drum sound so that it was long enough to create a more rhythmic compression for the pads, etc to use.

The driving force of this song, to me, is the bass synthesizers rhythms coupled with the odd textures of some of the non-harmonic sound effects I used. Normally my tracks are more focused on lead synthesizers, but with the time restraint there was, I was unable to find any sounds that I was truly pleased with for this.

The piece is tentatively titled "Counting Down" to remind myself that this was realized, sequenced, and produced in under 6 hours. I believe it goes without saying that I am not content with the mix, however, given the time constraint, I am very proud of my work.

Tools used:
All of the Csound instruments were multisampled in minor thirds and then brought into Kontakt 3. All of the sequencing and mixing was achieved in Logic, using Waves EQ's and Compressors along with various built in audio processors from Logic. As previously noted, I time stretched a kick drum (it is not actually audible in this track but used instead as a send for side chaining) in Ableton Live, but aside from that, Logic was the only DAW used.

A few of the catalog instruments used:
Smaragdis: "butter"
Internet -> Various: "Fm2", "bd1601"
DoctorBfavorites: "ElectricDrumKit1"
Mikelson Collection: "gran2", "LORENZ"
Internet -> csd: "Xanadu"

I hope you enjoy it! See you all around the Csounds website,

-Evan Allen
http://www.evanallenproductions.com