richaux - Out Of Key [Original synth music, 2025]

TL;DR: this is a synth-pop track about being true to yourself. Before writing, for the last couple of days of January, I'd been listening to Pete Shelley's "Homosapien"¹, on repeat, like a deranged teenager. The idea was to overdose on a song I liked, so that the song's structure or ambience or intent would then seep -- osmosis style -- into my next creation. I'm not sure it has but I like the process. Anyway, this track is about being true to yourself; being comfortable with your dubious decisions. Technically, the drum sounds are from Groove Agent with some added Backbone sourced hi-hats. The various brass instruments are from NN-XT samples. Other synths from Thor and filtered, sampled sawtooth waves (NN19), stock Cubase Retrologue, Halion, Padshop in there too. Vocals are synthesised (not generated by our least popular technology 😶), with the Allen and Sandra 🤘 Vocaloid voices; their formant glitchiness tempered by EQ & saturation. I still prefer them to my singing. My DAW has numerous EQ plugins available -- this one saw Steinberg's catchily named "Frequency 2" get an airing. I enjoyed doodling with the compression settings too: tried out the Steinberg Black Valve compressor because it has a nice name and looks nice and has less knobs to twiddle. Side-chained the bass synth from the kick & snare to stop the latter getting trampled by the former. This is what counts as songwriting for me! *Lyrics* This is my calling This is my key I can't help but sing This is my key Spiked hair, cut by my own hand Tattoo burnt by me Clothing -- from child labour -- hidden As the price beats the ethics, see *Credits* Track taken from the album "Mockingdude" on Bandcamp² (possibly other platforms in future). Traffic light photo (part of the single cover composition) by Alari Tammsalu (link to original unbutchered photograph below³): I liked the off-kilter imagery of something made-for-colour in monochrome. Little things! The video is clipped from "The Incredible Machine", a 1968 Bell Labs film about computers and sound and speech synthesis, now archived under the Prelinger Collection. How prescient. The full video, link below⁴, has explanatory narrative, should the pictures intrigue. ¹ https://youtu.be/2HwmO_GZfzI ² https://richaux.bandcamp.com/album/mockingdude ³ www.pexels.com/photo/a-black-and-white-photo-of-a-traffic-light-27390469/ ⁴ https://archive.org/details/0767_Incredible_Machine_The_20_26_47_00