- 27 Dec, 2025 *
I did wake up and have an out-and-out freak out panic this a.m., realizing January was basically at the doorstep. Just wanted to make sure my template was right for making a massive amount of music.
If you’re following along, I’m doing a song (or musical piece, one a day — generally in the style of synthwave (you need to call it something, so that’s what I’m calling it) — previously I’ve had a lot of success with Ableton Live. This time around I’m doing it all through the MPC, with my kind of panic back up of the good old Ableton.
So I went through the template this morning, adjusting and adding where I need to. Everything is looking and sounding good. I did a couple test runs on pieces and it feels good-super inspirational.
I kind of found that the base of…
- 27 Dec, 2025 *
I did wake up and have an out-and-out freak out panic this a.m., realizing January was basically at the doorstep. Just wanted to make sure my template was right for making a massive amount of music.
If you’re following along, I’m doing a song (or musical piece, one a day — generally in the style of synthwave (you need to call it something, so that’s what I’m calling it) — previously I’ve had a lot of success with Ableton Live. This time around I’m doing it all through the MPC, with my kind of panic back up of the good old Ableton.
So I went through the template this morning, adjusting and adding where I need to. Everything is looking and sounding good. I did a couple test runs on pieces and it feels good-super inspirational.
I kind of found that the base of my inspiration is just… bass. No big surprise there. But specifically a bass arp with the Jura synth by Air — this one just feels and sounds great.
all of this I’ve got a lead dialed in, and basically I look at the set and go, OK — this is the studio band. I’m coming in. We’re playing.
It’s different from two years ago. I’m adding real-life bass and real-life guitar. How those fit in… who knows. But the initial inspirational template feels close enough to done.
And I will say: while it’s really fun to start from scratch and kind of go from zero, if you’re trying to make a shit load of music, you’ve got to be able to sit down in your chair and really get going. Power? What are you plugging into? What’s first? What’s second? You really need to have all this sorted.
That’s where the panic came in today, because even though I’ve been thinking about it all December, once you get a couple days before, you just want to make sure you’re actually ready to go.
So that’s it. I’m ready.
If you’re an MPC user, feel free to reach out. I’m happy to send you my template. You obviously have to own the same plug-ins I own, but I can list all that in a later entry.
All and all, I’m feeling really good.
And tomorrow we’ll talk about how a theme helps — musical theme, mental theme. What are you thinking about? What place are you in? Where’s your head as you get started?
In my world I’ve only gotten an hour, and I’ve gotta make it count.
#bass #jamuary #jura #mpc #music #synthwave #templates #workflow