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Bop
Hour
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Febuary 2, 2026

#9. 🪽 Let A Couple Go

Another track built around bootleg vocals. I did the thing where I make three songs and scrap them until I ended up with this. It's fine. Love the snare and the attitude of the bass, but this feels a bit like I ate something weird and my stomach is doing its best. Mixing was a blast, everything is crunchy and squishy. Best part of this was playing bass over that rhythm. When the bass was recorded there was no snare so it was really off grid.

Most difficult part of this track: starting too far off grid and slowly working everything in as it went on. Biggest takeaway: It's ok to just pick random samples of things and smash them until it works. Very fun and useful.

Febuary 1, 2026

#8. 👑 Rite Bounce

Returning to a composer flow. Recorded this chronologically without looping sections or thinking about structure. I strongly dislike the Deepmind but it's what I've got. I forgot how fun it is to record and patch on the fly. If the take is weird or doesn't fit, manipulate the audio after the fact untili it works and keep moving Maintaining a performance aspect keeps things magical. Best part of this was the flow process of listening to it from start to finish only, no looping.

Most difficult part of this track: mixing this synth is ugly. There's loads of mud and I don't like the high end. Biggest takeaway: I often think more than I feel, it seems. I'd love to bring the process of this track to other genres.

January 31, 2026

#7. 💅 Vons

Feels good to get back on my hip hop. This was built as a remix around bootleg vocals, which I hadn't done before. Total blast. There's some sloppy bits but I had to keep moving. Took me a lot of time to sink back into a sample-based workflow, as opposed to mostly synthesis or recording. I work mostly in mono and often on laptop speakers. Best part of this track was bringing it to the monitors, no question. It snarls when played loud.

Most difficult part of this track: aligning everything to this groove was annoying, and it kept morphing slightly as the track progressed. Next track I'm gonna try to lock someting in and try not to spend any time undoing things. Biggest takeaway: I get a lot out of working in different genres. It almost feels like playing different instruments.

January 24, 2026

#6. 🍩 All So

Allowed myself to go slow with this but it was worth every second. I was able to stay focused on an atmosphere and ended up with a drum pattern that I really like. The bass keeps the groove and the drums are almost just ornamental. This track took about 6ish hours. I got the drums to a place where I was happy just listening to them without anything else. I built the structure that way, alternating bass and guitar afterwards to find where it wanted to live melodically. Best part of this was finding that buttery guitar delay. At first everything was really dry but that put it into a totally different space.

Most difficult part of this track was landing on a bassline that amplified the energy of the drums instead of overpowering them. This was an extrememly satisfying song to make. Biggest takeaway: less is more.

January 18, 2026

#5. 🐝 Scrap

Turn and burn today. Opened up another project and immediately got some drums going. They were a placeholders until they weren't. This started off with some improvised keys, and I was able to follow my ear for the development of the B section. Really fun finding that main melody. The phrase is only 6 measures and I forgot how much I like doing that. I was curious to try leaving any sort of bass out and just letting the low end of the rhodes breathe. Don't know if I love it.

I'm extremely unpracticed in both bass and guitar, yikes. Biggest takeaway: I'm more likely to write an interesting melody on a fretboard vs a keyboard.

January 18, 2026

#4. 👔 Grocery Isle

This started from some really interesting chords I found on our new Casio 460. They're slightly out of tune and it launched me right into a melancholy grocery isle. I stared my songwriting demon right in the face on this one. I had this great vibe and a clear direction but couldn't actually tune into the feeling of what was happening enough to find ideas that were from the world I was hearing. I realized I was just trying a bunch of things to see what fit instead of existing in the feeling of the song and pulling from there.

Other than getting the casio into ableton for the first time these vocals were the most fun of this. I put a frankensample of Megan into simpler and just start pushing pads. This track is a big milestone in this project. So many technical moves happened naturally when I actually tuned in with what was coming out of the speakers. Biggest takeaway: If writing a song is having a conversation with the music I've been belligerently monologueing.

January 12, 2026

#3. 💡 The Salt Flats

Stuck with the first idea this time. I started with a drum loop and destroyed it until it sounded like a spacecraft losing parts. It's the first drums you hear. Little bit more sound-design-tells-the-story than the last track. Took me around 3 hours. I definitely spent time on things that you can't feel, but overall this was a fairly focused session. I had a difficult time with the synth. I didn't know better when I bought my Deepmind 12 eight years ago but it's really difficult to make the thing sound not cheap.

I wrote mostly in mono again and actually spend some time just going through the laptop speakers which felt awesome when I took it to the monitors. Biggest takeaway: when I'm not paying attention my productions get really dense really fast. I want to tell a story with the fewest possible elements.

January 11, 2026

#2. 🐌 Butter

Less than ten hours this time but I scrapped 3 or 4 songs before this was done. It's clear already that Ableton isn't the problem, commiting to musical ideas is. The drums are audio, sequenced by hand which seemed to work well because I was forced to hear what I wanted before just diving in. Best moment was taking out sections of guitar and hearing the song get bigger.

Writing in mono really helped. I caught myself mixing too early a couple times. I didn't apply any fx to the guitar or bass until all the parts were in. Definitely the move. I'm going to commit to my first idea next time even if it's absolute musical garbage. Biggest takeaway: the point of this project isn't to express myself or even to make better music, but to develop new muscle memory for just finishing tracks.

January 4, 2026

#1. 🏗️ Bridge Got You Bent

Yikes. I have a long way to go before this project is sustainable. 😅 This little dance track took me upwards of 10 hours, many of which I don’t think actually contributed to the song in a meaningful way. I spent a lot of time being indecisive, and sunk a lot of energy into details and B characters (like complex hat delays) before fully establishing the main elements. In the end a lot of that detail work was cut because it either competed with, or wasn't in service of the overall indentity of the song.

Writing the next track on my laptop speakers in mono until It feels finished. Then monitors, then stereo.