In this video, J. Anthony Allen walks through the production of his track "Circadian" from the album Anascorsia. He explains that the piece is built primarily from MIDI, with only the drum parts recorded as audio. The composition starts with a simple bell riff that he loops, duplicates, and offsets to create a dense, evolving bell wash. He then adds a distorted synth that mimics a Rhodes, though the original sample is missing due to a software version change. String and orchestral elements are layered on top, further expanding the arrangement. A frantic drum groove provides rhythmic drive, complemented by subtle vocal samples and numerous small automation tweaks that add dynamic pushes toward the end. Allen reflects positively on the track, expressing continued pride, and concludes by playing the full song.
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Okay, so this is a track of mine called Circadian that I put out a few years ago. I thought I'd show you this one because it's got a lot of MIDI in it, but some audio, too. So you can see there's all these MIDI tracks. All these MIDI tracks. Some automation on them. Not too much automation, actually. Some audio tracks, but mostly midi. It's really just the drums that are audio here. What this is, is it started with this little bell riff. Just that. And then what I wanted to do is that. To build up and build up and build up and build up. So I looped that a whole bunch of times, and then I duplicated it to a new track. And then I offset it by a little bit and then by a little bit more and by a little bit more so that you get this wash of bells building up. A little bit different rhythm in this one. And then it goes on to this. This rhodes, which is not really a rhodes, it's kind of a bigger synth with some distortion on it. Sounds like this. I think it's. Yeah, this one is missing. So we're not hearing this one because the. I believe this sample that goes into the sampler I used has been lost, because I've switched versions of live a few times since making this. So I'll play you the whole track at the end of this video. Worry. But then we go on to some orchestra, some string sounds. And, you know, it just kind of keeps building up on this bell thing and these strings. Let me get to this stuff. So that keeps going. And then eventually we get to this drum groove, Really frantic drums to kind of like. And then, you know, we play around with dynamics a little bit from there on out. There's a little vocal sample in there, but not much else. You see a bunch of automation at the end. Just little tiny little things like this, just to give it a little bit of a push right there. And then it kind of all comes together. So this is a album. This is on an album I released a couple years ago. I'm really happy with this track. I still really like it. So I'll play you the whole song, the whole tune now, if you like. So here we go. This is Circadian from the album Anascorsia by me.
