I haven't contributed to one of the Disquiet Junto's for ages!
The guts of the instructions for this week were to pick a word or phrase, turn it into Morse code and then make a rhythm using dots as short beats and dashes as long beats.
I chose the word "telegraph" - mostly because of the OMD song of the same name, but obviously there's the Morse code thing, heh...
The bassline at the start of the track was actually where I began with my rhythm. I plotted it out as crotchets and quavers in Audiomulch and then imposed bar lines afterwards. I wanted to make a four-bar phrase, with a long beat at the start of each bar, to make it kind of poppy-sounding. It came out as 9 8, then 6 8, then 7 8, then 9 8.
From there I added the drums, which is a pretty common break from The Detroit Emeralds, and chopped it so a kick or snare landed on every dot or dash.
The harmonic stuff basically either lays out the same morse code rhythm or emphasises the first beat of each bar. There are two arrangements of the chords in the track - they're both just layered Audiomulch arpeggiators, one gated to play short, muffled stabs and one... not.
More on this 50th Disquiet Junto project at:
disquiet.com/2012/12/13/disquiet0050-morsebeat/
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/