Sunday afternoons are made for exploring new sounds. I recently stumbled upon the Cloudrum plugin by Ample Sound—it’s a free steel tongue drum VST that has a really haunting, lovely resonance.

What started as a simple groove on the drum quickly evolved into this week’s full arrangement. I layered in some deep synth bass and orchestral swells using TAL Noise-Maker, then topped it off with some floaty, dreamy guitar lines on my Squier Strat.

In this video: You’ll see the full multi-layer overdub performance as I build the track piece by piece.

Gear used this week:

• Percussion: Ample Sound Cloudrum
• Synths: TAL Noise-Maker (Bass & Swells)
• Guitar: Squier Stratocaster
• DAW: Reaper

If you enjoyed this jam, consider subscribing! I drop a new multi-instrumental overdub every Friday. See you in the next one!

They say constraints breed creativity, but this week was a genuine struggle. I’m trying to move past just “ticking the box” and actually find a spark each week. That spark finally came from a spring on my desk lamp.

I’ve been messing around with the Koala Sampler app (mostly making fart noises with my son), but for this track, I used it to sample the resonant “boing” of my desk lamp. With some heavy processing, it turned into a moody, radar-like signal that set the tone for the whole piece.

Gear used this week:

• Percussion/Atmosphere: Koala Sampler (Desktop mount spring sample)
• Synth Bass: TAL Noise-Maker (Played via PC keyboard!)
• Guitar: Squire Stratocaster
• Video: Multi-layer overdub performance

I’m currently at a crossroads—do I buy the Arturia Minilab 3, the Roland S1, or just give in and get both? If you have thoughts on which I should grab first, let me know in the comments!

Next week might be more Koala exploration, or I might go full “unplugged” with an acoustic guitar. We’ll see where the mood takes me.

See you next Friday!