Literally… Captured bouncing and rolling down the dense, Precambrian volcanic rock on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota last Summer. I recorded this sound with an AKG c4000b large diaphragm condenser microphone. No processing included. Just linear fades in and out.
In this category I am planning to post a new sound everyday. I may not have created the sound the very same day of the post, but it will be something recent at the very least and more than likely created on the day I submit it. The idea is something like my colleague Tim Armato’s p{365} blog where he is posting a Processing sketch every day for a year.
My goal is to learn more about some of the audio processing that is available to me. It’s not always convenient when working on a project to explore new plugins or new ways to use old ones, especially in the studio or while collaborating. With this exercise I can do that and archive the results here. I’ll briefly describe the process of creating each sound and something about the software and hardware involved.
Today’s sound is a loop of audio that has been heavily processed in Ableton Live with filter taps (Pluggo), distortion, eq, dub delay (MDA), reverb, and more. The loop is an excerpt from a remix of “Some Kind of Adhesive” (One Day to Save All Life) that I produced with Nils Westdal. Believe it or not it started out as a simple shaker pattern. To me it sounds similar to the over driven thumb pianos of Konono N°1, although this was an accident since I was basically tuning the pitches to work in the remix. After I added distortion and a little virtual knob turning on the dub delay, this is what I got.
I’ve always tried to keep my ears open as wide as possible and to record something at the drop of a hat when I witness a spectacular sound or just have a melody trying to pry it’s way out of my head. Sometimes these ideas come at the darnedest times. Making a BLT Sandwich is usually a pretty greasy situation. Last month I was frying up some bacon for the family in hopes of making the ultimate BLT when I was suddenly hearing a rainy day. I had a notion that if I recorded the sound of my sweet bacon sizzling and slowed or pitched it down that it would sound just like rain. I had to do it. My first recording was made with an AKG c4000b. I used a lesser quality mic, a Shure BG 1.1, for the second. I assure you that both mics got as close to the action as possible without becoming caked with grease. The outcome was not as my ears were hearing it. I dropped each wav file into Ableton Live and panned them about 33L and 33R. I added just a touch of reverb to blend the two. Sounded like rain to me! To top it off I made a field recording in my backyard that included mostly birds chirping and added it to the mix. This made it a bit more convincing.
So, the BLT’s were the bomb and the recording turned out to be worthy of using. By the way, I only use Berkshire Bacon!
One of the projects that I assign in my audio production class is an exercise on how to import MIDI files into Reason and assign specific instruments to each track. I usually demonstrate this with a random classical MIDI file from classicalarchives.com and end up with a Tomita-esque rendition of Mussorgsky.
However, I do not limit the assignment to classical works. Sometimes, students make clever remixes of popular music, and frequently they choose music from classic video games like this remix of the Lost Woods theme from the Legend of Zelda – The Ocarina of Time by Brandon Sullivan. Brandon creatively chose some unique patches for this piece and then added a drum-n-bass beat to the end of the sequence that elevates the energy and takes the Lost Woods on a wayward yet intriguing new path.
Later I’ll add some more examples to this post. Also, if you have any interesting examples of video game music remixes and would like to share, please post a link in a comment below.
Recently I had the pleasure of producing the audio for a short animated piece called “Drown” by Aaron Dabelow. I simply recorded myself blowing bubbles in water with a straw. I captured in it Ableton Live 6 with my AKG c4000b large diaphragm condenser at a distance of about 9 inches, being careful not to splash water on the mic. The processing included down pitching an octave or so, running it through a high pass filter, and then dousing the works with some massive reverb.
Water Atmosphere – From “Drown”
On YouTube there are a total of seven excellent mini-documentary episodes on how the sound design was produced for Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong. Here’s the first of the seven videos. In this video Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins explain why they prefer not to use sounds from pre-recorded libraries.
Check out the rest of the videos on YouTube:
King Kong Sound Design Part 2
King Kong Sound Design Part 3
King Kong Sound Design Part 4
King Kong Sound Design Part 5
King Kong Sound Design Part 6
King Kong Sound Design Part 7