In January, 2008 I wrote about the sound design I had produced for an animated short film called “Drown” (43mb – right click to download the movie) by Aaron Dabelow. In that entry I illustrated how I created ambiance for the underwater atmosphere of the piece. Here’s a recording of my electric beard trimmer. I used it to create the sound for the mechanical humming bird like creatures in the film at about 1:08 minutes.
As I was recording I moved the beard trimmer past and around the mic to simulate the movement of the creatures, which use high speed rotary fans for locomotion. Once I synchronized the the audio to the animation it seemed to fit quite well. As you can see, it’s probably about time that I stopped recording electric razors and started using them on my face.
As a producer, a technique I have found that is an effective way to develop the dynamics of a performance is by adding expression through automated processing. In this phrase of synth from a composition that I’m working on I have applied automation to add an expressive quality to the recording.
I stumbled across this gem, that was recorded during a jam session between myself on Rhodes, Nils Westdal on bass, and 
As you may know, Nils Westdal and I make up the production team, 
Today I was digging through my recording archives and came across a nice example of me running my Rhodes through a wah wah pedal with a little overdrive on it. So not being one to leave well enough alone, I sequenced the recording into a short phrase at 90 bpm. 
So, what do I do with all these samples of different mallets on piano strings, and other areas of the instrument? How about putting them all into a drum machine? Better yet, a virtual drum machine, like 
Here’s another example of using a mallet to get sounds out of my piano. In this case, instead of striking the main part of the string, I let the mallet bounce on the small piece of string after the bridge. This part of the piano is traditionally not used to create sound and the pitches are quite high and not tuned, similar to the area between the tuning pegs and the nut of a guitar. 
This dissonant phrase of piano was created by using a metal mallet to gently taps the stings on the piano in the upper register. I’ve been experimenting with getting some unique sounds out of my piano by not using the keyboard. 
I always liked the sound this old spring door stop makes when accidentally kicked, but never recorded it until now. I think the fact that its attached to a one hundred two year old wooden door gives is some nice resonance. 