The weather was unseasonably warm in Minneapolis today. As I write this it is nineteen degrees centigrade (sixty six degrees fahrenheit) at 7:11pm on a usual chilly late October evening. Days like this require mates on bikes to meet outdoors to drink beer at undisclosed locations near bodies of water. On my way to such a location I was held up by a train and decided to record it.
By the time I had my gear out of the bag the train had passed, but the warning bells were still ringing so I walked up to them while recording. I’m fairly sure that these bells are not mechanical, or even analog, but here they are nonetheless with all the ambiance included.
Train Track Bells
This recording of the falls located on Shingle creek at Webber parkway was made last weekend on the way back from the 
This as yet untitled rough mix is made up of a few simple melodies recorded on my 1916 Raudenbush & Sons upright piano. Interspersed within the piece are a number of what I’m calling piano sound objects. I used a couple of different techniques to create these sounds. 
I came across this old late night session of sleepy Rhodes melodies and decided to render about fifty eight seconds of it. It was originally recorded on November 3, 2006 at about 12:53am. I love electronic timestamps. 
This spooky sound was created in Ableton Live using a variety of processing. The main device responsible is Pluggo’s Feedback Network. I ran a modulated synth pad into it, then removed all of the dry signal after automating several parameters. I re-sampled the results then pitched it all down two octaves being careful to filter out inaudible low frequencies. Finally, over the top I added a ping pong delay so the audio swirls around the stereo spectrum adding to the disturbing qualities of the sound.