Category Archives: One Sound Every Day

From July 28, 2008 – July 28, 2009 John Keston posted a sound every day in this category.

Creepy

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4

I have had this sound so long that it’s difficult to trace where it came from and how is was originally processed. I think it dates back to early in the year 2000. So, how does one deduce what the sound is and how it’s processed just by listening? Let me start by forgoing paranormal techniques. Although it sounds “creepy”, I’m guessing that I didn’t accidentally record ghosts eight years ago.

First of all it is obvious to me that the sound is another example of reversed audio. It’s also likely that the sound was processed through a delay before it was reversed due to the repetitive nature of the fade in at the beginning. It also sounds like it includes a vocal element, but there are other textures and percussive layers to the sound suggesting that it it is made up of several tracks. I could investigate it further, but everyone loves a mystery.

Creepy

Everything Sounds Better Backwards

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1

Those of you with a discerning ear might recognize this phrase of reversed Rhodes electric piano from a recent Keston and Westdal release. Here it has no processing other than being reversed. Sometimes I wonder what attracts me to reversed sounds. They are strange, but somehow familiar. We have become accustomed to hearing things backwards in music and film. The intent is usually to unnerve the listener or sound disturbing or bizarre. I hear reversed sounds as beautiful and symmetrical counterparts to the forward versions.

As far as I know, reversed sound does not happen naturally. Yet it is something that has been technologically possible since the very first sound recordings were made in the late eighteen hundreds. Thomas Edison may have been one of the first people to hear sound in reverse. He noted that when music is played backwards, “the song is still melodious in many cases, and some of the strains are sweet and novel, but altogether different from the song reproduced in the right way”. Everything sounds better backwards.

Backwards Rhodes

Synthesizer Fifths Drone

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3

I added some delay to spread the stereo spectrum on this synthesizer drone of a low frequency fifith interval. During the recording you can hear the cutoff frequency changing as I turned the knob for it. On my most often used synth, the Korg MS2000 that was used for this recording, the surface around the cutoff frequency knob has been polished smooth from wear. I use it much more frequently than the modulation wheel or pitch wheel. I love knobs.

Synthesizer Fifths Drone

Travel Glide

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5

Here’s a snippet from a piece I started composing on March 28, 2007. I don’t remember exactly how I created the sounds other than the instruments that I used (Rhodes and Korg MS2000) and some of the processing applied (too many to name), therefore I don’t have a lot to say about this piece, other than:

1. It’s unfinished
2. It uses a variety of processing
3. I don’t know why I called it “Travel Glide”
4. There is no obvious significance between the image and the composition

Travel Glide

Pianica

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1

I bought this instrument for a bargain price at a music store quite some time ago. It’s an inexpensive Japanese made version of a melodica. They sound a lot like harmonicas, but has a keyboard to play the notes. Hohner makes the most popular versions of this instrument, but I really like the gravelly tone of this one that I recorded during a session on August 2, 2006.

Pianica