Accidental Cable Noise

While working in the studio recently I plugged in a cable from an auxiliary send to record some bass and got some horrible feedback. So horrible that I was determined to record it. The reason I was getting the feedback was because the same send that I was using to record the bass happened to be turned up on the channel that I was using to monitor the signal. I realized this immediately, but the sound was quite interesting due to the subtle latency on the signal path caused by the digital hardware involved. Here’s a couple of layers of the feedback running through reverb. I also made adjustments to the pitch a time stretched the recording in a few places.

Accidental Cable Noise

Dirty Clavinet Sound

I recently recorded a few passages of clavinet on a piece I’ve been working on for a while. My Hohner E7 is still in disrepair, so I had to rely on a sampled version of the instrument. I processed the sampled version in a similar way to how I would have processed the real thing.

Generally I tend to try new things rather than rely on previous settings and techniques, however, I almost always starts with compression on the clav. This time, I followed the compression with amp modeling, chorus, and reverb. The context is the key to what kind of processing I’ll use on this versatile instrument.

Fire Diamond Segment

 

Ring Modulated Rhodes Line Out of Context

While sorting through dusty clips from live performances I came across an angular Rhodes line that sounded quite odd removed from the context of the original set.

I decided to loop the line to create a forty second phrase. Afterward I ran it through distortion, ring modulation, reverb and delay. I also automated the fine tuning setting on the ring modulator to create a sweeping pitch shift.

Rhodes Line Out of Context

 

Warbled Delay Trails on Korg MS2000

I came across this sample from a performance on July 13, 2006. It is a delayed synthesizer line that I played and captured as a clip in Ableton Live during the show. What’s interesting to me about this clip is the obvious modulation in pitch on the delay trails. This is not something that I programmed into the patch and I suspect is actually caused by a bug in the Korg MS2000. It’s possible to recreate this bug by enabling tempo delay then sending external sync to the instrument. I rarely experience this glitch anymore because rather than using the delay on the Korg, I usually run it through tempo delay in the software. However, I kind of like the ghostly quality it creates in this short passage.

Warbled Synth Delay

Forest Floor

I found this short loop of loose keyboard playing in an Ableton Live set. I had played it and live looped the phrase during a performance. Most of these little clips are never heard again, but every so often I save the set with the clips intact. Even more rarely I go back and listen to these archives. Here’s one that had been sitting in a folder of collected files for a while, so I decided to loop it and add some reverb for a finishing touch.

Forest Floor