Category Archives: Processing

Descriptions of unique audio processing techniques

Time Expanded Radio Static

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If you had a chance to hear Johannes Kreidler’s piece, Product Placement, made up of 70,200 samples in 0:33 seconds, then you probably thought is sounded a lot like radio static. To me it sounds like parts of it were time compressed and probably up-pitched, but altogether quite an achievement. Although, you might find the style of Akufen’s piece, Deck the House, more musical.

Rather than time compress the radio static I posted yesterday, I had a go at time expanding it. Time expansion works by stretching waveforms without changing the pitch. This can have some odd results when time expanding by a significant amount. You will often hear a repetitive stuttering, or garbled effect, like what’s happening in this example. In the image you can see the garbled sections represented as rectangular patterns that occur throughout the waveform.

Time Expanded Radio Static

Illuminator Console

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To create this sound I started by programming a beat. In this case I pitched each slice of the beat individually to create a variety of pitches in the loop. Once I was satisfied with it I rendered it to a clip and applied a plugin by Paul Kellett (MDA) called Tracker, distributed by smartelectronix. Tracker tracks the frequency of a sample with a waveform, such as a sine wave, and then allows you to transpose, slide between pitches, adjust the mix and so on.

Running drums through Tracker can create some interesting and unpredictable melodies. At the start of this clip I left the mix at 100%, only hearing the melody created by the pitches tracked, then adjusted it down to zero by the end so you can hear what the beat sounds like without the pitch tracking. In front of Tracker I added Beat Repeat and turned it on a couple of times to generate some fills. I touched it up with some tempo delay mixed in here and there for some dub flavor.

Illuminator Console

Guitar Chord

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A rarely tapped resource for me are clips found in the sound file folders of Ableton Live sets I use for performances. My group Keston and Westdal use two laptops running Live synchronized using a MIDI network. We usually play instruments during our performances and use the laptops for live looping and triggering loops and “scenes” as we construct the arrangements during the show. Our drummer gets a click so we can we can leave out or bring in sound from the laptops as we like. This way we can have purely live instrumentation intermingled with sequenced and live looped audio. It’s a bit of a learning curve to perform this way, but very liberating once you get it down.

This short sample of a guitar chord was played by my good friend Jason Cameron based in Seattle. While jamming together last June, 2008 I captured a few of his phrases in one of my Live sets, and came across it today while browsing through the sound file folders, looking for something to post. I dumped it back in Live, resisted the urge to reverse it, and added distortion, delay and reverb for a little texture.

Guitar Chord

Logical Psychosis

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Once again I have opted to feature a mini-mix of an unfinished idea, rather than an individual sound or example of processing. I am finding that creating these 1 to 2 minute snapshots of the idea is giving me a new perspective on unfinished compositions that I might have otherwise left by the wayside. Perhaps rendering simplified versions of these pieces will serve as an interim step to producing completed versions. I’m also appreciative of the feedback I’m getting on these rough mixes from friends, family and even a handful of very nice reader comments. Thanks!

I wouldn’t exactly call this piece a remix, but it does use bit of my Rhodes playing and other samples from prior Keston and Westdal tracks and performances. The arrangement, bass line, chord progression and processing are all new, so it only obscurely resembles any other tracks. I’m quite fond of how the bass line sounds. It reminds me a little of an analogue, male vocal simulation that Tomita produced on his interpretation of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, which otherwise has no similarities to this piece.

Logical Psychosis

Creepy

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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